B2B Data Enrichment for Beginners

Your competitors use data to target your customers, discover unmet needs, and explore new markets. If you’re not using data to your advantage, you risk falling behind the rest of the pack. 

In a 2023 survey conducted by Gartner, customer service and support leaders cited customer data and analytics as a top priority for achieving their organizational goals. Specifically, these leaders were focused on growing their revenue and increasing operational efficiency with advanced data analytics.

To do that effectively and make fully informed decisions, you need the most complete, detailed picture possible. That’s where data enrichment comes into the picture.

In this blog post, we’ll explain what data enrichment is, why you need it, how it works, and how B2B companies can use enriched data to drive results. 

What is data enrichment? 

“Data enrichment” refers to the merging of third-party data from an external, authoritative source with an existing database of customer information you’ve gathered yourself. 

Third-party data could come from various sources, including social media platforms, mobile devices, and IoT devices. It’s any information that you haven’t collected on your own about your customers. 

Why do you need it? 

Data enrichment allows you to learn more about your customers. You gain a deeper insight into who they are and what they want. Here’s why every organization stands to benefit from enriched customer data:

• Targeted marketing. The more you know about your customers, the better you can tailor messages and offers that meet their needs.
• Better customer experience (CX). Enriched customer data enables personalized communications and service, which drives stronger loyalty and revenue growth.
• Insights about new market opportunities. When you have a data-informed vision of your customers, you’re better positioned to develop the right products and services to serve their unmet needs.
• Increased productivity. With a 360° view of your customer, your team will have all the information they need at their fingertips. That means no more time wasted hunting for information on LinkedIn or elsewhere around the web.
• Better data quality. Customer data quality decays quickly. By enriching your data with information from trusted sources, you can verify information and automatically update it when appropriate. Automating address corrections and updates, for example, increases accuracy, saves money, and improves customer satisfaction.

How does data enrichment work?

Here’s what the data enrichment process looks like: 

• Aggregating data from a variety of sources
• Putting the data through ETL processes to ensure they’re useful and clean 
• Appending contextual information to your existing data 

There are two ways to put these processes into action: manually or through automation. Manual data enrichment is a lengthy process that often results in errors. Automation, in contrast, can help you mitigate errors and ensure accurate results. Whichever way you choose to enrich your data, the value lies in the context and insight you will bring to your business. 

How B2B clients can use enriched data to drive results

In the B2B space, three outcomes of data enrichment stand apart as being especially impactful:

• Enhanced customer segmentation supports targeted marketing and helps companies to identify potential new business opportunities. By segmenting your customer list into groups that suggest common needs and buying triggers, you can improve the overall effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
• Better personalization is especially important in today’s digitized marketplace. Consumers are 80% more likely to make a purchase when offered a personalized experience, and less likely to move to your competitor. Increasing retention by as little as 5% can boost profits by as much as 95%. 
• Outstanding customer experiences (CX) occur when your business understands and anticipates each client’s needs. Enriched customer data and best-in-class customer engagement technology enable companies to deliver outstanding CX at scale, using automation. Whether it’s a high-touch person-to-person interaction or a web-based inquiry, your customer interactions will be better because you are fully informed with high-quality data.

B2B data enrichment examples

There are myriad ways that data enrichment can benefit your business. Precisely has worked with customers across various industries to develop data-driven strategies for growing revenues, increasing operational efficiency, planning and expansion strategy, improving the customer experience, and more. 

Here are a few use cases that illustrate the value of data enrichment and may prompt ideas about how data enrichment can help your organization specifically:

• Retailers use enriched data to analyze competitors, identify and assess potential new target markets, and increase revenue using location-based marketing messages.
• Insurance carriers improve the accuracy of underwriting processes by adding rich location context to their data about insured properties, as well as their policyholders.
• Telecommunications companies build market share by spatially enriching customer data records with parcel boundaries and building footprint data.
• Financial services organizations use the context of location and demographic data to improve targeted services, ease anti-money laundering compliance, enhance fraud detection, and better understand customers, merchants, and ATM locations.

Precisely offers a broad range of data integrity products and services. Together, these help businesses, governments, and NGOs to improve their services, enhance customer experiences, grow revenue, and operate more efficiently.

Our Enrich products power enhanced decision-making with expertly curated, up-to-date business, location, and consumer data. Explore the Precisely Data Guide to find the data you need to gain insight, drive growth, and minimize risk.

To learn more about how data enrichment can help you unlock valuable, hidden insights and reveal critical relationships for better business decisions, download your free copy of our ebook, Six Steps to Sourcing Enrichment Data.

Frequently asked questions about data enrichment:

• How is data enrichment useful for my business? 
  Data enrichment can be useful in a variety of ways. Targeted marketing, enhanced personalization, and improved customer service are common goals for many organizations. There are likely use cases that apply to your specific industry as well, such as fraud detection in financial services or site selection in retail and hospitality. 

• What is the difference between data enrichment and data quality?
  Data enrichment adds context to existing data sets, making them more valuable, meaningful, and actionable. Data quality refers to the accuracy, consistency, and completeness of data. Data enrichment can improve data quality by verifying and updating information using trusted outside sources.

• How can I find sources of high-quality data for enrichment?
  Not all providers of data are created equal. Look for a reputable company that curates its data carefully using trustworthy sources. Data enrichment providers should also update their information routinely to ensure that it accurately reflects current reality. Finally, look for a company with global reach, offering data for all the places you do business. Check out the Precisely Data Guide to learn more about our data enrichment offerings and find out why Precisely is a global leader in trusted, curated data. 
• Is data enrichment a one-time event, or an ongoing process? 
  That depends on your objectives. In most cases, it pays to update your enriched data routinely so that you’re working with the most current information available. Customer information, for example, needs to be refreshed frequently to ensure that names, addresses, and relevant demographic information are still accurate.