How to Target B2B Audience Using Right Data

Data does not come with any permanent seal. After a certain time, it will naturally expire. Then it would be of no use at all. If you keep retaining expired data in your database, it will start decaying over time.

Data decay is a serious operational threat. You need to prevent it as soon as possible; otherwise, it will impact your organization’s reputation. Mainly, your business can face two types of challenges if data decay remains in your database.

🔺️ First, overall performance decline
🔺️ Second, a decline in sales and marketing performance

Switching your data processing system manual to automated can help you extensively tackle data decay matters. It will automatically update all your records, even if you don’t provide any input.

Having a clean and accurate database is important for making informed decisions. Having a clean database also means;

Data decay is quite common and can be prevented if you plan it strategically. Your marketing database should not have any incidents of data decaying. For that, you need to stay current with your data practices.

In B2B, your primary target is the people who are positioned in different companies. So, it’s quite natural that they will change their jobs, get promotions for handling bigger roles, or switch their careers. There are many possibilities. If you do not keep at par with the changes, you’ll end up targeting the wrong person. At the end, your fixed marketing budget will be spent on onboarding misfit prospects. Basically, more pain for your marketing operations.

Hence, even if your target audience switches jobs, it will keep adding new data. Besides that, you can get updated industry information, track the target company, changes in their management structure, and so on.

Consider the following expert-approved strategies to prevent the issues of data decay. These strategies are quite ambitious, but you can make them better if you try them out on your own.

B2B database looks messy sometimes. But no worries, it happens only for a moment.

From the prospects to the years-old customers, the database accommodates all. Thus, it’s quite natural that some data can slip through the cracks. To prevent it, you need to create a database that you consider the single source of truth.

Manage all your golden records using the right methods and techniques to create a single source of truth. You can refer to your golden data at times of change to keep things on the right track.

Using CRM tools is the most popular and trusted way to build a CRM ecosystem. Tools help make as well as maintain the CRM database. To prevent mishaps or the issues of data decay, you need to make sure you enter the data in the right manner. A well-maintained CRM will enable your sales and marketing team to identify and analyze the sales pipeline easily.

In most organizations, email listing remains a problem area. From approaching your prospect to staying in touch with them, everything happens through emails. Therefore, complete maintenance of the email listing through verification is a must. Keeping inactive or invalid emails in your list can increase the risk of data decay.

Initiating data hygiene at regular intervals is the best way you can get done with data decay issues. Performing data hygiene at quarterly intervals can help prevent your database from storing bad data. It is quite an effective strategy and can help your organization fight bad data matters.

Any purchasing decision is made by a group, every time. Even if it’s for yours. It’s like every time you see something and get a desire to have that with you.

Well, in B2B, there are many people who influence purchase decisions. It includes people from the top to the bottom layers of organizational structure. Mapping the hierarchy is the best way to track the influences of your buyers.

Hierarchy mapping visualizes the organizational structure. You can map the hierarchy of your targeted organization instead of having an idea of a single individual. It provides a clear view of how a company operates internally. You can have an idea of how an entire buying team thinks.

An assessment of your B2B hierarchy will make it easy for your sales team to start connecting with them. Your team can approach the right person to close deals with. Also, it will take less time to complete a sales cycle overall. So, let’s look at the following section to understand how you can map the B2B hierarchy.

Imagine you’re the salesperson for Lato (a fictitious SaaS company). And, you’re supposed to conduct outreach on behalf of your brand. One day, while you are browsing through LinkedIn, you discover Mr. Radcliff, who is the founder of your targeted brand.

It was simple because Mr. Radcliff used the phrase “Founder” beside his name. Easy!

Like here, Karen is the hidden influencer. She works for Mr. Radcliff and makes all development-related decisions. Similar to this, there are many components that exist in an organization that sums up behind every decision.

If we further elaborate on the hidden influencers, we can get

Instead of approaching the founders, you can approach these people. These people have the capacity to make decisions on behalf of their organizations.

B2B buying committees primarily consist of the following people;

These people make the hierarchy, and you need to understand the hierarchy to start your marketing. Once you understand the broader decision-making ecosystem, you can simply target the right person and get your deal done.

Different groups of an organization want different things. The executives demand more business while the finance department wants great ROI. Understanding the hierarchy helps you approach them with the things what they want.

First, approach the influencers and try to address their concerns. Once they agree, you can switch to the next, which are the champions. And finally, you can end up with the decision-makers. Flowing in a sequence helps things to move forward.

B2B deals are not as simple as going and getting the Coke. It mostly comes with multiple threads. You need to connect with multiple people to crack multiple deals one after another to make one contract. When you know the hierarchy of an organization, it becomes much easier for you to contact people.

Once you figure out how you can deal with a complex sales cycle, there is nothing that can stop you. Hierarchy mapping is something that can help you get everything solved. Your sales cycle will become simple.

If you’re doing account-based marketing (ABM), hierarchy maaping is a must thing you need to do. It helps you design multi-touch campaigns within your buying group. Clear entry points define things in a more transparent way than other processes.

Mapping your buyers’ hierarchy provides you with great conversion rates and better ROI.

After you figure out the buyer hierarchy of your B2B audience, you need accurate data to draft to-the-point messages. Your simple “hello” and “what’s up” will not work here. All you need is accurate data to write your message.

Firmographic data can help. This data includes basic characteristics of the business. For example, the size of the company, the number of employees, the industry, the location, and many other things. Using firmographic data, you can segregate your market, identify ideal customers, build personalized strategies, and much more things.

Like the word “techo” is suggesting here, that technographic means the technology. It means this data includes key tools and technology that a company is using. Also, it sums up the answer to the following questions;

• Which software is the organization using right now?
• What kind of tech stack does the company currently own?
• How is the organization using various degrees of applications and managing them?

Technographic data reveals a lot about the processes, efficiencies, scale, and sometimes buying intentions.

The relevance of technographic data is that you can guess your prospect’s readiness to accept your products or services. Suppose you’re selling SaaS solutions. So if you find your prospect is using a legacy system, you can easily sell your solutions. All you need to do is explain the benefits your SaaS solution is offering to your prospects.

B2B databases or any database, for instance, are not immune to flaws. Inaccuracy, inconsistency, and GAPs would be there. But you need to indulge in a constant data-filling process to keep flaws out of your database.

Initiating the b2b data appending process to fill the gaps is a great way you start. Various software is available now that can help you append your data. Or you can trust professional data appending experts for the same purpose. Just make sure your data is complete and accurate.