You’ve got customer data — and lots of it. But how do you make the most value out of the data your company already has? And…is it even good data anymore? These are the types of questions that data enrichment solves (and more – we’ll get into it).
If you want to manage your data like a pro, wait no more. The answers you need are here. And if you want to skip the beginner-level stuff like “what is data enrichment” and dive straight into the more in-depth stuff, feel free to jump around using the navigation on the side. We won’t tell anyone if you read it out of order.
What is data enrichment?
Data enrichment is the process of enhancing raw data with additional relevant information to make it more useful and valuable. With data enrichment, you can both add to and correct your current data records like contact details and company information.
When done right, enrichment is a major boost to your data that can unlock more opportunities through actionable insights for your organization. It’s an essential step in maximizing the return on data you already have.
Chances are your CRM data looks something like this:
But with enrichment, it could look more like this:
All this helps you create a more holistic view of your customer–which leads to a whole lot of benefits like better forecasting or greater personalization for your marketing and sales outreach…which ultimately means increased revenue for your business.
Why is CRM data enrichment important?
Where to begin? There are so many ways you can benefit, but we’ll start with a few.
Where to even begin? There are tons of ways you can benefit from automated data enrichment, but we’ll start with a few.
1. Incomplete data is basically worthless.
Yeah, it sounds harsh, but it’s true. Look at any webinar registration list or trade show lead list. The information you get is incomplete, if not inaccurate. As much as those leads might be warm, without extra details they’re really just hot garbage. You need something more to turn that junk into actionable data. Verifying and expanding on that data with enrichment makes it something you can use.
2. Inaccurate data costs money.
The cost of inaccurate and outdated data is tremendous. Huuuge. Did you know that it costs $11 every time a salesperson calls an incorrect contact? Or that B2B organizations end up losing 15-25% of their annual revenue on inaccurate data? Gartner research suggests that on average, businesses lose $12.9 million per year due to inaccurate databases. Without correct data, you risk cutting a big chunk out of your bottom line.
3. Enrichment counteracts data fatigue.
According to research by Marketing Sherpa, data decays at a rate of 2.1% per month. Maybe that doesn’t sound all that bad, but it adds up quick. In just a year, that’s 22.5% of your database. Meaning ⅕ of your database is useless in just 12 months.
If you’re still using the same data you had five years ago, what’s the point? Isn’t it time to take that tired old date out to pasture? If 40,000 of your contacts are even just a couple of years old, then basically half of them are already obsolete.
Enrichment will help you clean up that old data and make it useful again (or help you figure out when it’s too far gone).
4. Enriched data makes for better lead routing.
The concept here is simple: the more you understand about a lead, the better you can assign it to the right team member for the right follow-up. If your sales team has or company headcount, then enriching your database will get you the information you need to assign those leads accurately.
5. Boost productivity
Stop wasting time chasing after dead-ends or leads with the wrong contact information. Data enrichment takes out the guesswork so you can stop dialing wrong numbers.
6. Generate more prospects at scale
Data enrichment provides updated lead data at scale, meaning your ops teams can draw more accurate data insights… which inevitably then lead to more solid business decisions.
When you might need to enrich your data
There are so many use cases for enriching data that listing them all would take more time than we know you’ve got. But we picked some of the best to highlight – including some you might not have thought of.
You might need to enrich your data if…
1. You need to identify some accounts for Account Based Marketing (ABM):
Employing an ABM strategy? Then you’re probably crystal clear on your ideal customer persona and know which type of businesses are a best fit for the product or service and have the highest potential for ROI, long-term growth, and account expansion.
Let’s say your team wants to target companies with a revenue range of $100million and up, but your CRM is missing this information, along with complete data on stakeholders. This means missed opportunities — AKA losing out on potential for revenue and business growth.
2. Companies you’re targeting through ABM have had some major changes:
Data enrichment for ABM is not just about identifying new accounts. You can also identify new opportunities within target accounts. Say one of your targeted companies goes through a massive change like an acquisition, merger, relocation, or layoffs. That means that a lot of the data you have on them isn’t gonna work anymore. That’s when you want to enrich your data and get those updates at scale.
3. You’ve got an old database:
Even if you’ve been in business for just a few years, you can still fall into this category. If you’ve got a lot of old data hanging around that you’re not using, it can be a drag. Data enrichment will help you see how much of it is still usable (and update the stuff that’s gotten out of date). Think of it as clearing out an old dusty attic and figuring out what’s junk and what’s a hidden treasure.
4. You want to improve your processes:
You’ll probably know when you’ve got a bad handoff process, because you’ll likely get complaints from your sales team that the quality of leads they’re getting isn’t up to snuff. If “we can’t work these,” and “these are junk” are common refrains in your sales pit (among other more colorful ways of delivering feedback), then you probably should look into enriching that data. Cleaning up and enhancing your data will mean better, more accurate data which leads to better routing and territory management as well as a smoother handoff.
5. You’re launching a new product or feature:
Say you have a list of closed-lost accounts that didn’t work out because you didn’t have a product or feature they were looking for, but now you’ve got a new and improved offering that meets those needs. Those are some leads with the high potential – they got far enough into the process to evaluate you seriously, but didn’t find exactly what they wanted. Now that you have what they’re looking for, it’s a prime opportunity to pull and enrich that list to make sure everything is up to date and go after them with a retargeting campaign.
