Marketing Insights: Going Beyond Your CRM

Source: 114 respondents from the Q1 PMMI Media Group Supplier Survey – March 2025

The implications of these trends become clear when we consider the top marketing priority for 2025: improving lead quality and ROI tracking. Can we truly optimize ROI by consistently engaging the same, potentially decaying, in-house lists?

While nurturing your existing contacts via CRM is undoubtedly crucial, its effectiveness hinges on the vitality of that data. Consider this: a database of 5,000 contacts might only yield a few hundred truly qualified leads today. But here's the stark reality: Gartner's 2025 Top Tech Trends E-book highlights a staggering B2B contact data decay rate of up to 70.3% annually. Think about the implications – the key contact you engaged with last year might have changed roles, companies, or priorities.

The cost of neglecting data hygiene is significant. A Validity survey revealed that 44% of companies attribute over 10% of annual revenue loss directly to CRM data decay. Maintaining a pristine database demands dedicated resources; without them, your marketing and sales efforts risk inefficiency and missed opportunities.

So, how can packaging and processing suppliers break through this plateau and access a consistent stream of new, high-quality leads? The answer lies in strategically expanding your reach beyond your internal ecosystem.

Trusted third-party media companies, who specialize in engaging CPG end-users, have their finger firmly on the pulse of your target market. They invest significant resources in building and nurturing qualified professionals within your niche. Their secret? Meticulously verified first-party data. This isn't just a collection of names; it's a dynamic ecosystem of individuals with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and, crucially, a demonstrated interest in staying informed about the latest industry trends and solutions.

Imagine bypassing the guesswork and directly connecting with individuals who have already raised their hands, signaling their interest in what you provide. Reputable media partners excel at this, offering access to audiences segmented by specific criteria. Some even go a step further, providing exclusive "buying intent" data, pinpointing contacts actively in the market for particular types of equipment or services. This level of precision targeting can be a game-changer for your sales and marketing efforts.

Now, you might be wondering: can't we achieve this level of data quality ourselves? While building a robust internal database is essential, mirroring the sophisticated data hygiene practices of a leading industry media company requires a substantial and ongoing commitment. It's a journey that involves:

1. Assembling an audience-focused team: Dedicating an entire team to the sole purpose of identifying, verifying, and engaging potential contacts within your specific sector and verifying their information is accurate.
2. Tracking each engagement: It's not just about who is in your database, but how they engage with content. Sophisticated systems track engagement and identify those actively seeking information related to your offerings. Given the realities around open rates and click rates, it means creating and maintaining a massive database of contacts to start with, the scale of which can be beyond small to medium-sized marketers. That said, anyone can buy a list. The hard part is creating enough content in sufficient quantities and quality to engage that list regularly and sniff out unique data and insights based on their interaction with your content.
3. Maintaining a living, breathing database: Data decay is a real thing. Achieving media-level accuracy requires constant updates, cleansing, and validation to reflect the dynamic nature of the professional landscape. A best practice is to stop sending e-mail to people who haven’t opened or clicked in six months, to avoid overwhelming prospects and triggering inadvertent email “honey pots” that can result in some email service providers shutting down your outbound mailing capability. However, adhering to this practice will shrink your list rapidly.
4. Continuous improvement: Regularly gathering insights for senior leadership to help refine targeting, ensure you're reaching the most qualified prospects, and adding new, trending segments.
5. Segmenting unengaged contacts: Creating reengagement campaigns for contacts who have not engaged in 6 months and removing contacts who have not engaged in 2 years.

Regardless of whether you use a third-party media organization for your marketing, following some of the basics listed here is essential. However, many marketers realize that maintaining a fully accurate and clean database can be overwhelming because achieving the scale, precision, and engagement required for digital marketing with only your own list (even a purchased list) requires significant and sustained investment. By strategically partnering with trusted media organizations with high-value, niche targeting data not available through commercial data brokers, you can tap into their expertise and resources, allowing your team to concentrate on what they do best – driving sales and fostering business growth – while benefiting from a powerful stream of highly qualified leads. It's about working smarter, not just harder, to connect with the audience that can move the needle.