No matter how creative or high impact your B2B campaigns are, without good quality data, they just won’t deliver.

If you want to start Q1 strong, now’s the time to audit and refresh your B2B prospect database. This will ensure pinpoint accuracy, insights on key decision-makers and of course, volume – the perfect trio for maximising response. So, with this in mind, here’s our top tips to optimise your data for the coming year…

 

 

Appending your current campaign data set

A data append involves taking your current campaign data set and adding up-to-date contact information to these records. This will ensure you have the most accurate and high-performing database, boosting response rates.

 Tip 1: Request a data append on your entire data criteria, rather than just your current contact list.

This will inject any newly incorporated businesses that have been captured by your data partner – growing your marketable database even further.

 

Expanding your data criteria

A revised data count will visualise your entire data universe by running data counts on your key criteria, mapping out exactly how many prospects you could be reaching in new markets. This will help you determine the best sectors for your campaign.

 Tip 2: Start broad and refine down for a highly targeted approach that avoids irrelevant records.

You can also use this process to select a sample from each industry you’re considering, and run segmented campaigns to this data, reviewing the results before committing to the full database.

 

Review the decision-making unit

If you’re only targeting one contact per business, expand your data criteria further to include multi-contact data for a range of job functions. Once you have your decision-maker split, you can segment your messaging to create a much more personalised campaign for each prospect in the decision-making unit.

 Tip 3: When targeting multi-contact, adjust the messaging based on the pain points of each decision-maker.

A marketing director will have different priorities and objectives than an MD – you need to leverage this in your communications to get the best results.

 

Analysis and segmentation

A segmentation analysis will help visualise your campaign performance to determine if you’re targeting the most profitable segments for your business with the right messaging. You can then review your messaging hierarchy, personas and historic campaign reporting to identify your strongest and weakest areas.

Tip 4: Run a spend analysis at the same time.

This will highlight where your revenue has been coming from historically – better placing you to allocate marketing budget next year, with the confidence that you’re putting it into the right channels.

 

Look-a-like

Look-a-like or propensity modelling analyses desirable traits or behaviours in your existing database to determine the type of records that are top contributors to your campaign engagement or bottom line. Once you have this, a data house can match this criteria against their database and present you with a list of ‘look-a-like’ businesses.

Tip 5: Run a look-a-like on ‘dream’ prospects.

This will ensure you are prospecting all the businesses you’d love to work with – it’s the best way to go if you want more of the types of high performing clients you currently have.

 

Choose the right supplier

When choosing a data supplier, it’s important to consider data usage, GDPR and importation in order to get the best possible outcomes, drive responses and keep your business compliant. We recommend the following…

 Tip 6: Follow the DMA and ICO guidelines for GDPR and ask your data partners to do the same.

With GDPR legislation now in place, it’s important to only use data partners whose licenses fit with your business’ GDPR stance.

 

Tip 7: Discuss the volume of sends within your marketing strategy to ensure you select the right licence.

Data lists are typically leased or licensed rather than purchased outright. These licenses are typically 12, 24 or 36 uses within the 12 month contract.

 

Tip 8: When importing data into your CRM system, remember to include the expiry date and some form of tag.

This will mean you can easily identify the records that came from the data house. It will also make it easy for you to keep track of the number of uses used throughout the year – ensuring you are compliant with your license.

 

Talk to the experts

Auditing and refreshing your data might sound like an overwhelming task, but that’s where we can help. Our in-house planning and data team will optimise your B2B database quickly, efficiently and compliantly – giving you more time focus on your other projects.

If this is something you’re interested in exploring further, get in touch on 02392 314498 or info@reallyb2b.com.