Buyer s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse
Executive Summary In partnership with Ascend2, ZoomInfo conducted a study, entitled Data-Driven Marketing Benchmarks For Success, in which 234 marketing professionals were surveyed. The results showed that even very successful data-driven marketers identified Improving data quality as the top challenge to achieving goals. In order to prevent the natural decay of contact and company data in their marketing database, our study found that 79% of very successful data-driven marketers partner with B2B Contact Data Vendors. With the aid of a B2B Contact Data Provider s database and real-time cleansing tools, marketers are empowered to proactively protect and enhance customer and prospect data. This should come as no surprise. Multiple studies have confirmed that regardless of industry, revenue or company size, poor data quality is an epidemic for marketing teams. The problem is further exacerbated within enterprise organizations whose Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) store legacy marketing databases full of leads, contacts, and accounts. In fact, 80% of these organizations cleanse their marketing database at least once a month. The end result? Over 80% of these organizations rated the quality of their marketing database as good or somewhat good, while just 3% rate their database as very poor. The value proposition should seem clear. But this still is your database a massive asset to your organization, even if it is rife with holes and inaccurate information. Suffice to say, entrusting a vendor to help maintain its accuracy and completeness is Cause & Effect: B2B Contact Data Provider no ordinary engagement. 79% Adoption 79% of Very Successful Data-Driven Marketers Use B2B Contact Data Providers 62% 18% Use Case 62% cleanse their data once a month; 18% cleanse customer data daily. 80% Result 80% of this segment rated the quality of their marketing database good or somewhat good 2
About this buyer s guide In an effort to drive transparency to such a critical initiative, ZoomInfo has produced the following ebook, which aims to help marketing leadership understand the following best practices around cost and value: 1. Buying Considerations: Review of important terminology, metrics, and pricing models related to database management projects that your buying committee should understand BEFORE entering an agreement with a B2B Contact Data Provider 2. Value: From contact appends and cleanse functionality to database segmentation, a review what to look for in a vendor-supplied, comprehensive database audit report. 3
Buying Considerations: Key Terms, Metrics & Pricing Models b2b Contact Data Management use cases Make no mistake, even if your organization desperately needs to clean its database, you should control the entire process. If properly vetted, success is in your hands. To that point, it s important that your buying committee understands the terminology related to contact data management. Action items related to database management 1. Update: B2B Contact Data Provider updates piece of inaccurate information within contact and account record vendor analysis: essential metrics your buying committee needs to understand MATCH RATE The rate at which vendors can match information in their database to customer s database. The higher the match rate, the more a vendor can help cleanse, append, confirm contact and company data. What s important to understand is that all matches are not created equal. Therefore it is CRITICAL to establish precisely which fields a vendor matches to and if the correlation between databases brings in new information that meets your needs. 2. Append: B2B Contact Data Provider fills in empty contact and account fields with up-to-date information For instance, let s pretend your main goal is to cleanse and append all the email addresses within your marketing database. If a vendor claims to match to a record, but only has the contact s company address or another extraneous field, then is it really a 3. Confirm: B2B Contact Data Provider confirms accuracy of field in contact and account records 4. Segment: B2B Contact Data Provider organizes contacts and accounts by common demographic/firmographic critieria match? No, not at all. Cost Per Match (CPM) Another valuable metric in a data management project, CPM is defined by the actual cost you are spending per updated record. A vendor s match rate directly impacts the cost per match. 4
