What’s Your Business Data Missing?

 

In its third annual “State of Marketing Data Benchmark Report,” researchers at Dun & Bradstreet NetProspex found that most B2B marketing databases are either incorrect or incomplete.  No surprise, right?

 

What might throw you off your chair, though, is the sheer volume of missing information.  Researchers studied over 223 million files logged in 2014 and discovered that 62% of the files contained email deliverability problems and nearly 70% lacked industry or revenue data (and that’s not to mention the over 40% were missing contact information).

 

With data at the center of the new B2B marketing world, incomplete records are the bane of your company’s existence.  As technology continues to drive corporate efficiency, the effectiveness of data in your B2B strategy cannot be overemphasized.  So, what to do?  We recommend a two-step process.

 

Data Quality

 

Contact information is great, but it can only take you so far.  The better strategy is partnering with a company or tool that can provide in-depth analytics that can drive sales.  For instance, rather than focusing on emails or phone numbers, instead pay attention to behavioral data (web and social interactions) or historical data (previous purchases and requests), each of which contributes to a more complete picture of your customer (how your consumers interact across all channels).

 

Integrate

 

Once you understand the quality of the data you’re trying to cultivate, find your consumers’ pressure points in terms of how and where they interact.  One of the more common mistakes in this process is to start the integration procedure by casting your net too wide.  Instead, pinpoint three or four consumer interaction points and start there.  Then, as the picture gets more and more complete, you can begin adding new points of interaction.  The key here is to understand that your customers don’t interact with your brand and your products via one source, and then to integrate everything into a coherent structure, while trimming away the fat that you don’t need—transforming these seemingly unrelated data points into groupings and topics that can benefit your bottom line.

 

Curious about how to incorporate business intelligence into your B2B sales and marketing strategy?  mreiber@axiomcom.com