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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Celebrating International Women’s Day, 2022

Today, communities across the globe are coming together to celebrate International Women’s Day! A lot of progress has been made since IWD was first observed in 1911. But as of 2022, the gender pay gap, violence against women, transmisogyny, and other injustices are still pressing issues. Along with being a time to celebrate women’s achievements, IWD is an occasion for people everywhere to heed calls to action to accelerate gender parity. This year’s IWD theme is #BreakTheBias, urging awareness of, and action addressing, the conscious and unconscious biases that hold women back in the workplace every day. 

Whether deliberate or unconscious, bias makes it difficult for women to move ahead. Knowing that bias exists isn’t enough, action is needed to level the playing field.  — (IWD 2022)

Here at Meltwater, we’re committed to diversity, inclusion, and championing every member of our team. That’s part of why Comparably named us one of the Best Companies for Women and Best Companies for Diversity in 2021. You can read more about our diversity and inclusion initiatives on our Careers page.

There’s always more that we can do and learn when it comes to recognizing and celebrating women. So for IWD 2022, we asked three members of the Meltwater family to share their insights on being women in leadership.

1. Julia Nill - Enterprise Director, EMEA

Women in Leadership: Julia Nill

Julia joined Meltwater in 2015 as an International Management Trainee, quickly advancing to become a Managing Director of Meltwater Africa 2020, she co-founded the Women in Tech initiative at Meltwater, becoming a leading voice for gender equality. Julia is based in Cape Town and is currently the Enterprise Director of Meltwater EMEA.

Have each others’ backs. A practical example is on Zoom calls. If someone has a great idea and it’s your female colleague, take yourself off mute and acknowledge how good that idea was and celebrate that on the spot.

Be or get a sponsor. Someone that is there to help nurture your career and see opportunities, see strengths, see where you can improve, and therefore help further where you want to go.

Prioritize. You have to know what matters to you, what you want to fill your day with. We all have the same amount of time, so it’s up to you how you want to use it. I have found a great way of prioritizing the things that fuel me and that give me energy. And that means that I can bring my best self to work, but also my best self at home.

Define success for yourself. Someone's success is often all you see, but it is only the end result of someone’s late nights, hard work, blood, sweat, and tears. It’s difficult to separate what success means to you and what it should look like for you if you're too busy looking at someone else's version of it.

Above all, be authentic, be real, and stay true to yourself. Probably the three most important ingredients for success I can think of. 

2. Laila Mousa - Account Executive Director, Middle East

Women in Leadership: Laila Mousa

Laila started with Meltwater in 2010 as a Sales Consultant, part of the team responsible for establishing Abu Dhabi operations. Since then, she’s risen through the ranks, building out crucial markets for Meltwater in the Middle East, becoming an Account Executive Director in 2020, and leading the team responsible for some of Meltwater’s largest accounts in the region.

Lean on your support system. My parents were the most amazing mentors that I have had. I’m very proud of them, and I really lean on their shoulders for everything so far. 

Fake it until you make it. When I started at Meltwater I considered myself closed off, shy, and having major stage fright. I still remember my first visit to the Saudi market with a client. At that point, women doing business in Saudi was very rare and very unheard of. Getting in that meeting room by myself in front of a room full of men was such a nerve-wracking experience. Did they listen to me? Not really, not in the beginning at least. Did I run away? I really wanted to hide. But it took me a while, almost 20 minutes, to get their attention and respect. It was on that trip that I really wanted to do something different to break the glass ceilings. 

Don’t be shy about asking for help or advice. No one will think less of you. We always tend to want to prove ourselves. But looking for help and support systems, you need that to be successful, whatever your role is.

Find that go-to person in your career. It could be inside your organization or outside your organization, to create that support system and help you in seeking guidance.

Build your confidence. My confidence grew significantly as I grew in my career, meeting my goals and my expectations for myself. When imposter syndrome starts creeping into my mind, I always try to take a step back and take a toll of what’s going on, what’s going well, and what I have achieved. Build my own confidence block by block. 

3. Pooja Farkade - Senior Director, Business Applications

Women in Leadership: Pooja Farkade

Pooja joined the Meltwater team in 2013 with past experience at Oracle and as a Fellow for the Clinton Foundation. Today, she is part of the global Research and Development Leadership Team, as Head of Global Enterprise Applications, and is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Lead with empathy. People are at the front and center whenever I think about leadership. You need to lead with empathy, whether you’re solving a customer issue or you’re meeting with an employee. It’s always the empathy and the compassion that you have that can open the doors to finding creative solutions.

