What Is Lead Enrichment? Definition, Examples, & How It Works

30-Second Abstract

Ever marvel why 8 out of 10 new leads by no means flip into gross sales?

It’s not at all times as a result of your product isn’t adequate. Extra usually, it’s as a result of entrepreneurs are passing unqualified results in gross sales, SDRs don’t have sufficient information to personalize their outreach, or reps are speaking to the appropriate leads on the unsuitable time.

If that sounds acquainted, you’re not alone — and the repair is less complicated than you would possibly assume. It’s known as lead enrichment.

On this weblog, I’ll break down:

• What does lead enrichment really imply
• Why enriching your lead information generally is a game-changer
• How your groups can scale the method with out burning out

I’ll additionally share the precise tech stack I take advantage of to counterpoint leads and enhance conversions.

What Is Lead Enrichment: Desk of Contents

What’s Lead Enrichment?

Lead enrichment is the method of including extra helpful info to the essential particulars you have already got a few lead.

As a substitute of simply amassing a reputation, e-mail, or cellphone quantity, it entails gathering extra information to construct an entire image of your potential buyer.

This may embrace:

• Firm identify and dimension
• Trade and job title
• The instruments or applied sciences they use
• Shopping for alerts and intent information

What does it enable you to obtain?
With richer information, gross sales and advertising groups can:

• Personalize outreach
• Give attention to high-potential leads
• Enhance conversion charges

From the place to get this information:

• Your personal CRM or inner database
• Third-party information suppliers
• Social media and on-line platforms

In brief, Lead enrichment helps you already know who your lead is and method them on the proper time.

Why Is Lead Enrichment Necessary?

Let me present you why an increasing number of gross sales groups are shortly making lead enrichment an important a part of their gross sales workflows:

Listed below are the headings out of your content material:

1. Higher Segmentation and Concentrating on

Working with primary lead lists can flip outreach right into a nightmare: your workforce would possibly attain out to low-priority, low-value leads who may not even fully match your ICP.

In such instances, lead enrichment will help you section and rating your leads. In flip, it will be certain that your gross sales workforce can simply prioritize high-value leads which might be extra more likely to convert shortly. 

• Lead’s Function and Perform: “As a CMO, you know the way laborious it’s to trace ROI…“
• Behavioral and Intent Indicators: “I observed you downloaded our pricing information – any likelihood I will help you make clear the pricing and perceive what you’re searching for?“
• Firm-Particular Ache Factors: “I noticed your workforce makes use of [Tool X]: we will help you with integration that may minimize prices by 30%!“

Lead enrichment is thus an important step within the course of of making tailor-made gross sales pitches.

2. Improved Lead Scoring and Qualification

Actionable lead scoring that may really assist your gross sales groups prioritize leads is inconceivable with out enriched lead information. 

Give it some thought: how can your gross sales or advertising workforce rating leads with restricted or inconsistent info?

That’s why an growing variety of gross sales groups are counting on enriched information for correct lead scoring. 

With correctly enriched lead info, you possibly can simply rating leads primarily based on metrics like technographic, firmographic, and demographic relevance to your providing. 

3. Elevated Conversion Charges

One grievance I’ve heard from a whole lot of SDRs is that their gross sales pipelines are always clogged by unqualified leads, which find yourself slowing down their gross sales cycle. 

Right here, lead enrichment affords two benefits.

First, enriched information already helps you pre-qualify advertising leads and solely push promising results in gross sales groups. 

Second, it helps the gross sales groups tailor pitches to extraordinarily particular, role-based ache factors. 

Plus, probably the most underrated profit of lead enrichment is that it’ll additionally inform you which channels are more than likely to work with particular prospects. 

Which implies your gross sales workforce can completely skip the guesswork and bounce straight to the channel that your leads use mostly. 

4. Improved Effectivity for Gross sales Groups

In case your gross sales workforce is spending an excessive amount of time researching and qualifying leads, they’re not specializing in what actually issues, i.e, creating pitches and turning prospects into clients.

This may harm each your income and worker morale. 

