Is lead enrichment the same as list building?

No. List building collects and cleans the rows. Enrichment adds facts to rows you already have.

Which fields are worth enriching?

The ones you use to filter or personalize: title, company size, industry and location are common choices.

What should I do when a field cannot be found?

Leave it blank. A blank field is honest, and a wrong value in a message costs trust.

2. Lists and qualification

What is lead enrichment?

Lead enrichment is the process of adding missing facts to a contact or company record, such as job title, company size, industry and location, from other sources. It makes a list easier to filter and a message easier to personalize.

The parts

Base recordWhat you already have: usually a name, a company and an email address or website.
Added fieldsFacts pulled in from other sources, such as title, size, industry, location and the company site.
Source and dateWhere each fact came from and when. An old fact can be worse than a blank one.
Fill rateThe share of fields that now have a value. It shows how complete your records are.

Worked example: one contact record at an accounting firm

This is a made-up contact at a made-up firm. The record has eight fields. Enrichment fills some of the blanks, and the fill rate shows the gain.

By hand

Before: 4 of 8 fields filled = 50%.
Enrichment adds job title, company size and location.
After: 7 of 8 fields filled = 87.5%.
The direct phone number stays blank, because no source returned a reliable value, and a blank is better than a guess.

Field	Value	Note
Full name	Dana Whitlock	Already on file
Work email	dana@fernhillcpa.example	Already on file
Job title	Managing Partner	Added by enrichment
Company size	25 employees	Added by enrichment
Industry	Accounting	Already on file
Location	Columbus, Ohio	Added by enrichment
Company website	fernhillcpa.example	Already on file
Direct phone	Blank	Not found

One record before and after enrichment

How to apply it

Decide which fields you need to filter and personalize, and ignore the rest.
Run enrichment on a small sample first and check the results by hand.
Record the source and date for each added field, and leave a field blank when nothing reliable is found.
Re-run enrichment before a new campaign, since titles and companies change.

Mistakes to avoid

Filling every field with a best guess, which puts wrong facts into your messages.
Enriching an unfiltered list instead of the rows that already match your profile.
Never re-checking records, so titles go stale.

List building

List building is the work of collecting the companies and contacts you plan to reach, then cleaning and filtering them until every row matches your profile and has an email address you can use.

Firmographics

Firmographics are the facts that describe a company, such as its industry, number of employees, revenue band, location and age.

Lead scoring

Lead scoring assigns points to each lead for how well the company and person fit your target buyer and for what they have done, so a team can contact the strongest leads first.

Is lead enrichment the same as list building?: No. List building collects and cleans the rows. Enrichment adds facts to rows you already have.
Which fields are worth enriching?: The ones you use to filter or personalize: title, company size, industry and location are common choices.
What should I do when a field cannot be found?: Leave it blank. A blank field is honest, and a wrong value in a message costs trust.

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