Media buys are tricky. You will find data providers in multitudes who all claim that their insights can help you to segment and target the right audience. But you have limited time and money, which means you have limited choices. So how should you choose a database service provider or buy a database? There are a few important things you should check for.
1. Your data consultant should know your business and requirements.
Research shows that errors in targeting are mostly caused by miscommunication or want of understanding. This is a common problem, especially in the IT industry where several acronyms are used which have multiple meanings.
2. You should know what you need data for.
Different marketing objectives – telemarketing, emailer campaigns, database creation etc – require different types of information. When you are looking to buy database information, be as accurate as you can be while communicating your data needs and business requirements. Don’t be afraid of asking for seemingly hard-to-find data, most consultants have extensive reach and sources.
3. Choose the right volume of data for your planned actions.
Overestimating your resources is not always profitable. Why purchase a larger database than your sales team can handle? Depending on their workload, a single salesperson can handle about 10-50 productive calls in a day. Optimise your data needs instead of getting what you don’t need.
4. Inform and trust your sales team.
Give your sales team as much information as possible and make good use of their time. Time is more valuable than money and this information can help optimise how they conduct research. It’s better to have more detailed information than a vast database of surface-level information.
5. Don’t apply too many filters for market operations.
It is better to not restrict yourself by using too many eliminating criteria when buying a database. If you have chosen a field that you want to use for targeting, check the company completion rate for that particular field.
6. Check employment scale size instead of turnover.
Salaries across an industry, especially the IT sector, are largely homogenous. The margins by which staff is paid is also the same. To deduce the scale of an organisation, check for the number of employees an organisation has rather than the turnover since these criteria vary greatly depending on the nature of the organisation.
7. Confirm whether you’ll contact the headquarters alone or subsidiaries too.
It is not always necessary to contact an organisation’s smaller subsidiaries. Don’t take up more information than necessary.
8. Segment your messages with your enriched database.
Explain to your data consultant the type of segmentation you need. Mostly, they help you by creating the fields you require for filtering this information. This can help you create more specific targeted messages for different groups within your audience.
9. Ask for a data sample.
Get a rough idea of the type of organisations you will be reaching out to. Even a handful of names can tell you whether you’re on the right course or not. Check for valid credentials and addresses.
10. Ask for a delivery file example.
What you consider obvious might not seem the same for your data consultant. A sample delivery file will give you a fair idea about the type of data fields you can expect. Simply because you have requested filter usage, it doesn’t mean the final delivery file will have the information in the fields used to apply the filter.
These are the important things to consider. Remember that you will spend more on marketing than on data, but the right data will determine the success of your marketing efforts.
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