Let’s face it, with the realities of a global recession looming, your competitors will most likely be trying to find new customers RIGHT NOW.
Most of them will use data lists to target potential prospects.
If you also use lists to reach out to new prospects, who provides those lists for you? How can you ensure that those lists are accurate, relevant to your offering and compliant to UK data laws?
To help you do that, we’ve created 6 essential questions to ask when approaching a prospect data provider.
Top 6 questions to ask a supplier before purchasing prospect data
Before buying prospect data from a supplier, ask these questions:
1. Where does the data come from, and what is the source?
One of the most important things about using data is ensuring it is trustworthy. The first question you should ask is, ‘where has the data been sourced from?’
Has it been collected from a reliable source? Has it come directly from the data provider, or is someone trying to sell second-hand or even third-hand data?
Always choose a reputable data provider that can prove the legitimacy and accuracy of the data they are providing. Whether it is data they have collected themselves, or it has been collected by someone else, ensure that you know the original source. This means you can make informed decisions based on data that is guaranteed to be trustworthy.
2. Is the provider allowed to collect and sell that data?
Since May 2018, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) laws have defined how personal data can be collected, stored and sold by data providers and businesses that hold those details on record.
Ask the data provider how they are GDPR compliant. It’s also important that you are GDPR compliant too. A good question to ask is, ‘what legal ground is the data supplier using to obtain the data?’
If you want to learn more about GDPR compliance, read our comprehensive GDPR guide here.
3. When was the last time the data was updated?
This is a vital aspect of using data to market your business. The freshness of data is extremely important. If the data is old, it won’t be fit for purpose.
Contacts within target businesses often change. Decision makers change, and employees leave. Sending marketing communications to defunct email addresses or wrong contacts within an organisation can be a waste of time and resources.
Data decay is a massive challenge and causes missed opportunities to connect with the best people in a business.
4. How is the data maintained?
We’ve already addressed the issue of how important fresh data is. If the provider states that the data is fresh because it is regularly maintained, it is a good idea to ask how this is done.
The data provider must comply with GDPR rules. One of the key principles of GDPR is ‘accuracy’. Accuracy is achieved through regular maintenance. Using prospect data to market will be ineffective if you use data that hasn’t been maintained regularly.
One of the best ways to check that data has been kept up to date is to request the date stamp records for databases. Data collectors use date stamps to ensure all their records are within an acceptable window of freshness.
Requesting these date stamp records will prove to you that that data is fresh and, therefore, fit for purpose.
5. Has the data been screened against TPS?
TPS or Telephone Preference Service laws enable a person to opt-out of receiving marketing calls. Screening personal record databases is a legal requirement and state that all organisations do not make calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.
This means that data providers should ensure that any data records have been screened against TPS. If data lists haven’t been screened and are then sold on, the purchaser becomes liable for breaking ‘opt out’ legislation. The ICO can issue fines if an organisation is found to be contacting people who are registered on TPS.
Other screening requirements include:
- CTPS – Corporate telephone preference service
- FPS – Fax preference service
- MPS – Mail preference service
Ask the data provider if:
- the data has been screened against TPS.
- If so, when was it screened?
- If so, how often has it been screened?
6. Who else has access to this data?
One of the key principles of GDPR compliance is ‘Integrity and confidentiality. When buying data lists, it is very reasonable to ask who else has access to the information that is being sold to you. What measures have been taken to ensure the data is kept private by the supplier?
Are there any clauses in the agreement you are making with that supplier that you do not share that information with a third party?
If you can’t see that in the terms and conditions, it’s possible that the data you are buying has been shared illegally with third parties. As confidentiality is a key principle to GDPR compliance, it’s important to ensure that you buy data sets that comply with those laws.
Any reputable list broker should be able to answer every question we’ve included in this article. They should be able to demonstrate the reliability of the data list. If the seller cannot provide any of the information above, it is highly recommended that you should avoid that supplier. It could leave you and your organisation liable.
Salestracker – powerful data marketing solution
If you want to find the best possible prospect data to use for marketing, use Salestracker.
- Salestracker data is continually updated to ensure that it is up to date.
- Insight Data are legally allowed to hold and sell data according to GDPR laws. We hold data based on ‘legitimate interest’.
- Our Data is regulated on a rolling basis. It is updated every three months by our team of expert researchers. We also update records based on user-generated feedback.
- All data stored and sold by Insight Data is maintained by our in-house research team. All records are date stamped when they are updated. Our data licences last for 6 months to ensure that data details remain accurate and fresh.
- Insight Data prospect records are all TPS screened so that you can be sure that you are contacting prospects that want to be marketed to.
- We guarantee that any prospect we provide to our customers is protected and not available to third parties.
Insight Data provide total prospect data solutions for the fenestration and construction industry. If you would like to learn more about the prospect data we provide, contact us today.
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