When a new lead enters your CRM system, the sales team should be primed to act. But one contact is just the starting point — to execute a modern go-to-market motion that embraces the entire account, sellers need the full context of everyone involved in making decisions.
This is where traditional CRM systems, which often contain a patchwork of inaccurate or incomplete data, can fall short. The result? The sales cycle gets longer, and the likelihood of closing a deal shrinks.
That doesn’t have to be the end of the story. By automatically appending engagement-ready records for the entire buying committee, data teams can transform their CRM from a static data repository to an actionable source of truth. With buying committee insights integrated into their workflows, sales and marketing teams have access to the complete picture of a prospect, allowing them to effectively personalize pitches and win over decision-makers with voting power.
With today’s modern B2B data enrichment tools, that level of precision and automation should be standard practice. Here’s how teams can close deals faster with unmatched customer-360 insights.
What is Data Enrichment?
Data enrichment is the process of enhancing existing information by incorporating additional data from different sources. High-quality data enrichment is a key step in making first-party B2B data more complete and accurate.
By adding context or correcting inaccuracies, data enrichment provides a more comprehensive view of a dataset for better insights, which can fuel more accurate, timely go-to-market actions.
Buying Committees: Prime Targets for Data Enrichment
Where the roadmap to securing a sale was once much simpler, today’s B2B sales are rarely a one-person decision. Buying committees are bigger than ever — and it’s often a mix of influencers, decision-makers, and even skeptics. An overwhelming 80% of companies have buying committees with varying levels of involvement.
Not only that, but today’s buying committee members expect their experience to mirror the consumer experience. Considering the rapid changes in how sales decisions are made and multiplying that by the average size of a buying committee today — which, according to Gartner, ranges anywhere from six to 10 — sales and marketing teams have a real challenge on their plate.
In the midst of rapid changes in how sales decisions are made, one thing’s clear: understanding a buying committee means running your sales strategy with a winning hand.
Accurate committee information can include:
- Job titles
- Job functions and levels of responsibility
- Current contact information
- Committee member intent data like pricing page visits, additional funding, or onboarding new tech
With this information on board, sales and marketing teams can tailor their messages to resonate with each role within the committee. Think of it this way: a pitch that appeals to a technical officer won’t necessarily strike a chord with a financial decision-maker.
3 Ways Data Enrichment Builds Buying Committees
1. Identify the Complete Buying Committee
Without rich data to work with, GTM teams can resort to generic approaches, pitching leads and manually scouring for data based on assumptions, rather than insights. This wastes huge amounts of time, leads to inaccurate messaging, and creates missed opportunities to speak to pressing customer challenges.
Instead, GTM teams need a CRM filled with data that helps them understand the dynamics of the entire buying committee. This is where automated discovery and export of new contacts from existing accounts can make the difference between winning or losing a sale.
For example, let’s say you already have a high-value contact, Jane, from Company X in your database. Jane eventually joins Company Y. If you’re running a modern GTM strategy, your system should alert you immediately.
With sophisticated enrichment tools, here’s how teams can act decisively:
- Automatically update Jane’s profile: Your system should automatically update Jane’s new role and company. No manual data entry necessary.
- Identify a new lead at her old company: Don’t lose ground at Company X. Your system should automatically populate your database with another high-value contact from Company X to replace Jane. Preferably, someone with a similar or even higher influence level within the company.
- Make Jane your advocate at her new company: You’ve already got an in with Jane. Use your system to identify and populate a list of decision-makers at Company Y. Then use Jane’s existing familiarity with your product or service to gain quick entry into Company Y.
2. Automatically Add Buying Committees to Each Account
Today, sales and marketing teams can automatically match incoming and existing records in your database. Use this to flesh out your account profiles with full buying committees instead of isolated contacts.
Say you’ve pinpointed Sarah, an entry-level analyst at target company BigCorp. But she doesn’t have decision-making power. Rather than discarding her as a lead, do the following:
- Analyze the new lead for company fit: Since BigCorp fits your ideal customer profile, keep the lead but broaden your scope.
- Trigger the automated identification: Use advanced tools like ZoomInfo Discover to analyze the organizational structure of BigCorp. Find out who else is likely to be part of the buying committee for your product or service. This could include the CTO, procurement managers, and heads of the departments that would be using your product.
- Add new contacts to the account: Your system should automatically create new records for these identified decision-makers and add them to the BigCorp account in your CRM. This is your buying committee.
- Align with your sales strategies: If you have segmented strategies for reaching out to different levels of decision-makers, these should automatically kick in. For example, the CTO might receive a tech-focused pitch, while the procurement manager receives pricing and ROI details.
- Automatically notify the sales team: As these new records are created, trigger automatic notifications to your sales team, providing them not just with the names and contact data but also with context-like intent data and suggested sales strategies for each new contact.
At this point, you’ve converted a single, ill-fitting lead into a broader, more accurate picture of the account’s buying committee. This means your sales team can tailor its approach to each key player, exponentially increasing your chances of a successful sale.
3. Keep Buying Committee Data Fresh
Working with outdated or incomplete data is a liability — sales simply don’t happen in isolation. It’s why your data can’t afford to be stale — people shift roles, companies restructure, budgets change.
This is where competitive revenue operations teams equipped with automated data enrichment processes do more than just gather initial data on buying committees — they continue to keep that information up-to-date and relevant.
With CRM automation, teams can automatically track data changes:
- Monitor for trigger events: Set up alerts that notify you when there’s a significant change at an account, such as a new executive hire or a merger. These events often lead to changes in the buying committee.
- Automate record updates: As soon as a trigger event is identified, your system should automatically update the corresponding account’s buying committee information.
- Data partnerships: Establish access to more, better data. Collaborate with trusted third-party data providers to augment your internal data.
- Feed your systems high-quality data: Instead of indiscriminately pulling in data, set criteria for what constitutes valuable data to ensure you’re enriching records with high-quality information.
- Harness real-time enrichment: Whenever a sales rep opens an account or leads in your CRM, the data should automatically refresh to provide the most current information available.
This way, your operations team ensures that your sales reps are always equipped with the most accurate and up-to-date information on buying committees.
Today’s Data to Enable Today’s Opportunities
To win more sales, your CRM must be a dynamic source of truth that’s continuously enriched with the highest quality data possible for more sophisticated go-to-market insights.
With sound data enrichment, your teams pitch directly to decision-makers, speak to their challenges with a more empathic point of view, and close deals faster. Transform your CRM and seize new opportunities.
Act now and speak to a data enrichment specialist today.