Fix B2B Data Challenges with the N.I.C.E Guide

One of the top challenges B2B marketers face in the US right now is their data. Whether it’s outdated, inaccurate, disengaged or simply not enough of it. The obvious solution is to gather more data that is accurate and relevant to engage with. However, data doesn’t stop at accuracy. How you manage and engage with your data is critical when running successful marketing campaigns.  Here are the key issues and solutions to solve your B2B data challenges:

Having strong creative, with an enabled sales team and accurate, opt-in data is only as good as the nurturing process you implement. Implementing the right nurturing process is the difference between quality, engaged lead data and a higher level of unsubscribes and opt-outs.

Don’t:

• Call someone after downloading a whitepaper (They will not want to talk straight away).
• Have sales reference what a prospect downloaded or that they picked up their org on your company’s website. 
• Send countless emails, multiple times a day, every day, in lieu of cold calls and call it ‘nurturing’. This can be as bad as a cold call straight after downloading. 

Do:

• Have methodical nurture streams laid out with relevant content, depending on the initial level of engagement, the persona and where possible, the industry and business unit/challenge - Understand what content you have available and what you need to develop to build out a multi-stream nurture series. 
• Give it time. Let a few days or a week go by before sending another email with relevant content. In the meantime, have your programmatic or remarketing running to keep your brand top of mind. Ensure a healthy supply of freely available content is hosted across your socials and website to encourage more engagement. 
• Monitor progression on the account. Look at historical data and map recent engagements to understand where they are in the buyer journey and track their overall engagement level through account engagement platforms that demand gen providers now provide as part of their offering. 
• Utilise data and demand gen vendors that have global databases of relevant, opt-in decision makers who can also utilise their network to drive more conversions across more of your ABM lists or target audiences.
  
  

2. Inaccurate data

Typically this challenge starts to become clear when SDRs begin their outreach activities. If the data is recently purchased or generated, ask which channel and vendor it came from. Ensure there are unique codes or identifiers so that you can accurately track the time and source of the data. Most reputable vendors will not provide you with out-of-date data and should replace free of charge. If you find it happens regularly then it’s time to change vendors. Implementing an enrichment strategy can also have a positive effect on your data - Establish how many people/departments are accessing and updating data on a regular basis and develop a strategy for 1-2 times a year to sanity-check a sample. If there’s an increase of 10% or more each time, it’s time to expand the sample, analyse the source of the data and look to a third party who can help enrich and update your outdated data. Always use a reliable vendor with access to a large and accurate database that also gathers the relevant opt-in permissions. 

3. Compliance/Opt-ins

Data compliance and opt-ins can be a minefield. Especially if you are operating in global markets. GDPR, CCPA, LGPD and POPIA are just some global and local legislations that Marketers are faced with and have to consider when performing outreach or utilising a global data and demand gen provider. Data without permissions can render it useless. Ensuring that any outreach consists of appropriate and compliant opt-ins is vital to ensure your marketing spend is generating data and leads that you and sales can actually use. 

Have you critically assessed your available data? Data is not valuable if there is no engagement or signals that indicate an interest. By this, we mean there needs to be ongoing nurturing and engagement reporting on each account. Maybe you have an internal scoring mechanism within your Marketo or Salesforce instance. Understand where each account is. How often they are engaging with your messaging (or competitors)? Are they visiting your website? Engaging with social posts or opening emails and attending webinars. Look beyond the MQL or SQL and determine where else and how your target accounts are engaging. Understanding when and how they engage will build a deeper understanding and opportunities to personalise outreach to resonate and engage more effectively. 

Takeaways:

1. Nurture your data correctly to avoid opt-outs, unsubscribes and disengagement.  
2. Regular audit your data, sources, and opt-ins and have an enrichment strategy 
3. Ensure you are adhering to local opt-in compliance and work with global vendors to ensure you are growing your compliant database at scale. 
4. Review historical and real-time engagement data on your accounts to establish which can be prioritised with sales, which need to be nurtured and which need to be updated. 

If you have another question or challenge around your data - whether it’s how to gather more or how best to engage it, contact the experts at B2B Media Group. We'll show you how our data, marketing services and engagement platform will help you drive better marketing outcomes, from data through to pipeline opportunities.