Marketing Data Sources: The Balanced Portfolio

Marketers rely on accurate, complete information about the accounts and contacts they need to reach, but often have trouble finding sufficient data. Blending internal and external data sources is the best approach to get the detailed profiles necessary for improved segmentation and account-based marketing. Outsourced or internal telemarketing efforts can be the best way to gather incremental data when other sources fall short.

Gathering data from a portfolio of sources improves the odds of success and reduces the risk that insufficient or inaccurate data will sap the effectiveness of account-based or named-account marketing, or hinder efforts to improve overall segmentation and targeting. In this report, we describe the sources available to marketers for account and contact information as well as when to use each of them.