Newsletter - May. '08

Spreadsheet Tips		Meet the Client
Preparing data for a mailshot is time-consuming and tricky. Using the concatenate and trim functions ensures we get their names right.		High Score Productions are keeping alive the tradition of independent music production in the United Kingdom. Based in Oxfordshire, we meet a company who are willing to take on the corporate giants with their genuine talent, passion and desire.


Meet the Client - High Score Productions Ltd

		This month we meet leading music and audio production firm, High Score Productions Limited. Situated in Oxfordshire's beautiful countryside, High Score have developed an enviable client roster and have worked with many household names. We speak with director Hugh Edwards about the challenges and successes so far.

'We started High Score because we love music. Making it, writing it, recording it, the whole thing', says Hugh. 'As the business has grown and matured, we have naturally developed into other markets such as voice-over and sound effects. We can fulfil all our clients' sound and music needs, which is of great benefit to them. They get the best professional service in the UK across all their requirements.'

'Working Data have been a fantastic find and ally in our bid to broaden the service we can offer clients', continues Hugh. 'Their ability to come in and help us at quick notice with either specialist audio technology or more general data assistance has been invaluable. I can't recommend them more highly.'

What's new?

High Score projects have recently been released and reviewed, details of which can be found on their news page.

Contact High Score by telephone +44 (0)1295 738 337 or via their contact form.

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Spreadsheet Tips - Tidying mailshot data with Concatenate
When you want to do a mailshot to your client list, it is important that you get the information right first time. Any improper formatting immediately makes your communication seem at worst suspect, and at least, amateurish. Often when you receive client data in a spreadsheet or export it from your CRM system, the data entry hasn't always been completely perfect. In this month's spreadsheet tips we look at how to make sure the greeting is neat and tidy using Concatenate and Trim.

Preparing data for a mailshot

It's newsletter time at Walking Data, our shoe shop. The marketing manager has received the export from the CRM system of all the people who have bought shoes in the last year. Unfortunately, the data entry wasn't always thorough and the data in the spreadsheet is a bit of a mess. It could take hours and days to get it into a presentable format. By using the Concatenate and Trim functions, he can get the greeting sorted out in seconds.

Fig 1


Fig 1 shows the spreadsheet with the data downloaded directly from the company CRM system. As you can see, the data is in a bit of a mess. There are extra spaces before some of the names, some of the fields are empty. It would take a long time to fix these manually. Instead, we will use the Concatenate and Trim functions to give a clean and correct greeting in seconds.

Fig 2


As in Fig 2, we add a new column to the right, called Greeting. In cell E8 we write

=concatenate(A8," ",B8," ",C8," ",D8)

The concatenate function takes text entries from cells and adds them together into a single entry in another cell. We add spaces between the cells using double quotation marks with a space in between. As you can see the job is not quite done yet, as there are still some extra spaces between the names. We now add the TRIM() function. The TRIM() function removes extra spaces before, between and after words. The formula now reads;

=trim(concatenate(A8," ",B8," ",C8," ",D8))

See Fig 3.

Fig 3


We now have the finished formula and the greeting reads correctly. We copy this down for the other rows, in Fig 4. Check how the formula works for each of the rows regardless of the error in the initial data entry.

Fig 4


With the correct application of Excel's powerful formulae we have managed to undo the problems created by data entry errors and have saved a great deal of time. This allows the Marketing manager to concentrate on what he does best, creating the message to bring these existing clients back to the shop. He doesn't have to waste time getting the data into the correct format.

If you have any questions about the Concatenate and Trim functions and when to use them, or if you would like to suggest a topic for us to cover in a future newsletter, please contact us.

Next Month

For the next three newsletters we shall be concentrating on Website Statistics. In collaboration with the internet marketing specialists at Branch Out, we will look at how to incorporate Google Analytics coding into your website and how to extract valuable information to guide and grow your business.

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