Want to remain competitive in the ever-evolving B2B marketing landscape? You need data. With the right data, you can get to know your buyers inside-out, helping you to generate appropriate, timely messaging.
The result? A higher volume of quality, high-intent leads.
With so many data types available, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. However, by using a blend of the following seven types of B2B data, you can be sure to develop an effective, data-driven marketing strategy.
1. Demographic Data
Feeling overwhelmed with the vast array of B2B marketing data? Start with demographics. Demographic data helps you understand the common characteristics of the people who buy your products. Because although we often reduce them to “buyers” or “leads,” at the end of the day, it’s people making decisions about whether to purchase your products. Therefore, it’s essential to know who they are in order to target them effectively. Gather data such as:
- Age or generational group (i.e., Gen X, Millennial, Gen Z)
- Gender identity
- Education level
- Job title
- Geographic location
By analyzing demographic data, you can begin to build a picture of the types of individuals that make up your target audience, using this information to form the basis of your buyer persona.
2. Firmographic Data
In the same way that demographic data helps you identify individual customers, firmographic data helps you identify companies. To create an accurate firmographic data profile, look for data including:
- Industry
- Company size
- Number of employees
- Geographic location
- Annual revenue
Company profiles on LinkedIn are a great place to start uncovering this b2b marketing data, but to dial up your firmographic intel, seek a dedicated B2B data provider. Using firmographic data, you can categorize organizations, create different market segments, and identify high-value potential customers.
3. Technographic Data
Demographic and firmographic data provide you with a sturdy foundation to execute a basic campaign. But if you’re looking for razor-sharp targeting and personalized messaging, you need to enrich your customer profile with additional data points.
Technographic data is one such data type. Technographic data provides details on the hardware and software a company uses to run their organization. Knowing a company’s existing tech stack helps you determine if your product or service is a good fit, either as a replacement to existing tech, or a complementary addition.
Use this knowledge to craft personalized content to target your customer with. For example, for a customer using a competitor’s product, emphasize how you can solve common pain points with that specific software/service. Our tip? Leverage sites like G2 and Capterra to check out your competitors’ low scoring reviews. What are the common themes? Use your findings to fuel your messaging.
4. Chronographic Data
Keeping a pulse on a prospect’s chronographic data is a powerful weapon in a data-driven marketing strategy. Chronographic data includes events or organizational changes that can trigger new sales and marketing opportunities. For example: a significant new hire, a shift in purchasing power, a new acquisition, product launches, or a company IPO.
Analyze these chronographic data points to predict when a prospect is most likely to make a purchase and target them at the most opportune moment.
5. Quantitative Data
Simply put, quantitative data encompasses all quantifiable data points. Numbers, essentially. This type of data is useful across many B2B business functions, but some use cases for lead gen specifically include:
- Creating future sales forecasts to determine the number of leads to generate in any one period to meet company goals
- Analyzing a prospect’s sales figures to identify if they are a good fit for your business
- Monitoring lead gen campaign performance metrics to spot trends, successes, or areas for improvement
Without quantitative b2b marketing data, it would be impossible to review past performance, set goals, or predict future outcomes.
6. Qualitative Data
If quantitative data can be defined as “numbers,” then think of qualitative as “words.” The perfect accompaniment to qualitative data, quantitative data is useful to add more subjective context, opinion, and experience. If quantitative data identifies a “what,” qualitative data can help you find the “why.”
This gives you a complete picture of customer behavior, identifying the reasons behind their business decisions and company performance metrics. Say you’re a B2B SaaS company offering cloud-based security for remote workforces, and you become aware that a prospect has parted ways with their existing security provider. Although this identifies a potential opportunity, the “why” behind the decision can make your next move much more powerful. For example, if you discover that the customer in question let their previous provider go as they felt they couldn’t meet the needs of a remote-only workforce, this becomes a much more compelling opportunity.
7. Intent Data
Last but certainly not least: B2B intent data. Intent data indicates a prospect’s interest level in a particular product or service online. It encompasses online actions such as web searches, visited pages, content downloads, and social media activity to name a few.
By processing and analyzing intent data, you can anticipate the behavior of potential customers to target them more effectively. Wondering where to source this predictive intel? A dedicated intent data provider is your best bet.
Create a High-Conversion Customer Journey with B2B Marketing Data
Attracting quality leads is the B2B marketers’ biggest challenge, but by building a data-driven marketing strategy powered by these seven B2B data types, your team can gather more leads, secure more sales, and convert more opportunities.
Check out our on-demand webinar, “A Guided Tour of the B2B Tech Buyer’s Journey,” to find out more about the B2B tech buyer’s customer journey and how you can create strategies to connect more effectively with your customers.
