Your ability to find and target U.S. businesses is only as good as the quality and depth of your business data. Armed with the right data and resources, you can effectively target businesses and achieve more profitable prospecting, segmentation and retention.

Experian^® helps you achieve these goals by providing the industry's most comprehensive and reliable company information database. Here are a few tips on how you can best leverage our business data to make the most of your business-to-business marketing efforts.

Ensure the information is accurate and up-to-date

Using outdated company data is counterproductive and quite simply a waste of time, money and resources. Before you purchase a business database, find out how often the data is verified and how it is verified. At Experian, we use a U.S.–based call center, which makes more than 25,000,000 calls a year to verify data accuracy. Additionally, actual field visits are conducted to test data quality. As a result, we’re able to update half of our file every three months, with nearly the entire file updated each year.

Define your goals

Knowing what type of businesses, or business attributes, you’re looking for will allow you to perform better searches, which in turn produces more targeted results. With clear goals in mind, you can focus more on optimizing your search strategies to maximize the chance of finding the most appropriate businesses.

Do your homework before selecting a company database

Is the database from a reliable source? Where was the information pulled from? It’s critical that the database comes from a reputable, trustworthy source. Ideally, the data should be compiled from a variety of sources. Experian's U.S. Business Database is aggregated from more than 6,000 sources and contains information on businesses of all sizes.

Using a company information database to grow your business can be a game-changer. With Experian’s U.S. Business Database, you gain access to 16 million active businesses across the country. Segment businesses with more than 60 fields of information, including names, multiple addresses, phone numbers, numbers of employees and sales volume. Additionally, search for records by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) or North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes, geography or professional specialty.