Business-to-business (B2B) data is information that provides valuable insights into other businesses, such as contact info, current financial standing, employee count, social media activities, etc. Utilizing B2B data allows you to discover sales and marketing opportunities that will further propel your business to the next level.
Where does B2B data come from?
Generally, there are two places where we can gather B2B data for our usage: internal sources and external providers. A sizable company that has been in the market for a while often already has B2B data to utilize, including existing CRM data, customer contact information, engagements on social media, etc. These are your internal sources.
Most of the time, however, internally sourced data is incomplete and requires additional data to fill in the gaps to be functional. Additionally, B2B data sources may become stale as time goes by. Companies may change their contact information or replace their decision-makers.
This is where external B2B data providers come in. They provide fresh and complete B2B data, allowing you to gain valuable insights and act upon them.
How do external providers gather the data?
These external providers are a godsend if you have no idea where to look for proper B2B data. These providers mine data from multiple sources. They slog through public records and databases to gather necessary insights, such as financial filings, industry reports, etc. By closely monitoring data points and verifying them, they can ensure that the B2B data is fresh and complete before sharing it with their customers.
Compliance
With all that said, be aware that your B2B data providers must comply with industry standards and government regulations.
For example, some governments have laws that protect their citizens' privacy, like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the EU. In addition, having independent audits for standards such as SOC-2 ensures that your requested B2B data has high availability and accuracy and is secure from cyberattacks.
B2B data providers that comply with industry standards and government regulations help to avoid legal repercussions, minimize risks, and increase customers' trust.
Collecting B2B data
You can start by gathering internal B2B data from your business and organizing it. As often as not, however, some context and data fall through the cracks, requiring further enrichment to realize their full potential. This is where we can scout for external B2B data providers to find the parts for our jigsaw puzzle of B2B data.
Use Sapiengraph to get B2B data
Yup, it’s us. Sapiengraph is a Google Sheets add-on that offers custom Google Sheets formulas that enrich the latest data on companies or their employees. Sapiengraph is compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and SOC-2, so you can use it worry-free.
To get started, sign up for a new account (for free!) with 100 free trial credits. Then, install the browser extension and the Google Sheets add-on.
Now, you can grab your desired data by using the custom formulas in Google Sheets. Suppose you want the email address of one of your leads, and you have their LinkedIn profile. You can use this formula:
=SG_PERSONAL_EMAILS("https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkevinscott/")
Now we get the email address.
That was easy, wasn't it? Of course, Sapiengraph can do more than just finding your leads' email addresses. Check out more formulas in our documentation to get other B2B data you need.
Utilizing B2B data
All that data would not work by itself, and realizing what you can use it for is the first step to reaping its benefits. Common uses of B2B data include generating leads, recruiting, and forming an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
Generating leads
When generating either marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) or sales-qualified leads (SQLs), it is critical to have accurate data on potential customers.
In the case of MQLs, marketers have to create content that may interest potential leads. Demand generation is easier when you know your audience better. With the help of B2B data, such as technographic or firmographic data, you will have insights into their needs and what attracts them. This knowledge could be used to sculpt your content to appeal to your target customers, engage them, and turn them into MQLs.
On the SQL side, B2B data utilization focuses more on individual data points like contact info and intent data. It is crucial to have complete and fresh data. Without it, it would be almost impossible for the sales team to perform B2B outbounds like cold calls, as these procedures often require updated contact data of the representative of the business. Similarly, intent data helps to get sales reps up to speed with the customers' wants and needs.
Recruiting
Assessing candidate fit is not an easy process. By analyzing competitors’ employee profiles, you can get a sense of what criteria you should be vetting when looking for your future employees. Additionally, your company might be looking for candidates with niche skills. Maybe your IT department needs a legacy system maintainer. Your talent pool might not meet the desired criteria, so leveraging B2B data, such as contact info and networks of desirable candidates, will help to expand your search space and provide sources for recommendations.
Identifying ICP
Not all the leads that you gather will eventually turn into sales. The business might be placed somewhere inaccessible by your product. Or they cannot afford to pay for them. Filtering these unusable leads helps save your sales department time and money.
ICP can be more accurately developed by analyzing B2B data, such as firmographic and technographic data, as it enriches your understanding of your potential customer base. Matching your potential market with your product capabilities is crucial to an accurate ICP. Having more data points to work from also allows you to refine and narrow down your ICP. You can also refine your existing ICP by keeping relevant B2B data updated. With well-defined ICPs boosted by B2B data, businesses can streamline lead generation and improve conversion rates.
B2B data utilization
Schneider Electric
Schneider Electric, a multinational company based in France, is a leader in energy management and digital automation, with over 36 billion euros in revenue in 2023 and 150,000 employees. Let’s see how Schneider Electric utilized B2B data to make an impactful change in their business.
Schneider Electric wanted to generate sales as efficiently as possible, so they turned their sights towards analyzing B2B data to find valuable leads more easily and faster. By integrating B2B data analytics tools, Schneider Electric obtained a tremendous increase in sales volume. Generating 500 sales opportunities isn’t an easy undertaking; each sales rep took three weeks to do this previously. After utilizing B2B data, they generated the same amount within one day. They were able to find needs for their specialized products unfulfilled by the current market more efficiently. What’s more, after the integration, 15-20% of their leads turn into happy customers—more than 2% compared to the past campaign with manual marketing work.
Shure
Shure is a well-known professional audio products company with almost 100 years of experience in the industry. Shure primarily provides meetings and online collaboration solutions for universities and businesses. Let’s take a look at Shure’s success with using B2B data to enhance their marketing efforts.
Shure was trying to push their products into the B2B market, so they needed higher brand awareness in B2B settings. Shure also wanted contact info for people from the IT departments of corporations, as these people are responsible for choosing audio solutions for the company.
Shure started by sourcing prospect-level intent data. They filled their B2B database with active buyers’ information, enabling them to gather valuable insights. By analyzing B2B data, such as technographic and firmographic data, improved Shure’s email nurturing strategy as they could segment and target email contacts more efficiently. Their enriched B2B database also allows Shure to perform intelligence on each account, uncovering needs and problems for each account and using them to figure out the best nurture track.
In the end, Shure’s B2B data utilization has been fruitful. Their B2B database has expanded by 44% in size since the integration. Overall, it would not be a stretch to say that Shure’s utilization of B2B data is a great success.
Final Thoughts
B2B data is a gold mine of possibilities in the business. It is not just about gathering pieces of information. Utilizing them cleverly drives concrete results. Try to leverage tools like Sapiengraph to gather B2B data and get insights that help you get a better business result!
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