Understanding Data Hygiene and Data Enrichment

You know that you have a fantastic sales staff, but they seem to be struggling this quarter. Although it’s possible that they have all suddenly grown lazy, it’s more likely that they are struggling to make sales with faulty or incomplete data. 

As company turnover increases, especially in the past year with the Great Resignation, it has become more difficult for sales teams to maintain an accurate client database for business-to-business (B2B) sales. Data is going stale faster than ever, and it has become nearly impossible for companies to keep up with cleaning their databases on their own. 

Enter database hygiene. Data hygiene is a collection of techniques companies use to ensure that their databases remain complete and error-free. While companies sometimes choose to do their own database hygiene, many choose to use an external service to improve their contact information. So let’s look at some of the ways companies can use database hygiene and the ways that companies can find the right database hygiene service.

Data Hygiene

Data hygiene is the ongoing administrative process of ensuring that a database is accurate, complete, and free of errors. By systematically identifying and correcting (or removing) corrupt, incorrectly formatted, duplicate, or incomplete records, data hygiene functions as a maintenance protocol that preserves the integrity of a company’s CRM. This practice ensures that sales and marketing teams are working with high-quality information, thereby reducing “bounce rates” and preventing the wasted effort associated with reaching out to invalid or outdated contacts.

Once upon a time, companies could maintain their own databases. They would have the same contacts for each company year after year, so updates were few and far between. Fast forward to today, and there is a far different picture. Companies that could once keep their own database clean are now struggling to keep up with the flood of changes and massive growth of available data. 

There are two database hygiene techniques that have become essential for companies to make work easier for their sales staff and keep their databases relevant year after year: data cleansing and data enrichment. What is the difference between these two techniques and when are they appropriate to use?

What is B2B Data Cleansing?

B2B data cleansing is a database hygiene technique that identifies and removes inaccurate or incomplete information from your client lists. Often described as “taking out the trash,” this service combs through your database to replace stale data points with updated records. It is an essential practice for companies that want to maintain a few key fields like names and phone numbers for every prospect without letting the database go empty.

Think of data cleansing as taking out the trash. Data cleansing services comb through your B2B database and find inaccurate or incomplete data and remove that data. Then these services replace that stale data with updated data points. 

This second point is key. If data cleansing services simply removed faulty data without ever replacing it, you would soon find yourself with an empty database. Data cleansing is a great database hygiene practice for companies with only a few fields in their database that they want to be filled for each client. 

For example, if you only wanted to see the address, phone number, and name of a decision-maker for all of your prospects, data cleansing would be a good service for you. 

What is B2B Data Enrichment?

B2B data enrichment is a hygiene service that adds supplemental data points to an existing database to provide a full background on your prospects. Not only does data enrichment find and replace stale data, but it also fills in the “cracks” in your database by adding new information. This ensures your records are watertight and gives sales reps the background data points needed to build better rapport.

However, most salespeople will tell you that details are essential and that it is always best to have as much info as possible for all of your prospects. Even if you do not use all of the information for each prospect, those background data points can be helpful while you try to build rapport with your prospect. 

Data Enrichment helps you get all of the information possible on your prospects. Not only does data enrichment find and replace stale data, but it also adds data points to your database to help you have a full background on your prospect. 

What are the Benefits of Data Enrichment?

The benefits of data enrichment are the time-saving and market-segmenting advantages that come from maintaining a complete and watertight database. By ensuring salespeople do not have to chase dried-up leads, data enrichment allows teams to divide their market into more specific parameters. This enables companies to offer regional promotions, such as offering snow tires to clients in specific geographic locations rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Think of data enrichment as filling in the cracks in your database. When you enrich your data, you ensure that your data is watertight and you have all the information you need to make the sale. 

Data enrichment will save your company time because your salespeople will not have to chase down dried-up leads or find new contact information for prospects with stale data. 

Data enrichment also helps you segment your market because it gives you more parameters to divide your market. For example, if you have complete location data on your prospects, you can segment your market and offer promotions for regional needs. If you are a tire company, you could make sure you offer snow tires to your clients in the American Midwest and not Florida. 

How Can You Get the Most From Database Enrichment?

Getting the most from database enrichment is a strategic process that involves vetting your data provider and service to ensure they can completely fill the gaps in your system. Taking this step ensures that the investment in enrichment results in strong data that your team can actually use. Vetting helps confirm that the service can provide the specific background information your sales staff needs to close deals.

After deciding to get their data professionally enriched and finding money in the budget for data enrichment services, many companies pat themselves on the back, thinking their work is done. However, there are a few steps that your company can take to make sure you make the most out of your database enrichment. 

You will need to vet your data provider and your data enrichment service. You want to make sure they will provide you with strong data and that they will be able to completely fill the gaps in your database. 

How Do You Find the Right Data Provider?

Finding a data provider is a selection process focused on identifying a company that offers a strong, accurate foundation for your data projects. When evaluating providers, it is important to check reviews and investigate their verification methods. Knowing whether a provider relies solely on AI or uses real people to verify their records is essential for ensuring the data you are enriching is accurate from the start.

Of course, data is the foundation of any data enrichment project. If you do not have strong data in the first place, you will not be able to get far enriching your data. As you look for a data provider, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Reviews can be truly insightful when choosing a data provider since companies are often open about their experiences with providers. You also want to look at the company’s methods for verifying data. Does the company only rely on AI to verify their data or do they use real people?

How Do You Find a Data Enrichment Service?

Finding a data enrichment service is a vetting process that prioritizes providers with strong customer service and flexible delivery plans. Because sales teams must work closely with the enrichment team, a quality service is one that offers clear communication and meeting-specific company timelines. Flexibility ensures the enrichment plan meets the unique needs and schedules of your organization.

Your next step should be to find the right data enrichment service. Your data enrichment service should have strong customer service and a flexible data enrichment plan. Customer service is essential because your sales team will work closely with the data enrichment team, and they need to be confident that they can get in touch with someone when they need help. 

You also need a data enrichment service that is flexible in their data enrichment plan. Different companies have different needs in terms of data enrichment timelines, and you want your service to meet your needs. 

The SalesIntel Difference

SalesIntel is unique because we offer both data and data enrichment services. We pride ourselves in offering our customers human-verified data, fantastic customer service, and flexible data enrichment to meet the needs of any company.