B2B data, or business-to-business data, refers to any information that benefits B2B companies, particularly their sales, marketing, and revenue operations teams. This data includes account and contact information for company decision-makers with purchasing power, and is essential for activities such as lead generation, outbound sales, and analytics, ultimately leading to more effective and efficient revenue generation.
There are five essential types of B2B data:
Leveraging B2B data for sales success involves a combination of strategies and best practices. To make the most of your B2B data, consider the following:
Ensuring the accuracy of B2B data is crucial for effective sales and marketing efforts. To maintain data accuracy, businesses should consider the following techniques:
B2B data privacy and compliance issues are increasingly important as businesses collect and utilize data to enhance their sales and marketing efforts. Adhering to data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is crucial to avoid potential financial and reputational damage.
To address these challenges, businesses should implement strict data storage guidelines and data governance practices to minimize the risk of data breaches and ensure the privacy and safety of the data they access.
Lead nurturing is the process of developing and reinforcing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is the predictable income a company expects to receive from its customers over a one-year period.
De-duping, or data deduplication, is the process of eliminating duplicate copies of data within a dataset to improve accuracy and save space.
Lead generation is the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business's products or services.
A cold email is an initial outreach sent to a potential customer with whom you've had no prior contact, aiming to introduce your business.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the predictable, recurring income a business expects to receive each month from all active subscriptions.
A performance plan is a formal document outlining an employee's goals, expectations, and metrics for success over a specific period.
End of Day (EOD) refers to the close of business hours. It's a common deadline for tasks and reports to be completed before the workday ends.
Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue kept from existing customers, including upsells, downgrades, and churn.
Lead scraping is the process of automatically extracting contact information and other relevant data about potential customers from online sources.
Sales intelligence is technology that gathers and analyzes data to help salespeople find and understand prospects and existing clients.
Process Builder is a Salesforce automation tool that lets you create 'if/then' business processes with a user-friendly visual interface.
Customer buying signals are the actions, behaviors, or statements a prospect makes that indicate they are moving towards a purchase decision.
Hadoop is an open-source framework designed for the distributed storage and processing of extremely large data sets across clusters of computers.
Application Performance Management (APM) monitors and manages an application's performance, availability, and the experience of its end-users.
AI data enrichment uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance and update raw data, making it more complete, accurate, and valuable.
Inside sales is a remote sales process where reps sell products or services via phone, email, and other digital tools instead of in person.
A qualified lead is a prospect vetted as a good fit for your product. They match your ideal customer profile and show genuine interest.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are websites that look and feel like native mobile apps, offering features like offline access and push notifications.
Total Addressable Market (TAM) represents the maximum revenue a company can earn by selling its product or service in a specific market.
A RESTful API is a web service interface that uses HTTP requests to access and use data, adhering to the constraints of REST architecture.
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment an employee has to their organization, motivating them to contribute to the company's success.
A messaging strategy defines what your brand says, how it says it, and where it says it to connect effectively with your target audience.
“End of Quarter” (EOQ) refers to the final weeks of a business quarter when sales teams rush to meet quotas, often leading to a flurry of deals.
Learn about bottom of the funnel, including maximizing conversions at the funnel's end, & strategies for nurturing bottom-funnel leads.
A Marketing Qualified Opportunity (MQO) is a lead vetted by marketing as a genuine sales opportunity, ready for direct sales follow-up.
Single Sign-On (SSO) is an authentication method allowing users to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials.
An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a prospect who has shown interest based on marketing efforts but isn't yet ready for a sales conversation.
A Representational State Transfer (REST) API is a web service that uses a simple, stateless architecture for systems to communicate online.
Contact discovery is the process of finding accurate contact details for potential leads, including names, emails, phone numbers, and job titles.
Docker is a tool that packages applications and their dependencies into isolated environments called containers for easy deployment and scaling.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search results.
Order management is the end-to-end process of tracking customer orders from placement to fulfillment, ensuring a seamless customer experience.
A custom API integration is a bespoke connection between software, enabling them to communicate and share data to meet unique business requirements.
A User Interface (UI) is the point where humans and computers interact. It encompasses all visual elements like screens, icons, and buttons.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a web security vulnerability that allows attackers to inject malicious scripts into trusted websites.
Responsive design is an approach where a website's layout adapts to the user's screen size, providing an optimal experience on any device.
Sales enablement content refers to the materials and tools that empower your sales team to engage prospects and close deals more efficiently.
A marketing attribution model is a framework for assigning credit to the marketing touchpoints that lead a customer to convert.
Consultative selling is an approach where salespeople act as expert advisors, diagnosing customer needs to provide the most suitable solutions.
Revenue Operations (RevOps) is a business function that aligns a company's sales, marketing, and customer service teams to drive predictable revenue.
Learn about buyer intent data, including sourcing and interpreting buyer intent data, & key metrics in buyer intent analysis.
“No Spam” is a commitment to sending only relevant, solicited messages. It means avoiding bulk, unwanted emails to respect the recipient's inbox.
Cohort analysis is a behavioral analytics tool that groups users with common traits to track their actions and engagement over time.
The FAB technique is a sales framework connecting product features to advantages and then to the specific benefits for the customer.
A product champion is an internal evangelist who drives a product's adoption and success by ensuring it solves real problems for their team.
