B2B Acquisition: How to identify potential customers following a data-driven strategy 

B2B Acquisition There is no doubt that large companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix and Spotify have developed more authentic products, services and experiences than their competition, thanks to Big Data. But it is not something recent; in fact, these large companies, from the beginning, based their business model on the management and analysis of data. This shows, on the one hand, the benefits of using data in business strategies. On the other, if we are not at least exploring this path of business optimization, we are already late in reaching the golden age of data.

It is proven that a data strategy helps us transversally. But as Jack the Ripper said, let’s go in parts. In this post, we will focus on using data and its sources to accurately identify our perfect customer within the B2B market. What, together with a series of effective campaigns, radically improves the conversion rate or, in other words, customer acquisition?

The quality of the data determines the quality of the strategy

Data is the pillar on which any data-driven strategy is built. We must ensure that the data we make those strategies are reputable and reliable. If we use wood or even straw to build our house, its strength will be conditioned instead of bricks. The same happens with our strategies; if a piece of data is wrong, all the decisions based on that data will also be bad. That is why it is convenient to conduct a data quality audit beforehand and introduce validation filters for the incoming information in our systems before starting any data-driven strategy.

1. Identify key and potential segments in my database (First Party Data)

In the course of our commercial activity, see why we have sold to someone or because someone has been interested in our product/service before. We have had to be able to create a database of clients and potentials. All the information falls within the famous CRM.

No one knows our customers and prospects better than ourselves,. Although we may think we know everything about them, it is good to “dig” a bit as we can identify opportunities for growth and optimization.

Analysis of our database

A first analysis would consist of cross-checking data. What data? They will vary depending on our information and our type of client, but we have to cross-check those that we consider critical to identify our clients. Some basic examples:

• Distribution of our clients by province, size and sector of activity: If by quantity our clients tend to belong to the area of Madrid, have more than 50 employees and belong to the banking sector, are we sure that we have gone deep enough in this segment? Of value?
• Comparison in terms of the product/service based on the sector of activity: If more than 70% of our customers in the food sector buy product A repeatedly, it is clear that our product is helpful in the industry, but why the other? 30% of our clients in the industry do not have it? Have we offered it? This is how we discover groups in which we have great potential to continue growing.

potential score

In this case, we identify the key fields within our database that determine the ideal customer profile,. We assign them a specific weight based on their importance to create a potentiality score. Associated Strategies:

• Twin Search: If we already have commercial traction, we will identify our best customers and can start to see their commonality and be prepared to search the market and better invest our budgets.
• Prioritize leads: If we apply the score calculation to the lead entry channels, it allows us to automatically identify the value of the incoming leaders to prioritize and distribute those with the most possibilities within the organization. We are giving a more effective service to those with great potential also improves the chances of success in the sale.
• Personalize the offer: Derived from the previous one, we will be able to customize the value proposition based on the customer’s potential, with which we will also improve the conversion rate. Personalized campaigns multiply your results by more than 50%.

2. Identify potentials with external information (Second or Third Party Data)

We may not have all the necessary data to successfully analyse our different customer profiles,, or this is a path already explored by us. As an alternative, players in the market market the data you need or open data sources from which one can draw to identify new potential. How?

data enrichment

Crossing our data with external information to qualify the records, validate the information and carry out new analyzes (remember point 1). Company data such as business activity, employee ,development billing or financial delinquency data are beneficial for the most basic potentiality scores.

geomarketing

Where are the best customers? Where should you focus your efforts to maximize the impact of your campaigns? The data associated with a geographical point, be it an address, a mobile location or x,y coordinates, can also help us identify areas of market potential.

• Areas of concentration of companies with characteristics of our ideal client: Having identified our clients and adding external data from the Spanish business fabric, we can search for areas of concentration of companies that share the characteristics of my ideal company to optimize the strategy of my commercial network (areas of concentration of companies by specific sectors of activity, company sizes or any data that we consider discriminating)
• Managers or potential companies close to your event: As in B2C, mobile location is already used to impact consumers who pass by a store; we can invite managers who pass by or are near my event for conferences, workshops or stands. If you do not have the location data of the managers, you can always invite those belonging to companies close to the place of your event. Indeed they will not remain indifferent.

External databases oriented to recruitment.

The fastest way to acquire customers is to look for providers with records of similar characteristics to my customers and who also have contact information. To be successful in the acquisition campaign, we must monitor the quality of the documents, taking into account aspects such as the response rates of the database or the updating of the data itself.

3. Identify potentials using the internet as a data source

The Internet is the largest source of data,, and if we do not consider it, it would be like fishing for fish in a small artificial pond with the ocean behind us. The most remarkable:

My Web

In B2B, we often forget about the web as a source of additional information that can help us identify potential customers.

• Google Analytics: Our users are an anonymous gold mine of potential. We can analyze the data to identify those who are most likely to convert (those who were about to contact us, who have visited us several times in a month, who viewed certain product pages, who stayed longer than average or who met all the above criteria). The analysis, and effective remarketing campaigns, will attract new customers that are easier to convert than users who do not know us. Another helpful piece of information that we can analyze is the location of our users and carry out marketing campaigns based on the concentration of potentials.
• IP identification: Some online tools, such as Fastbase, allow us to “put a face” on web users and can tell us which company the user who has visited us works for. By combining it with other tools, such as LinkedIn, we can carry out campaigns with a greater probability of success.

Social networks

We could say that LinkedIn is a “B2B database with legs”. The advantage of this database is that it updates itself. The records themselves (LinkedIn users) keep the information updated due to their interest in networking, looking for work and generating a personal brand. Also, establish a pretext to communicate with your potential customers.

It can combined with other strategies already mentioned first to identify companies that fit your ideal client and then able to find the right interlocutors and contact them.

Remember that other networks, even if they are not pure B2B channels, can help us reach potential business niches. This is the case of Facebook, which concentrates on companies that seek to get closer to their customers and has a potent advanced segmentation capacity.

Web crawling and web scraping

Without depending on any structure or format, generating a database from scratch is the best way to identify potential based on your needs. You select the data sources, manage the updates… everything tailored to your project and customer acquisition strategy. How?

It is using the internet as a data source with processes similar to those that Google uses to scan and index web pages in its search engine.

Let’s say that LinkedIn is made up of users who update their data. The Internet is made up of company websites that seek visibility and attract customers, which, as a consequence, also take care of and update the information on their web pages. What constitutes the largest source of reliable B2B data? This allows us to explore new methods of creating databases and segmentation variables tailored to our needs and problems. We will see it better with a concrete example: