Database enrichment is part of the data hygiene process of improving the accuracy and reliability of your customer data. Enrichment specifically focuses on adding new and supplemental data points on customers and prospects in your database. Enrichment is often done with a database-cleaning schedule to ensure your database remains accurate and up-to-date moving forward.
Why Database Enrichment Is Important
Database enrichment can drastically improve your customer experience. Accurate and enriched data can help create targeted and personalized campaigns. Not only can you leverage this additional data for enhanced campaign targeting, but it can also allow you to save money. By enriching your database, your focus shifts to keeping data that matters to your company and allows you to manage your database more effectively. Less relevant data can then be deleted for less storage in customer management solutions.
As your business grows and your campaign goals change, you likely begin to collect consumer data in different ways for more targeted campaigns, or campaigns using different delivery methods. This leaves a gap in your older data as you were not collecting these data fields early on. By seeking out businesses to enrich your data you can transfer these older customers into your new marketing initiatives.
Best Practices
The enrichment process for every business depends on the data collected and the data elements you are looking at getting enriched. Because this process is different for each business there is not one way to approach this process. But, there are steps every business can take to make the process as easy as possible.
- Setting clear criteria for the goals of the campaign or the goal of your data enrichment efforts to dictate which data elements are needed in the enrichment process.
- Develop a plan and a structure in which you can replicate the enrichment process in the future. By creating frameworks you can ensure that future enrichment efforts are consistent and reliable.
- As your business grows and your data collection grows you want to ensure that your enrichment processes can grow with them. This is where removing as many manual touchpoints as possible comes into play. Automation ensures everything remains consistent and human error is low.
- Creating a plan for an ongoing process. Data collection is an ongoing process and data collection efforts are all different. You don’t collect every data field from every customer or prospect that visits your website or interacts with your business.
As with any campaign or internal effort, it is extremely important to create a plan, follow the plan, and document the plan. This ensures that moving forward you and your team can continue to replicate the results with ease and work on improvements.
Database Enrichment Services
There is no shortage of database enrichment services. With new lead companies popping up every day, determining who would provide the best enrichment data can be difficult. Additionally, there is lots of manual work that your own team can do through platforms such as LinkedIn, but, this takes time. If you are looking for a product/service that handles the heavy lifting for you then this process is not appealing.
One of the most common challenges is determining if a product or a service is best for you. Buying a product that claims to be the one-stop shop for your enrichment needs can be very attractive. All-in-one products can be helpful, but they show their limitations early on. With services, you can feel more assured that you are receiving up-to-date and accurate data as teams are monitoring and enhancing not only the enrichment service but adding new data streams regularly to expand the reach.
Database Cleaning Services
A common service to pair alongside a database enrichment service is to clean and schedule a maintenance plan. As you are adding more data to your existing database there is a high risk that you are adding data to incorrect contact fields, outdated contact fields, or to contacts that have moved. Pairing a database cleaning service to your enrichment program helps ensure that this is not the case. You don’t want to waste money by enriching outdated or incorrect data.
How Cleanlist Helps
Cleanlist is Canada’s largest customer data company. With Cleanlist you can ensure your database enrichment plan is as accurate and up-to-date as possible. As Cleanlist uses dozens of data sources, is constantly adding and updating these collection methods, and updating records daily, your data will be good to go for your next campaign. Not to mention the opportunity to leverage Cleanlist’s database cleaning service in tandem. This way, you can be sure your data is clean and enriched all at once and not have to worry about sending your data to multiple businesses to achieve your desired result.