For each new prospect, your gross sales workforce would possibly really feel like they’re qualifying the lead from scratch as a substitute of getting clear, ready-to-sell leads from advertising.

However whenever you use lead enrichment proper from the start in your advertising technique, your SDRs get certified leads with actionable insights.  

The place your SDRs may solely make one cellphone name to a certified lead, enriched information may push that quantity up 4 or 5 occasions!

Kinds of Lead Knowledge You Can Enrich

Primarily, there are 5 sorts of information that you may enrich utilizing completely different B2B information distributors:

Let’s get into it!

1. Contact Knowledge

This consists of correct emails, cellphone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, and social handles.

Why is it Necessary?
Effectively, you don’t wish to attain out to or pay for inaccurate, outdated, or unverified contacts.

Should you’re searching for all of this information in a single place, I recommend utilizing a device like Saleshandy Lead Finder. 

2. Firmographic Knowledge

Firmographic information is crucial to steer scoring and qualification.

It consists of firm identify, business/section, dimension, and annual income. 

Some lead enrichment instruments additionally enable you to get the org charts of various corporations. 

3. Demographic Knowledge

Demographic information generally consists of details about particular decision-makers throughout the potential firm. 

It covers their title, perform, seniority, instructional background, and prior work expertise. 

All of this turns into very precious as it could possibly enable you to take a tailor-made method in the direction of anticipating shopping for objections and convincing members of the shopping for committee that your providing is the appropriate resolution for his or her firm. 

4. Technographic Knowledge

Fashionable-day lead enrichment isn’t full in case you don’t have your leads’ technographic information. 

In any other case, how will you pitch your product or providers to them 😅

And that is very true in case you’re working in SaaS, IT, healthcare, banking, or different tech-driven industries. 

Technographics thus embrace working techniques, CRM software program, inner communications, lead gen platform, and even income administration instruments.

5. Behavioral & Intent Knowledge

Over the previous 2 years, behavioral and intent information have change into essential. 

Through the use of this information, you possibly can perceive your lead’s mindset.

It consists of web site visits, job adjustments, whitepaper downloads, funding rounds, enlargement bulletins, job postings, and extra. 

Each lead conduct and intent information will inform you the appropriate time to method a lead who’s already available in the market for the options you supply. 

Guide vs Automated Lead Enrichment

You are able to do lead enrichment both by your self or utilizing a device.  Let me shortly stroll you thru the professionals and cons of each of them:

1. Guide Lead Enrichment

Guide lead enrichment entails utilizing a number of platforms to manually retrieve and enrich lead info. 

For instance, you need to use a mixture of LinkedIn, firm web sites, or social media platforms to extract information in your lead firm or contact.

When to Use Guide Lead Enrichment?

Guide lead enrichment is very helpful in case you’re working with a low variety of high-value leads, for instance, by the account-based advertising method. 

It’s additionally superb in case you’re working with a restricted funds, as automated lead enrichment instruments may cost a little you a bit, particularly if it’s good to enrich big lead databases.

Whereas this course of would possibly sound attractive however let me inform you it is extremely gradual and time-consuming. 

2. Automated Lead Enrichment

Automated lead enrichment is the method of utilizing a device to place your enrichment on autopilot. 

Which implies you don’t must undergo the trouble of doing every little thing manually. Sure, you don’t must manually scrape the information from completely different sources and fill it right into a sheet.

Appears like a aid!

I’ve used these two various kinds of lead enrichment processes: 

• Scheduled Enrichment: When a device auto-enriches lead information periodically, like each week or month.
• Immediate Enrichment: When a device enriches your information as quickly as you create a CRM entry below an inventory known as “Leads,” or every other identify you wish to maintain.

When to Use Automated Enrichment?

Automated enrichment may be an excellent possibility in case you’re dealing with small, medium, or giant lead lists. 

It’s additionally the easiest way to ensure your lead lists don’t have any unsuitable or unverified contact particulars.

Why are you doing lead enrichment within the first place?

To save lots of time, proper? So why waste your workforce’s time discovering lead information manually?

Nevertheless, automated enrichment normally requires a whole lot of credit in addition to a device with integration capabilities.

