Data enrichment in B2B: how to quickly complete company and contact data

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A post from the POLISH YELLOW PAGES® blog (formerly DATABOT.PL), originally published on 09.11.2022. Some information (tools, prices, regulations) may have changed since then.

Data enrichment in B2B: how to complete company and contact data in seconds

Companies collect data the way squirrels collect nuts. Unfortunately, most of the data is often stored somewhere and just as quickly forgotten and left in disarray. But unlike buried nuts, trees don’t grow from old data. A little data enrichment is all it takes to make old data sets flourish and use existing B2B data in a completely new way.

What is data enrichment in B2B?

Data enrichment in B2B sales and B2B marketing means expanding existing B2B data on customers, prospects and so on with additional relevant information. Most companies use a central location, such as a CRM system, to collect and store all customer and prospect data. 

But who hasn’t been there? You search one of your data records and the company address is missing. You now have to guess the industry, and your contact person for this company left long ago. Then a lead comes in, unfortunately without a phone number or a valid email address. That makes getting a response almost impossible.

How much more efficiently could you work if you already had all the data you need in front of you and didn’t have to look for it? That is exactly what data enrichment means — supplementing existing B2B data with relevant data such as social media channels, company sectors, websites or sales trigger events. The goal is to have access to correct, complete data records containing all the information needed in everyday work.

What is data enrichment in B2B used for?

Data enrichment in B2B is used to improve sales and marketing activities in B2B. Usually, when a new lead comes in or when you want to improve the data points in your CRM, not much information is given. Especially in contact forms, you usually get only a name and company, but you need to add more to the data provided to make the best use of it.

Data enrichment in B2B also helps pre-sales, marketing or other teams qualify leads. A name doesn’t really tell you whether a prospect is worth approaching. But if you enrich lead data with more information, you will see whether the company fits your ideal customer profile (ICP) or not.

What data should be enriched in B2B?

A company data record usually consists of its basic information. With this data you can uniquely identify the company and assign the other data correctly:

You can now expand the basic data as you wish. For example:

Beyond this basic information, further information by department is helpful. For example, the sales department, and sales reps in particular, may find hints about the company’s current needs useful. This information is very useful in targeted outreach and can usually be found through current events and company news. Other interesting information also includes financial data, number of employees or web technologies the company uses (e.g. shop systems, analytics tools, …).

Contact person data, such as name, job title, department and contact options, is also important so that the interested party can be contacted.

Note: 

How do I get high-quality B2B data to expand my data?
So much for the individual types of data — now, of course, the question arises: where can you get this data?

Basically, there are two ways of collecting B2B data:

1. Bring together all internally available data;
2. Buy external data (via tools, data brokers, third-party data, etc.);
3. Transfer address lists;
4. Automation via an interface.

Source: www.b2bresolute.com

A good data source in B2B is the foundation! The first option is always useful if data on customers, prospects, suppliers or other companies is stored in different places in the company. A consistent data bank not only increases transparency but also makes information available to everyone and is the best foundation for further data enrichment.

Usually, even after such a data merge, there are still many gaps to fill. Such gaps can most easily be filled by turning to external providers and buying data. Such providers can be credit agencies, list brokers or providers of sales intelligence software, for example DataBot.

Questions: 

CRM data enrichment

CRM systems have long been a hot topic, but as a key example they deserve a section of their own. Unfortunately, in most cases the advantages of CRM systems are not fully exploited, simply because data quality is lacking. Incomplete data records, outdated phone numbers, missing contact details … does that sound familiar? That makes it hard to maintain customer relationships, let alone win new customers.

Tip: 

Remember that a CRM system is a “live” tool. This means work is usually done from many different angles; new data records are created, existing ones edited and old ones deleted. A lot is happening in the background too: companies grow, move, staff change, etc.

Put simply: you won’t get far with a one-off data enrichment. To keep your CRM system afloat, you should look for software for long-term data maintenance and enrichment. Technically, this can be set up via an interface. Alternatively, CRM systems also offer integrations, which may not automate data enrichment processes but can at least provide access to up-to-date data.