Key Metrics Related to Contact Data Management Projects Sample cost analysis Company A - Fixed COST Company B - COST PER MATCH Let s examine two common pricing models B2B Contact Data Providers use with data management projects through a hypothetical engagement. Company A engages with a B2B Contact Vendor that uses a Fixed Cost pricing model for database appends. Here is how the project actually prices out: Company B engages with a B2B Contact Vendor that uses a Cost Per Match pricing model for database appends. Here is how the project actually prices out: Pretend two organizations, Company A and Company B, each have an identical marketing database of 200,000 contacts. Marketing leadership in both companies are well aware these contacts have plenty of missing or inaccurate information, including email addresses and phone numbers. - The total cost in this scenario is based on the size of the database a vendor is appending. - Let s assume that with 200,000 records, the vendor prices out the project at $.10 per contact, which leads to an up-front total cost of $20,000. - The vendor then runs a match analysis and brings back 50,000 updated records. Note: Remember, with - The cost is based on the number of records a vendor can actually match to. - Since size of the database is irrelevant at this point, the vendor takes 200,000 records, runs the append project, and returns 80,000 contacts which can be updated. - With an exceptional match rate, the vendor prices this pricing model, we re still not even sure what constitutes a match which, Total Cost Per Record: $0.40 out the project at $.35 per match, which leads to a total (potential) cost of $28,000. Total Cost Per Record: $0.35 depending on your needs, is a huge drawback. 5
Key Metrics Related to Contact Data Management Projects Best Practice: Get Free Analysis of Match Rate and Cost Per Match Prior to Entering Agreement Total Cost (for 50K contacts) Let s review a few important elements to consider in the engagement examples given $25K above: First and foremost, remember, the detail of what baseline data is required to constitute a match rate can be open to interpretation. Fortunately, leading B2B Contact Data Providers will run a match assessment free of cost at the outset of your project. $20K $20K The result of the assessment should be an easy-to-understand report that precisely defines what information within a record is being appended, updated, and confirmed. $17.5K We will review this report in more detail in the next section of this Buyer s Guide. $15K what if both vendors matched up to the same records? Next, as far as this particular example detailed on the previous page is concerned, two $10K drawbacks occurred with Company A s engagement. Clearly, the organization missed out on an opportunity to update 30,000 more records. Secondly, $.05 difference in cost per updated record may not seem expensive, but at scale the pennies add up. $5K For instance, let s assume the vendor serving Company B could only update the same amount of records (50,000 contacts) as the vendor working with Company A. The difference in CPM adds up to $2,500 or 13% of the project s total cost. $0 Company A Company B 6
How to Maximize Value of Your Contact Data Management Project Overview of Database Audit Analysis After developing a shortlist of B2B Contact Vendors to engage for your contact data management project, you should not only consider previously mentioned pricing metrics, but have a thorough understanding of the exact information that will be either appended, updated, or confirmed by the vendor. Leading vendors will add transparency to the Best Practice: What your database audit should include Engagement Scenario: For further clarity, let s review a sample version of this report from a fictional vendor. Figure 1 Match Rates : The report should help potential customers immediately understand the overall match rate that this vendor can match to on a people (contact) and company level. However, as previously discussed, a match rate is not nearly enough insight to determine whether a vendor can meet your needs. The report should go deeper and get into specifics. Vendor Match Rates (Fig. 1) engagement by providing a comprehensive report about the current health of your database, as well as the information they can append, update, and confirm, as well as other key findings. Person Match Input People Records: 538,609 Vendor Matched Records: 383,431 Unique Contacts Matched: 370,617 71% Note: This is a critical piece to the engagement process for any database append project. Input Company Records: 538,609 Vendor Matched Records: 425,499 Unique Contacts Matched: 158,411 Reputable vendors will offer this report to potential customers prior to entering an agreement. Company Match 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 79% 7
