For companies that depend on the accuracy and validity of their data points, data enrichment is absolutely crucial. And today, most businesses fit that category of data-driven and data-dependent organizations. Data enhancement through enrichment assists such organizations in keeping the data sets updated and in top shape. In this article, we will look at how exactly data enrichment is useful by describing its main use cases.
Defining Data Enrichment
Organizational databases are filled with data sets that could be improved in one way or another. The data points in these sets are outdated due to data decay or missing some important values. Or the information might be plainly incorrect.
Data enrichment is the process used to remedy this situation. Generally, it can be defined as the integration of the organization’s data sets with additional data from third-party sources. By adding additional data points in this way, businesses fill the gaps in their databases. Thus, the data becomes enriched or richer, both in terms of quantity and quality.
4 Crucial Use Cases
There is no end to ways in which data enrichment can be used for business benefits. For the sake of keeping this article shorter than the dictionary, we will concentrate on the four main reasons why companies enrich their data.
- Lead generation. Clearly, lead data is among the most important kinds of information stored by businesses. Your ability to keep growing as a business depends on having good leads. Unfortunately, a lot of lead data in firms’ databases is deficient. Contact details change and are not enough to qualify leads in the first place. Data enrichment boosts your lead generation by providing additional leads as well as improving your knowledge of the existing ones.
- Customer success management. Getting new clients is fun and, of course, important. But retaining customers and expanding your volume of business is just as beneficial. And just as hard if you have bad data on them. Data enrichment is among the top ways to keep learning about your clients. It allows your customer success team to figure out new ways to make the client’s life easier and business relations closer.
- Defining the ideal customer. Data enrichment also becomes necessary when you want to utilize analytical tools to figure out who your best customers are. Such tools as the ideal customer profile (ICP) or buyer’s persona have to be based on well-rounded and accurate data to truly represent your best clients and prospects. Companies enrich their current customer data to conduct analyses that lead to accurate profiles and descriptions.
- Competitive analysis. When a company is fighting for its place in the market, keeping track of the competition is critical. Whether it’s a new company that is looking at opportunities to enter a market or a firm seeking to introduce a new product, analysis of the competitive conditions is a foundational step. Enriching the data you currently have is almost always necessary for such analysis to make sure that your information is up-to-date and relevant.
Investing in Investment Data
After covering the main business use cases of data enrichment, we still have to mention one more area where this process is incredibly useful.
Investment funds are as dependent on high-quality data as any other type of firm, if not more. The databases used by such firms have to be enriched constantly.
Data enrichment helps investors in a few distinct ways. Firstly, it allows for keeping the data relevant through all the fast-paced changes that are characteristic of today’s markets. Secondly, third-party sources are often needed to add alternative data types to the official data that investors traditionally rely on.
Furthermore, data enrichment provides volume and accuracy of the information crucial for adequately training algorithms for investment modeling. Finally, data enrichment improves the ability to have an in-depth analysis of startups and particular market trends that affect their products’ potential.
All this makes data enrichment an investment decision worthy of the greatest investors out there.