Have integrity. By that, I mean having ownership and accountability. You need to lead the way for your teams by walking the talk so that they see that you are reliable and you are dependable.

Be adaptable. Being able to have that critical thinking is the most important thing.

Have the curiosity to learn. Learn as much as you can. Have an open mind. And build that business acumen. 

Learn to work with people. Be resourceful, be collaborative, and build those relationships, because ultimately the world’s a team sport. 

Be kind to yourself and the people around you. Through it all. 

Have a happy, mindful, and empowering International Women’s Day! We hope you take some time today to celebrate the women in your life and reflect on what you can do to #BreakTheBias.

Happy International Women’s Day, 2022!

These days communication departments are expected to handle a much more diverse range of tasks compared to 10 or 20 years ago. For example, teams now have to execute on business-critical activities such as rolling out CEO Communications strategies that build trust and transparency, deal with faster and more extensive information flows, and support top-management decision-making processes. Echoing this sentiment, the European Communications Monitor 2020 expects the following requirements to become top priorities for communication teams by 2023:

For the purpose of this article, we’re focusing on how CEO Communications can help build trust. We decided to focus here because this issue in particular is reaching boiling point. The Covid-19 pandemic well and truly put trust to the test – and it looks like it’s about to burst.

It’s not uncommon for various macro and micro factors to cause trust in corporations and public organizations to fluctuate. Covid-19, for example, accelerated a lack of trust in the media, government bodies, and NGOs due to the widespread perception that such organizations failed to respond effectively and 'do the right thing'. Naturally, when people no longer trust the media or politicians, they look elsewhere for guidance and call on businesses to step in and fill the void. As a result, the role of CEO Communication has never been greater.

According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, citizens now view corporations as the most credible institutions. Expectations around businesses not just stepping up and discussing today's challenges, but solving them, are growing. This shift is causing new demands to be placed on CEOs and the communication teams that support them. 

With nearly half (48%) of a company’s reputation attributed to a CEO’s reputation, the importance of CEOs building trust is paramount.

Before we delve into ways communication teams can help CEOs build trust, let’s first explore new demands expected from CEOs, since these have a direct impact on the messaging executives must lead with.

Understanding new demands from CEO Communications

Edelman’s Trust study revealed that 68% of consumers and 62% of employees feel they have the power to force corporations to change. This shows how stakeholders are now increasingly demanding a seat at the table, but in order for this new dynamic to be successful, two-way conversations between brand and stakeholders must be present.

Brand engagement, the process of interacting with stakeholders through varied channels, has never been more important. Some companies have created completely new jobs to fulfill this new demand, Volkswagen, for example, has hired a "Head of CEO Communications". 

Historically, most CEOs were pretty reserved when it came to discussing global challenges, but the days of sidelining this are over. Edelman’s Trust study found that 86% of respondents expect CEO Communications to not just address business results, but take a stand on at least one of the following issues: 

CEO activism significantly helps long-term growth, in fact, Weber Shandwick research found that 40% of consumers expressed they are more likely to buy from a company when CEO Communications resonate with them. Furthermore, 67% of communications and marketing executives whose CEO has spoken out about a social-political issue say the activism had a positive impact on their company reputation. And it’s not just consumers that want CEOs to take a stand, the EY CEO Imperative Study also revealed that investors and boards want CEO communications to highlight humanity’s greatest challenges too, commenting: 

Contrary to conventional wisdom, our survey of the CEOs, board directors, and institutional investors of the world’s largest corporations finds that institutional investors are not a brake to corporate action on global challenges. They endorse the corporate investments needed to make progress on these issues and will increasingly factor the corporate response to global challenges into their investment decisions.

CEO communications staying true to brand purpose

Korn Ferry's CEO for the Future study found 74% of interviewees cited a genuine sense of mission and purpose as a vital trait that all CEO communications should possess. 

Simply defined, purpose is the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc. A purpose-driven brand is one that openly puts its core values at the forefront of everything it does - and more importantly, stays true to that purpose rather than using it as a buzzword in CEO communications.

Doing things ‘on purpose’ is a hallmark of the most inspirational and successful leaders. These are the people who can lead their business with total clarity and commitment, secure in the knowledge of not just what they’re doing, but why they’re doing it. 

