Blog

Importance of Authentic Data in Research

Data in research forms the foundation stone, but not all data is good data and serves the purpose.

1694610844_blog-20-10-2022_v2.jpg
Monitoring

In today’s day and age, Data forms the foundation of more or less all businesses and is one of the most valuable resources for marketers, media houses, publishers and other professionals.

And while good, authentic data could prove to be a boon for a business, bad data could either prove to be inconsequential or worst case scenario, turn out to be a costly, irreversible mistake.

A 2016 IBM report, in fact, estimated that bad data cost the United States economy $3.1 trillion per year. This cost comes from the time the employees must spend correcting bad data, full of errors that cause mistakes with customers.

You see, how bad, erroneous data could practically cause such an economic downfall?

Now, before we dig into why the quality of data is vital, it is fair to know the factors that contribute to the good quality of data.

They include accuracy, completeness, relevancy, validity, timeliness and consistency.

Why is authentic, quality data important?

With improving data management techniques and technologies, the need for data is increasing across various businesses. Data is now required to make important decisions about product development, marketing, service improvement, finance and more. And this increases the competition between peers as more firm wants to reap the benefits of data. Those companies that do not take advantage of data and other techniques involved, may well fall behind others in the race to success.

But it is important to note that only when the data is authentic and high-quality, will it be beneficial otherwise, it could do more harm than good. If your information is low-quality, and your decision is based on it, you are likely to make a wrong, regrettable choice.

Data is almost an integral part of business operations, and several organisations today, derive their success by integrating this data into everything they do, as opposed to treating it as a separate entity. Now, this growing integration means that the quality of data – good or bad – could impact the business in many aspects.

Data quality is also critical because of compliance-related issues. With evolving regulations regarding data and its authenticity, it is crucial for organisations to manage their data rightly. It is quite obvious that it would be hard to demonstrate compliance if your data is disorganised or poorly maintained, especially if it is financial or sensitive personal data.

What are the benefits of good, authentic data?

Authentic, good-quality data has several benefits. Some of them include:

1. Informed Decision-Making – Quite naturally, improved data quality would lead to better decision-making. High-quality data will not only make you more confident in your decisions, but will also decrease the risks, and improve results.

2. Improved Audience Targeting – It becomes easier to target the target audience when you have good quality, authentic data. Without it, you may be forced to apply all your marketing skills to a broad audience, which is not efficient. You can also determine the accurate target audience with high-quality data, collect data about your correct audience, and then find potential customers with similar attributes.

3. Better Content, Marketing Campaigns – The more you understand your audience, the more you can improve your content and marketing campaigns. It is important to pique the interest of your target audience with the right content, creatives or ads, for them to take you and your work seriously.

4. Form Relationships with Customers –
For your business to be successful, it is crucial for you to form and constantly keep improving your relationship with your customers, and authentic, high-quality data will help you with that. Collecting data about your customers will help you get to know them better, and eventually, provide them with the content that appeals to them, products/services they need, and maybe even analyse any desires they might have. Proper data management also prevents you from delivering duplicate content to your customers.

5. Smooth Implementation of Data – Unlike poor-quality data, high-quality data is easier to use, and increases the efficiency of a company or organisation. If the information you have isn’t authentic, complete, accurate or consistent, you will have to spend significant amounts of time fixing it to make it useable, which will in turn take away time from other activities.

6. Advantage Over Others – With better quality data than your competitors or effective use of data, you can gain a competitive advantage. Data is undoubtedly one of the most valuable resources that companies today have, as long as it is high quality, and so, better quality data means that you can discover opportunities faster than your competitors.

7. Increased Profitability – Last, but not the least. High-quality and authentic data can lead to increased profitability. And how is that? With quality data, you can create more effective content, craft better marketing campaigns, and increase sales, and that too efficiently. It would also decrease ad waste. Having the right information shall essentially enable you to focus more time and resources on the content, strategies and tools that really matter.

TrackBee is one of a kind digital solutions company that truly believes in digging out authentic data when it comes to research.

The various features of the TrackBee software, including offline data collection, GPS integration, 30+ question types, data validation engine, data authentication, multi-language surveys, and dashboard monitoring, to name a few, make sure that all the data mined is genuine and error-free.

With TrackBee, one can always be assured of the authenticity of data and high-quality research.