Nonetheless unsure whether or not it is best to go for guide or automated enrichment? 

Take a look at this detailed desk of comparability and see which one is true in your use case:

Facet	Guide Enrichment	Automated Enrichment
Definition	Manually trying up lead information (e.g. LinkedIn, firm websites) and including it to CRM	Utilizing software program to fetch lacking information and auto-fill CRM entries
Who Does the Enrichment?	SDRs, entrepreneurs, interns	Instruments like Clearbit, Cognism, Clay, or Saleshandy
Frequent Use Circumstances	Excessive-value ABM accounts, handpicked prospects	Excessive-volume lead enrichment, real-time type fills
Pace	Sluggish and time-intensive	Quick and scalable
Scalability	Not scalable	Simply scales throughout hundreds of leads
Accuracy	Could be very correct (human context)	Relies on the information supplier’s database high quality
Value	Low device value, excessive labor value	Excessive device value, low labor value
Device Dependency	Low to Medium	Excessive (requires integration, information credit)
Knowledge Freshness	Danger of outdated data if not validated	Frequent refreshes from the supply
Best For	Customized outreach for few accounts	Kind enrichment, CRM hygiene, outbound scaling

Examples of Lead Enrichment (and The right way to Do It)

Subsequent, let’s take a few examples and perceive how lead enrichment really works, and the way you are able to do it:

Instance 1: Enriching Inbound Kind Fills
Instance 2: Enriching Outbound Lists for Chilly Electronic mail

Let’s perceive them!

Instance 1: Enriching Inbound Kind Fills

Web site types are a good way to determine leads, and one factor I’ve just lately observed is that AI bots have additionally change into nice at capturing lead information from web site guests.

However this lead information is commonly very minimal: a reputation, an “data@” e-mail, possibly a typical firm quantity at greatest. So, you’re caught with nothing however very generic info in your lead. 

That’s the place lead enrichment kicks in.

An enrichment device routinely fetches their job title, firm, worker dimension, LinkedIn profile, and different related info.

Plus, it provides the enriched information on to your CRM, which then routes this result in the appropriate SDR primarily based on title and area!

This manner, your SDR will get full lead context with correct contact information, with out spending even a single minute on LinkedIn or different firm analysis instruments.

And determine whether or not they’re value your time or not.

Instance 2: Enriching Outbound Lists for Chilly Electronic mail

Enriching your chilly e-mail checklist not solely helps you in reaching out to the appropriate leads but in addition helps you hyper-personalize your e-mail copy, which will increase your possibilities of getting a reply.

Right here’s how one can enrich your lead’s information: 

First, you construct a CSV file with the names and LinkedIn profiles of prospects who’ve signed up for a webinar or these whom you’ve prospected manually. 

Subsequent, you run this CSV file by an enrichment device. They’ll add info like verified emails, tech stacks, title and performance, firm dimension, and so forth.

Along with your enriched CSV, now you can apply probably the most related filter (by tech stack or firm dimension) to pick out leads that align most carefully together with your ICP.

This manner, you possibly can qualify, rating, and begin approaching leads with out manually segmenting a single contact!

These are the 2 most typical methods gross sales groups use lead enrichment, nevertheless it’s not restricted to only these.
You need to use it wherever in your workflow the place you want extra details about your leads and wish to shorten the gross sales cycle.

Lead Enrichment vs Knowledge Enrichment vs Lead Scoring

Gross sales reps and executives usually assume that lead enrichment and information enrichment are the identical factor. One other related time period that you may add to this combine is lead scoring. 

Whereas they’re all associated and do have some overlap (try the desk beneath), they’re additionally very completely different in the case of their precise processes and meanings.

Let me provide you with a fast breakdown of the three phrases:

 Let’s get into the breakdown.

1. Lead Enrichment

Lead enrichment is the method of including related info to new leads solely. 

So, you’re not updating info you have already got – reasonably, you’re fetching or retrieving new info that will help you section, rating, and promote to the lead.

