Data is the driving force behind every successful B2B sales strategy. We need good quality business data to point us towards the best leads and guide our sales outreach.

But the problem with company contact databases is that often they’re out of date and incomplete. In other words, unusable. In fact, it’s been reported that 49% of marketers don’t have confidence in their company’s data quality.

For sales teams, this means more time spent researching leads than actually selling to them.

Tired of losing time due to unusable contact data? There is a solution: Data enrichment, a technique used to improve lead quality and create an actionable database. 

In this article, discover data enrichment, its uses, how to enrich B2B data and data enrichment examples. 

What is data enrichment?‍

Data enrichment (or database enhancement) is the process of adding details to existing contact or company information. It’s about filling in the gaps with important insights to create a ‘richer’, more complete profile.

What makes this process so worthwhile? 

When you first capture a lead, you get a handful of details such as the name, email address, and company. But it’s usually not enough to qualify a lead or plan a personalized outreach campaign. 

By enriching or enhancing lead data, it gives more context to each opportunity. And the more you know about a lead, the better chance of converting them.

With publicly available information, you can enrich data using one of these techniques:

• Automatically extracting web data with a scraping tool like Captain Data, then importing it to a CRM or Google Sheets (the easiest, most flexible method)
• Manually researching a lead on Google or LinkedIn, then adding information to the database
• Using a B2B data enrichment software with its own database of contact information
  

The benefits of automated data enrichment for sales teams‍

How to get lead data quickly without losing hours in research? That’s the challenge for sales.

Before contacting a lead, you do your research on Google and LinkedIn. Add the findings to the CRM. Rinse and repeat for each lead. Before you know it, the hours start to clock up.

So when you think about it, it’s not surprising that sales reps only spend one-third of their time actually selling. 🤯

Automated data enrichment saves time because it fetches the information for you. 

A data automation platform like Captain Data gives sales teams a way to:

• Scale lead data collection
• Set up repeatable automated workflows for a constant supply of enriched data
• Unlock the data sources that bring value to the business
• Qualify and segment leads
• Gather insights that can lead to a new sale
• Get a complete overview of a target account including location, size, and sector of activity (important for ABM strategies)
• Anticipate a prospect’s needs and connect with them through personalized messaging
• Update existing data to avoid chasing unsuitable opportunities
  

9 uses for data enrichment

‍1. Reduce the size of lead gen forms

Capture first, enrich later.

Who’s going to fill out a form with 10 information fields?!

The shorter and simpler the contact form, the higher the conversion rate. 

Data enrichment gives you the possibility to keep forms as simple as possible. Only ask for essential details such as the name, email address, and company. 

Once you’ve got the lead, enrich the profile with details such as job title, phone number, company address, number of employees, sector of activity, etc. 

2. Identify and remove form fields that turn people away

Did you know that asking for a phone number decreases lead gen form conversion by 5%?

Leads are often reluctant to hand over certain information such as turnover, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, address, etc.

But with data enrichment, you don’t have to force it out of them there and then. You can retrieve it separately. 

Simply remove the form fields that have a negative impact on conversion and gain more leads in the process.

‍‍‍3. Segment and structure data

Data enrichment can be used to give messy, badly formatted data an organized structure.

By focusing on the data that’s most relevant to the business, putting an emphasis on data quality.

With Captain Data you can choose whichever data points and sources you want to pull information from.

Once you’ve got the data, separate leads into segments based on shared characteristics.

Use the segments to create email lists and target audiences for ads. And with that, you’re all set up to run targeted outreach campaigns 🚀

‍4. Better personalization

‍Personalized email messages have a 46% higher open rate than generic messages. 

Enriched business data gives you the knowledge and insights to personalize email outreach. Grab a prospect’s attention by speaking directly to their needs.

Let’s say you’re selling employee onboarding software to HR teams. With data enrichment you can check hiring sites like Indeed to see which companies are recruiting, since onboarding is more likely to be a pain point for companies doing large-scale recruitment.

Use this type of insight to make your email outreach more personalized and relevant.

‍5. Create a lead scoring system

Lead scoring is the process of classifying leads according to their value and level of engagement.

Scores are assigned to leads according to:

• Behavior and interactions with your brand such as page views, email clicks, downloaded content, etc. This is usually done with a marketing automation tool.
• Company information (size, department, function, address, industry, turnover, etc)

It’s only ever a small portion of leads that are actually sales-ready. In most cases, the lead who just downloaded your ebook needs warming up. 

This is where database enhancement comes in handy.

Armed with additional insights on each lead, you’ll be able to implement an effective lead scoring system. Use this scoring system to guide your lead nurturing and qualification process.

6. Monitor and pick up on business signals‍

A business signal is any type of activity indicating it’s a good time for a lead to buy from you.

It’s usually time-sensitive, news-driven data you learn about from a company’s social profiles or other media outlets. It could be anything from fundraising to changes in management, recruitment drives, or opening a new office location.

You can use data enrichment to pull this type of information from the internet directly to your contact database. Not only does it help time your pitch, it gives an opportunity to further personalize your outreach.

7. Give lost leads a new lease of life‍

It’s time to wipe the dust off your ‘Lost Leads’ file. 