To ensure that this purpose is understood, CEO communications need social agility, empathy and an ability to connect meaningfully with employees, customers, and other stakeholders, both directly and via social tools and platforms.

How to use CEO communications to build trust with stakeholders

Before CEO communications can build trust, we first need to understand how our organization and CEO's personal reputation are perceived. An editorial and social media brand reputation analysis will uncover key characteristics associated with CEOs, for example, comms teams might discover that in certain countries the media takes a disliking to their board, and therefore choose to focus more resources on CEO communications and media relations to help improve local reputation. 

Frequently monitoring the media is critical for maintaining trust too. Time is of the essence when it comes to negative stories circulating, so be sure to keep an eye on the media for detrimental mentions and decrease the chances of them spreading. We can also use this insight to our advantage and build counter-argument messaging to show that we're both listening and addressing issues.

2 Encourage two-way dialogue through social media presence

Sociability of CEOs has risen dramatically over the past ten years, and with good reason. CEOs who are active on social media and have a strong online presence/ digital profile benefit from: 

Enhanced visibility amongst customers, prospects, and other stakeholders

Greater engagement, in fact, research shows that executives and leaders outperformed companies on LinkedIn engagement by more than 320%

Influencing macro agendas, Herbert Dies, CEO of Volkswagen commented “In 2021 we want to communicate more intensively with politics, Twitter is the medium.”

Leslie Gaines-Ross, Chief Reputation Strategist at Weber Shandwick further explains:

Building reputation comes in many forms today. One of the most underutilized ways is for CEOs to communicate online where they can efficiently signal that they are listening carefully to customers, are curious about how their products or services are being received, and that they are open and transparent. In a few years, the risk-reward ratio will shift and more CEOs will reap the reputational rewards that come along with being social.

Being present on social media means being there, being available, and being willing to hear what audiences are saying. That being said, if the CEO works for a large company, the noise on social media can be deafening. They’ll likely receive thousands of mentions each hour which makes it difficult for CEO communication teams to know when to respond (if at all). To overcome this challenge, many brands use media intelligence tools such as Meltwater. 

Media intelligence allows companies to cut through the noise by offering a high-level overview of the critical social media conversions they need to worry about. That way, CEO communication teams can see if there are trends emerging around certain issues. We’d also recommend setting up media alerts for certain influential accounts like United Nations so the CEO is not only aware whenever they post about certain topics that are aligned with their agenda, but they can also engage and demonstrate their subject matter expertise. 

Interested in setting media alerts up for your company? Complete the form below and we'll be in touch to discuss. 

Follow the below engagement tips to enhance communications:

Be transparent, honest, and open, but don’t over promise and under deliver

Use real-life citizens/user-generated stories. Case studies are important for all organizations as they align our talk with our actions.

Understand what different stakeholders and audience segments care about, then use this insight to direct messaging.

Create a CEO communications content calendar, this will help focus communications and ensure outreach is aligned with wider corporate goals. Fortunately, most social media management tools come with integrated content calendars and post-scheduling features.

Increase engagement by analyzing the times and days when the majority of followers are active. Sufficient social media management tools will analyze this metric on our behalf.

Cultivate a recognizable tone of voice, because let’s face it, sounding like a machine or a press release is anything but engaging. We need to show our audience that there are real people behind the profile who are just like them. Having an authentic voice on social media helps position and humanize our organization while making our posts more recognizable.  

With consumers wanting corporate action from CEOs, and investors expecting the same, companies need to put short and long-term action plans in place that accelerate engagement with and solve global challenges.

If a brand is looking to up engagement on societal issues, here are a few pointers to follow before starting.

Establish a link between the issue and the company’s values and business

First things first, when a CEO decides what issues they’re going to take leadership on, they must ensure it aligns with their overall business strategy. The action agenda needs to drive organizational transformation in response to the global challenges, so choosing an issue that’s relevant to the company’s operating area is critical. 

Examples of issues CEOs are now taking public positions on include:

Technology change stirring up issues around data ownership, privacy, ethics, and trust

Fully commit to the cause (and company purpose)

For CEO activism to be seen as credible, it's important to fully commit time and resources to the cause. Nowadays consumers don’t think twice about calling out companies for woke washing, so it's best to save face by practicing what we preach while also articulating why the issue is related to the company’s mission and values. 