2. Knowledge Enrichment

Knowledge enrichment is the method of updating present information in a CRM database or by a CSV file. 

Whereas an enrichment device would possibly add new information if it immediately turns into obtainable (like tech stack), the principle aim is to make sure that you might have the newest, up to date info in your shoppers or prospects.

Knowledge enrichment is primarily helpful for eliminating outdated contact information and sustaining a clear database.

3. Lead Scoring

Main scoring is the method of assigning your leads a quantitative (0-100) or qualitative rating (scorching, heat, chilly) label. 

Its aim is that will help you prioritize your outreach efforts to get the very best ROI per gross sales name or outreach marketing campaign.

In fact, lead scoring could be very troublesome with out lead enrichment, and normally comes after lead enrichment. 

Nonetheless confused? 

No downside – right here’s an entire breakdown of the most important variations between lead enrichment, information enrichment, and lead scoring:

Facet	Lead Enrichment	Knowledge Enrichment	Lead Scoring
Definition	Including related data to a lead (person-level contact)	Including data to any information report (individual, firm, account)	Assigning a rating to leads primarily based on match or conduct
Major Aim	Enhance lead high quality and personalization	Make datasets extra full and helpful	Prioritize leads for gross sales follow-up
Knowledge Scope	Contact-level fields like identify, title, e-mail, and so on.	Contact, firmographic, technographic, behavioral information	Makes use of enriched information to calculate a numeric rating
Used By	SDRs, entrepreneurs	Analysts, information groups, gross sales, advertising	Gross sales groups, RevOps, CRM techniques
Instance Use Case	Add lacking job titles to type leads	Add worker rely, income, tech stack to firm information	Rank leads primarily based on job title + engagement
Actual-Time Use	Sure, for type fills and routing	Generally, however usually utilized in batch	Relies on your CRM and automation instruments
Frequent Instruments	Clearbit, Clay, Cognism, Lusha	ZoomInfo, Apollo, LinkedIn Gross sales Navigator, inner DBs	HubSpot, Salesforce, MadKudu, Freshsales
Overlap?	A subset of knowledge enrichment targeted solely on leads	Broader class that features lead enrichment	Usually makes use of enriched information as enter

Prime 3 Lead Enrichment Instruments

Okay, now that we’ve explored lead enrichment intimately, let me share with you three instruments that I like to recommend for enriching lead information:

Discover the instruments!

1. Saleshandy

Saleshandy is a B2B lead database with 700M+ skilled contacts and 60M+ firm profiles. 

You need to use it to counterpoint your present lead information by the “Bulk Search” filter. Simply add any of the next info: 

• Firm/Area Identify
• Social Hyperlinks or LinkedIn URLs
• Contact Data (cellphone/e-mail)

And every other related info that you simply might need. 

Based mostly on these, Saleshandy will provide you with firmographic and demographic info throughout 12+ fields in your leads.

Saleshandy can also be nice for account-based lead enrichment, whereby you could find related and extra information in your hottest leads or high-value accounts.

As soon as that is performed, you possibly can merely export the enriched lead information both as a CSV or by integration with a CRM platform like Salesforce or HubSpot.

2. Cognism

Should you’re searching for extremely correct direct dials and intent information for European prospects, Cognism is perhaps an excellent lead enrichment device for you.

Cognism is a gross sales intelligence platform that provides you entry to one thing known as Diamond Knowledge – a database of 10M+ “phone-verified” contact numbers. 

Aside from this, it gathers intent information and shopping for alerts in your leads, so you already know which results in prioritize.

Moreover, Cognism straight integrates with CRM platforms and might routinely enrich all the information inside them. It additionally affords API and CSV-based enrichment choices. 

Nevertheless, Cognism’s protection is regionally restricted (largely EU and the US), and its pricing may additionally be a deal-breaker for SMEs, startups, and solopreneurs.

3. Apollo.io

Apollo.io is a gross sales automation platform that helps you create multi-touchpoint gross sales pipelines.

It maintains a local database of 210M+ skilled contacts and enterprise profiles. You need to use it to manually enrich particular leads primarily based on 65+ search filters.

