When it comes to attaining marketing excellence, one critical factor that often gets overlooked is the impact of B2B data accuracy on performance and results.

Imagine investing hours into crafting compelling campaigns and messages, only to discover they aren’t reaching the intended recipients. Not only can this be a total nightmare, but it can also have a long-lasting impact on your business’s performance. 

In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of data accuracy in B2B and how it hinders prospect connections and campaign targeting and undermines marketing and sales success.

Common Issues in B2B Contact Data Accuracy

Before we understand the impact of inaccurate data on performance and results, it is necessary to understand the underlying challenges in maintaining good accuracy.

Your efforts may face challenges like inconsistencies arising from geologic changes, contact information or mergers and acquisitions. Another possible challenge is data duplication, which is usually a result of manual data entry errors or disparate data sources. 

Effects of Inaccurate B2B Contact Data on Performance

Inaccurate B2B contact data can significantly negatively affect your business’s performance. A few instances include:

• Wasted time and resources: Pursuing leads based on incorrect or outdated information wastes valuable time and resources. Your marketing and sales teams might invest efforts in prospects who may no longer be relevant or reachable, diverting resources away from more fruitful opportunities.
• Decreased efficiency and productivity: Inaccurate contact details hinder successful outreach, resulting in failed attempts to reach prospects or connect with decision-makers. This typically leads to decreased efficiency and productivity as valuable time is spent on unfruitful endeavours.
• Missed business opportunities: Inaccurate data targeting can lead to missed deals and partnerships. When you target the wrong individuals or fail to update contact information, potential opportunities might slip through your fingers, resulting in lost revenue, growth, and market expansion.

Impact of Data Accuracy On B2B Data Acquisition Costs

When considering the impact of data accuracy on your total B2B data acquisition costs, it’s important to look beyond the initial price per contact. Opting for lower-cost data might seem enticing at first, but when you consider the data’s accuracy, the true costs become evident.

Let’s understand this with the help of an example.

Suppose you need 1,000 contacts per month and have two vendors to choose from: Vendor A and Vendor B. 

Vendor A – 40 cents per contact

Vendor B – 60 cents per contact

At first glance, Vendor B looks like a more expensive option. However, when you factor in data accuracy, you’ll see the real impact on your costs.

How? 🙄

Vendor A claims to deliver data with 50% accuracy and charges 40 cents per contact. So, if you purchase 1,000 contacts from Vendor A, you’ll soon realise that nearly half of them are inaccurate. 

To achieve your monthly target of 1,000 reliable contacts, you’ll need to buy an additional 1,000 contacts, resulting in a total of 2,000 contacts and a cost of $600.

On the other hand, Vendor B boasts data accuracy of 97% and charges 60 cents per contact. With such high accuracy, you only need to purchase 1,030 contacts to reach your monthly goal of 1,000 reliable contacts. This amounts to a total cost of $515.

Despite Vendor B having a 60% higher cost per contact than Vendor A, their 97% data accuracy means you spend $85 less overall, resulting in a 16.5% cost reduction.

Impact On Efficiency And Productivity In This Case

By selecting Vendor B and ensuring data accuracy, you avoid wasting valuable time on inaccurate data for 1,000 contacts. Inaccurate data can significantly hamper your team’s efficiency, decreasing sales and marketing effectiveness by 30% to 50%. 

With Vendor A’s inaccurate contacts, your sales team would be reaching out to 1,000 wrong leads each month, often making multiple attempts. 

In this scenario, you’d even face higher email bounce rates and might get blacklisted due to poor email deliverability.+

Prioritizing data accuracy saves money and increases team efficiency, improving email reputation. Investing in accurate B2B data optimizes costs and enhances sales and marketing efforts

Strategies for Ensuring Data Accuracy in B2B Contact Data

To mitigate the risks associated with inaccurate B2B contact data, you’ll need to implement robust data accuracy strategies. Here are a few of them:

• Data Source Selection: Always go for reputable and reliable data sources to get B2B contact data. Leadzen.ai is a reliable tool that helps you access verified and updated data to keep a proven track record of accuracy and quality data.
• Human Review: Conduct manual reviews of the data by trained professionals to identify and correct any inaccuracies that automated processes might miss. A human touch can often identify nuances and inconsistencies that require attention.
• Feedback Loop: Establish a feedback loop with users or customers who interact with the data. In this way, you’ll be able to encourage them to report inaccuracies or provide updated information and create a continuous improvement process for data accuracy.
• Data Enrichment: Enhance the accuracy and completeness of B2B contact data by enriching it with additional information from trusted sources. This can include company information, firmographics, social media profiles, and more.
• Data Governance and Quality Control: Implement data governance practices and quality control measures to ensure ongoing monitoring and maintenance of data accuracy. Assign responsibility to a dedicated team or individual to oversee data accuracy efforts.
• Compliance with Data Protection Regulations: Adhere to data protection regulations and privacy laws to ensure the accuracy and lawful use of B2B contact data. If needed, always obtain consent and implement proper data security measures to ensure that your efforts pay well.

Final Words

In a nutshell, it is necessary for businesses to prioritize data accuracy in a bid to achieve B2B excellence. Inaccurate B2B contact data can lead to wasted resources. It affects the productivity of your organization, leading to a decrease in efficiency. This flawed data can also result in missed opportunities. These could be chances to build partnerships, engage new clients, or create new revenue streams.

Given these potential pitfalls, it’s critical to make data accuracy a top priority. Ensuring the validity of your data can propel your business forward. It could help to improve your results, optimise your operations, and pave the way for growth. Inaccurate B2B contact data wastes resources and opportunities. Prioritizing data accuracy boosts business outcomes.