Modern marketing tech can give you access to an almost endless number of B2B data points.
Without a laser-focused marketing strategy, it can be easy to fall down the rabbit hole and lose sight of what’s important. Do you really need to know each lead’s favourite football team and meal deal combo? 😂
No—you only need to focus on certain types of customer data.
As the providers of an award-winning B2B lead generation and marketing automation platform, we know a thing or two about data.
So in this article, we’ve put together an infographic telling you which customer data types you need for B2B marketing, and which specific data points you should be collecting.
Customer data is the information customers provide you with when they interact with your business online and offline. For example, when they visit your website or social media, use mobile applications, fill in surveys, respond to marketing campaigns or attend your event.
Collecting and analyzing different types of customer data is a basis for creating a masterful data-driven marketing plan.
Segmentation precedes efficiency, so breaking up your customer data helps you to focus on the stuff that counts.
To find out how, scroll down! 👇
We’ve identified 6 B2B data types which B2B marketers should be collecting. The nature of your own business might cause you to lean into some of these more than others, but to some extent, these should all be covered.
Demographic customer data is the ‘who’ - and we don’t mean Pete Townshend’s rock band! Who specifically is this person? For B2B marketers, this means collecting the following data points:
This is fundamental information that every marketer needs. It’s not going to give you too much information about the lead’s buying habits or interests, but it can give insight into whether they fit your ICP (ideal customer profile).
Firmographic data is the ‘who for’. Which company is this person working for? What does the company do? For B2B marketers, measuring this type of customer data means collecting:
Many marketers will stop here. A combination of demographic and firmographic data points will provide enough information to implement a relatively targeted, growth marketing plan. But you can go a lot further if you gather even more useful data.
Technographic data is the technologies that the employee or company is using. There are two reasons marketers should be collecting this type of customer information:
Chronographic data points change over time. Much like technographic data, these customer data points can refer to either the company or the employee. Chronographic data is made up of the following:
Without regular updates, this kind of customer data sets can stagnate very quickly. Cognism Enhance keeps your data up to date by running searches to see how leads or companies have progressed over time. Cognism’s accurate, globally-compliant data can then be used to update your stale database.
Quantitative data is the ‘how much’ - nothing less than cold, hard stats for marketers to interpret. This data type is collected during the marketing process, through the use of B2B marketing tools. Quantitative customer data points include:
The amount of quantitative data that you can collect is enormous, so we have only listed a few important ones. The main benefit of using this type of client data is its impartiality; you know where you stand.
Qualitative data is the ‘how was’. It’s concerned with quality rather than numbers. This can often give you insight into the type of person the prospect is. It’s hard to collect at scale, but is always worth recording when you do speak to a contact.
Collect this information throughout the customer journey. Examples of these data points are:
The importance of qualitative data is often overlooked. It’s additional useful information that doesn’t fit into the data categories SaaS marketers often focus on. Used right, it can give you a very competitive edge.
You can enhance your analytical insights by incorporating synthetic data into your datasets. It allows marketers to gain valuable simulated information that complements the existing real-world data, enabling more accurate predictions and informed decision-making.
Here is a quick guide to the customer data types for you to keep! Just right-click, hit save, and count on this whenever you need a quick reminder.
Cognism Prospector can give you access to all of the demographic, firmographic, technographic and chronographic data you need.
With 16 data points on over 400 million contacts worldwide, Cognism can be your 1-stop marketing shop for compliant B2B data.
Talk to one of our experts today to see whether our solution could be the final piece of your inbound lead generation puzzle.
Click the button below to schedule your free demo! 👇