Lead enrichment

In B2B lead generation the biggest goal is to generate as many leads as possible, but your sales department quickly complains if they don’t bring the required quality. But how do you know the quality of a B2B lead? As a rule, you can determine how valuable a prospect is to you only if you have enough data available for that particular prospect. A name and business email address alone are rarely enough to make an assessment.

You probably know that contact forms should be rather minimalist, so that the barrier for a prospect to fill in the form is as low as possible. But how can you tell whether a lead is suitable? With data enrichment you can learn more about your contact. For example, enriching your data will add details such as department and job title, as well as important information about their company. This not only simplifies the lead scoring process , but also gives the sales team important information.

More: 

Enriching address lists

Sometimes you can work only with individual mailing lists — for example for a B2B postal marketing campaign. In such cases the postal addresses must of course be complete and correct, otherwise all the related costs will be wasted. And here every data field is key – from the company name to the house number. That is why you should check your mailing list for gaps , and not just work with last year’s list. 

It is best to thoroughly clean and enrich the data in your lists shortly before use. For example, you can upload your lists to a sales intelligence provider and enrich them automatically. Or you can use such a tool to create a new address list directly, with an up-to-date target group and all the relevant data. This example shows that sometimes a one-off enrichment of an address list can be useful.

Contact enrichment

We have already touched on this point briefly. The term “contact enrichment” can mean two kinds of enrichment. One goal is to add missing information, such as phone numbers, social media profiles, salutation etc., to existing contacts. The other meaning is adding missing decision-makers to company data records.

One thing is certain: a personal approach only succeeds with contacts. This applies to marketing and sales as well as customer service. If you contact reception only via a general number or email, you will have little chance of success. However, contact data is also personal data, and this is where the GDPR alarm bells start ringing. So pay attention to data protection regulations!

Is enriching personal data GDPR-compliant?

The answer, as with many issues related to data protection , is not entirely clear: it depends. In fact, it depends mainly on where the data comes from and what data it is. As a rule you can rely on legitimate interests , if you only enrich data that is publicly available, such as contact details given on a company website or in job advertisements . The data should also be business-related. A quick example: using a business email address for data enrichment is fine, but using a private email without explicit consent is not. There are also certain obligations that the GDPR imposes on personal data , such as the duty to inform (see Article 13 GDPR). If you want to learn more about this, take a look at our article.

Why is data enrichment important in B2B?

In addition to the obvious benefit of having complete and correct B2B data as the basis of your work, data enrichment has other positive effects on your daily work.

Data enrichment in B2B saves costs

You can save on several fronts at once, and it is noticeable. False and incomplete data cause direct and indirect costs: your messages go straight into the void (wasted reach!) or you fail to reach important prospects, to name just a few examples. That in turn leads to lost turnover.

With data enrichment you even save staff costs, because sales and marketing departments etc. no longer have to waste their valuable time on manual research and data maintenance, but can instead concentrate on their core, profitable work.

B2B data enrichment helps increase customer satisfaction

With complete and correct data you can be sure you always contact the right people, recognise important events at customers and, for example, congratulate them on an award. You can give needs-based advice and recognise changing requirements, for example when a team grows or a customer’s liquidity falls. 

With data enrichment you can approach customers proactively and perhaps even prevent cancellations at an earlier stage. Or maybe you can even identify cross-selling and upselling potential?

Data enrichment in B2B enables more effective marketing campaigns

The more data you have on prospects, the faster you will identify their needs and tailor the content of your messages. Send personalised, audience-targeted messages.

Source: www.martechlive.com

High-quality B2B data also helps narrow your target group and therefore increase success in winning precisely matched leads.

Can I enrich B2B data in DataBot?

It sounds very time-consuming if you have to buy data regularly and import it manually. But don’t be discouraged! That is not the only way to enrich B2B data. It is much easier and more effective to enrich your data automatically with DataBot.

CRM systems already offer, in their online stores, integrations with sales intelligence solutions that can be used to enrich B2B data records easily in just a few clicks. For individual solutions, many digital data providers offer interfaces in the form of APIs or web servicesthat can be used to connect your system directly.

