Confidence isn’t something we talk about very often in marketing.

We talk about data, segmentation, automation, reporting and results. We spend plenty of time discussing what we should measure and which numbers we should pay attention to.

But underneath all of those things sits something much simpler.

Do you trust them?

If your CRM says somebody is a customer, do you trust that information? If an automation is running, are you confident the right people are entering it? When you look at a report, do you trust the information enough to make a decision from it?

Most of the time, we probably don’t think about these questions. We use the systems, look at the numbers and get on with our day.

Until something happens that makes us question them.

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You tend to notice confidence when you lose it

Once you’ve found one problem with your data or marketing systems, it’s surprisingly easy to start questioning everything else.

Perhaps you discover contacts haven’t been syncing correctly between two systems. Someone notices a customer in the wrong segment. An automation hasn’t sent an email you expected it to send.

The immediate problem might be relatively easy to fix. The uncertainty it creates can last much longer.

If that contact didn’t sync correctly, how many others didn’t? If this person is in the wrong segment, who else is? Can we trust the report we’re looking at?

That’s when extra work starts creeping in. Spreadsheets appear to double-check the database. Lists get manually reviewed before campaigns are sent. Someone asks a colleague to check something “just to make sure”.

None of those actions feels particularly significant, but collectively they’re telling you something important.

You don’t completely trust the system anymore.

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Confidence affects the decisions you make

This matters because marketing relies on making decisions from information.

Imagine an email campaign performs poorly.

If you trust your data and systems, you can start asking useful questions about the campaign itself. Was the message relevant? Was the offer right? Was this something the audience actually cared about?

But if you’re not confident the right people received it, you suddenly have another possible explanation.

The same applies to segmentation and reporting. A particular group might appear to perform brilliantly, but if you’re not confident about the data used to create that segment, how much can you really learn from the result?

Poor data doesn’t just create inaccurate records. It makes good decisions harder to make.

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Mornington reminded us how important this can become

We saw this while working with Mornington Screening Service.

Mornington had a process for finding prospective customers, adding them to the company’s own database and passing their information into Mailchimp, where they should receive a series of communications over time.

But owner Russ Clarke had started to question what happened after they entered the system.

There had been problems with data moving between systems and concerns about subscribers missing communications. Over time, that created uncertainty about whether Mailchimp was doing what Mornington expected.

When we later asked Russ what wasn’t working before we started working together, he said:

“Lost confidence in the settings with Mailchimp.”

That was really the problem we needed to solve.

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Confidence comes from understanding

You can’t rebuild confidence in a system by simply telling somebody everything is fine.

You need evidence.

With Mornington, that meant understanding the whole process rather than looking at Mailchimp in isolation.

Where did contacts originate? What information passed into Mailchimp? What should that information trigger? What communications should different people receive?

As we worked through those questions, we found historical automation decisions that had made the account harder to understand. Some journeys could be consolidated, naming and terminology could be clearer, automation logic needed reviewing and historical contacts needed investigating to establish what they’d actually received.

Russ described that part of the project rather nicely:

“You slowly gained knowledge about our business and marketing challenges and that has helped.”

Confidence doesn’t come from having sophisticated technology.

It comes from understanding what your systems are supposed to do and having enough evidence to know they’re doing it.

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It starts with the data

If you don’t trust the data entering your marketing systems, it’s difficult to trust what happens afterwards.

That doesn’t mean your database needs to be perfect. I’ve yet to meet one that is, and I’m not holding my breath.

But you should understand where important information comes from, what it means and how it’s being used.

If a field determines which communications somebody receives, you need confidence it’s being populated correctly. If a tag triggers an automation, you should understand why that tag is being applied. If information moves between your CRM and email platform, you need enough understanding of that process to recognise when something isn’t right.

The same applies at the other end. When your marketing platform produces reports, you need enough confidence in the underlying data and processes to use those numbers to make decisions.

There’s a fairly simple chain at work:

Confidence in your data → confidence in your systems → confidence in what you’re seeing → confidence in your decisions.

If one part becomes questionable, everything after it becomes harder.

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What changes when you trust the system?

Once Mornington’s underlying Mailchimp setup became more dependable, the conversations changed.

Instead of worrying about whether people were receiving the communications they should, we could start looking at engagement, newsletters, nurture emails and how email fitted into wider sales and marketing activity.

When we asked Russ about the biggest difference, his answer was:

“Total confidence in Mailchimp.”

What could he do now that he couldn’t before?

“Certainty that Mailchimp will deliver.”

And the biggest day-to-day impact?

“The confidence that all is well.”

Those answers aren’t really about Mailchimp. They’re about being able to get on with running the business without continually wondering whether something underneath the marketing isn’t working properly.

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Where are you still crossing your fingers?

Most organisations probably have areas of their marketing they trust completely and others where confidence is a little more optimistic.

That’s normal. The useful thing is knowing which is which.

Think about the data and systems you rely on to communicate with customers, members or supporters. Do you understand where the important information comes from? Are you confident it’s accurate enough for the job you’re asking it to do? Do you trust what happens to that data afterwards?

If the answer is “I’m not entirely sure”, you don’t necessarily have a problem.

But you do have somewhere useful to look.