It’s also possible to go for API, CRM, or CSV enrichment to counterpoint giant lead lists. 

Nevertheless, I’ve heard that Apollo.io’s enrichment function struggles with very large enrichment duties. So, make sure you try some opinions earlier than committing to a paid plan!

Finest Practices for Lead Enrichment

Lastly, let me share with you some greatest practices I’ve developed through the years which have helped me take advantage of my lead enrichment efforts:

1. Enrich Solely Certified or Close to-ICP Leads

Why do you have to put money into discovering info you assume shouldn’t be your ICP?

Subsequently, earlier than you begin with lead enrichment, first ensure you remove irrelevant prospects that don’t align together with your ICP, and go away you with pre-qualified leads. 

And whenever you enrich a really restricted variety of leads that really want your product/service, there’s a excessive likelihood your conversion fee will improve. 

2. Select a Dependable Knowledge Device

Lots of information enrichment instruments supply outdated contact info.

That’s why it is best to solely depend on trusted B2B information distributors to counterpoint your lead information.

In any case, enriched information is helpful provided that it’s verified in (or close to) real-time.

So, don’t simply add enriched information to a CRM. Both run it by an e-mail verification device or use a lead database that solely affords verified e-mail addresses. 

3. Periodically Refresh Data

Lead enrichment is a narrower type of information enrichment. 

In different phrases, lead enrichment is the enrichment of recent contacts that you simply wish to promote to.

Generally, you may not attain the tenth identify in your lead checklist as a result of the primary 9 consumed all of your time and/or had been transformed.

Now that doesn’t imply that the tenth identify couldn’t profit out of your product. So, you would possibly wish to circle again to them in your subsequent gross sales cycle. 

However earlier than you do this, be certain that you’ve refreshed your information with a fast information enrichment train.

For instance, you possibly can refresh your database each time you’re starting a recent gross sales cycle to take care of clear lead lists. 

4. Guarantee Compliance with Knowledge Laws

Lastly, I additionally advocate solely utilizing B2B databases that adjust to regional privateness legal guidelines.

So, confirm that your lead enrichment device is SOC 2, GDPR, or CCPA compliant, relying on the place you’re working.

Keep in mind, in case your lead will get to know that you simply received their contact info illegally, it may put your sale and fame in danger!

Remaining Ideas on Lead Knowledge Enrichment

In 2025, lead enrichment shouldn’t be non-obligatory.

As quickly as you’ve generated a lead checklist, it’s the subsequent step in your gross sales cycle. 

It’ll enable you to prioritize promising leads, create tailor-made proposals, and method leads by their most well-liked gross sales channels. 

Right here’s what your gross sales cycle will appear like with lead enrichment: 

Lead Technology ➡️ Lead Enrichment ➡️ Lead Scoring ➡️ Outreach ➡️ Conversion ✅

With good lead enrichment, you possibly can get pleasure from sooner, smoother, and extra environment friendly gross sales cycles. 

With out it, you’ll battle to bridge the hole between prospecting to conversion.

Now, all it’s good to do is begin exploring a lead enrichment platform like Saleshandy, get the related information, and begin promoting to your greatest leads!

FAQs Round Lead Enrichment

1. What’s lead enrichment for CRM?

Lead enrichment for CRM is the method of enriching your lead information straight by a CRM platform. For instance, you need to use a platform like Saleshandy, which integrates with CRM platforms like Salesforce, and straightaway export enriched lead information to your CRM. 

2. How do you automate lead enrichment?

You possibly can automate lead enrichment in 3 ways: 

• Use immediate enrichment with instruments like ZoomInfo to make sure that each contact you add to your CRM is routinely up to date. 
• Arrange scheduled enrichment jobs by your lead database, for e.g., weekly, month-to-month, or quarterly refreshes. 
• Go for API enrichment to customise your lead enrichment automation course of.

3. How usually ought to I enrich my leads?

You need to ideally enrich your leads proper earlier than you launch a gross sales cycle. This can be certain that your gross sales workforce has entry to the newest demographic, firmographic, technographic, intent, behavioral, and phone information.