How to Maximize Value of Your Contact Data Management Project Figure 2 Information Matrix : Here s where transparency comes into the picture in a contact data management project. A vendor could claim to match to a record, but may only have irrelevant information that doesn t meet your needs. Be wary of vendors that do not explicitly reveal exactly which pieces of information they can append, update, confirm or cannot provide In the below chart, you can clearly see the types of information the fictional can provide this hypothetical customer with. Record Gap Analysis (Fig. 2) COMPARE NEW UPDATE CONFIRMED EXISTING EMPTY GRAND TOTAL First Name 2 0.00% 26,785 5.51% 295,623 60.80% 163,791 33.69% 1 0.00% Last Name 1 0.00% 11,172 2.30% 311,232 64.01% 163,789 33.69% 8 0.00% Title 4.160 0.86% 244,601 50.31% 49,452 10.17% 165,618 34.06% 22,371 4.60% Function 209,342 43.06% 276,860 56.94% Email 73,063 15.03% 138,046 28.39% 275,093 56.58% Direct Dial 145,743 29.98% 22,473 4.62% 7,855 1.62% 44,181 9.09% 265,950 54.70% Industry 358,315 61.81% 127,887 26.30% NEW: Vendor able to append data to empty Customer record field UPDATE: Vendor has updated data in Customer record field CONFIRMED: Customer and Vendor has same data in record field EXISTING: Customer has data in record field, Vendor does not EMPTY: Neither Customer nor Vendor has data in record field 8
How to Maximize Value of Your Contact Data Management Project Figure 3 Contact Data Overview : Just like all matches are not created equal, neither is all types of data. Most organizations in need of a database management cleanse want to ensure contact information is accurate so that they can execute marketing campaigns and ensure sales has information needed to follow up on converted leads. Consequently, vendors should dedicate a section of their match report strictly to contact information. Contact Data Overview (Fig. 3) Email Status Direct Dial Status 100% 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% Vendor is able to UPDATE: 73,063 emails CONFIRM: 138,046 emails 65% 138,046 90% 80% 70% 60% 83% 145,743 Vendor is able to ADD: 145,743 direct dial phone numbers UPDATE: 22,273 direct dial phone numbers CONFIRM: 7,855 direct dial phone numbers 50% 50% 40% 35% 73,063 40% 30% 30% 20% 10% 20% 10% 13% 22,473 4% 7,855 0% 0% Updated Confirmed New Updated Confirmed 9
How to Maximize Value of Your Contact Data Management Project Figure 4 Persona & Industry Insights : Chances are, your organization understands its Total Addressable Market (TAM) and buyer personas. However, in this complimentary report the B2B Contact Provider Database Segmentation Examples (Fig. 4) Top Level Job Function should provide insights into the characteristics of your marketing database. Moreover, vendors can turn these insights into action after the initial database cleanse and append is complete. Examples of database segmentation can be based on customized firmographic and demographic criteria. With this level of organizations, your marketing team is better empowered to develop and execute personalized campaigns. Management Level Human-Resource Engineering & Technical Operations VP-Level Sales Marketing Medical & Health Legal 20% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Headcount Range Non-Manager 15% Manager Director VP-Level 10% 5% C-Level 0% 10% 20% 30% 0% <10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-250 250-500 500-1K 1K-5K 5K-10K 10K+ 10
Conclusion: You can control success through a transparent process Every component explained in this Enterprise Buyer s Guide should be provided to you free of charge by a B2B Contact Data Provider. Again, all information is not created equal. Thus, it s critical that you not only understand the sheer volume of records each vendor can append, update, confirm, or segment, but also the exact types of information within those records they can clean. It s not enough to grow your database. You have to keep your data clean and do both in a way that s cost effective for the company. ZoomInfo has made those challenges a lot less daunting. Anna Glushkovsky, Data Marketing Manager, Eloqua Bad data was handcuffing the sales, marketing, channel, client development, field services, customer experience, and sales operations teams, ultimately making a big impact on our productivity, people, and revenue. ZoomInfo s accurate data allowed the sales team to spend more time selling and less time researching. Sean Goldie, Senior Segment Marketing Manager, Concur If your organization needs its database cleansed, look no further than ZoomInfo. With a database of 140 million professionals and nearly 13 million companies ZoomInfo has helped companies maintain and enhance their databases for over a decade. 11
Accelerate your growth with ZoomInfo. Visit www.zoominfo.com or call 866-904-9666 to find out how.