Data brokers are the link between the companies which collect company data and the companies which want to use that data to promote their products and services

What is a B2B data broker and why should you use one?

More Than Words Marketing is a fast-growing B2B data broker in the UK.

We sell data and outsourced marketing campaigns to clients looking for named decision makers to approach.

We cover businesses, the education sector, and the public sector, for targeted advertising by email, phone, and postal ads. (Please note that we don’t sell personal data or consumer data).

To provide you with access to this data, we work with a number of specialist data providers.

Why do list owners compile such huge B2B data lists?

When compiling B2B marketing databases, list owners need to collect a vast amount of supporting data and information for each company they add to their records.

The reason they need this much data is that it’s intended for use in direct marketing campaigns.

More Than Words note – with direct marketing campaigns, you choose how and when you contact potential customers – you don’t wait for them to come to you.

The most common types of direct marketing campaigns are email marketing campaigns, telemarketing campaigns, and postal marketing (also known as direct mail) campaigns.

Direct marketing’s biggest selling point is that you can precisely select the targets who will see your ads.

This means that, instead of advertising to 10,000 disparate individuals or business decision makers (as you would with a billboard advert), you select just the people and businesses which are most likely to need your products and services.

How do list owners obtain the information on their data lists?

List owners use a number of different sources to successfully populate their B2B databases.

For a company’s initial entry onto the database, list owners find brand new companies or companies which have moved premises, using a variety of public record sources including:

• Companies House,
• credit reference agencies,
• a shared central base of British business telephone numbers, and
• a selection of offline and online business directories.

Often, the main sources for more specialised data lists come from brokers.

Brokers add further, often very specific personal information to a list owner’s core data to add extra value to it.

For example, many energy companies wish to target companies off the gas grid. Brokers can enhance that information to a list owner’s database, allowing them to quickly find a target audience for more specific marketing purposes.

Narrowing down the targets

List owners need to collect as many data points as possible, to ensure their clients find the specific prospects they are looking for.

There are three types of data points – data on the company, data on the individual, and contact data.

Company data

The information collected on each of the companies on a B2B database are generally as follows:

• company name
• line of business
• legal status
• location data
• main switchboard telephone numbers
• number of employees
• number of branches
• type of premises
• website address
• level of turnover (banded)
• year the original company began trading
• company registration number
• incorporation date
• net worth
• profit or loss making?
• %age increase or decrease in profitability YOY
• turnover increase or decrease YOY (shown in pound sterling)

With this depth of information, clients are able to be very specific about the types of businesses they can target.

More Than Words note – you can choose which types of business you target using descriptive codes (A-Z industry sector lists or grouped B2B data lists) or by SIC codes.

Data on decision making individuals

With decision maker data collection, most list owners want to form a direct relationship with the senior contact within the company.

However, especially with larger companies, list owners will try to collect personal information on a variety of different decision makers.

In companies where someone does have a specific area of purchasing responsibility, success rates on direct marketing campaigns are higher when that person is targeted, instead of the senior contact.

Individual contact data

Finally, the list owner needs to collect the following information:

• confirmation of location– does the decision maker work at HQ or at a branch?
• telephone numbers – in addition to the main switchboard number, is there a direct-dial-in number for the target individual?
• email address – is there a personal email address for this individual as well as the generic work catch-all address?

Processing and updating

All information collected will then be added to the list owner’s UK business database .

The central data file can now be separated into separate B2B email databases , B2B telemarketing databases , and business to business mailing lists depending on the type of marketing the end user wants to carry out.

The data list is updated on a continuous rolling cycle and is made available to end users and via each information broker the list owner works with.

What does a data broker do?

In the way that list owners pool data from a number of different sources, data brokers use list owners as their sources.

Each data broker has their own speciality – with More Than Words Marketing, it’s competitively-priced general direct marketing for companies targeting smaller businesses, schools, and the public sector.

As we saw earlier, many data brokers collect their own information on their target audiences and append that personal data to the databases held by the list owner.

Whichever speciality a data broker chooses, they then partner with the most appropriate data owners so that they can supply their customers with the data and personal information they need.