Consider the channels, messages, and tone of voice used

As Hubspot explains, the trustworthiness of CEO communications is measured on factors like the CEO's ability to provide audiences with a comprehensive understanding of key points and to take ownership of the message through personalized, active language. With this in mind, it's wise to conduct research into the topic your CEO communication is addressing. Gather facts, and keep up to date with current events.

Ensure messages are clear, transparent, and consistent. 

Several factors go into measuring the clarity of communication, but the simplest way to think about it is in terms of structure: a clear communicator uses simple sentence structures and everyday language to break complex issues into an easy-to-follow path of cause and effect. 

Media inquiries, social media activity, employee questions, and NGO backlash are all but guaranteed when CEOs speak up against politically charged issues because, unfortunately, alienating segments of our stakeholders is unavoidable since not everyone is going to agree with our stance. In light of this, we'd highly suggest having a crisis communications plan in place, especially for social media. 

4 Become customer-obsessed, not just customer-focused

Customer centricity is an approach that ensures the audience - and not profit-  is at the center of a business's philosophy, operations, and ideas. The aim of becoming customer-centric is to create a positive experience by maximizing offerings and building relationships. If this is done right, profit will naturally flow. When CEO Communications keep their customer as the true North, it shows the CEO understands the alignment between what customers expect and what their organization is delivering, and as a result of their obsessive pursuit of customer satisfaction, CEO trust improves.

Customer centricity tips for CEO Communications

Understand that not all customers are the same. Uses audience data to extract insights that help spark relevant engagement and foster meaningful relationships. Aim to 1 billion one-to-one relationships with consumers through hyper-personalised, purposeful dialogue.

Break down silos and make sure that customer data is easily sharable and accessible internally.

Understand what different stakeholders and audience segments care about, then use this insight in messaging.

Following the above tips will optimize CEO reputation management strategies and help your leadership team build relationships with stakeholders that can last these turbulent times. If you'd like to explore integrating media intelligence into your own CEO communications plan, reach out to us on the form below and we'll happily share more tips!

CEO Communications: Building & Maintaining Trust

There are a lot of discussions today around making data-driven decisions; however, what happens when you’re basing your decisions on data that are inaccurate, irrelevant, or redundant? That's something that management teams aren't discussing enough. To get the most reliable insights, data cleansing and data enrichment should be prioritized just as much as data collection.

Organizations have no shortage of information about their customers. This has become both a blessing and a curse, as companies need to trust the data they have and know how to use it. Both are easier said than done. 

Collecting data isn’t the endgame for agencies or businesses. Rather, the next step is to focus on what that data can do to improve your company’s performance. Here’s why data cleansing and enrichment matter and how you can deploy both to improve your CRM.

How Are Data Cleansing and Enrichment Different?

Why Are Data Cleansing and Enrichment Important?

How Can Data Cleansing and Enrichment Enhance Your CRM?

Before we dive into the specifics, let’s start with some basic definitions. First, what is data cleansing?

Data cleansing is like the Marie Kondo method for your B2B data. Instead of letting bad data accumulate, you proactively clean up missing or inaccurate records, eliminate redundancies, and get rid of data that doesn’t matter. When you’re done, you’re left with organized customer records and can more easily find important information.

Data enrichment (also called data appending or data augmentation) is the vehicle used for data cleansing. These are often third-party data tools, software, or processes that refine and enhance your first-party data. When applied to CRM use cases, data enrichment tools may look for missing records and look to external sources to fill in the gaps. For example, if the address and phone number data fields of a company are blank, data enrichment tools can import them using external signals.

Both cleansing and enrichment seek to enhance your data so that you are able to better leverage it.

Data cleansing and data enrichment both fall under the data augmentation umbrella. The main difference is their end goals.

With data cleansing, you’re focusing on cleaning up the data you already have. For instance, if you have two entries for the same customer, you could combine those entries for a single customer file. Cleansing will remove duplicate or inaccurate records and leave accurate data alone.

With enrichment, your goal is to make your customer records as complete as possible. Knowing as much about your target audience as possible is key in making business-related decisions. The more you know about a customer, the better you can tailor your approach to cross-sell to them and create customer loyalty.

So, if you’re missing key information about customers in your CRM, such as contact information, enriched data helps to fill the gaps. From there, you can improve your marketing to current customers and prospects through hyper-targeted offers.

Data-driven marketing, lead generation, and the total customer experience all hinge on clean data. When raw data is incorrect, your marketing campaigns can’t do their best work.