Budget, needs, decision-makers—all these things change with time. Just because a lead wasn’t interested or ready back then, doesn’t mean it’ll always be the case.

An old prospect list still has value. Data enrichment methods can help bring it back to life by adding fresh data and insights. It’s the perfect way to highlight new opportunities 💡  ‍‍

‍8. Identify your ideal target customer

There are dozens of data points you can use to enrich your B2B database:  address, phone number, Sales Navigator profile, customer reviews—the possibilities are endless.

But which data is the most relevant to your business? After all, having a ton of data is useless unless you actually use it for something.

With data enrichment you can focus on the most useful data points and ignore the rest.

To do this, you need to start by defining your Ideal Customer Profile (we discuss that entire process here). This will help you figure out which data to extract.

Let’s say you have a list of CMOs but your ideal target is a CMO at a SaaS startup with less than 50 people. In this case you’ll enrich your lead list with the sector of activity and number of company employees.

This approach makes it easier to identify and qualify your target. Plus, it helps build a database of relevant, organized data.‍‍

‍9. Diffuse enriched data to all your different tools‍

One of the most common issues with business data is that it doesn’t get distributed properly. A prime example is when sales teams start sourcing data with plug and play tools, creating siloed data within an enterprise.

Ideally, data needs to be synchronized and integrated across the organization. In other words, each system should be updated with the same lead and customer information. This way everybody benefits from up to date internal data.

At Captain Data, we’re all about making data accessible and actionable across the organization. We’ll help you synchronize enriched data across all your different tools using APIs, without code.‍‍

‍Book a meeting with us to discuss your data project together. 💻‍

How does data enrichment work? 3 methods you can use‍

Ok, so now you know what data enrichment can do, but how do you actually enrich data?

Essentially, there are three methods you can use to enrich B2B data:

• Web scraping
• Manual research
• Data enrichment tools or services

Let’s take a look at each.‍

1. Web scraping ‍

Web scraping is the process of automatically extracting large quantities of data from the web.

It’s an affordable, scalable way to enrich a B2B database. Use it to import publicly available web data into a CRM or spreadsheet.

Good news: You no longer need to be a programmer or write your own scripts to set up web scraping. No code scraping tools like Captain Data make it easy to extract data from websites, no technical knowledge required. 

‍Start a free trial with Captain Data‍

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The go-to tactic for gathering lead data fast, scraping is ideal for enriching a prospect list. Why? Because you have complete flexibility in choosing which data to extract.

Then it’s just a case of setting up automated workflows to run over and over, so your team always has enriched data available.

Just remember, the web is a huge source of information and not all of it is accurate. You’ll still need to validate scraped data before using it in outreach campaigns (e.g. by using an email verification tool).‍‍

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‍Further reading: How to Build a B2B Prospect List with Web Scraping‍

2. Manual research‍

As mentioned, another option is to enrich leads through manual research. This means looking up leads on Google, LinkedIn, or company websites, then adding that information to a spreadsheet or database. 

Fine for small amounts of data but extremely inefficient for enriching a file with hundreds of prospects. ‍

3. Data enrichment tools‍

A data enrichment tool (or data enrichment service) does three things:

• Gathers third-party data from the internet
• Organizes, cleans, and formats the data
• Aggregates data from different sources

Clearbit, Dropcontact, Zoominfo are examples of data enrichment tools.

These services all work well but one disadvantage is that you're limited to what’s available in their database. Compared to scraping you don’t have the same freedom when it comes to choosing data points and data sources.‍

Data enrichment examples‍

Here are some examples of the type of data used to enrich a B2B database:

• Contact details from a company website or Google My Business profile
• Search results
• Company social media profiles
• Employee profiles on LinkedIn (then find a valid emails with an email finder)
• Social media followers
• Customer reviews from Yelp or TripAdvisor

Here’s an example of data enrichment workflow with Captain Data, starting with a list of company domains:

1. Upload a list of domain names
2. Visit the websites to find social URLs
3. Enrich the initial domain name with additional data, depending on the platform you want to extract data from
4. Push that data into a CRM‍

‍Where to find the data to enrich a lead list‍

The web is jam-packed with company data, whether it be from Google, social networks, media outlets, review sites, directories, or elsewhere.

Again, it’s a case of identifying the most relevant data sources that correspond to your Ideal Customer Profile.

If you’re targeting small service-based businesses, Google is your best friend. For C-level executives in large enterprises, it’s LinkedIn.

Typically, the most useful sources for B2B data include:

• The company website: Get contact details, links to social media profiles, and other contextual information.
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: A goldmine for B2B, if your lead has an active profile on LinkedIn. Use the filter to carry out targeted searches. 
• Google Maps: Great for small businesses (shops, tradespeople). Local searches usually include an address, phone number, and website.
• Yellow Pages and industry directories: Useful when targeting companies in a specific niche, just make sure the information is up to date first.‍

‍Get started with automated data enrichment

‍So you see, data enrichment not only improves efficiency and data quality but also boosts sales performance! The use cases explored in this article are only a handful of what’s possible.

By now we hope you’ve got a solid understanding of what is data enrichment. Ready to try it out for yourself? Start your 7 day free trial of Captain Data and launch your own lead gen machine today!