Data; we have too much of it. The more we collect, the more we need to clean. Fortunately, there are many ways to handle customer and brand data. We are going to discuss in detail some of the practices:
Let us start by understanding B2B data.
Irrespective of the industry you operate in, if you are selling your products and services to another business, you will always need data.
What is B2B Data?
Business-2-business (B2B) data is any form or kind of information regarding other businesses. Generally, B2B database consists of a list of individual business contact information with a myriad of data points used for different marketing and sales activities.
Some of these activities include:
- Creating an Ideal Customer Profile,
- Demand generation,
- Lead generation,
- Outbound sales,
- Analytics, and more.
B2B data collection is important but before collecting the data, you need to know what kind of data is good for you. Some types of B2B data are account data, contact data, engagement data, intent data, firmographic data, demographic data, chronographic data, and technographic data.
There are different types of B2B data and at the same time, there are different sources of data such as social media, websites, paid vendors, and so on.
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How do you collect your B2B data?
To execute a great B2B marketing or sales campaign and win the best chances of closing sales, you need good quality data at your hand. Unarguably, the right way to get B2B data is to purchase it from a reputable vendor. By connecting with a vendor, your team need not band their heads with collecting data and worry about any missing points. Besides the vendors, there are the following ways of collecting B2B data.
- On-demand B2B data provider: Most companies rely on professional vendors for data collection. You can choose a vendor to enrich your B2B database. Just ensure that the vendor follows the GDPR guidelines while collecting data
- Existing B2B database: Here, the B2B data vendor will have a large list of contacts that you can filter according to your criteria and purchase data. A reliable and quality data vendor will ensure that the data with him is always updated.
B2B Data Enrichment
While you collect your data, it is essential to qualify the data and keep it updated. This process is called data enrichment.
There is no denying that B2B data can change more quickly than you assume. In case you are rely on several data points to have a detailed overview of the prospect, you should be aware that company contacts, emails, and addresses can change over time.
It is a good practice to have a dedicated team along with a standard process to ensure that you have all the data points in hand and they are being checked for accuracy. With this practice, you will have confidence in delivering the right message and proposal to the right person, especially if you are using a CRM or any marketing automation tool to connect with prospects.
If you want to maintain the quality of your B2B data, here are a few ways to do it:
1. B2B Data Validation
As the name suggests, it is about validating your data for accuracy. The process is not manual, and you need tools to validate the accuracy of your data. B2B data keeps evolving, and your team needs to keep a check on the data points for the accuracy of the data.
Based on the new information, your B2B database must be updated. Otherwise, your team will deal with wrong numbers and bounced emails.
2. Cleansing B2B data
The next step in ensuring the quality of your B2B data is maintaining data hygiene. The process involves removing any duplicate records or deleting them entirely. Wrong data or information will screw your future analysis for the marketing campaigns and negatively impact your brand.
3. B2B data enrichment
Data enrichment calls for filling the gaps in your existing data. This could be any data point such as phone numbers, email addresses, company names, and more.
Check the sources of data and see what pieces of missing. You can find the corrupted information and omit it entirely. The data enrichment process will replace the missing data points with the correct information. Data enrichment can be done in a variety of ways. Some common steps to be used during data enrichment are appending data, segmentation, imputation, entity extraction, and categorization.
Wrapping up
Data collection is an indispensable part of any B2B marketing strategy. Without your prospect’s accurate data, you cannot offer solutions to his problems. When you follow the above-mentioned guidelines, you can ensure that you collected the right data and that the quality of your data is maintained.
If you are take help from a data provider, check for their GDPR compliance when storing data. The B2B world is becoming increasingly competitive, deliver the right message to the right set of people.