The benefits of accurate customer data are seemingly infinite:

Improve profiling to send relevant offers to the right prospects

Verify you’re sending direct mail, etc. to the right person and address

Reduce wastage created by marketing to nonexistent emails, addresses, etc.

Enrich existing data with additional information to learn more about your customers

Gain more control over the entire B2B customer journey

With today’s data augmentation deep learning technology, you can cleanse and enrich your data with very little involvement on your part. That’s a huge plus as your CRM grows, as you don’t have to worry about manually updating records when customer data changes.

Because there's not much to do on your end, why wouldn't you make data management a top priority?

Tip: Think about your customer data management (CDM) to gain more actionable insights from your data.

If data enhancement is on your radar, we suggest starting with data cleansing. There’s no need to enrich data that are irrelevant or inaccurate.

Let’s break down the basics of data cleaning:

Step 1: Remove Duplicate and Irrelevant Entries

It’s not the size of your database that matters, but rather the quality of data inside. That’s why it’s useless to keep duplicate or irrelevant data that can muddy your insights.

Duplicate entries usually happen because of data collection processes. When you import or scrub data from third parties or combine datasets from multiple departments, you risk creating overlaps. The deduplication process consolidates records to minimize distractions and keep only important information.

Also during this step, you can discard any data that is irrelevant to your database. For instance, if you want to create a database to target just your New York-area customers, you wouldn’t want customers in Boston or Miami showing up.

When you’re done with Step 1, you should have a neat and tidy database showing only relevant entries.

When combining data sets, fields don’t always perfectly transfer. Different data sets may have unique naming conventions or styles that look different than the data they’re being combined with. As a result, you might end up with some fields in all caps or have items with misspellings or misplacements.

Fixing any structural errors makes your dirty data look cleaner. All information becomes consistent and follows a standard format. This reduces the chance that some pieces of data may fall under the wrong category or otherwise not be properly used.

Step 3: Standardize Your Data Cleaning Process

Cleaning your data should be an ongoing process, not a one-and-done activity. Errors can occur at any time, so routine data cleaning can ensure the most accurate and up-to-date data set.

However, you can also reduce the numbers of errors you find by standardizing your data processes. Set rules about how users should input data, as well as the type of data that needs to be collected. It helps increase accuracy and your confidence in your data.

Cleaning your company data gives you a strong foundation. Now it’s time to build it out with enrichment. Here’s how to turn incomplete records into quality data:

Data enhancement has three parts: what you know, what you don’t know, and what you need to know. After cleansing, you should have a better idea of what data you have. From there, you can decide what else you really need to complete an ideal customer profile.

The key here is to be selective. That can be tricky because selective isn’t always complete. You might have tons of fields that you could fill in. But it’s best to focus on just the most relevant information. Too much data causes distractions and makes it hard to focus on what matters.

Segmentation can be a helpful exercise when evaluating your data. Depending on the purpose of your dataset, you can decide what else you need to know that you don't already have.

So, you found that you’re missing some phone numbers for some of your customers. Do you email each one to ask for their digits? Of course not!

A data enhancement tool can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Tools can import data from trusted third parties in real-time. They fill in the missing fields you care about without you having to type it in manually.

Data doesn’t necessarily have an expiration date, but it does age quickly. That’s why data enrichment (and cleansing) should be treated as ongoing processes.

People move. They change jobs. They get new email addresses. They may even switch to a completely different line of work! Staying on top of these changes as they happen allows you to stay connected and continue creating opportunities with those connections.

Even with standardization, to master data management should be an active priority, not a one-and-done activity. Errors can occur at any time, so routine validation can ensure the most accurate and up-to-date data set. 

Data makes up a big part of the solution to better marketing. You need reliable and complete customer data you can trust because every touchpoint depends on it. Your mailing lists ensure your direct mail makes it to the right person and place. Your sales team can call the right phone number the first time.

The Meltwater Blog

Happy International Women’s Day, 2022!

CEO Communications: Building & Maintaining Trust

How to Use Data Cleansing & Data Enrichment to Improve Your CRM

Tips & Tricks for Better B2B Content Marketing

The Perfect Agency Pitch: How to Land New Business with Competitive Intelligence

Online Reputation Repair: Everything You Need to Know

Metaverse - How will virtual spaces be used in the future?

Why Your Organization Needs an Internal Company Newsletter

Understanding the Chinese Social Media Landscape

Teamwork Guide - How To Build An Effective Team

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