What Is Customer Data Enrichment, and How Can It Benefit You?

A common goal for marketers and customer relationship management (CRM) software users is to better understand their customers. This way, they can nurture more fruitful relationships with customers and create more targeted marketing campaigns.

With customer data enrichment, all that and more is possible. CRMs collect customer data for a reason, and it’s up to you to use that valuable information for your company’s benefit.

Read on to learn more about what customer data enrichment is, how to collect customer data, and some major data enrichment benefits you can experience. Want to learn what an all-in-one CRM can do for you too? Get in touch with Nutshell to start a free trial, or attend one of our live demos today.

What is customer data enrichment?

Customer data enrichment is the process of taking individual customer data points and compiling and organizing them in a large database, like your Nutshell CRM, to divulge additional insights from the information.

Rather than looking at customer data as individual pieces of information, data enrichment combines all that information and looks at any overarching data trends or other key details that can help marketers gain a deeper understanding of their customers and their behaviors.

Types of customer data

There are three major types of customer data marketers can collect with their CRM and use for customer data enrichment. 

First-party customer data

First-party data is information that’s collected straight from your audience. You can collect first-party data from website visitors, online form submissions like surveys and quote requests, email subscribers, and your CRM.

First-party customer data includes:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Email
  • Some demographic information

Second-party customer data

Second-party customer data is like evolved first-party data. Essentially, it’s first-party data that’s shared with a trusted collaborator or partner. If you receive customer data from a business partner who collected it straight from their audience, that’s second-party data.

Second-party data includes information like names, emails, or basic demographic data, and can be collected through methods like sweepstakes or giveaways where multiple companies are involved.

Third-party customer data

Third-party customer data is information that’s collected by an entity separate from your own company. Some third-party data is publicly available to you, like census data, labor statistics, and information from other reputable research firms and government branches.

Third-party data can help you gain a deeper understanding of your customer base and flesh out the first-party data you’ve already collected. Third-party data includes:

  • Demographic data like location, age, gender identity
  • Social media handles
  • User interests
  • Job industry, employer(s), employer(s) name, revenue, etc.

How to collect customer data

With Nutshell’s all-in-one CRM system, customer data collection and enrichment are easy. Nutshell offers customizable forms so you can collect valuable customer data in whichever form works for you.

Edit the forms to allow for customer file uploads, multiple-choice options, description boxes, or any other method of data collection you require. From there, Nutshell takes that information and organizes it so you can easily view customer data and create insightful customer profiles.

Nutshell’s reporting makes customer data enrichment easy, with options to track customer behavior, like where customers enter your sales funnel, how they interact with your company, and what marketing efforts lead to conversions.

Benefits of customer data enrichment

Customer data enrichment is a crucial practice all CRM owners should engage in. Here are just a few of the many data enrichment benefits can profit from when you implement a strong enrichment strategy.

A better understanding of your customers

Besides being the main goal, one of the benefits of customer data enrichment is gaining a better understanding of your customers. Not only are you getting basic information from them, like names, demographic data, and industries they work in, but you’re collecting behavioral data.

You can’t necessarily collect behavioral data through forms, but you can use the information you collect from forms to find behavioral data.

For example, if you find that the majority of your leads are entering your sales funnel through social media ads and links, you can infer that your audience puts emphasis on social media usage. Then, you can direct your marketing efforts toward more actionable social media content and forms.

Enhanced customer experiences and relationships

By better understanding your customer base, like their social media habits, interests, etc., you can create better customer experiences. In fact, creating a better customer experience should be a main priority for you, considering that it’s one of the top consumer trends.

 An improved customer experience helps foster better relationships with your customers and even encourages longer-lasting relationships.

Increase the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts

These improved customer relationships can also lead to a better ROI with your marketing efforts. By understanding your audience through customer data enrichment, you can develop marketing campaigns that have a higher chance of gaining customer conversions.

More targeted campaigns better appeal to consumers and have an increased chance of getting them to act on calls to action (CTAs) because the campaigns feel personalized. 

Personalized campaigns make customers feel like you care about your audience as individuals and not just one big entity. Customers feel like you’re talking and appealing directly to them rather than shouting into the void that is your target audience.

Personalized campaigns are one of the biggest data enrichment benefits because they can continue to bring customers to your business long after they’ve been implemented. Personalized campaigns can lead to a better ROI for your company and even lead to better sales—that means more money for you! Who doesn’t want that?

Get cracking on customer data enrichment with the help of Nutshell

Collecting and organizing customer data for enrichment may seem like a lot, but here at Nutshell, we’ve got your back. When you partner with Nutshell, you’re not just gaining access to our intuitive CRM. You’re gaining access to the CRM experts that know how to help interpret customer data.

Not convinced yet? See what all the hype is about by checking out one of our live demos or signing up for a free trial today.

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