What is Data Enrichment?

Data enrichment can be termed as merging third-party data from an external source with an existing database of first-party consumer data. Brands do this in order to enhance the data they already own so they can make much more informed decisions. All customer data, no matter their source, begins in its very raw form. When this data flows into a central data store/stream, it often is ingested into the system in the form of discrete datasets. Most often, when this happens, data is continuously being dumped into a data lake, or a data swamp, full of raw info that isn’t useful outside of very narrow contexts. 

Data enrichment services like Solutionbility make this raw data more useful. By adding data from other third parties, brands gain much more in-depth insight into their customers’ lives, behaviors, and purchasing habits. The resulting enriched data is rich and more detailed, which enables them to more easily personalize their messaging campaigns because they know more about their clients and customers. Secure data enrichment processes are an essential part of building up the golden customer record. One dataset by itself, no matter how detailed, doesn’t include every piece of transactional or behavioral data needed to build a single comprehensive view of a customer. This is why data enrichment practices are significant to marketing’s long-term objective of delivering personalized experiences.

Two Ways to Enrich Data

There are as several types of data enrichment as there are many sources to acquire data from, but two of the most widespread are:

• Demographic: Demographic data enrichment starts with acquiring new demographic data, such as income level and marital status, and adding that into an existing customer dataset. The types of demographic data are vast, as are their sources. You can receive a dataset that includes the number of kids, type of cars driven, home value, and so on. What matters with the demographic enrichment method is what your end purpose is. If you want to give credit card offers, for instance, then you might acquire a database that provides the credit rating of an individual. Data enriched in this way can then be leveraged to improve the targeting of marketing campaigns overall, which is crucial in an age where personalized marketing holds significant sway.
• Geographic: Geographic data enrichment includes adding postal data or longitude and latitude to an existing data set that already includes customer addresses. You can purchase this data, which can consist of mapping insights, ZIP codes of the area, geographic boundaries between cities and towns, and so on. Adding these kinds of insights into your data is beneficial in a few contexts. Retailers could use geographically-enriched data to determine their location for the next store. If the retailer wants to capture the most customers within a specific area, for instance, 40 miles, they can leverage enriched data to make that informed decision. Marketers could also utilize geographic enrichment to save on bulk mails of direct mail. 

Every form of data enrichment method is valid, depending on your business objectives. What’s essential is identifying the kind of data your business needs to work with and acquire a positive solution by a reliable service provider like Solutionbility. A word of caution, nevertheless. Whenever you acquire third-party data or attempt to match two first-party datasets, there must be a common factor that links the two datasets together. 

For any anonymous customers, this can be a device ID signifying a desktop computer or a mobile device. For known customers, this could be their first name, last name, or mailing address. Even an email address can be used as an identifier to match and merge two distinct data sets. Or else, the original dataset won’t be enriched because there’s nothing to show that the two data sets refer to the same customers. 

What Solutionbility Offers

With Solutionbility’s data enrichment services, you can:

• Figure out who is in your database and how you can connect with them
• Get a deeper understanding of the assets and needs of your customers
• Get a more holistic view of your already existing data
• Improve your overall customer experience
• Ensure you are not leaving any donations on the table
• Verify data attributes and remove any bad data
• Stop wasting your precious time and energy with bad data