As a young web application developer, I believed that I could accomplish anything using nothing but pure brain power, determination and a simple text editor. For years, this was true. Using only a minimal toolset, if you gave me a specification, I could give you the software you wanted. Over the years business requirements have changed, specifications have gotten more complicated and turnaround times have gotten shorter. I've come to realize that choosing the proper tools for each project is crucial to success, especially in a competitive marketplace. Historically, however, there have not been many tools built to suit the needs of marketing.

A database of prospects is useless unless you can make it speak. Sing. Serenade. So how will you illicit these dulcet tones from a spreadsheet? The fact is, without data we can’t do marketing and without good data, we can’t do good marketing. The ability to leverage relevant data is vital to developing targeted relationships with prospects and cultivating these relationships over time. According to Sirius decisions in December 2008, “Best practice organizations can actually realize 70% more revenue based on data quality.” Too often, data management within a company is either relegated to the IT dungeon or simply put on the ‘too hard’ pile and considered too tedious and cumbersome to deal with. Time goes by and data goes bad.