Data Collection Best Practices

Customer and prospect data collection is critical for both sales and marketing teams. After all, the more we know about our prospects, the better we can cater to their wants, alleviate their pain spots, and maintain a long-term relationship.

Prospects should be treated as well as customers before they become customers. They don’t know who you are, but they might be interested in what you have to give. Your role is to get to know them and have them get to know you to determine whether or not the connection would be a suitable fit.

In this context, you should follow the best data collection practices in this article. However, to learn the right methods to collect B2B data, you should consider the type of data you are collecting.

1. Top-of-the-funnel Data Collection

This data means information that prospects are willing to give such as emails and names. While this fundamental data is prone to irrelevant leads and incorrect information, it is useful for measuring the success of email marketing efforts. Businesses might gather this information by employing the following strategies:

• Web Page Buttons – Visitors to business websites might be asked to supply this information in exchange for free product trials, downloadable digital resources, or product demos via embedded or inline buttons.
• Pop-Up Forms – Companies can use customizable triggers (time spent on the page, triggered exit, first-time entry onto the website) to automate lead-generating forms to appear on a web page.

Of course, as a result of global data protection laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation, businesses must be unambiguous when informing customers that their data is being gathered.

2. Bottom-of Funnel Data Collection

Bottom-of-funnel prospects are visitors who have demonstrated an interest in purchasing a product or service, which means they are usually willing to provide more comprehensive personal information to access resources and learn more about what the firm has to offer.

To get the most out of this data collection, firms might create landing-page forms dedicated to promoting a single product or service. The organization can also customize data fields to obtain the required and most appropriate client information.

3. Existing Customer Data

This refers to customers who have previously purchased a product or service from the company. These present customers can offer suggestions on how the company can improve its existing products and customer service.

This high-value data can alert organizations to product gaps and aid in the brainstorming of new product concepts. Collecting and exploiting this data can result in higher customer retention and income.

• Questionnaires – Companies can design questionnaire forms to solicit client feedback. To get the most out of this strategy, use questions that inspire lengthy responses rather than yes or no queries.
• Follow-Up Calls – This information can be gathered after a transaction has been made or after the consumer has interacted with the company. These dialogues can be brief, with yes/no questions or scores ranging from 1 to 10.

Given that all three data types need different data collection approaches, you should follow or consider the five best practices below.

5 Best Data Collection Best Practices to Follow

1. Ask Your Prospects to Provide Data

Asking the prospects for the data can be done over the phone or with web forms. However, the success rate of asking your prospects on-call sheerly depends on your skills and luck. On the other hand, prospects filling out the website forms not only give you lead details but also indicate it’s a qualified lead.

2. Practice Ethical Data Collection

Trust is critical to customer loyalty and retention, and the best way for businesses to retain trust while collecting data is to remain transparent and honest. Businesses can ethically collect consumer information by providing straightforward surveys, allowing customers to choose which information they would like to share, and drafting a clear privacy policy.

3. Only Gather the Necessary Data

According to Forrester’s report on data, around 60% to 73% of data within a company is unusable. This data overload can overwhelm businesses and divert management’s attention away from efficient decision-making.

Before collecting customer information, organizations should select which information to prioritize, how the data connects with company goals, how the information will be analyzed, and how this information will help the firm improve.

4. Automate data collection

When acquiring consumer data, you must reduce the possibility of human error. Automating as much of the gathering procedure as feasible is the most effective technique.

The last thing you want to do is miss out on a chance to improve the quality and number of leads entering your sales funnel.

Never be afraid. It is simple to automate your lead capture operations thanks to the ease of today’s lead automation technologies. Apps and tools like online forms and data scanners enter information directly into your database, eliminating manual processes that frequently result in errors.

5. Use Sales Intelligence Tools for More Accuracy

Poor data hygiene has a wide-ranging impact on enterprises. Bad data wastes time and resources by sending bounced emails and ignored phone calls to persons who are no longer in the role or even at the organization. Bad data is frequently attributed to the data provider.

Inaccurate form fills, errors in manual data entry by team members, and even acquiring data from untrustworthy vendors are all possibilities. Even if your data is perfect when it enters your system, it degrades at a pace of 30% each year on average.

Sales intelligence tools like SalesIntel help you with the human-verified data and even enriches your existing raw data with accurate and completed data. By enhancing your records, sales intelligence systems can rectify faulty data and even fill data gaps. Without accurate and up-to-date data, all of your tailored messaging and segmentation can never yield expected results.

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Want to know how SalesIntel has simplified the data collection process? 

AI and Sales Intelligence Tools is the Future

Traditionally, marketers and businesses have struggled with problems such as why and how to collect customer data. However, the emphasis now is on harnessing the power of automation and artificial intelligence to collect and use every data source to derive relevant insights.

A good customer data gathering technique streamlines the customer journey, increases sales, and improves ROI. Furthermore, it is accompanied by ethical principles that preserve and secure data while ensuring that data is only utilized for authorized purposes. Given this, firms must view data collection obstacles as opportunities to produce better results.

Want to spend more time on selling and least on research and data collection?