“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.” – The Economist
It’s been almost five years since The Economist published the article with the aforementioned caption. It was already over a decade since the British mathematician Clive Humby coined the phrase “Data is the new oil.” Back then, many thought of those parallels as misnomers, but technology has grown leap and bounds since then; we now have a much better understanding of the rationale behind those statements.
Now, while we concur that data, indeed, is the most valuable asset any business can have in its arsenal, just like many, we also do have reservations about the correlation between data and oil. And rightfully so. For one, data, unlike oil, is not finite. Second, data can be reused and replicated without making any compromises on its quality. Thanks to the fantastic advancement in the field of data processing, one key aspect is “data enrichment,” and that is the focus of this post.
Through this article, we will explore different aspects of data enrichment, the benefits of data enrichment, and how data enrichment can help you drive your sales, marketing, and revenue growth optimally. Whether you are a business undergoing a digital transformation or are looking to capitalize on the changing business environment, here’s everything you need to know about data enrichment and perhaps understand why your business needs it.
Table of Contents
What is Data Enrichment?
Before diving deep into understanding data enrichment, let us set one thing right from the outset – Data Enrichment is not the same as Data Cleansing. While data cleansing process involves removing inaccuracies or redundant entries from the database, data enrichment involves enriching your datasets by combining them with external or third-party datasets.
With that out of the way, let us elaborate a bit on data enrichment.
Fundamentally, data enrichment is the process of boosting the accuracy of your existing database by combining the data that you already have in your database, at times referred to as “first-party data,” collected through internal sources like your subscriber forms, newsletter subscriptions, lead generation forms, etc., together with data gathered from third-party sources.
For the uninitiated, data enrichment can be defined as improving data quality using new data.
Depending upon the datasets you have or the business requirement, the methods of data enrichment can vary. However, in essence, there are three primary types of data enrichment. Let us have a closer look at all three types of data enrichment methods in detail.
Types of Data Enrichment
1. Behavioral Data Enrichment
Behavioral data enrichment requires you to add behavioral patterns to the dataset. These patterns can include likes, dislikes, areas of interest, and other parameters that can influence a user’s buying pattern. The most significant impact of behavioral data enrichment can be seen in your marketing and advertising efforts, as it allows you to create personalized campaigns for different datasets and have a focused approach to your marketing spending.
2. Socio-Demographic Data Enrichment
Socio-demographic data enrichment involves amending your dataset’s demographic data, such as income levels, marital status, etc. Socio-demographic data enrichment allows you to tweak your marketing messaging suitably to address the target audience. As a business, it allows you to target your prospects from a defined socio-demographic background and create your messaging accordingly.
3. Geographic Data Enrichment
Geographic data enrichment requires you to add geographical data to your database. It is worth mentioning that in a world where prospects frequently change their base locations, updating postal codes, cities, towns, or just the geographical regions in your database adds a wealth of helpful information for both the sales and marketing teams. Whether you are trying to launch a new product or service in a specific region, having geographically updated data gives you beneficial information helping you to make informed decisions.
Why Your Business Needs Data Enrichment Services?
The benefits of data enrichment services largely depend on the primary goal behind deploying or availing a data enrichment service. However, there are certain assured benefits that any business, irrespective of their goal & need for data enrichment, can expect.
Benefits of Data Enrichment
1. Focused Marketing Campaigns
The success of any B2B marketing primarily relies on the accuracy of the data used for the campaign. An effective data enrichment service can segment your data sets granularly based on your business needs, allowing for more focused and precise targeting with your campaigns. You can segment your data based on age, demographics, income levels, marital status, etc. to ensure that you are creating personalized messaging for each target group to resonate with them and consequently resulting in higher ROI.
2. Improved Customer Experience
Data enrichment enables B2B marketers to identify the segment of their customers who are most likely to make a purchase. With that insight, business leaders can design their strategy toward customer nurturing with a sole focus on messaging and content that will evoke positive affinity in the mind of the customers towards the product and service of the company.
3. Data Enrichment Aids Cost Saving
Geographic data enrichment requires you to add geographical data to your database. It is worth mentioning that in a world where prospects frequently change their base locations, updating postal codes, cities, towns, or just the geographical regions in your database adds a wealth of helpful information for both the sales and marketing teams. Whether you are trying to launch a new product or service in a specific region, having geographically updated data gives you beneficial information helping you to make informed decisions.
Data Enrichment Improves Sales Metrics
Creating marketing or sales campaigns with redundant or obsolete data sets is like shooting in the dark; you can try as much as you want, but it will never result in any meaningful conversion. If you’re a small or medium-sized business, these are the losses that you cannot afford. Thus, you must have an accurate and clean contact list to improve your sales number and get the maximum return on your investment. A data enrichment service can enable it all for you.
Data Enrichment is a Continuous Process
Unlike most business processes, data enrichment is not something that you do once and can forget. It is an ongoing process. No matter how you gather it, your data will continue to change, evolve, or will always have some meaningful insight that you can extract, and to ensure that you make the most of it all, you will always need data enrichment. Businesses overlooking continuous data enrichment often spam their prospects with irrelevant offers, information, and communication, eventually hampers their brand. If you do not want to be one of those businesses, we have the data enrichment solutions and tools to take care of it for you. Email us at: [email protected], and one of our data experts will reach out to you promptly.
