At one time, an employee landed a job soon after graduation and stayed at that job until retirement. Pensions were an important job perk, ranking in importance with pay and health benefits. But over the years, how long you’ve been at one company has waned in importance. Employees realize that in order to get ahead, they’ll likely need to chase job opportunities, moving from company to company as they move up the ladder.
What does this mean for your business? If you maintain any kind of Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) or marketing automation database, the biggest impact you’ll see is how quickly your data becomes outdated. A sizable email list will “decay” at a rate of 22.5 percent each year, according to research from Marketing Sherpa.
B2B-only lists have an even shorter shelf life. Some industries have over a 5 percent employee turnover rate. All totaled, a half a million small business close their doors each year, as others arise to take their place. All this means that without active maintenance, close to half of your database could contain outdated contact information at the end of the year.
Most businesses have high turnover rates. Google, Amazon, and AFLAC, all see an average employee tenure of only one year. But, some industries are especially susceptible to high turnover. If you are selling into these industries, be sure to actively manage your contact data decay.
High Turnover Industries
While statistics vary, here are a few industries that see notably higher turnover than many others:
Food and Beverage—Restaurants tend to attract a large number of students, with 28 percent of employees enrolled in school compared to 11 percent of the overall labor force. These employees may work seasonally or temporarily while they finish their studies.
Freight and Shipping—Turnover has long been an issue in the trucking industry, as companies struggle to find and retain good drivers. But docks and warehouses can also struggle to find physically capable workers who will remain for multiple years.
Human Resources Management—The very people responsible for reducing rapid turnover often struggle to remain in a position for a long time, as well. HR managers see the negatives of a company firsthand since they are often on the receiving end of complaints, firings, and exit interviews.
Advertising and Public Relations—Advertising agencies and PR firms have astonishingly high turnover rates, with an average turnover rate of about 30 percent. Often this is because truly talented specialists often start their own shop, or can easily be courted away by rival firms, with poaching being a common occurrence in the industry.
It’s important to note that turnover in these industries isn’t confined to worker bees. Managers in these industries tend to move around a great deal, as well. Since many of the above-listed industries are targets for business mailings, it’s easy to see how contact databases can quickly become outdated.
Keeping Your Database Accurate
While statistics vary on high turnover rates, the above-listed industries only highlight the importance of keeping databases updated. You’ll always want to add new contacts to your lists. Known for its credit reporting services, Experian has a massive database of businesses and contact names. After signing up for its mailing list builder, businesses can add these new contacts, significantly increasing their reach.
As important as it is to ensure your contact information is up to date, it’s also important to regularly add new contacts to your lists. LeadGenius uses webscraping, data analysis, and human researchers to identify new decision makers in high-turnover industries and constantly enrich existing contacts with fresh data points.
It’s also important to keep your lists “clean.” This means you’ll want to remove duplicates and improve upon the information you already have or what you get from other services.
While these four industries are at greater risk of high turnover, it’s important to realize that contacts are changing on an ongoing basis. In addition, businesses move and job titles change. By investing in the resources you need to keep your contact databases updated, you’ll always ensure you’re targeting the right people with the right information. With so many tech tools now available, you can easily automate the process of checking and updating your databases at an affordable cost.