The success of a prospecting campaign does not depend solely on the quality of your messages or the effectiveness of your tools. It starts much earlier, with an often underestimated but absolutely crucial element: the quality of your database.
A well-structured, enriched, up-to-date, and segmented database allows you to:
- Save considerable time
- Personalize your messages at scale
- Target the right accounts at the right time
- Achieve response rates well above average
Conversely, a poorly organized database exposes you to:
- Emails that are not delivered or sent to the wrong person
- Duplicates, errors, or omissions in reminders
- A loss of credibility with your prospects
In this article, we guide you step by step through the process of building a clean, usable, and scalable prospecting database, even with limited resources.
1. Clearly define your targeting criteria
Before collecting data, start by clarifying your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile):
- Company size: revenue, number of employees, stage of growth, etc.
- Industry: based on your priority personas
- Geographic area: local, national, or international?
- Technologies used: CRM, marketing tools, specific stacks
- Signals of intent: fundraising, recruitment, change of management, etc.
The more specific your criteria are, the more targeted and relevant your database will be.
2. Selecting the appropriate data sources
There are several ways to build your database:
Manual sources (via scraping or direct search):
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Crunchbase
- Societe.com
- Company websites + “Team” tab
These methods are time-consuming but highly skilled, ideal for ABM campaigns or strategic targets.
Automated sources:
- Pharow: search for B2B leads using specific criteria
- Dropcontact: email enrichment and cleansing
- Apollo, Kaspr, Lusha, Snov.io: email and phone number extraction
- Clay: AI-enhanced automation (career paths, technologies, news, LinkedIn, etc.)
The challenge: combining human precision with technological scalability.
3. Clean and enrich your data
Having data is good. Having clean data is essential.
Here are the key steps for cleaning:
- Duplicate removal
- Standardization of fields (e.g., "CEO" vs. "Chief Executive Officer")
- Email verification (to avoid hard bounces)
- Automatic completion of missing data (sector, workforce, city, etc.)
Recommended tools:
- Insycle (for cleaning and structuring in CRM)
- Neverbounce / Zerobounce (email verification)
- Dropcontact (updating and intelligent enrichment)
4. Structure the database in a readable file or CRM
A poorly organized database quickly becomes unusable. Here are the essential fields to include in your database:
Company:
- Name
- Website
- Industry
- Size / Revenue / Workforce
- CRM or tool used (if known)
Contact:
- First name / Last name
- Position (role + hierarchical level)
- Professional email
- Phone (if available)
Useful information for segmentation:
- Associated persona
- Lead source
- Date added
- Prospecting status (not contacted, in progress, followed up, responded to, appointment scheduled)
- Related campaign
Recommended format: Google Sheets or Airtable for initial collection, then direct integration into your CRM.
5. Segment to personalize
A useful database is a smartly segmented database. It's not about sending the same message to 1,000 contacts, but about targeting homogeneous groups with specific approaches.
Examples of segments:
- Founders of early-stage tech startups
- HR managers in companies with 100 to 500 employees
- Sales Directors in the Île-de-France region
- Customers inactive for more than 6 months
- Cold leads to follow up with educational content
The more refined your segments are, the more impactful your copywriting can be.
6. Keep your database up to date over time
A database is a living thing. A file that is not updated quickly becomes obsolete:
- Emails expire
- Positions are changing
- Companies pivot
Set up a monthly or quarterly reminder to:
- Delete inactive contacts
- Update key information
- Add new qualified leads
You can also automate part of this work using Clay, PhantomBuster, or tools connected to LinkedIn.
7. Connect your database to your prospecting tools
Once your database is clean and structured, you need to connect it to your campaign tools:
- Lemlist / LaGrowthMachine: for automated sending and personalization of sequences
- Pipedrive / HubSpot: to centralize action tracking
- Notion/Airtable: for operational or collaborative management
The goal: to no longer have to manage 10 different files, but rather a seamless system where everything is synchronized.
In summary
A good database is:
- Precise targeting defined in advance
- Reliable, enriched, and diverse sources
- Cleaned, structured, and up-to-date data
- Intelligent segmentation for tailored messages
- A direct link to your prospecting tools
Without a solid foundation, even the best sequence will fail. With a solid foundation, you maximize the impact of every message sent, while saving time on operations.
