Data appending means the addition of new, updated, and accurate data in a pre-existing database. Having inaccurate or incomplete information in your company’s database can impact your business operations. So, for a business, the data processing technique helps fill in the database gaps and eliminate incomplete or inaccurate information.
Businesses can get data appending done differently, like by setting-up in-house resources with the job or delegating this task to a data appending company. The former is a resource and cost-intensive method, while the latter brings several benefits to the table (in addition to being cost-effective). Here is a quick guide on how B2B data appending services are increasing utility for businesses and why you should consider it if you haven’t.
Types of Data Appending
As there are different data available, data appending also includes different types, each involving different data fields. Some of them are given below:
- Social media appending
This type will include adding missing social media details of the customers. To know their customers’ preferences, businesses need to use their customer’s social media details to analyze them and mold their marketing campaigns accordingly.
- Reverse Appending
This includes adding more data fields in your database like email id or phones etc.
- Fax Appending
This will include adding fax details of the customers.
- Email appending
This is the most common method as businesses to date use emails as one of the marketing modes to reach out to their prospective customers. Email appending includes adding the new email address and removing the old ones.
- Phone appending
You can manage your telemarketing meaningfully with this type of appending service.
Direct Benefits of Data Appending for a Business
Data appending helps deal with inaccurate and incomplete data, making it useful for the business in many ways.
- Cost-effectiveness:
The effort required for managing unorganized data takes a heavy toll on employee productivity and resource effectiveness, ultimately increasing enterprise costs. However, if you aren’t processing and appending datasets as a regular practice, then doing so at once will take a lot of time. In such a case, carrying out data appending services regularly minimizes your efforts and is cost-effective for your business.
- Clean Information:
Businesses obtain data in an unstructured format that contains errors and may have missing fields. Data appending is required to make that data error-free and up-to-date. A Company fetches data from various sources, and all sources might not have every piece of information. Thus to complete such data and make it usable, data appending is used so that the missing details can be filled in and old information can be replaced with new ones.
- Targeted Marketing:
The success of several marketing campaigns depends on data accuracy. For instance, using incomplete data for email marketing can lead to bounced mails, missed deliveries, poor CTR, and a wastage of time and money. On the contrary, if every email in your database has been appended and enriched, your messages will reach the right prospects and create the desired outcomes. Therefore, appending enterprise databases with the right information can not only save a lot of time but also encourage effective marketing campaigns.
- Complete Information:
It’s considered one of the biggest benefits of data appending, i.e., it increases the reliability of a dataset by ensuring data completeness. Through appending, the information in a database is enriched and verified. For instance, a basic contact list database with fields like occupation, phone number, and email address can be appended with extra data, like physical address, birthdays, gender, job titles & roles, income, and other such fields that are required to help businesses build personalized marketing strategies or create consumer profiles.
- Improved relationships:
Data appending helps businesses get updated customer data. The updated data allows a business to categorize its customers into different segments. This helps businesses in managing and improve their relationship with their customers.
What B2B Data Appending Services Can Do for Your Business
Businesses can get data appending done in various ways, one is setting up an in-house team, the second is hiring a data appending service provider, and the last is hiring a freelancer. All three ways carry distinct disadvantages and advantages. However, outsourcing data appending services has been an upward trend over the last few years for the following reasons.
- Increases Focus on Your Primary Business Goals:
The growth of any business depends on the marketing strategies they use to reach out to a larger pool of customers and compel them to buy its offerings. But if you shift this focus to other tasks (that are crucial yet very time-consuming and monotonous) like data appending, that may negatively impact your primary goals. Outsourcing data-appending services to professionals help safeguard your employee’s energy and time and divert them toward high-priority tasks. Meanwhile, the outsourced team handles data appending from scratch and provides high-quality results leaving businesses with minimal stress about data appending.
- Eliminates the Need for Hiring & Training New Employees:
Setting up an in-house team isn’t easy, as it requires a lot of time and resources. First, the HR department would need to carry out the need analysis and then commence the recruitment process. The new employees will be provided training that requires additional costs, like tools, trainer’s cost, etc., and after that, the employees will be given on-the-job responsibilities. But even after investing so much time and effort, you may not get the expected quality of work. With professional data-appending service providers, you can get access to skilled data professionals with varying expertise while spending a portion of the time and cost involved in in-house recruiting. Thus, rather than setting up an in-house team which is a challenging task for a company, many businesses prefer to hire a professional agency to do it.
- Time-Saving, Cost-Effective & Hassle-Free:
Every company desires to get high-quality output in lesser time and within affordable costs. There are many data-appending service providers who offer high-quality results at affordable rates and within a quick turnaround time. Furthermore, companies need not spend money on buying tools and resources to get this work done, as these companies have the latest software to provide error-free results efficiently.
- Access to a Large Pool of Expert Resources:
Usually, third-party service companies have a team of experts with varying specializations to meet different client needs. Through flexible hiring models and mostly reasonable or competitive prices, they offer access to expert assistance. On the contrary, if you plan to set up an in-house team for data appending, then you would need to offer a higher salary package to the candidates with years of experience, and even after you do, there is no way you can get to know their capability unless and until they are onboarded. To escape such hassles, hiring an expert remote team is the best way to get it done.
- Flexibility and Scalability:
Any sudden surge in work can lead to two scenarios; either your current team will be under heavy pressure, or you will have to quickly hire, train, and onboard more resources. During this process, you could lose a client, a sale, or a contract. Not to mention, your team could very well be burnt out by the end of such a project. On the other hand, outsourcing frees you of the hassle of scaling. If you need more resources, this requirement can be redirected to the B2B data appending company. Outsourcing agencies are prepared for sudden surges in workload and are well prepared because that’s what they’re supposed to offer. They will just add more resources to your team without causing any issues for your employees or any impact on the project timeline.
- Pay Per Hour or Only for the Work Done:
Outsourcing agencies have several packages to offer, and just like Google Ads, you can pause or resume the service at your convenience. From choosing between hourly payments to project-based payments, you have absolute control over the work. This isn’t possible when having an in-house department as the remuneration rules change drastically in a full-time in-house arrangement.
Conclusion
Modern businesses are well-aware of the importance of data appending for increasing return on investment and improving the overall marketing efficiency of their campaigns, among other things. But managing a permanent in-house data management team poses many challenges, especially to start-ups or small and medium-sized businesses. Managing those obstacles, keeping the data in sync, and doing it all within the budget can be overwhelming. In such cases, trusting reputed data management or data enrichment service providers can be a wise choice.
If you are looking for such support, start your search by making a list of such agencies, drawing out cost and service comparisons, contacting the shortlisted ones, and asking for a demo session. With a similarly structured selection process, you can easily get a data-appending company that meets your needs.
