How effectively are you using B2B data?

Last week, I wrote a post, Lift Revenues 70% By Cleaning Up Dirty B2B Data. Vaibhav Domkundwar from Ready Contacts posted a comment which included this statement:

"Every SFDC customer who adopted web-based CRM over the last 1-5 years is at a point where they are realizing how out-of-control their data is and how critical it is for them to get it in order."

His comment inspired me to think about not just the cleanliness of data, but how effectively we're using what we collect in our sales and marketing efforts. 

Given the growth in the amount of data we can collect—and how "out of control" it's getting—we need to start thinking about which of it is most important to the outcomes it can help us achieve. We only have so much time and we're being charged to do more than ever with our marketing and sales efforts.

Data is pretty much the holy grail for e-marketing where how well you're able to  monitor behavior and read between the clicks and dialogue of online interactions plays an increasingly important role in the success of your marketing efforts. How we pass those insights on to sales and circle back to learn what they've done impacts what marketing actually contributes to company objectives.

Funnily, this process has become how we get to "know" our prospects. So it makes sense that it's kept up-to-date and that we use the information wisely.

Based on our goals of offering better experiences because we actually "know" our prospects well enough to offer relevant and valuable content they need, we need to focus on paying attention to the information that helps us meet that goal, as well as sets us up for the next one.

Different goals require specific insights. In order to reduce information overload to an actionable data set, we need to start thinking strategically about which information will help us achieve each goal. Otherwise we can lose the trees in the forest.

And, it goes without saying that if it's information you have to ask for, your prospects' willingness to fill you in has limits. Remember that actions often speak louder than words. Plus actions may be all you have to go on until the prospect decides to engage in dialogue.

There's an abundance of data that can be collected and behaviors that can be monitored. What's important is the contribution the data makes to the effectiveness of your initiative.

For each campaign you plan, you need to determine which data will help you achieve your stated goal. You may think you know a whole lot about your prospects, but demographic information isn't necessarily the most actionable.

Consider these data observation points:

Recency - When was the last time the prospect accessed your information? If you haven't seen them in 5-6 months, it's likely your short-term value has diminished for them.

Frequency - Does their behavior indicate they find continuous value in your content, or was it just that one white paper download?

Depth - Do they read just the content at the end of the link you send them or do they reach farther into your expertise on related topics?

Participation - Do they comment on your blog, reply to your emails or submit inquiries on your website? Do they fill in the "optional" fields on your webinar registration forms? And, do they actually attend the events?

Breadth - Do you have more than one contact at that company who's given permission for you to send them email? How do the behaviors between all of these contacts match up?

That lift of 70% in revenues based on clean data isn't just because it's clean. It's based on how well you can take action that validates what you think you know by creating valuable interactions embraced by the prospect on the other end.

Comments

[Adam Blitzer]

Clean data really cannot be stressed enough. I find the these three things that really help (at least for leads captured via the web):

1. Automatic deduplication at the web form level -- the same person filling out the form multiple times only creates one lead/prospect (but you still capture the activity).

2. Data validation at the form level (checking the email address in real-time to make sure it is real).

3. Limiting choices via drop downs instead of free-form text. This makes fields like industry, job title, etc. much more usable later.

[Vaibhav Domkundwar - ReadyContacts.com]

Ardath, thanks for referencing my post and for a really good elaboration of it - much better than I could have articulated it :)

We are working on a product in this space along with a SFDC application and I will definitely ping you when its ready for alpha testing. Marketing database management is growing into a big problem and hence an opportunity for innovation.

[Hana]

Thank you for this article. I definitely agree. We use web hosted CRM application and I feel like we have too many useless information and out of date information that we need to really take some time and clean it up to make it more efficient for us in order to better utilize the marketing effort.

[Ardath Albee]

@Vaibhav - You're welcome and I'm glad you liked my elaboration :-) I look forward to seeing what your new product will enable.

@Hana You're welcome and good luck with your efforts. According to the research, it's definitely worth working on!