Enrichment is the process of adding third-party data to your existing customer profiles to get a more complete picture of your leads.
Microservices is an architecture where apps are built as a collection of small, independent services that communicate with each other over APIs.
Firmographic data is information used to classify firms. It includes attributes like industry, employee count, location, and annual revenue.
Direct sales involves selling products directly to consumers in a non-retail setting, such as at home, online, or person-to-person.
Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is the portion of the market your business can realistically serve with its current products and sales channels.
Triggers are predefined conditions that, when met, automatically launch a workflow or action, ensuring timely and relevant outreach.
Learn about B2C2B, including how B2C2B transforms sales, key strategies for B2C2B success, & differences between B2C2B and B2B2C.
HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform with tools for marketing, sales, and service, all aimed at helping businesses grow.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application that manages your entire hiring and recruitment process from a single dashboard.
Mobile compatibility ensures your site or app works flawlessly on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, for a seamless user experience.
Lead qualification is the process of determining which prospects are most likely to become paying customers based on predefined criteria.
A consumer is an individual or entity that buys products or services for personal use, not for resale. They are the final user in a supply chain.
A value statement is a clear, concise declaration of the unique benefits a company provides to its customers, outlining its core purpose.
A marketing automation platform is software that automates marketing actions. It helps manage tasks like email campaigns and lead nurturing.
Sales Engineers blend deep technical knowledge with sales acumen, demonstrating a product's value and solving customer problems to drive revenue.
The awareness stage is the first step in the buyer's journey, where a potential customer realizes they have a problem or an opportunity to explore.
Pipeline coverage is a key sales metric. It's the ratio of your total open pipeline value to your sales quota for a specific period.
A Sales Development Representative (SDR) is a sales specialist who finds and qualifies new leads, building a pipeline for the sales team.
Scrum is an agile framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices.
Revenue forecasting is the process of estimating a company's future revenue, using historical data and market trends to guide strategic planning.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a system of integrated software that businesses use to manage and automate their core day-to-day processes.
A sales kickoff (SKO) is an annual event for a sales team to celebrate wins, align on goals, and get motivated for the upcoming year.
Cold emailing is sending unsolicited emails to potential customers you haven't contacted before, aiming to start a business conversation.
A Call for Proposal (CFP) is a document that solicits proposals, often through a bidding process, for a specific project or service.
A buying committee is a group of stakeholders within an organization who are jointly responsible for making major purchasing decisions.
Sales coaching is a process where managers help reps improve their skills and performance through personalized feedback, training, and guidance.
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based model where affiliates earn a commission for promoting another company’s products or services.
Learn about buyer, including identifying your ideal buyer, understanding buyer's journey, & evaluating buyer decision processes.
A Point of Contact (POC) is the designated individual or department that serves as the main hub for information and communication on a matter.
Sales workflows are a set of automated actions that streamline the sales process, helping teams engage leads consistently and close deals faster.
Expansion revenue is the extra money a business makes from its current customers via upgrades, new products, or additional services.
Sales enablement provides sales teams with the necessary tools, content, and information to help them sell more effectively and efficiently.
ABM orchestration aligns marketing and sales actions across channels to deliver seamless, personalized experiences to high-value accounts.
Ramp-up time is the period a new hire takes to get fully up to speed and become a productive member of your go-to-market team.
CRM enrichment is the process of adding third-party data to your existing customer profiles to make them more complete and accurate.
Account mapping is comparing your customer list with a partner's to find common prospects and unlock new sales opportunities.
Email marketing is a digital strategy where businesses send targeted emails to prospects and customers to build relationships and drive sales.
Learn about bounce rate, including understanding bounce rate implications, key factors affecting bounce rate, & reducing your bounce rate effectively.
An email cadence is a scheduled sequence of emails sent to prospects over a specific period to nurture leads and drive engagement.
Firmographics are descriptive attributes of organizations, used to segment companies by characteristics like industry, size, and location.
CRM integration connects your CRM software with other tools, creating a unified system for all your customer data and business processes.
Rollback procedures are a set of steps to restore a system to a previous, stable version after a failed update, ensuring minimal disruption.
Video selling uses personalized video messages to engage prospects, build rapport, and guide them through the sales funnel to close more deals.
Personalization in sales means tailoring outreach to a prospect's specific needs, interests, and context to make communication more relevant.
Retargeting marketing is a digital advertising strategy that targets users who have previously interacted with your website or brand online.
A sales intelligence platform is software that provides sales teams with data and insights about prospects to help them sell more effectively.
Learn about B2B data enrichment, including benefits of B2B data enrichment, implementing B2B data enrichment strategies, B2B data enrichment vs. data cleaning.
An Account Executive (AE) is a sales professional responsible for closing new business deals and managing existing client relationships to drive revenue.
A buying signal is any action from a prospect that indicates they are interested in making a purchase, helping sales teams prioritize leads.
A canary release is a deployment strategy where new software is rolled out to a small user group first, minimizing risk before a full release.
Intent-based leads are potential customers whose online actions—like searches or content engagement—signal a clear interest in buying a solution.
Feature flags let you remotely control features in your app without new code. This enables safe testing, gradual rollouts, and quick rollbacks.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a focused B2B strategy where marketing and sales collaborate to target and convert high-value accounts.