Questions people ask

Is a one-off CRM clean-up worth it?

A one-off CRM clean-up is worth it only if someone keeps looking after the list afterwards. A clean-up puts the records right on the day it is done; after that, people keep changing jobs, refreshers keep falling due and new enquiries keep arriving that nobody follows up. In one training client’s CRM, more than half the contacts we could match to LinkedIn had moved organisation while the CRM still showed the old one. That is why Fully Sealed is a monthly CRM clean-up and follow-up: the tidy-up happens in the first month, and the checking carries on every month after it.

Fully Sealed · figures checked October 2026

How quickly does a business contact list go out of date?

UK business contact records go out of date at an average of 25% to 30% a year, according to SortedIQ, a data company, going by the patterns it sees across its own file of corporate contacts.

In September 2026 we compared one training client’s CRM of 10,087 contacts with his 6,687 LinkedIn connections. Of the 5,512 people found in both, 2,887, or 52%, had moved to a new organisation while the CRM still showed the old one. The training client’s 52% is a total for that one list, not a yearly rate.

What does a one-off CRM clean-up cost in the UK?

Lexalytic, a data-cleansing firm that publishes UK prices, starts a one-off clean-up at £99 for a single spreadsheet and at £500 for a database drawn from more than one place. Its July 2026 guide puts a 5,000-record database with standard de-duplication and validation at £500 to £2,000, depending on the provider.

A one-off clean-up buys the list as it stands on the day it is done: duplicates removed and records validated. It does not buy anybody to follow up the people it finds.

What goes wrong if nobody looks again for a year?

On SortedIQ’s average, between a quarter and nearly a third of a list’s records go out of date in a year. One month’s look at one training client’s records, in September 2026, found:

• 2,887 contacts had moved to a new organisation while the CRM still showed the old one, and 156 people who already knew the business had been promoted into the jobs that buy.
• 216 people were due a refresher. One reminder email reached 153 of them and brought at least five bookings; the other 63 never got it.
• 1,324 people had gone past the point where a refresher would do. Every one of them could come back on the two-day course, and nobody had asked.
• 36 people had asked about a course and never came: 19 never booked, and 17 booked and did not turn up.
• In the client’s LinkedIn messages, 2 people were waiting for a reply, and 8 who had asked about training had gone quiet.
• 5 people who had asked to come off the mailing list still got the next email.
• All three of the checks inboxes run to confirm an email really comes from the sender came up short, one reason the client’s emails were landing in junk.

One-off clean-up or monthly upkeep: what is the difference?

A one-off clean-up fixes the list once; monthly upkeep fixes it, keeps it right, and turns what it finds into people to contact.

What does a monthly check look at?

Fully Sealed’s monthly leak check covers every leak found that month, most urgent first, in twelve pages:

1. At a glance: the month’s counts on one page.
2. Five to call this week, each with the reason and a line to open with.
3. Conversations to pick up: a reply owed, someone ready to book, someone gone quiet.
4. Enquiries that went quiet: asked, never booked, dated.
5. Refreshers due, by month and by organisation.
6. People on the move: promoted, moved, and worth a note.
7. Strongest accounts: where the next booking is most likely.
8. Win back and step up: people who lapsed, and people ready for more.
9. Lost touch: good people you have not spoken to in a year.
10. Email sender checks: whether your emails are landing, and the fix.
11. Tidy-ups: what is still wrong in the CRM, and what to do.
12. Your LinkedIn: messages owed, invitations waiting, and what your profile says about you.

In one client’s CRM, every point in his September 2026 report became a dated to-do on the right person: 90 of them. Nothing in a client’s CRM changes without their yes.

How can I tell whether our list needs a clean-up now?

A contact list needs a clean-up now if any of these is true:

• Your mail-outs are landing in junk.
• Nobody can say, today, who is due a refresher or a renewal this month.
• LinkedIn shows people at organisations your CRM has never heard of.
• Someone who asked to come off your list has had another email.
• Course enquiries are waiting for somebody to chase them.

Why do emails land in junk, and what should happen to unsubscribes?

One reason emails land in junk is three settings that inboxes check before they trust an email from your business: SPF, which lists the servers allowed to send for your domain; DKIM, a signature showing the email was not changed on the way; and DMARC, which tells inboxes what to do with an email that fails both.

Google asks every sender to set up SPF or DKIM, and anyone sending more than 5,000 emails a day to Gmail addresses to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Yahoo asks bulk senders for all three as well. In one client’s account SPF, DKIM and DMARC all came up short, and the fix takes about 20 minutes.

Someone who unsubscribes should never get another marketing email; in one client’s account, 5 people who had asked to come off the list still got the next one. The ICO, the UK’s data regulator, advises putting people who opt out on a suppression list rather than deleting them, so that any new mailing list can be checked against it.

Where these facts come from: Fully Sealed’s own work for one training client, September 2026, with every name taken out; SortedIQ’s page on how fast business contact data goes out of date (updated 10 September 2026); Lexalytic’s data-cleansing prices and its July 2026 guide; Google’s and Yahoo’s guidelines for email senders; the ICO’s guidance on business-to-business marketing. All checked in October 2026.