You may be privy to the knowledge that companies are becoming increasingly driven by data analysis. With the rise of data collection and its importance there is an increase of new services provided by marketing teams to help businesses sort through and manage their digital findings. You have probably been told by your supervisor that there will be a bigger focus on database cleaning, data verification, data management, and data enrichment. This is a good thing! Honing in your company’s data supply will help your business succeed. In this article we will be discussing the importance of data enrichment. Once we cover the basics of data enrichment we will go over how it can help your business improve its sales conversions!
What is Data Enrichment?
Data enrichment is a common strategy that merges all kinds of data into one dataset. Missing or incomplete data lead to massive gaps in knowledge which can hinder decision making due to the lack of the full picture. Data enrichment is the solution to this specific problem. To provide your customers with the best customer service possible, you want to have as much data as possible that is readily available and organized. This strategy cleans and combines data from internal sources, contact lists, social media sites, and other third party sources into one dataset.
Data enrichment is essential for growing businesses for a multitude of reasons. Mainly it helps empower your team because they have more information to share with your customers. Customers may be asking questions you currently cannot answer because of gaps in your unorganized data. More knowledge equals more readiness. The more knowledge your team has the better service you will be able to provide which in turn will boost business in the long run.
What are Sales Conversions?
Sales conversions are all about company growth! Sales conversions refers to the sales conversion rate metric in which a sales team converts potential customers into new customers. This is used by both marketing and sales teams within a company. They actually work in tandem with one another to sign on new clients. One example of how this works is a marketing department will host a recruiting event. Based on the results of the event it is then the sales department to recruit those who participated into doing business with their team. It is a collaborative effort that benefits everyone involved!
The rate of which growth is calculated is simple. Take the above example. A marketing department holds an event in which 50 potential customers participate. If ten of those fifty potential clients decide to do business with you the sales conversion rate would be 20%. Obviously you want the highest percentage possible. Sales conversions can be directly impacted by data enrichment.
Types of Data Enrichment
There are a few key types of data enrichment. Before you implement data enrichment as part of your growth stradey, it is important to understand how each type is different from each other. Some major differences between each type is if they are collected internally or externally. Meaning are you collecting first party data or third party data.
First party data includes data collection from internal sources such as your website, apps, or other internal databases. Third party data is collected not in house and is sourced from other providers where your company can purchase access to their collected data. Between both first and third party sources, there are three main types of data enrichment.
Behavioral data enrichment focuses on customer behavior. Its purpose is to detect patterns by looking at your customer’s profiles.This kind of data can be collected by both first and third party sources. Your company will look for patterns in the following list of data sources: pages visited, links clicked, items added to cart, login dates, messages sent and received, subscriptions, account creation date, ads clicked, emails opened, etc.
Demographic data enrichment focuses on less specific data. Its purpose is to see what is around a customer’s dataset. Your company will look at the following list to enrich its data: customer’s job title, customer’s marital status, customer’s address, customer’s income, customer’s lifetime value, customer’s order history, etc.
Geographic data enrichment focuses on specific location details about your customers. Your company will pay attention to the details of a customer’s physical location including: time zones, IP addresses, zip codes, etc. Collecting this kind of data allows your company to hone in on its sales within a specific region.
How Does This Benefit My Business?
There are so many benefits when it comes to data enrichment specifically when it comes to growing your sales rate. Every company has first party data, which is a great start but does not provide the full picture. Investing in third party data allows you to fill in the missing data gaps finally allowing you to see all the details. One of the major benefits impacts the sales team directly. Data enrichment allows for more researched sales prospecting. When your sales team has the full picture regarding their potential customers they are able to better pitch to their potential customers to do business with. In the long term this will boost your company’s sales conversion rate!