3 Ways to Use B2B Data to Simplify Your Marketing Campaigns

3 Ways to Use B2B Data to Simplify Your Marketing Campaigns

Getting value out of your data is a big X factor for B2B success. Here's how to do it with 3 simple solutions.

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Are B2B marketers overwhelmed by all the data at their disposal? The short answer is yes. Several years ago, B2B marketers were only using marketing, sales, and service data to create connected customer experiences. But now, they have access to more B2B data than ever, allowing for a more complete view of the customer - but also creating challenges. Getting value out of all that data is a big X factor in a business's success.

As B2B marketers collect more transactional data, anonymous data, zero-party preference data, advertising data, and more, they also commit themselves to meeting higher customer expectations. In fact, our State of the Connected Customer report found that 80% of customers believe companies should deliver superior experiences given the data they collect.

So how can B2B marketers use more data without making their campaigns and strategies even more complex? The path forward lies in three critical areas: accessible data, AI-powered data, and activated data. Let's explore how these solutions can simplify your B2B data strategy.

What you'll learn

• How to unlock B2B data outside of your CRM
• How to use AI to create more personalized journeys for better prospects
• How to activate B2B data to send the right ad, to the right person, on the right platform

How to access B2B data outside of your CRM

Accessible data is the lifeblood of B2B marketing. It refers to the ability to unlock siloed data from various sources across the business, consolidate it into a user-friendly customer data platform (CDP), and use the information across campaigns. A CRM system collects, stores, and analyzes customer data to improve sales, marketing, and customer service efforts. While CRMs have long been the cornerstone of B2B marketing, they often represent just a fraction of the available information. A CRM and CDP can work together to create a comprehensive customer view, with the CRM focusing on customer interactions and the CDP providing a real-time, unified profile of customer behavior across all touchpoints. By expanding your data horizon, you gain a more complete picture of your customers.

With the right tools, B2B marketers can access data from internal systems, external platforms, and customer interactions:

• Product usage data: Gather insights from internal systems, channel partners, and resellers to understand product adoption and performance.
• Purchase, ERP, and commerce data: Use transactional information to identify purchase patterns, preferences, and revenue opportunities.
• Engagement data: Analyze data from advertising, mobile, and social channels to measure campaign effectiveness and customer interactions.
• Account profile data: Enrich your customer profiles with information from external sources like Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), ZoomInfo, and Bloomberg.

When this data flows seamlessly and in real time across both marketing automation platforms and data platforms, it allows B2B marketers to identify high-value customer segments based on factors such as average order value, email engagement, and purchase behavior. By targeting these segments with tailored promotions and messaging, B2B companies can reduce customer acquisition costs and improve conversion rates.

For example, let's take Alex, a B2B marketer for a cybersecurity firm who is looking to increase customer awareness of cybersecurity threat detection. Alex uses Salesforce's Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and Data Cloud to launch a targeted campaign highlighting advanced threat protection.

By using Data Cloud's advanced segmentation capabilities, Alex identifies high-value accounts based on purchase history and engagement data. These segments are then synced to Marketing Cloud Account Engagement to create tailored messaging and personalized journeys. As customer behavior evolves, updated data is reflected in both platforms, ensuring Alex's marketing efforts remain relevant and effective - decreasing cost per acquisition.

How does accessible B2B data simplify my marketing campaign? Accessible B2B data simplifies marketing campaigns by providing a comprehensive customer view, allowing marketers to create highly targeted and personalized messaging. It also gives access to teams across the business with the same, up-to-date customer information so they can collaborate more effectively.

How to use AI to create more personalized journeys for better prospects

With unlocked and accessible data, B2B marketers can analyze and extract insights from large datasets. This process transforms raw, accessible data into actionable knowledge for B2B marketers, so outputs are more accurate, personalized, and on-brand.

When B2B marketing automation platforms and data platforms are synced, AI can then help by providing those actionable insights directly within their workflow. Features like sales alerts, next-best-action recommendations, and AI-generated email content can streamline the sales process and increase deal closure rates. You can also use natural-language prompts (just like interfacing with ChatGPT) to build and refine segments.

Let's revisit Alex. In addition to advanced segmentation that helps him target high-value customers, Alex uses AI-triggered workflows to deliver timely alerts about emerging security threats to specific customer segments, positioning his company as a proactive partner. To amplify reach, he can also use AI to help him quickly identify and build lookalike audiences, which are potential clients with similar characteristics to existing high-value customers.

How does AI-powered data simplify my B2B marketing campaign? AI-powered data automates routine tasks, such as data cleaning and segmentation, freeing up B2B marketers to focus on the bigger picture.

How to activate B2B data to send the right ad, to the right person, on the right platform

Activated data means taking insights from specific customer groups and segments and using them to create targeted ads on different platforms. By activating B2B data, businesses can optimize their advertising spend, improve campaign performance, and ultimately drive higher ROI.

To effectively activate data, B2B marketers should not only focus on expanding their audience, but do so in a relevant and timely manner. A customer who is already a member should not receive an ad about your loyalty program. But, a customer struggling with inefficient project management should see an ad for collaboration software.

With the right, robust integration capabilities to seamlessly transfer audience segments to different advertising channels, B2B marketers can ensure consistent messaging and targeting. By continuously analyzing campaign performance metrics, marketers can refine their targeting, optimize ad creative, and allocate budget effectively.

Let's say Alex's campaign is activated across multiple channels, like Google and Meta, ensuring maximum visibility and engagement. By measuring campaign performance using Data Cloud's analytics tools, Alex refines targeting, optimizes messaging, and demonstrates the value of his company's cybersecurity solution.

How does activated data simplify my B2B marketing campaign? Activated data across the right advertising channels delivers highly targeted messages to potential customers when they are most receptive. This precision improves campaign efficiency, reduces wasted ad spend, and boosts overall ROI.

B2B marketers face the challenge of turning vast amounts of information into action. By embracing accessible, AI-powered, and activated data, B2B marketers can put valuable insights into action. More data does not have to mean more complicated. Simplicity and efficiency can coexist.

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Megan Cohn is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, focusing on B2B marketing automation.