The biggest struggle most B2B marketers face is getting their messaging in front of the right audience. And if you can’t accurately target who you’re after how can you ever hope to be successful? Simply put, you can’t. The name of the game in today’s marketing world is data.
Whether you know it or not, you have an abundance of data about your customers. So, why aren’t you using it? It can be a major cog in your marketing machine if you take advantage of it. I’m talking about all the bits and pieces of information you have collected referred to as offline data.
This offline data can be leveraged to help you target, reach, and convert the people you are after. How is this possible? We’ll get to that, but first we need to talk about what offline is.
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Your Offline Data
Offline data refers to pretty much any customer (or potential customer) data you may have that originally came from an offline source.
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Potential Offline Data Sources:
- Your CRM
- Trade Show Lists
- Magazine Subscriber Lists
- Warranty Information
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Sources like these are great starting parts for you to use and move forward with your marketing efforts. Even if the data available in your CRM or gathered through these other means is limited or “incomplete”, it can still be incredibly useful.
Start by filtering through and segmenting your audience. Sources such as the ones listed above can give you a variety of insights that you can use to shape specific target audiences.
Using Your Data to Build an Audience:
How can the data you have, be used to build an audience? Separating current customers and prospective customers based on what you know about them allows you to accurately target them in the future. Use any matching or correlating information to build your new audiences.
Let’s say you have data points on owned equipment or warranty information in your CRM. With the knowledge of brand, equipment age, type, and possibly condition you can filter and build audiences based on specific needs. If you’re trying to reach people who use specific equipment you zero in on those you know will find the messaging useful and exclude everyone else.
The same can be done with other factors such as geographic location. Many people provide names and addresses regularly when they attend trade shows. Combing through the data you’ve gathered at trade shows can help you build segmented audiences by where prospects are located. Meaning you can target specific regions, states, or cities with precise messaging.
These are both great uses of your offline data, but in many cases, your data may be incomplete. Meaning you may know their name and address but not what equipment they run. Or, you may have phone numbers and emails, but you’re lacking an IP address. To get the most out of your offline data you can supplement it with the data of a 3rd party and take it online.
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Supplementing with 3rd Party Data
Having any information is great, but the more you have, the better your targeting can become. Taking your information and pairing that with data points available from 3rd party providers, such as EDA or RigDig Business Intelligence, can help you fill in the gaps and get a more complete picture.
Cross-referencing and matching the data you already possess the information in the databases can help locate the prospects you’re after and fill in any gaps you may have. With over 1,000,000 fleet listings available through RigDig, and data on 15,000,000 pieces of equipment (gathered through UCC filings, address changes, etc.) in EDA, it’s a fair bet that you’ll be able to beef up your data and targeting.
Working together a complete profile emerges allowing you to target and reach the prospects you find most attractive online.
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Take Your Data Online
Once you’ve gone through your data and possibly bolstered it with additional 3rd party data it’s time to take it online. What exactly can you do with this data online?
You can upload custom audience lists to social media sites like Facebook. In addition to your own data and audiences, Facebook lets you build lookalike audiences in platform that allows you target Facebook users who resemble your target audience. You can also use email data to target prospects all over the web with the Google Display Network.
The bottom line is, stop wasting your valuable offline data. It can be a huge factor in your marketing effectiveness. Use what data you have and add to it if you can. Use 3rd party data to fill in any gaps and strengthen what you’ve already been able to gather. Whether you use it to focus on Facebook, the Google Display Network, or elsewhere online do all you can to get the most out of your offline data by taking it online.
Follow your customers and leads online to grow your business. Doing so will get you closer to achieving the success you crave.
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