Data Cleanup Best Practices (BEFORE IMPORT)

[Josh]

When it comes to CRM data you've probably heard the old adage, "garbage in, garbage out". It's incredibly important that you clean-up your data prior to an import. Here are some of our best practices:

• When collecting your data from your previous systems, determine how far back you plan to pull from. In all reality, you probably don't need to migrate all data that has ever existed and the further back you go, the more inaccuracies you will find.
• When creating and migrating custom properties, determine which properties are being used, and only migrate information that is determined to be accurate and necessary.
• If you're pulling data from several sales reps, ensure they understand the importance of cleaning their data prior to sending it to their CRM administrator.
• If your former system doesn't allow for easy cleanup of data, spend time in a spreadsheet updating and removing information. It's tedious and time-consuming, but it will be worth it in the long term.
• If you aren't confident that your email addresses are healthy, run your email list through list cleaner and only import the ones that are confirmed accurate and fix ones that are outlined as inaccurate.
• If possible, task one team or individual with data import once the data is cleaned. The team will ensure your data is mapped appropriately and imported with minimal errors.

This isn't an exhaustive list...I'd love to hear your recommendations as well!

Josh

[sharonlicari]

Thank you for sharing this @Josh really interesting! 🙂 

[JenBergren]

Hi Josh!

Great list for before import!

A major issue we've seen with a lot of clients importing spreadsheets into HubSpot is after they import, they don't take the time to fix any errors and re-upload until there are no errors. And they don't realize these errors are what is preventing all the data from the spreadsheet from being imported into the system. So then they think something is wrong with HubSpot.

Though if they followed all your steps before import they should have minimal errors 🙂