All kinds of companies and other corporate and governmental agencies are required to gather data to stay afloat, let alone thrive. There’s a lot of invaluable knowledge that you can gain from collecting data on other businesses in your niche.
This knowledge helps you in various ways, such as improving the process of decision-making regarding investment opportunities in your market. When it comes to such information, firmographic questions play a vital role in the pool of knowledge you gather on your competitors, market, industry, business trends, etc.
This type of information allows companies to measure their performance compared to other businesses in their niche and create a unified, comprehensive perception of the business landscape.
Since your level of success depends on your ability to read the vital metrics of your business environment, let’s delve deeper into the types of B2B intent data, its business benefits, and common use cases.
Types of firmographic data
Firmographic data refers to a range of firmographic questions that would help a business gather insights from various statistical categories. These categories include the following:
● The size and business model of an organization, including the numbers of locations and employees;
● The geo-location of the organization’s HQ, including all other plants, factories, branch offices, departments, etc.;
● The type of service a company provides (business-to-government, business-to-employee, business-to-customer, or business-to-business);
● Information on whether the business is owned by the government, or publicly, or privately; ● The number of years the company has been in business;
● The current status of the company and the pattern of its growth.
Put simply – firmographic questions refer to any information that can help you define a business and its current position in the business landscape. With that in mind, let’s see how this type of data can benefit your company.
Benefits of firmographic data
Data is the key to making better marketing, advertising, business, and financial decisions. That’s why gathering data is essential to running a profitable business and discovering lucrative investment opportunities.
Collecting and analyzing firmographic data can benefit your organization in various ways, and you’ll find a list of the most common ones below.
Improved decision-making for investors
The success of investment solely depends on the information an investor gathers on the type of investment, its current position in the market, ongoing trends, industry, market fluctuations, etc. Firmographic data helps investors find out everything about their future investment to determine how lucrative it is.
Gathering such data is crucial for deciding whether to invest or not. Asking the right questions can tell an investor everything they need to know about specific markets, industries, and businesses they plan on investing in.
Improved scoring and lead generation
Let’s say that you’re into selling services to businesses. For you, firmographic data can be an excellent market segmentation tool that allows you to target the right audience.
Having the right type of information in your possession allows you to reach potential customers more effectively and in a personalized manner.
Improved lead generation leads to more traffic to your website and sends more prospects down the sales funnel.
High-end sales intelligence
When you can feel the pulse of a market, it becomes easier to understand what sells. On the other hand, your sales department can handle the leads properly with the right data in their hands.
Firmographics data can help you assess and determine your competitors’ buying preferences and capacities by analyzing their size, financial standings, ongoing investments, highest-selling products, etc.
Beating competition
The more data you gather on your competitors, firmographic or otherwise, the easier it is to beat them. The information you collect allows you to understand your competitors better – you’ll know their business strategies, pricing, marketing and advertising campaigns, etc.
Launching similar products and services with competitive prices isn’t enough to leave your competition in the dirt. You need to understand your weaknesses and recognize your strengths to improve your lead generation, conversion, and customer retention.
Use cases for firmographics
There is an array of ways to take advantage of firmographics:
B2B marketing
If your company sells services and products to other businesses (B2B), firmographics can help you understand the potential value of companies in specific markets and identify the best marketing approach for targeting them.
The more you know about your target audience, the easier it is to market your services and products and establish meaningful connections with your prospects.
Market analysis
Firmographics are so much more than just B2B intent data and can be applied to every type of consumer. Firmographics range from product life cycle and business models to financial information, and they help understand both your market and competitors.
More importantly, it can help you discover your competitors’ weaknesses and discover market opportunities before they do. Such opportunities allow you for advanced strategic development based on accurate and up-to-date decisions.
Conclusion
In the age of the internet, analyzing various types of data helps a business in multiple ways, from improving decisions and segmenting markets to better understanding the current events in a business landscape.
In other words, it’s virtually impossible to create successful marketing campaigns and profitable business strategies without top-quality, accurate, and up-to-date data.
