What is a Data Append and How it Boosts Lead Management

Marketers and sales teams rely on customer information to do their jobs effectively. They need to know who their leads are—including their preferences and pain points—-to personalize marketing campaigns and sales outreach. If data is incomplete, inaccurate, or changes over time, your business’s efforts aren’t going to be as successful. You may see a reduced return on investment (ROI) from marketing campaigns or a decrease in sales. To avoid this, your business needs to collect and update lead and customer data regularly with data appending.

What is a data append?

While the term may be unfamiliar to you, a data append—the process of supplementing your data with new or updated information—is an essential part of lead and customer management. During data appending, businesses gather additional information about their customers and prospects through outside sources.

This process lets you fill in any gaps in your lead and customer data and ensures you have the correct information on hand. For example, if you only had the email addresses for some leads, but wanted to run an SMS text-based marketing campaign, you would need to obtain their phone numbers. Data appending services get the missing contact information for you, so your outreach strategy reaches a larger percentage of your audience.

But data appending isn’t just for contact information. It also gathers and checks the accuracy of demographic and behavioral data, helping you further segment and target leads and customers. It’s also not a one-time event. Data appending should be regularly performed to ensure your consumer information is complete and up-to-date. The more data your business has, the better you can target and personalize outreach efforts—ultimately leading to improved customer and business outcomes.

Why are consumer data appends important?

Without data append, you’re simply not seeing the full picture of your customer information. Having complete and accurate consumer data is necessary for making informed decisions and strategies. Your business may discover new information about one of your audience segments that changes your outreach approach, or you may decide to narrow down your target audience based on updated information. Data appends benefits your business in several ways.

Personalized Engagement

The more lead and customer data your business has, the better you can personalize outreach and engagement. Information about who your customers are, such as their preferences, behaviors, and demographics, informs the type of content to send and the marketing or sales strategies to use. Customer engagement becomes more relevant and valuable once personalized.

Stronger Relationships With Leads and Customers

Your whole business can strengthen prospect and customer relationships with access to the right data. That may mean diversifying how you’re connecting with leads or offering more customized experiences. Consumer data can be used across business departments to develop more satisfying interactions and build customer loyalty.

Update Your Databases

Your business may use lead contact forms or surveys to help gather information. But people don’t always fill out every section of these forms, and their information may be inaccurate or change with time. Data appending verifies existing data and checks for any errors, ensuring the information in your database (like names and email addresses) is current and accurate. It also completes any missing lead and customer data to strengthen your database.

Data appends are also important if your business has migrated or upgraded your database infrastructure, as customer and lead data can accidentally get lost. Whether from system or user error, any lost data can easily be retrieved with a data append.

7 Types of Data That Can Be Appended

Many types of data can be appended, your business isn’t limited to only supplementing your contact information. Here are some common data types for appending that will help your business.

Demographic Data

Demographic data appends correct and augment your consumer’s existing household information, giving you greater insight into the backgrounds and priorities of your leads and customers. It includes the following information:

• Age
• Marital status (single, married, divorce, widowed, etc)
• Whether or not they have children, and if so how many
• Race and ethnicity
• Gender identity
• If they own a home or rent
• Political or organizational affiliations

Accurate and updated demographic data is key for knowing which products and services consumers will be interested in and how to best target them through marketing campaigns and sales outreach efforts. A lead in their 40s who owns a home and is raising several children will have different priorities and needs than a single 20-something, and having access to demographics lets you segment your audience into relevant categories.

Transactional Data

Knowing what consumers have previously purchased is a good indicator of the types of products and services they’re interested in and the price point they’re comfortable with. For instance, if a car dealership knows their lead has already purchased high-end speakers or likes to buy the latest technology, they might be more likely to want an upgraded vehicle model with a better sound system and other advanced features. Data appending allows your business to access this information, which can greatly improve your marketing and sales strategies.

Interests and Predispositions

Much like transactional data, knowing what your prospects’ and customers’ hobbies, interests, and preferences are will help you personalize customer engagement and tailor marketing campaigns. Data appending informs businesses so they can make smarter decisions.

For example, if you know some of your leads are interested in environmentally-friendly products or live a greener lifestyle, use the opportunity to promote your green services and products to them. Not only will they feel more connected to your business through shared values, but you may also see increased ROI from your marketing and sales efforts.

Employer Data

An employer data append gives your business access to key information about your customers and leads. You’ll learn where they are currently employed and their length of employment, which may tell you more about their values and interests. It also gives you greater insight into their income level and discretionary spending abilities. All of these factors help your business further segment and target your audience. You can also use employment data to discover new marketing and sales opportunities.