6. Bottom line: You need to be more efficient in your go-to-market motion
The overarching theme of all these situations is the need to be more efficient in the way you enact your GTM motion. In fact, if you’re using an ABM strategy, chances are you’ve already made some moves to be more efficient. Whatever the use case, enriching your data at scale is going to get you the accurate information you need as quickly as possible.
How to enrich your data
By now you’re probably asking, “how do I enrich my data?” Well, the specific method depends on how much data you’ve got and whether you’re working with Excel sheets, Salesforce, or something in between. Organizations of all maturity levels could benefit from enrichment, so you might not have Salesforce yet…you might not even have a CRM yet. But whichever one sounds most like you, the good news is you can do it all through Lusha’s platform.
Here’s the basics all spelled out:
CSV enrichment:
You don’t need much to enrich your data: just a CSV file and a couple of data points. With a LinkedIn URL or a combination of full name and email or company, you can get a whole bunch more useful information.
- Just go to Lusha’s platform, click “Enrich,” and select CSV from the dropdown.
- Upload your file
- Map out fields to make the columns in your document get matched to Lusha’s properties.
- Select if you want to enrich emails, phone numbers, or both (you’ll only be charged for the contacts we can match).
- Voila! You’ve got fresh contact data plus firmographics.
CRM enrichment:
If you’ve got Salesforce, then we’ve got an easy enrichment method for you. Your first step is to talk with Lusha to get CRM Enrichment activated on your account. You’ll get a demo to walk you through using it on the platform. When it’s up and running, it’ll work something like this:
- Enter the Lusha Platform
- Click on “Enrich” and select CRM Enrichment.
- On the main page you’ll see recommended enrichments (predefined templates you can click and go).
API enrichment:
No Salesforce? No problem. We can work with what you’ve got. Lusha’s One-Click API can enrich any system. Here’s how to get it set up:
- Contact our team
- Choose the API that best fits your needs.You can query contact data, company data or both and apply specific ICP filters based on your customer profile.
- Set up your API to regularly update so your data is always fresh.
Making the case for data enrichment (and the cost of inaction)
Data enrichment is an extra investment, but it’s 100% worth the cost. But if you’re not the one making decisions on technology, that means you’ve got some convincing to do. In addition to what we’ve covered so far, we’ve got a few more points to make about why you should spring for enriching your data.
Squeezing the funnel
The first reason is that you have untapped value in your sales funnel. There’s data in there just waiting for you to get a little more insight so you can finally use it. Enrichment can help you squeeze that funnel and get more juice out, because there are inevitably so many leads that for whatever reason got stuck somewhere in the middle of it.
For example, someone might have reached out 3 years ago. Now, they work at a different company, and they’ve reached out again. After enriching your data you can find out that you’ve got multiple attempts at contact from one person, making them a much hotter lead than you would have known.
The cost of unenriched data
When you don’t have enough information on your leads to make a move, then you’re missing out on opportunities for more revenue and growth. But the cost of inaction isn’t just about the lost opportunities from incomplete data. There’s also the risk of wrongly targeted outreach – which in a survey of sales professionals, 52% of respondents said could contribute to an ongoing loss of sales.
And then we have the very real cost of obsolete data.
Remember those stats we mentioned above? You know, that every incorrect phone call costs $11, or that 15-25% of annual revenue or an average of $12.9 million per business each year is lost to inaccurate data? Well if those didn’t scare you enough, we’ve got more! Yay?
In the US alone, bad data costs businesses $3.1 trillion dollars. Yes, that’s “trillion” with a T. Oh, and did we mention that research was done a few years ago? Think of how much more data we’ve got floating around our databases these days. It’s a problem that gets exponentially more expensive as time goes on and more and more data gets generated.
Then you’ve also got the fact that bad data is a huge time waster. And we all know time is money. A recent study shows that inaccurate B2B data wastes 23.7% of a sales rep’s time. 546 working hours for a full-time sales rep…we’ll let you do the math on that one.
The “don’ts” of quality data enrichment – and one major “do”
All right, so now you know you want to do this data enrichment thing. How can you be sure you do it right?
- Don’t: do it in house manually. Wow, no one should ever do this. But we know many have tried. Speaking of wasting time, chasing down each and every data point in your CRM is going to take forever, not to mention the risk of human error. Let the machines do it for you, please.
- Don’t: expect enrichment to be a one time thing. We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but data starts going bad the moment you have it. Think of all the changes that can happen at a company in a day, week, or month. Then multiply it by your whole database. According to research by Dunn and Bradstreet, 120 company addresses and 75 phone numbers change in the span of just 30 minutes.
- Do: invest in continuous data enrichment. No matter how quickly you update your data, it’s not fast enough. You’re going to be passively losing opportunities when your data’s not up to date. The only way around that is to continuously update your data. Using a solution like our API or CRM enrichment, you can keep your database connected and regularly enriched so you don’t miss out on any opportunities due to your data.
Key Takeaways
- Data enrichment helps you squeeze your pipeline, assign leads, find ABM opportunities, operate more efficiently, and more.
- Inaccurate or incomplete data is costly, and continuous enrichment is the best way to counteract it.
- Lusha offers database enrichment in a variety of flavors including CSV, CRM, and API.
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