Personally identifiable information (PII) has long been the lifeblood of B2B marketers. From email addresses and phone numbers to job titles and company names, PII has been a requirement for demand generation and feeding the sales pipeline.
In recent years, however, the reliance on PII has collided with rising privacy regulations and increased buyer wariness.
Marketers still need data about their customers, but it’s a myth that collecting PII is the responsibility or goal of marketing. B2B marketers must relinquish their death grip on PII and focus on collecting the data needed to drive actionable insights and leave data mining prospects’ email addresses to the sales organizations.