B2B data may significantly influence a company’s performance. It enables them to take a comprehensive, unbiased picture of where opportunities and risks exist.
Companies use B2B data to understand other firms better, make better decisions, develop new business prospects, and support marketing and sales teams. While a few renowned B2B data companies like ZoomInfo and D&B Hoovers were the go-to data providers for many businesses just a few years ago, there has been a significant shift in the marketplace with the emergence of more agile, reliable, and efficient data providers. This is especially a boon for mid-market B2B companies that seek accurate and cost-effective data solutions. Today, there are top-notch data providers that you can evaluate if you’re exploring ZoomInfo alternatives. But, to choose the best from the rest, you need to understand the ins and outs of B2B data going into 2024 and beyond.
This article covers all that you need to know about B2B data. Whether you are just exploring B2B data or thinking about buying it, this article will help.
Let’s get started with a quick understanding of B2B data.
What is B2B Data?
B2B data (also known as Business-to-Business data) is information about other companies. B2B data is often comprised of a list or database of individual contacts with various data points that may be utilized for various sales and marketing operations.
Creating your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), demand development, lead generation, outbound sales, analytics, and other activities fall under this category.
What Are the Types of Data?
A good B2B communication database is the foundation of every effective marketing and sales strategy. It makes no difference if you have a small or large corporation. It is critical to have accurate information on your prospects and leads.
The more you understand your prospective customers, the more efficiently you can market to them, develop goods and services that match their needs, gain strategic insight, proactively recognize buying intent and behavior trends, and boost your chances of success.
Choosing the right B2B data will directly influence the effectiveness of your marketing and sales strategy. While traditional B2B data companies like ZoomInfo provide basic information about companies, contacts, and contacts’ details, gaining access to advanced data types often needs purchasing high-cost annual licenses that not all midsize teams can afford.
But, considering the competition in the current business environment, you need access to many B2B data types in your database. This data can ensure a more focused approach in your prospecting and targeted marketing activities and help deliver a more personalized sales pitch to your prospects and leads.
Firmographic Data:
Firmographic information includes both company-wide and specific user-level data. B2B segmentation using firmographics allows you to construct a picture of who your clients are to target specific markets with relevant content.
Firmographic data include details like:
- Annual Revenue
- Type of Industry
- Number of Employees
- Location(s)
- Decision-Makers
Although firmographic data alone will not suffice to develop highly relevant content for your consumers, it is an excellent place to start.
Contact Data:
In the context of lead generation, contact data is collected either internally by a company’s customer relationship management system (CRM) or externally by third-party data providers who aggregate this data from various sources or collect it from the public web using their infrastructure.
Contact data includes:
- Name
- Email Address
- Direct Dials
- Work Mobile Dials
It is always recommended to choose a data partner that offers work mobile dials or direct dials. The first advantage of having a prospect’s direct line is obvious: increased possibilities of engaging with decision-makers. According to a study, when salespeople phone a direct number
at the director level, they are 46% more likely to connect. At the VP level, direct calling increases the likelihood of your salespeople connecting by 147%.
Technographic Data:
Technographic data contains technologies that are used by the target accounts/companies, such as:
- SAP
- Salesforce
- Marketo
- Google Analytics
- Recently added technologies, and so on.
Strategic data frequently includes technology that clients are attempting to obtain. You may also use technographic data to understand better the technologies that complement your product or service. For example, if your product is well-suited to Salesforce customers, you will target high-value clients that use Salesforce, increasing your chances of closing a solid sale.
Intent Data:
Intent data analyze the intent of the people in your target accounts. Simply said, goal data shows where a prospect is on the buyer’s journey and whether they are a solid lead-to-account match. Firmographic and technographic data will assist you in sorting accounts, while intent data will give you information on the behaviors of the people behind these accounts.
The following are examples of intent details:
- Topics or keywords your target accounts/contacts are looking for
- Clicks on ads
- Participation in social media, etc.
The aforementioned are the must-have data sets to boost the sales process and close more B2B sales. You can dive deeper into each data set and its significance. Given that, you also need to ensure that the data you use is accurate and up-to-date.
