Maximize the value of your database with data enrichment

• By Brown Walsh
• 15-03-2024
• Big Data

Companies nowadays have access to huge and powerful databases that enable them to understand emerging customer needs, identify new trends, and tap on undiscovered business opportunities. In fact, sustainable and scalable business strategies in the current scenario largely depend on the analysis of clean and accurate data. But even a huge volume of data turns useless if it is not up-to-date and relevant! As data is something that constantly evolves, a need for data enrichment arrives every now and then.

What does the term ‘B2B data enrichment’ mean?

B2B data enrichment is a process in which the existing data sets of a company are enhanced by adding missing or incomplete information. The data, when fed with such up-to-date information, becomes extremely powerful to derive high-quality insights. This information, especially in the case of B2B comes from a variety of sources like other company profiles, revenue data, industry categorization, employee size, and corporate hierarchies. It majorly sums up information of all professionals and firms that contribute towards global trade.

For example, let us consider a healthcare technology firm that specializes in the research and manufacturing of new-age medical equipment. To deliver the best services, the firm would have to constantly evaluate and enrich its existing data with new information. The detailed insights will come from practices, requirements, and expectations of a variety of hospitals, clinics, and medical facilities. Here, analyzing the information about targeted hospitals’ size, technology infrastructure, specialty areas, and purchasing history will be crucial too.

In addition to this, the firm would also have to enrich its existing contact details with information of leaders and decision makers in the industry like department heads, hospital admins, and procurement managers. This enriched data will help the health-tech firm to deliver personalized medicines and equipment, cater to a wider customer base, and come up with groundbreaking solutions.

How efficient and timely data enrichment helps businesses?

As a leading business owner, operating in any industry, it is essential for you to prioritize your B2B data enrichment process as it lets you utilize the full potential of your database. If we talk specifically, efficient and timely data enrichment is very important as it helps you to:

Image Source: SunTec India

1. Design targeted marketing and sales strategies:

B2B data enrichment allows you to find out and target high-value potential contacts more easily. When the data is enhanced and updated on a regular basis, it's easy to keep a track of the major clients and their expectations. Data enrichment provides comprehensive information regarding the company size, revenue, marketing tactics, and technology stack. With all such data, you can tailor your marketing strategies, pitch to a very niche and specific client segment for sales, and keep your outreach messages very specific and to the point. You can address the major pain points of every potential contact and turn them into a client real quick!

2. Enhance Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems

Up-to-date database with relevant information helps you maintain in-depth records of your clients in your CRM system. You can refer to these quickly as and when required and extract out the most recent and valuable details about them.

For example, If your database carries client account profiles, their contact details, and purchase history listed accurately, you can proactively target them for your outreach efforts. You can send them newsletters, inform them about any new product launch or service expansion, share your thought-provoking insights with them, and identify the upsell opportunities. When client details are constantly fed and updated in your CRM system, it lets you create more personalized solutions for them, which in turn makes them feel valued.

3. Gain competitive advantage

The value and importance of B2B data enrichment is unmatched when it comes to gaining competitive advantage. For instance, if you are a part of the financial services industry, having access to real time market data lets you analyze financial trends, find opportunities, and mend your investment services faster compared to your competitors. In such a challenging market, your quick opinions and actions on government behavior, changing tax policies, or return rates establish you as a key player. Potential clients consider your voice as highly informative and credible which in turn encourages them to choose you for investments compared to your competitors.

4. Improve Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

ABM is a specific approach wherein companies majorly focus on engaging and designing personalized marketing initiatives for some important clients. Such accounts usually have high value share and credibility in the market. Thus, directly targeting the marketing messages to them is essential for better relations and high revenue. Constant data enrichment helps in targeting newly growing high-value accounts, addressing their specific needs, and directly personalizing communication. The additional attributes and insights that you derive about such clients also lets you identify the scope of improvement and optimize your strategies to keep these clients hooked to your services.

5. Mitigate risks

Every time you turn to your database for deriving insights, any incomplete, obsolete, or inaccurate information you see there will be a nightmare for you. Regular B2B data enrichment helps you mitigate risks that might arise due to any strategies or decisions made after analysis of this outdated data.

For example, if you operate in the pharmaceutical industry and manufacture prescription medications you are bound to comply with a lot of regulatory measures for patient safety. There might be some side effects of your medicines or other adverse things too, data associated to which must be critically collected and analyzed. Enriched or real-time data about patient demographics, the severity of adverse reaction, and their medical history in such cases must be readily available for quick risk mitigation. In the short run, you can provide quick relief solutions to the patients and in the long run, this additional information about the side effects can be studied to take corrective actions.

