The Ultimate Guide to B2B Contact Databases

Lead sourcing is the process of finding prospects who are interested in what your company has to offer. It involves identifying and contacting the right leads to increase sales and save time and resources in the process.

As you expand your lead generation efforts and the number of leads goes up, it can be difficult to focus on the right leads and improve your sales efficiency. This is where using a B2B contact database comes into play.

Before delving into B2B contact databases, let's first explore the fundamentals.

What is B2B Data? 

In simple words, B2B data is data that you have on other businesses. You can use this data for your marketing and sales campaigns, monitoring your client’s financial health, and so on.

There are two types of B2B data: Objective and Enriched. 

Objective

Objective data refers to information on the company’s current situation. Objective data includes: 

• Contact lists 
• Company location
• Financial information 
• Parent or subsidiary companies 
• Stakeholders

…and so on. 

Enriched Data 

Enriched data, on the other hand, involves enhancing the objective data you already have. For example, if you have someone’s username, you can look them up on a relevant database to extract their first and last names, department, designation, etc.

So, enriched data is essentially supplementing or completing the data you already have. Examples of enriched data are: 

• Credit score 
• Insolvency risk 
• Growth propensity

Getting B2B Data 

There are two primary ways to get more B2B data. Through: 

• Public channels 
• Private channels  

Public Channels 

Public channels are well…public sources of information. Websites, news articles, social media profiles, etc., are public channels that you can use to get the information you need (objective data).

Private Channels 

Private channels help you fetch enriched data. These channels are accessible only to subscribers. Data-as-a-service (DaaS) providers like Xignite and Urban Mapping are examples of private channels. 

What is a B2B Contact Database?

A B2B contact database is a collection of contact information of all your prospects. A B2B database helps you: 

• Identify the most promising prospects 
• Centralize all your prospect and client-related details 
• Enrich your internal data records

How to Choose the Right B2B Contact Database 

With tons of B2B contact databases on the market to choose from, it can be difficult to make the right choice if you do not know what to look for. Here are a few factors you ought to keep in mind in your search for your ideal B2B leads database:

Data Accuracy 

One of the most critical factors to account for while choosing a B2B contact database is data accuracy. You want to stay away from contact databases with errors in their data. By errors, we mean:

• Outdated information 
• Spellings 
• Inconsistency 
• Duplicate information  

Many contact databases sell you volumes of data, as opposed to accurate, valid data. The problem that these contact databases do not address is data decay.

Data decay is the deterioration of data quality in sales and marketing teams over time. According to Data Science Central, data decays at a rate of 30% per year. 

Data Enrichment 

As you look for the right B2B contact database, you ought to look for one that has all the records filled and recorded. 

While not every field has to be completed, a few fundamental ones have to be stored and recorded to help you prepare for calls, understand your audience and prospects, and segregate your leads based on behavior.

Examples of fundamental details are: 

• Prospect name 
• Email address 
• Location 
• Budget 

..etc.

Support and Service 

You need to ask yourself if you think the B2B contact database in question supports your vision and requirements. Does your data provider understand your needs as a business? Or is it only focused on giving you high volumes of data?

Do they offer consultations to discuss your strategies and progress to enhance your experience with their contact database?

If you cannot answer these questions with a YES, you’re better off not going for such a B2B contact database. 

How to Create a B2B Contact Database 

Here are a few steps you ought to follow to set up your B2B contact database: 

1. Create Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) 

Your ICP is the profile of your ideal customer - someone who is most likely to purchase your product or service, benefit from it, and stick to your brand long-term.

Determining your ICP will: 

• Help your marketing team run productive and specific campaigns and create the type of content your prospects are looking for.
• Help your sales team identify leads who are ready for a sales call and potentially make a purchase. 

In other words, creating your ICP helps you avoid wasting time on the wrong leads, thereby saving you tons of time and money in the process.

Read this article for more on ICP.

2. Get a Lead Source 

You can either build your own lead source manually, use our chrome extension to capture leads, or buy a B2B contact database after carefully considering the factors we’ve mentioned earlier. If you want to build your own lead source, you can (and should) use a variety of methods, including: 

• Checking sites like LinkedIn, Upwork, etc., to find leads 
• Creating blogs and other long-form content for the search engine to attract inbound leads 
• Creating written, image, and video content for social media to attract inbound leads 
• Personalized outreach through emails and DMs. Use our Multichannel Outreach tool for this. 

Best B2B Contact Database Providers on the Market 

If you aren’t looking to build your own B2B contact database and prefer to look for one instead, here are a few options you should consider:

1. Outplay 

We recently launched our very own lead sourcing tool, helping you identify promising leads and engage them on the same platform. With our lead sourcing tool: 

• You get access to error-free data. This means you do not have to worry about data decay and duplicate records because our data is highly accurate. 
• You can create and segment your contact lists as you please. Use our filters to sort your leads, create contact lists, and save and export them.  
• Enrich your leads quickly and engage them on the same platform. This saves you the trouble and time of switching to another platform to engage your leads.  

Check it out here.

2. ZoomInfo 

Zoominfo is one of the best-known B2B database providers on the market. With an impressive collection of 100M+ company profiles, 63M+ direct dials, 100M+ direct emails, and 4.3M+ C-level contacts, Zoominfo carves its name on this list of robust B2B contact databases.

With ZoomInfo, you can: 

• Find the ideal buyer’s intent and contact information in one place. 
• Build workflows using internal and external insights to boost your marketing. 
• Create web tracking tools to capture website leads. 

That said, ZoomInfo requires you to sign up for a yearly contract, which is not ideal for B2B buyers looking for a reliable B2B contact database. 

3. Lusha 

Lusha is another B2B database provider that has been making the rounds on the internet. Lusha prides itself on being able to help you build a robust database with its Chrome extension. Some of Lusha’s features are: 

• Data enrichment through API 
• 100M business profiles 
• 81% accurate data 

Unlike ZoomInfo, you do not have to sign up for a yearly contract to use Lusha. Lusha has four different pricing plans, ranging from free to enterprise (for which you will have to contact the sales team).

Ultimately, Lusha is an excellent solution for small teams on fairly tight budgets.

4. LinkedIn Sales Navigator 

Considering LinkedIn is a goldmine of leads, it makes sense to add LinkedIn Sales Navigator to our list of B2B database providers. LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers three account types: 

• Sales Navigator Core 
• Sales Navigator Advanced 
• Sales Navigator Advanced Plus 

The Sales Navigator Core comes with advanced filters, storage of 10,000 leads, custom lists, and unlimited searches (and you can save those searches).

The Sales Navigator Advanced allows you to upload your book of business via CSV and gives you buyer intent signals like alerts on buyer intent engagement and team collaboration tools - like sharing lists and searches.

Sales Navigator Advanced Plus allows you to integrate your CRM with Sales Navigator. You can expect CRM-powered lead recommendations and create and leads and contacts in your CRM directly from Sales Navigator. It also offers ROI reporting to measure your revenue impact and an auto-generated list of opportunities and risks in your accounts.

Build Accurate B2B Contact Databases with Outplay

While there is a large selection of B2B contact database tools on the market, with each claiming to be the most accurate database on the market, many of them suffer from data decay and inconsistencies. 

If you are looking for an all-in-one integrated B2B database provider that gives you highly accurate real-time data, helps you manage your contacts lists seamlessly, and engages them without having to shift platforms and sign up for yearly contracts, Outplay is for you.