Introducing Digital Business Information

What Is Digital Business Information?

 

You may have noticed that we have been counting down our Top 5 Blogs of 2021.  

#4 on our list is What’s Your Ad Language? Demystifying Common Advertising Jargon.  It’s a satiric look at the endless slang that pervades the Marketing industry.

Clearly, our attempt at humor did not sit well with the Gods of Lexicography who quickly took revenge.

Just hours after we announced our 4th ranked blog, the content team received a request from an overly caffeinated and highly excited sales team.

“We did a deep dive of what additional services our clients requested of us during 2021.  “We’ve expanded and reimagined our core product offering and need you to introduce a new term to describe it.”

Wait, what?  

They went on to explain in great detail the expanded scope, incremental services, new technologies and enhanced activation opportunities that would be created.  

We were quickly sold and agreed on the need to define and amplify this new model.  

So, without further delay we are pleased to introduce Digital Business Information (DBI):

Digital Business Information (DBI) is the combination of all non-proprietary online information and data, related to a specific business or location. 

In digging a little deeper into this, DBI can be separated into two categories.  

1. External – the information users see as they discover your brand across the internet and mobile web. 
2. Internal – How this data is created, updated and managed internally.  

Let’s start with a look at external DBI.     

As you may know, every business has thousands of online profiles that appear across the vast digital/mobile landscape of search engines, social media platforms, online directories, navigation/map apps, review sites, virtual assistants and more.  

These digital platforms contain copious information about a business including name, address, phone number, URL, hours of operation, products/services, payment options, languages spoken, photos, videos and much more.  

Some of these profiles like Google Business Profiles (formerly Google My Business) and Facebook, are key to a business’ brand and messaging and are often claimed, closely monitored and actively updated.  

However, most companies would likely be hard-pressed to tell you what info is on most of their profiles i.e. Yahoo, YP, MapQuest or Chamberofcommerce.com just to name a few.  

In fact, the information on many profiles is scraped from a number of available sources.  As a result, inaccuracies and duplications can occur.

So, why is this important?

Online Traffic: For many companies, more customers engage through digital business information than they do a website. It’s crucial to provide accurate information.

Engagement: Online customer engagement depends on the accuracy and relevance of your digital business information.  “Near me” and longtail searches pull from the DBI on the business profiles.

Leaky Buckets:  Data inconsistencies and inaccuracies ultimately add up preventing a business from reaching its full customer engagement potential.  Imagine the cumulative impact of prospects and customers finding incorrect phone numbers, addresses, URLs, hours, map pins, etc.  

Campaign Activation:  The ability to deploy an accurate database of location information is crucial to efficiently activating paid marketing campaigns.  This is especially true with the increased utilization of location-based marketing and geofencing tactics. 

 

Internal DBI For Multi Location Businesses

As you might imagine, the enormous scope of Digital Business Information presents a number of challenges to organizations with multiple locations.  So, let’s take a closer look at the internal considerations and issues associated with Digital Business Information.

Here are a few key considerations. 

• First and foremost, is there a current, accurate “Golden Copy” or official master record with detailed, correct DBI for all locations?  We often find clients struggle to create and maintain this.  For more information on the importance of The Golden Copy please reference our recent blog.
• Maintaining DBI info can be time and resource intensive.  What internal teams/personnel are responsible for keeping the information updated?  It can be difficult to allocate and align the necessary resources to manage this process.
• Where does the DBI live?  Is there easily accessible, user-friendly technology that facilitates both maintenance and reporting?

 

DBI In 2022

We get it, it’s a lot to think about.  That’s why we thought it worthy of a shiny new term to describe it.  Throughout the coming year, we will be blogging about the various elements of DBI.  We will also share solutions to common challenges faced by our clients.  

Ultimately, our goal is very simple. Help multi-location businesses claim, clean and manage Digital Business Information at scale, while saving your internal teams time and positively impacting the bottom line.