Customer database: which service providers should you choose?

Base de données clients : quels fournisseurs de service choisir

When you start your business or decide to give it a little boost, it takes hard work to expand in a new market or reaffirm your control over an existing territory. For this, a good management of customer data is essential. Your customer data drives your company's business through compiling valuable data to track your sales and analysing your economic performance.

However, it is sometimes necessary to get a little help from the outside. It can happen that the first-party data you own is unusable, lost or obsolete. That is why it may be easier to create a new base rather than waste weeks cleaning data entangled in a plethora of systems and tools that are not centralised.

To (re)build your address book and professionalise your customer data, data professionals are at your service.

What you need to know before using a third-party provider

GDPR Compliance

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European law that came into effect on May 25, 2018. It is particularly important for how data is collected, compiled and secured. All the data you want to use must comply with the GDPR or you will face complex court procedures and heavy fines. In addition, don’t forget that your responsibility is engaged, whether you use an external supplier or subcontractor or not. Choosing the right provider is essential if you don’t want to find yourself in a contentious situation.

Cost

Searching, collecting and verifying the relevance of data is important It requires a verification and lead generation work that can be manual or automated. In any case, you don't need to do it yourself but you do have to invest money in it.

In terms of customer data, low cost is rarely a relevant option. You risk ending up with barely usable data, many useless email addresses and a matching that does not match your expectations and your targets. You also risk damaging your reputation and image by sending poorly targeted messages, which will have a direct impact on your KPIs (deliverability rate, open rate, spam, etc.).

Guidance

With the Internet, everything can be done in three clicks.

However, nothing beats the human relationship to discuss your problems and find the right solutions. Some providers on the other side of the world who know neither your sector nor your specificities are ready to sell you data to enrich your lists of prospects.

To avoid disappointment, choose local companies and trusted intermediaries. We therefore advise to find service providers whom you can meet, whose legitimacy you can verify, and who are able to advise and support you from a strategic point of view in your approach.

Customer data providers

Finding a customer data provider can be complex as the first results on Google are not always the best options. While it is impossible to be exhaustive, we have selected five providers that we think you will like.

Corporama

French company based in Issy-Les-Moulineaux offering innovative commercial intelligence solutions. With Corporama, you can access 1 million registered e-mails of leaders, decision-makers and operators with a micro-targeting of interlocutors by function and level of responsibility associated with more than 30 different criteria (sector, size, turnover, etc.).

Find out more at https://corporama.fr

Manageo

Subsidiary of the Altares group, which is a key player in the digital data market serving commercial performance. Manageo has a predictive marketing platform that relies on the power of big data. The company collects, aggregates and gives access to nearly 10 billion pieces of information on French companies. A pioneer of open data, the SIRENE database is free to access on the platform where legal data is in contact with a new era of B2B data.

Find our more at https://www.manageo.fr

LinkedIn

Behind the well-known social network, there is a premium feature called Sales Navigator. It's a very useful tool for targeting good buyers and businesses, identifying what buyers are looking for and receiving real-time business information about your accounts and prospects. LinkedIn is an American solution, owned by Microsoft, but which is firmly established in the UK, especially since the virtual disappearance of its competitor Viadeo.

Find out more at https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/sales-navigator

Kwanko

French company established in 14 countries owning the biggest international email marketing network in Europe. Kwanko has a proprietary solution to boost your sales, generate leads and increase your traffic on your digital platforms, with dedicated tools to drive the performance of your campaigns.

Many consultants and experts work directly with clients to refine and optimise their strategies to make the right choices.

Find out more at https://www.kwanko.com/

Get Quanty

French company specialising in understanding, targeting and measuring your B2B business actions. The solution they offer identifies the origin of visitors in a precise manner (by name or company) and provides access to a directory of B2B decision makers. Each identified company has a summary sheet that contains all the information needed for prospecting - contacts, timeline, practical and firmographic information, history of scoring and its areas of interest.

Find out more at http://www.getquanty.com

Finding the right service provider who will help you develop your business strategy is an important step, but you also need your data to be well organised and managed. The management of the customer database must be based on powerful and intuitive tools, so that the collected data can help your business performance.