In today’s data-driven business world, understanding B2B data enrichment is more than a technical necessity – it’s a strategic imperative. This concise exploration aims to demystify the concept of data enrichment in the B2B arena, highlighting its significance in enhancing customer relationships and driving business growth. We’ll explore how enriching your data can revolutionize marketing strategies, sharpen decision-making, and give companies a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving digital marketplace.
We recently sat down with Koko Zarov, co-founder of Nimbler, a sales automation and data enrichment platform that allows sales, marketing, and RevOps teams to get instant access to high-quality B2B contact data and close deals faster. In this Q&A, Koko shares his thoughts on the importance of having clean and up-to-date CRM data and its impact on businesses.
Co-founder of Nimbler
What is B2B data enrichment and why is it important for companies today?
Most people think that enrichment is complex but that’s not the case because technology has made it very simple in recent years. B2B Data Enrichment is the process of enhancing existing business-to-business (B2B) data records like contacts and accounts by appending additional information and refining its quality. This practice is crucial for companies today because it ensures that their business data is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. With enriched data, companies can make more informed decisions, improve targeting in marketing and sales efforts, foster better customer relationships, and ultimately drive business growth in a competitive market. By having a deeper and more accurate understanding of their business clients, companies can tailor their strategies more effectively, leading to increased efficiency and success in their B2B endeavors.
Can you describe the process of B2B data enrichment?
The enrichment process is very simple and doesn’t require technical experience in most cases. You can enrich your CRM data using one of the methods I describe below:
CRM Integration
This process allows you to easily connect your CRM account, like HubSpot or Salesforce, to a data enrichment platform like Nimbler. Once connected, you can map out all of the contact and account fields from your CRM to the enrichment platform. At this point, the process becomes automated, and your CRM data will get enriched in real-time when new contacts or accounts are created. It can even be set to update periodically so your data stays up to date when people change jobs.
Bulk File Enrichment
This is a very simple and quick way to enrich your CRM data on the go. You can simply export your contact data and upload it to Nimbler or a similar data enrichment platform. The file will get enriched automatically with up-to-date contact and company information, including phone numbers, email addresses, job titles, industries, company size, and more. Once your file is enriched you just upload it back to your CRM to update existing data or append new data to your records.
API Enrichment
Enriching your CRM data via API is a custom solution that allows you to build a flexible solution that fits the unique needs of your business. It requires some technical expertise, but companies like Nimbler offer easy-to-use and affordable API solutions that fit every business need.
How can companies ensure the quality and accuracy of enriched data?
The first thing to know is that not all B2B data providers are created equal, and bringing low-quality data into your CRM will only make things worse. Companies should ask questions before enriching their CRMs with a third-party data provider.
How often is the data updated?
One of the main reasons for enriching your CRM data is to have up-to-date information about your customers, so make sure that the data is updated at least every quarter.
What is done to verify the data?
The best way to verify data is by using multiple reliable sources and cross-checking each record. Other effective methods include real-time email validation and phone validation. Nimbler offers real-time email validation as standard and only charges for records with a 100% valid work email, so our customers never have to pay for bad data.
How is the data collected?
Find a data supplier that collects data in a compliant way so you are not exposing your business to unnecessary risk. Some data providers scrape data from websites without permission and often collect incomplete information and use a guess algorithm to generate email addresses, which can lead to emails bouncing back and ruining your domain reputation.
What is the ultimate business value of having quality contact and account data in your CRM?
The ultimate value of B2B data enrichment is the ability to increase efficiency and grow the business. The good news is that there are many benefits of having clean and accurate B2B data in your CRM.
Enhanced Customer Relationships
Accurate and up-to-date B2B data enables a more personalized and effective interaction with your clients. This improves customer satisfaction and loyalty, as customers feel understood and valued when their information is accurate and their interactions are tailored to their needs.
Increased Sales Efficiency
Sales teams can increase close rates by working more efficiently when they have reliable phone and email data. It reduces the time spent on sorting out incorrect or outdated information, allowing them to focus more on selling and less on administrative tasks. This can lead to increased sales close rates and productivity, leading to higher revenue generation.
Improved Marketing Campaigns
Quality data ensures that marketing efforts are targeted correctly, conserving precious budget by reducing marketing spending toward unqualified audiences. It also enables segmentation and personalization, which are key for successful automated marketing campaigns and workflows. This can lead to higher conversion rates as messages are more likely to resonate with the intended audience.
Better Insights for Your Go-to-Market Strategy
High-quality CRM data provides up-to-date valuable insights about your Ideal Customer Profile. Companies can identify trends, tailor product messaging, and identify opportunities for growth and expansion, leading to a more aligned GTM strategy.
Improved Data Analysis and Reporting
Quality data enhances the reliability of business analytics and reporting. This leads to more accurate forecasting and planning, an essential component for business growth and sustainability.
Cost Reduction
Having bad and outdated CRM data is the biggest enemy of your sales and marketing teams. It’s very simple – better B2B data means fewer missed opportunities for sales teams and lower acquisition costs for marketing campaigns.
Can you share some success stories or case studies of effective B2B data enrichment?
We recently completed a full HubSpot CRM enrichment using Nimbler for Bolt On Technology, a large US-based technology provider for the automotive industry. Their CRM included records with a lot of missing information and their database was massive – over 600,000 contacts. We could not only enrich and append their data but also include additional look-alike contacts that fit their ideal customer profile. The result was 250,000 marketing and sales-ready contacts with accurate information, allowing their teams to focus on the right opportunities in each market.
What are some of the main use cases you’ve come across?
In my experience at Nimbler and previous leading data providers, I’ve run into many use cases, and I’ve listed the ones that we come across the most.
Improving Quality of Existing CRM Records
Most B2B contact records are incomplete. There are countless examples of sales staff creating records without entering vital data points such as job title, phone number, location, or relevant information vital to qualifying leads and, eventually, closing deals. B2B data enrichment can add these missing attributes like phone numbers, emails, names, locations, and company information to paint a bigger picture and allow for better personalization and communication. Adding periodic B2B data enrichment automation allows companies to maintain good data hygiene practices by ensuring sales and marketing teams are using the most accurate and up-to-date contact and company records.
Simplify Sign-Up Process
Marketers will ingest contact records via website subscription and sign-up forms containing only an email address to encourage higher sign-up rates. While this could be an effective strategy to increase signups it creates more questions than answers. Enriching these contacts with accurate B2B data will ensure that the marketing team has enough information to follow up, personalize the campaigns, and turn those contacts into sales-qualified leads – all without sacrificing sign-up conversion rates.
Generate Ideal Customer Profile
Companies who already have a good amount of contact data in their CRMs have an opportunity to enrich it and use a more accurate, up-to-date B2B data set to hone their ideal customer profile. With additional data points, they can create more precise ideal customer profiles and use that information to optimize their sales and marketing outreach.
What future trends do you anticipate in B2B data enrichment?
AI and Machine Learning
The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning will become more prevalent in data enrichment. These technologies can provide predictive insights about business customers, enhance personalization, and improve decision-making.
Real-Time B2B Data Enrichment
The trend towards real-time data processing will grow. Businesses will increasingly seek up-to-the-minute data enrichment to make timely, informed decisions, especially in fast-paced industries.
About Nimbler
Nimbler is the ultimate, all-in-one B2B data and enrichment platform designed for salespeople, marketers, and RevOps teams. Nimbler is the largest provider of US B2B contact data with over 120 million records and it offers a flexible and affordable B2B data enrichment solution via its self-serve platform and APIs. Nimbler also offers unlimited users and free plans – try it today at www.nimbler.com.
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