If you look them up in a thesaurus, you’ll see that the words “logo” and “brand” are listed as synonyms. That’s a little misleading; while they overlap in meaning, they aren’t the same. You can have a logo without ever coming close to having a brand.
Too many B2B businesses believe it’s enough to pay attention to isolated details instead of a cohesive branded whole. Although that’s bad news for them, it’s great for you. While they’re debating over whether to go with indigo or cerulean on their stationery, you’re ready to build a cohesive brand backed up with detailed prospect knowledge –if you’ve kept up with data enhancement, that is.
Data Is Dynamic
As your prospects move, marry, get promotions, or otherwise need updates to demographic or firmographic information, your data on them becomes outdated. This process is called data decay, and it happens at a rate of about 3 percent per month.
In other words, if you start today with spotlessly clean, current lists and do nothing else to them for 12 months, you’ll find roughly 36 percent of your records outdated by the end of that year. That’s a third of your customers whom you may no longer be able to reach with outdated contact information or whose demographic details could have changed dramatically.
If you’re building your brand on the shifting sands of customer information without regular data hygiene updates, you’re aiming your marketing efforts at where your market was months or years ago. Data enhancement brings you into the present which in turn lets you look into the future with predictive analytics.
Getting Ahead of Your Market
How you get customer and lead data is almost as important as what you find. Good sources supply great data, and great data translates into useful insights. Your prospects are primary sources and will supply you with some information about themselves directly, but for other knowledge, you need a data enhancement consultant who can turn to other sources. Marketing databases that contain millions of records, such as ReachBase, verify existing data and fill in additional knowledge. Depending on the size and scope of your existing list, you can see 20 to 30 percent greater completion rates on records after data enhancement.
Branding makes you part of your customers’ lives. You can’t get that close to leads, though, if you don’t have deep knowledge of who they are. By using data enhancement to complete records, cleanse outdated information from existing files, and merging duplicate information, you develop the clearest possible image of your prospects and the problems they need you to solve. Armed with these insights, you’re able to focus your brand to meet their needs.
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