5 Data Hygiene Best Practices for B2B Companies
Data decay is one of the biggest challenges faced by B2B businesses today and therefore they must focus on data hygiene best practices. Data of B2B marketplaces decay at a rate of 70.3% per year leading to huge revenue losses. Dirty data can ruin your B2B platform business due to ineffective targeting and poor customer experience.
There are multiple ways in which dirty data manifests in your system. Poorly managed data can lead to inaccurate, obsolete, duplicate, unclean, and inconsistent data playing havoc, making it crucial to prioritize data quality.
According to a survey, 94% of companies reported that the increased investment in data hygiene improved their performance vis-à-vis companies that decreased their investment in data.
5 Best Practices for Maintaining B2B Data
Data hygiene challenges don't have a single solution nor is it a one-time job. Data hygiene is something that needs to be executed regularly.
1. Deploy a Data Audit Plan
About 27% of business leaders aren't sure how much of their data is accurate and therefore the first step in maintaining data hygiene is to assess the data quality. Data audit gives clarity on the records that need correction; a kind of inspection of your records.
Evaluate all data in your system and based on your assessment decide on the records that need removal, enrichment, deduplication, etc. Create a data quality key performance indicator (KPIs) to track data health. This is not a one-time process; data requires regular audits using different tools and techniques. With a huge flow of data from multiple sources and a fast rate of data decay, a B2B marketer needs to stay alert.
Top 4 benefits of regular data audits
- Helps in evaluating data quality
- Quick identification of spots that require attention
- Data mapping gets simpler
- Attract relevant stakeholders
2. Leverage Data Cleansing Services
Data cleansing is the next important step as poor data is a serious problem causing heavy revenue loss to B2B companies or marketplaces. Dirty data problems manifest in form of duplicate, incomplete, invalid, conflicting data, etc. Flushing out redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data from the database should be the priority. Data cleansing ensures every marketing communication reaches the right target.
Data cleansing using macros, custom tools, plug-ins, and manual data cleansing techniques have an edge due to their logical reasoning abilities that can never be programmed. Checking data at the entry point ensures that all information is standardized making it simpler to catch duplicates. Data hygiene tools validate the accuracy of data in real-time. Append data using data captured through web scrapers and crawlers.
Top 4 benefits of B2B data Cleaning
- Cost-effective mailings
- Higher campaign response rates
- Removes duplicates for accuracy
- Accurate customer targeting
3. Standardizing Data at Source
Data captured from multiple structured and unstructured sources in various formats need standardization so that the data gets integrated into the system providing a single source of truth.
All numbers, monetary values, etc. need conversion to a consistent format; case sensitivity needs elimination; spellings and formats need normalization. The rule-based format is to be set for the way you write company names, job titles, phone numbers, emails, etc. When you standardize data, you establish clear, consistently defined elements and attributes along with proper understanding and analysis of data to glean actionable insights.
Top 5 benefits of B2b data standardization
- Cost reduction in all operations
- Enhanced customer acquisition
- Drive data-informed decisions
- Accurate data for better decisions
- Easy data access improves productivity
4. Create a Data Validation System
Your B2B data requires constant validation and verification to ensure the accuracy, relevancy, and validity of the data. The success of marketing campaigns of your clients depends on accurate contact details along with other demographic, technographic, firmographic, and social media information. Accurate contact data leads to less email bounces and higher lead conversion. Using macros, plugins and other techniques for data validation checks ensures that your B2B database remains current, relevant, and actionable all the time.
B2B businesses need to have a system in place where data is validated across the organization which makes is easier for you trust your data helping with targeted marketing campaigns. You can use macros and business rules to check and validate records while autonomous monitoring can track any change in data and update with real-time data.
Benefits of data validation
- Higher customer engagement
- Increased right party contact
- Better use of marketing budget
- Accurate data for better response
5. Append Data with Supplementary Information
Enhance your customer database by appending key data elements that will improve your business intelligence and marketing performance. Just validating and correcting the email or phone number is not enough. When it comes to B2B database you need to move a step further and append the data with additional information. It is like the more you know your customer the better you target them eventually driving higher conversions.
A comprehensive and compact database with additional information like customer’s tech stack, company demographic data, contact person’s personal details like birthdate, marital status, social media preference etc. empowers your campaigns enabling you to reach the right leads at the right time. Data append with new customer insights equips you to have a more personalized and meaningful connection with existing and potential customers. It gets you a laser-targeted list of segmented and highly responsive customers that ultimately delivers greater conversions and returns on your marketing investment.
Top 4 benefits that you will reap from b2b data append
- Accurate customer insights for targeted campaigns
- Reduce operational cost through high-quality data
- Reach the right leads at the right time
- Higher level of engagement with leads
Conclusion
Every database is vulnerable to data decay especially the B2B database because of frequent job changes, company mergers, internal transfers, etc. B2B data quality is critical to make it sellable. Good quality of your B2B data will help your clients to target customers effectively, create effective campaigns, build market reputation, and stay ahead in the competition.
Data hygiene is a complex process requiring multiple tools and technologies. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to take the help of data hygiene companies to maintain the quality of your B2B database all the time. Have an automation plan in place, invest in monitoring tools, and look for technology partners.
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