This way your data is constantly updated and supplemented practically in the background. Exactly how this works depends on the use case.

What requirements must be met for automatic data enrichment?

First of all, you should clearly define which data you want to enrich first, i.e. which data is really relevant to you. Here you can distinguish data that is really important from data that is simply “nice to have”.

Then you should find a provider and check them thoroughly to see whether they suit you and your use case. That means:

1. Can they supply all the data you need?
2. Are there suitable connection options or interfaces for automation?

Are all legal requirements met, e.g. is the provider GDPR-compliant?

1. How up to date is the B2B data supplied?

Once you have found a provider, you can also clarify the details. For example, you can start with the data that should already be there. Which data fields must be filled in so that the data you enrich can be clearly assigned to the data record? Is standard information such as company name and registered office enough here? And what other fields can you enrich?

As soon as these data fields have been clarified, you should also define which other data fields are to be enriched and ensure consistent naming, so that you can correctly assign B2B data records and match them with the data you already have.

Before moving on to data matching, it is worth cleaning the existing data first. Depending on the provider, you may even be able to combine data cleansing and enrichment in one simple step. The goal of data cleansing is to ensure that the data to be enriched can be allocated correctly and no duplicates arise if, for example, a company is not recognised because of incorrect spelling.

Data enrichment tools in B2B

You may be wondering: “Are there data enrichment services or something similar I can use?” There are! We have gathered a few enrichment providers who will help you enrich your data simply.

Weedo2

With the sales intelligence of the consortium Weedo2 you will not only be able to speed up B2B lead generation in a fully GDPR-compliant way, but you will also get help enriching old CRM data and new B2B leads. See your prospects and use up-to-date firmographics!

Leadfeeder

Turning your website visitors into leads and sales opportunities — that is exactly what Leadfeeder does. In addition, it will also support you in enriching your leads. If you want to increase sales and optimise your workflow in the simplest possible way, try our next solution.

Use case: enrich B2B leads with DataBot and Wedoo2

As a sales intelligence provider, DataBot has up-to-date, relevant and GDPR-compliant B2B data . With this example we want to show how you can enrich your B2B leads, save time and improve your KPIs in lead management in the long term. For this we use the integration service of B2B Databases and Wedoo2 . Wedoo2 makes creating leads between different systems and tools relatively easy.

Tip: for enriching data directly in your CRM, DataBot also offers, on request, integrations with CRMs for many popular systems. Before you start, you should know the following:

1. What data you ask for in the contact form/during lead generation,
2. What data you would like to add during enrichment, and
3. Which systems are involved (lead generation, connectivity, enrichment and data management/CRM).

Example 1:

The company SMG COKE uses the CMS Word Press CMS and generates leads with online forms on its website. Only an email address and company name are required. DataBot can now enrich the information about…

Contact name:

1. His/her job title: …
2. His/her phone number: … 
3. Company selector: … 
4. Current sales trigger events: …

And then it is to be imported into the company’s CRM system.

Conclusion: why is B2B data enrichment the best?

You probably already knew one key conclusion from this post: up-to-date and complete B2B data is important! Now you know it’s worth dealing with. And let’s be honest, would you have thought you could get so many benefits from customer data with so little effort? Automated data enrichment saves time and is easy on both the company’s wallet and your nerves.

With sales intelligence, data enrichment is no longer permanently on your to-do list. For example, if you access DataBot directly in the database, you automatically get the latest publicly available information on more than 30 million companies and more than 50 million contacts from all over Europe. With numerous integration options you can also use DataBot to update internal systems such as your CRM.  

In addition, DataBot provides more than just the standard: enrich even more exciting data such as turnover, annual accounts, shop systems used, shipping providers and even sales trigger events such as management changes or layoffs.

Enrich your B2B data and notice the difference!

Tags: B2B, B2B data, B2B sales, Data, Prospecting, Sales, B2B databases, Marketing databases

Mariusz Biniak – creator of the POLISH YELLOW PAGES® brand (formerly DATABOT.PL) and author of a blog on B2B sales. Disclosure: the author is connected with the publisher of THE BUSINESS TIME.

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