Automate data formatting in HubSpot's Operations Hub to save time, improve data quality, and boost marketing effectiveness.
In the world of data-driven marketing, clean data is king. Inconsistent formatting can wreak havoc on your reporting, segmentation, and personalisation efforts. Manually cleaning data is tedious and time-consuming. The solution? Automate it! HubSpot's Operations Hub empowers you to automate data formatting, freeing up your time for more strategic initiatives.
This article dives into setting up automation rules
Steps:
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Access Data Formatting: In your HubSpot portal, navigate to "Data Quality" (usually under Contacts or Companies) and select "Data Formatting."
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Set Up Automation Rules: This is where the magic happens. You can configure rules to automatically correct a variety of formatting issues. Here are some essential rules to set up:
- Capitalise first and last names: This ensures consistency in how names are displayed.
- Convert emails to lowercase: Email addresses are case-insensitive, but converting them to lowercase ensures consistency and avoids potential issues with email marketing platforms.
- Correct common name inversions: People sometimes accidentally enter their last name in the first name field. Set up rules to automatically swap the values.
- Add basic punctuation: Standardise punctuation in fields like company names or addresses.
For more complex formatting challenges, you can leverage regular expressions. This allows you to create highly specific rules. Tip: Learning regex can be a valuable skill for any marketer working with data and HubSpot has just put in some AI regex to help!
Automating data formatting is a crucial step towards improving data quality, but it's not the only step. Foster a culture of data cleanliness within your organisation. Train your team on the importance of accurate data entry and provide them with the tools and resources they need to maintain data hygiene. By combining automation with a proactive approach to data management, you can ensure that your data is always clean, reliable, and ready to drive your marketing success.
Author: Chris Grant
Sales Service and CRM Implementation Consultant