The Crucial Role of Data Enrichment in B2B Data Acquisition for Mid-Market Companies in 2024
In the rapidly evolving landscape of B2B transactions, mid-market companies are realizing data’s pivotal role in driving success. However, more than merely acquiring raw data is required. In 2024, data enrichment will emerge as the linchpin for companies seeking a competitive edge and sustainable growth in their B2B endeavors.
Why Data Enrichment Matters:
Precision in Targeting:
Data enrichment empowers businesses to move beyond generic lead generation and delve into detailed, granular insights about their prospects. By appending additional information such as job titles, company size, and industry trends, mid-market companies can precisely target their audience, resulting in more meaningful interactions.
Enhanced Lead Scoring:
In 2024, customer intelligence is not just about quantity but quality. Data enrichment aids in assigning accurate lead scores by providing a holistic view of each lead’s behavior and preferences. This allows sales teams to prioritize high-value prospects, leading to more efficient and effective conversion strategies.
Personalized Customer Experiences:
Modern B2B buyers expect personalized experiences. Data enrichment equips mid-market companies with the necessary insights to tailor marketing content and communication, ensuring that interactions are relevant and resonate with the unique needs of each prospect or customer.
Staying Compliant:
With increasing data privacy regulations, maintaining compliance is paramount. Data enrichment helps mid-market companies ensure that the information they collect and use is accurate and up-to-date, minimizing the risk of regulatory violations.
Optimizing Website Forms with Data Enrichment:
Streamlined Form Filling:
Long and tedious forms can deter potential leads. Data enrichment enables companies to pre-fill certain fields, reducing the time and effort required for visitors to complete forms. This streamlined process enhances user experience and encourages higher form submission rates.
Real-Time Data Updates:
Keeping contact information current is an ongoing challenge. Data enrichment solutions offer real-time updates, ensuring that the information collected through website forms is always accurate. This not only saves time for the marketing and sales teams but also fosters reliable communication with prospects.
Personalized Content Recommendations:
By understanding the preferences and interests of website visitors through enriched data, companies can dynamically adjust the content presented with lead forms. This personalization not only engages visitors more effectively but also increases the likelihood of capturing valuable data.
Data enrichment is no longer a luxury but a necessity for mid-market companies aiming to thrive in the B2B landscape of 2024. It goes beyond mere data acquisition, providing the tools to understand, engage, and convert prospects into long-term customers. Moreover, when seamlessly integrated into website forms, data enrichment transforms the user experience, fostering stronger connections and driving business success.
Why is B2B Data Important in the Current Business Environment?
Whenever you have access to quality B2B databases, the following are the benefits that you will reap.
Get an In-Depth Analysis of the Data
You will have access to in-depth, accurate, and comprehensive information on the leads if you have numerous sources from a B2B data supplier. This data enables you to make more informed decisions, engage prospects, and offer the appropriate services to the right audiences.
This comprehensive data analysis guarantees that your sales force only spends time, energy, and resources on the correct customers. Multiple B2B data solutions make it easier to find and target prospects.
LinkedIn, for example, has a plethora of information. And it fuels its marketing initiatives using brand intelligence, human intelligence, sophisticated analytics, insight tools, and other resources. It also enables B2B firms to make better use of LinkedIn data in their marketing activities.
Boost Engagements with the Correct Strategies
All that remains is for you to develop the appropriate marketing approach based on your understanding of what your prospect is searching for or their issues.
Content marketing, believe it or not, triumphs in every manner. This technique can entice clients using emails, blogs, or any other content format to address inquiries or focus on current trends.
So, once you’ve determined who your audience is and what they require, all you have to do is create a tale around their problems and offer the finest answers. This method will increase engagement and result in the highest conversion rates.
Accelerate the MQL to SQL Stages
When converting marketing-qualified leads (MQL) to sales-qualified (SQL), data management is critical.
The value of B2B data sources resides in sourcing the MQL journey. The intent data informs you of the customer’s present condition, but it is critical to know if rivals engage the buyer in more appealing ways.