Potential losses on various grounds when data enrichment is not done timely

Neglecting data enrichment services can make any company lose battles on multiple grounds! With such cut-throat competition prevailing in every industry, it becomes a necessity to update existing data. Accumulating high-quality information effectively and efficiently is a must to ensure that you are not missing out on the potential of your database! Some major grounds on which your company can face repercussions if your data is not regularly enriched includes-

1. Operational ground

Every department of your company depends on data in multiple ways. And if your information is not regularly updated, it would lead to operational inefficiencies in different departments. Some major operational disruptions that your company might face include:

• A variety of supply chain challenges on a day-to-day basis. If you own a product based firm, and the data about your inventory is not updated timely, you may face difficulties in order fulfillment as some products could be overstocked while others may be understocked.
• Client service failure issues due to lack of essential information. Your company may find it tough to resolve clients’ doubts and concerns. Let us say that your shipment data is not being tracked in real-time, this can cause communication issues as you would not be able to timely update the client about delivery estimates.
• Quality control complications arising out of limited or inaccurate data access. Let us say that your data is not continuously enriched about the product specifications, quality standard, and client feedback. This may lead to inconsistencies in the product quality which may hamper client experiences.

2. Resource allocation ground

As your manufacturing, marketing, sales, advertising, and all other departments work unitedly to achieve organizational goals, properly allocating the resources to them is a must. If your B2B data enrichment process is not done in time, you may lose out on equally allocating the resources as per the demand. There can be underutilization of resources such as the machinery or manpower of a certain department lying idle because of no update on what to work on! A vice-versa situation may even happen where there is a chance of overstaffing where people work on outdated data without proper information about the real-time needs.

3. Decision making ground

Whether daily, monthly, or yearly, every decision made in your company largely relies on the latest information about market trends, customer behavior, and internal operations. Without timely data enrichment, it is almost impossible to design scalable strategies. It is also possible that when decision makers do not have the right information at their disposal, they may rely on outdated details or gut feelings to take actions. This increases the chances of inaccurate targeting, ineffective strategies, or biased decisions. When your data is not fed with new information, you may lose out to keep up with the emerging trends, ultimately causing wrong decision making.

4. Client satisfaction ground

When data is not enriched regularly, you can find challenges in understanding the needs, expectations, and buying preferences of your clients. Something that was high in-demand a few months back might not be as relevant for your clients now. And access to this information or buying trends is only possible with B2B data enrichment. As your clients are always at the focus while planning and implementing all your policies, strategies, and plannings, it is essential to have up-to-date data associated with them handy. Obsolete data can lead to missing out on opportunities for cross selling and up-selling. You may also find it challenging to customize the services which may lead to loss of client satisfaction and retention.

5. Sales and revenue ground

Loss on monetary ground is a major issue that your company has to undergo due to ineffective or no data enrichment process in place. It is also possible that:

• Your sales, marketing, advertising, or promotional strategies may not be precise enough to engage your client base, leading to loss in revenue generation.
• Without up-to-date information about the clients, your sales team will find it tough to recommend them new products, or existing upgrades resulting in missed revenue potential.
• The crucial aspect of prioritizing leads may be lost. There may be less information about lead characteristics and their engagement levels. Owing to this, the sales team might end up targeting the low-quality leads while they may overlook the high potential ones.
• On the sales and revenue front, customer churn and attrition needs to be timely addressed, which is not possible with outdated data. It is essential to timely detect and resolve instances of customer dissatisfaction and concerns which may otherwise cause loss in recurring revenue.
• Your pricing strategies may not be optimal leading to reduction in sales. Having enriched data about market dynamics, customer buying patterns, and competitor pricing is a must to build and target a lucrative customer base. If all this information is not collected and analyzed timely, you may end up pricing your products too low or too high causing revenue loss.

Prioritizing data enrichment is a must!

Neglecting data enrichment never helps companies aiming to grow and expand. The collection of data is never enough to drive success, it is the constant enrichment and upgradation of this data that lets you utilize its overall potential. The addition of updated and insightful information in your existing database brings a huge impact on your company’s overall performance.

Valuable data secures you from the risk of missing out on high return generating opportunities. B2B data enrichment has the power of shaping your overall resource allocation, decision-making, and client targeting strategies. Thus, the power lies in your hands where you must invest in the latest tools, technologies, and processes that facilitate the timely updation of your database. Your enriched data can come from internal systems, external sources, and third party databases which you should integrate into a single platform. Spend on high-tech data tools to identify and resolve errors in your data quality for better decision making. Procure high quality data management systems to store and synchronize data which can be easily accessed by decision makers across all departments. And if you find any of these tasks challenging, you can opt for a third-party data enrichment company to unlock the full potential of your databases.