The Marketing Data Base : How Long Should We Keep Records?

Too often, marketers remove prospects from the data base too early, particularly when considering the life cycle value of a prospect and their business. Even if your prospect will only make a single purchase over the life cycle, keep this person in the data base until they make a purchase from your company or a competitor. If this prospect repeatedly buys services and products that your business provides, consider keeping them in the data base indefinitely.

You may consider leaving the contact in the data base for as long as you're able to get your marketing message to them cost-effectively, whether by email, fax or telephone. Clients frequently mention that they are beginning to close primary sales from prospects that have been lurking in their data bases for up to four years or more.

A simple method to determine if keeping these customers in your data base is still cost-effective is to make comparisons between the cost of data base marketing to a single prospect for one year, compared to the cost of initiating a newer one. So, if your business typically spends around $300 to produce a request, and it only costs $30 to maintain contact with these prospects annually, you then can maintain the prospect in the data base for up to ten years for the equivalent cost.

If you plan to have these prospects in the company data base list for some time, you should occasionally ask these people if they're still interested in receiving your marketing message. Mention that if they don't respond to your inquiry, you'll then remove them from your list. Those who say 'yes' should definitely be maintained on the list. Simply eliminate those who do not respond in some time. Even better, just code these entries to be suppressed when sourcing lists for faxing, emailing, or calling, and keep the non-responders' info for statistical information.