As a result, the finest B2B data suppliers will give integrated intent data to identify the sales path of MQLs. Once you know what, where, and when your consumers are looking for, you can effectively target them by tracking their activity.
Furthermore, you can target clients at their most active moments and on their chosen platforms with these B2B marketing datasets. This, in turn, aids in the acceleration of the vital stage of conversion.
You Have Access to Intuitive Solutions
Access to enormous volumes of data is simple, but access to accurate, filtered, objective, and actionable information is critical.
The best B2B data providers make your life easier by delivering simple solutions based on data from numerous data warehouses.
With access to the most accurate B2B database, your teams can process more quickly and objectively and are more likely to convert leads into clients.
Boost Your Revenue Operations (RevOps)
In the B2B market, RevOps is a new and crucial habit. It is an all-in-one solution that incorporates sales, marketing, customer success, and system operations.
As a result, the highest quality B2B sales lead database and B2B marketing database provides smooth sailing and revenue operations.
Because revenue teams have access to specific information when organizations use data efficiently, it helps them reach performance objectives. Increasing sales leads, developing tactics, assessing ICPs, increasing conversions, and growing brand value are all part of this.
Data Quality or Quantity, What Should You Prefer?
According to the typical sales or marketing technique, the wider your reach, the more opportunities you may produce. With this strategy, data volume comes first, while quality comes second. However, we must reevaluate and recognize that data consistency is now the most crucial criterion.
Quantity does not necessarily equal profit when it comes to numbers. Obtaining a vast database is not enough. It can muddy the waters and complicate decision-making, resulting in higher costs and lower output.
Assume you get 50 human-verified connections guaranteed to buy from you this year. However, you are provided with 20,000 completely random contacts who may or may not become your clients. So, would you rather have 50 confirmed ready-to-buy contacts than 20,000 contacts with no visibility?
While this is only one example of comparison, here’s an entire article that will help you decide between the two.
What is the difference Between Machine-Verified and Human-Verified Data?
Having an accurate list of data is a considerable difficulty since B2B data can be associated with various concerns, including data completeness, reliability, consistency, timeliness, relevance, redundancy, and so on. If your sales representatives utilize data that has yet to be rigorously verified, they are potentially wasting 27.3% of their time.
There are two primary data verification processes: machine processed and human-verified.
Machine-Processed Data:
A machine-learning method is utilized to gather (and validate) machine-processed data. The information is collected in bulk. For example, it will validate one email address format as firstname.lastname@companyname.com and create all other contact email addresses based on the same format.
Human-Verified:
Human-verified data, as the name implies, is data that has been confirmed by humans. Human-verified data is typically less in bulk than machine-processed data. However, you can always count on and trust human-verified data rather than machine-verified.
Data Compliance
SalesIntel is committed to protecting your data and respecting your privacy while adhering to ever-changing compliance standards. Many of our clients have re-examined their internal compliance procedures due to the roll-out of SalesIntel’s worldwide data and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Because we provide worldwide data to our clients, our steadfast commitment to data privacy extends to global standards such as the CCPA, GDPR, and the APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) System.
Choose Only the Right B2B Data for Your Business
It is possible that preparing your database will require significant time and work. Using a sales intelligence platform is the simplest way to do this.
Many B2B firms rely on a data partner to assist them in reaching decision-makers, allowing them to spend less time on database preparation and more on execution.
With so many B2B data partners and sales intelligence platforms to pick from, choosing one that fulfills your goals while offering reliable data within your budget can be challenging. Although picking who to cooperate with might be difficult, you can define a few factors when evaluating data partners.
Access The Must-Have Data at One Place with SalesIntel
Accessing data from several systems can be inconvenient and lead to human mistakes. SalesIntel gives all of the “must-have” data in one location to make this process quick, straightforward, and clean.
You can filter your data using SalesIntel based on firmographics, technographics, and Buyer Intent Data. You also gain access to VisitorIntel, which allows you to reveal the identities of those who visit your website.
Try it before you buy the subscription. Schedule a personalized SalesIntel free trial for your ideal customer profile.
