Not every lead you get is ready to buy. If that’s the case then you need to communicate with them and nurture them until they are ready. To do that effectively and keep the lead engaged you need to send targeted messages. Targeted messages require good data. “Good data” is a vague term here so let’s define it.
Good data means that you have information that you can use to determine what message is a good one to send to that person. My term is “actionable” data – information in a condition that can be easily and effectively used.
Here’s an example to show you what I mean. 
Say you have a form on your website and you ask for the person’s title at their company. Having that seems valuable but what can you do with it (what action can you take)? You can personalize messages but how will you be able to send a targeted direct mail piece to anyone who is a Vice President? Since Title is a text field it’s going to be challenging. Here are the different entries you could see that you’d like to send mail to:
- V.P.
- Vice pres
- VP
- Vice president
- Vice-president
Do you see the issue here? There isn’t one clear entry that indicates who is a vice president. If you aren’t careful with how to create your list of Vice Presidents you could wind up with entries like:
- President
- Vice chancellor
- VP of grunt work
- Assistant to the vice president
Each contact in your list costs money with direct mail. The bottom line here is to think about 1) how you are going to use that data and 2) what condition it needs to be in so that you can be efficient and effective when you want to use it.