Education

As with employer data, knowing what level of education your leads and customers have is key to understanding their purchasing behaviors. A consumer’s educational background may impact what products or services they’re interested in or what type of information they’re looking for during the buying process. Since education level may change, data appending is key.

Contact Data

While your business captured some contact data during the lead capture process, you may not have access to a contact’s full information. Data appending services supplement and complete your lead and customer contact data, ensuring that the information you have is complete, updated, and accurate.

Remember to:

• Append phone numbers: More businesses are turning to SMS text messaging to send marketing campaigns and connect with customers. Phone number data appends are an easy way to get access to this valuable information. 

• Verify email addresses: While email addresses are typically collected as part of the lead generation process and at the time of a customer’s purchase, they’re not always accurate. Consumers may make a typo while entering their information, or they may change their email addresses. Data appending corrects any mistakes and verifies the email addresses you have in your database are the most current ones.

• Refresh mailing addresses: Even though businesses conduct much of their marketing online these days, having access to a lead or customer’s home address is important. It allows you to send outreach and engagement opportunities based on the consumer’s location, which is ideal for businesses with physical locations (like auto dealerships, retailers, and healthcare providers).

• Update social media handles: Just about everyone has at least one social media account, and many businesses are taking advantage of the platforms to boost customer engagement. Data appending can help your company access the social media profiles of your leads and customers, so you can connect with them on the channels where they’re the most active.

Date of Birth

What better way to connect with leads or customers than to send them a personalized birthday greeting? Aside from being an easy way to stay in touch with consumers, these messages can improve perception of your company and increase customer retention. Access to their date of birth also lets you segment your audience by age. Data appending ensures you’re seeing the correct birth month and year information.

How To Append Data in 6 Steps

To fill any gaps in your lead or customer data and refine your target audience, most businesses choose to use a data appending service. That’s because data appending can be incredibly time consuming to attempt on your own, plus your business doesn’t have easy access to third-party databases needed for supplementing consumer data. Here’s a glimpse into the six steps of the data appending process.

1. Prepare Your Data

For the data append system to read and analyze your data correctly, you first need to ensure all your information is in the same format. Generally, data append tools prefer all data arrive in comma separated value (CSV) format.

2. Upload Securely

Once your existing data is all in the same format and consolidated within one single file, you’ll then upload it to your data appending service’s server over the internet using file transfer protocol (FTP). You may have to log in to their FTP server if they’re using a password-protected FTP method.

3. Match and Merge the Data

The data append service provider or tool will then verify and match your lead and customer records with corresponding information from their external sources and databases using data such as names, email addresses, or phone numbers.

4. Enhance the Data

After matching your data, the data appending process continues by correcting inaccuracies in your existing data and filling in any missing information. This step also relies on data from the service provider’s own databases.

You may be able to request for specific data enhancements, depending on the data append company. For example, businesses interested in diversifying their outreach strategies may want to gain access to lead and customer phone numbers. While others may request new transactional or demographic data to help narrow down their audience targeting.

5. Validate Your Data

This step verifies the appended data for both completeness and accuracy for your business, making sure that the additional data is valuable and relevant for your needs.

6.Send and Download the Data

The appended data file is then sent back to your business through the same FTP process. You can then download the file and integrate it into your existing records, including your lead management tools or customer relationship management (CRM) software. From there, your marketing, sales, customer service, and other lead-facing teams can use the information to develop new strategies.

Choosing a Data Append Service

Data append services and tools are an efficient way to supplement your existing lead and customer data. But since there are numerous options currently available, it’s important to understand what attributes and features to look for.

Your new service should:

• Work within your industry: You want to use a data append service that works within your industry so you have access to relevant third-party databases and information.
• Follow data privacy regulations: You don’t want your own data compromised, and you want to ensure that additional data is collected and verified legally. This attribute is extremely important in compliance-heavy fields like healthcare.
• Offer custom data solutions: Make sure the tool has the specific data solutions you need or offers customizations. Custom data solutions allow your business to request the type of data most needed or other services—like data hygiene—to ensure appended data integrates smoothly.

Track Your Leads and Customers With Podium

Ensuring your lead and customer data is accurate, current, and complete through data appends is a step your business needs to take if you want to take advantage of data for customer outreach and engagement purposes. Your marketing, sales, and customer services teams will all benefit from access to current information that lets them personalize and better target their efforts. But data appends won’t have as strong an impact if your business doesn’t have a robust lead tracking system in place.

Podium’s Lead Management & Tracking Software for Businesses is the perfect tool to keep track of your leads and customers to boost your business. Our platform consolidates all your lead channels—from third-party websites, social media platforms, or your website’s chatbot—into one place. Plus, our AI Employee can instantly respond to leads to increase conversions—watch a demo to see how.