Data Sources

Company Intelligence & Firmographics

Company Intelligence & Firmographics platforms provide detailed business attributes about target companies, enabling sales and marketing teams to segment accounts, prioritize outreach, and personalize messaging based on company characteristics rather than guesswork. While contact databases tell you who to reach, firmographic tools tell you which companies to target by revealing employee count, revenue, industry classification, growth trajectory, funding events, office locations, and organizational structure. These insights power account-based strategies by helping teams identify ideal customer profile matches, prioritize high-value accounts, tailor pitch angles to company context, and route leads to the right reps based on territory or vertical specialization.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Company Intelligence & Firmographics

Firmographics are company-level attributes (similar to demographics for people). Key firmographic data points include:

Company characteristics:

(1) Employee count and growth rate

(2) Annual revenue and revenue range

(3) Industry, sub-industry, and NAICS codes

(4) Headquarters location and office locations

(5) Company age and founding date

(6) Public vs private status

(7) Funding stage, total funding raised, and investors

(8) Parent company and subsidiaries

Difference from contact data:

(1) Firmographics describe the company (organization attributes)

(2) Contact data describes individuals (names, emails, phone numbers, job titles)

(3) Firmographics help you decide which companies to target

(4) Contact data helps you find people to reach within those companies

Most GTM teams use both: firmographics for targeting and segmentation, contact data for outreach.

Sales and marketing teams use firmographic data for:

Account prioritization:

(1) Identify companies matching your ICP (ideal customer profile)

(2) Score and rank accounts by fit (revenue size, industry, employee count)

(3) Focus on high-value targets, ignore poor fits

Segmentation and personalization:

(1) Tailor messaging by industry (fintech vs healthcare vs manufacturing)

(2) Adjust pitch based on company size (SMB vs mid-market vs enterprise)

(3) Reference funding events or growth signals in outreach

Territory and routing:

(1) Route leads to reps by geography, vertical, or company size

(2) Build territory plans based on addressable market

(3) Identify whitespace in existing customer base

Market research:

(1) Analyze total addressable market (TAM)

(2) Benchmark customer base against industry

(3) Identify new verticals or segments to target

The most actionable firmographic filters for prospecting:

Top priority (must-haves):

(1) Employee count: Indicates company size and buying power. Most important for segmentation (SMB: <200, Mid-market: 200-2,000, Enterprise: 2,000+)

(2) Industry/vertical: Determines product fit, compliance needs, and messaging angle

(3) Revenue: Shows budget capacity and deal size potential

(4) Location: For territory-based selling and regulatory considerations

High-value signals (when available):

(1) Funding events: Recent raise indicates budget and growth mode

(2) Employee growth rate: Hiring surge signals expansion and new initiatives

(3) Technologies used (technographics): Shows stack compatibility and replacement opportunities

(4) Job openings: Hiring for specific roles indicates buying intent

Nice-to-have:

(1) Company age: Startups vs established companies have different needs

(2) Parent company: For navigating enterprise hierarchies

(3) Office count: Multi-location companies may need enterprise solutions

Best practice: Start with 3-4 core filters (employee count, industry, location, revenue), then layer in intent signals.

Firmographics and technographics serve different purposes:

Firmographic data (company attributes):

(1) Describes business characteristics: size, revenue, industry, location

(2) Use case: Identify which companies match your ICP

(3) Examples: "500-employee SaaS companies in San Francisco with $50M+ revenue"

(4) Providers: Clearbit, ZoomInfo, Crunchbase, Diffbot

Technographic data (technology stack):

(1) Describes software and tools the company uses

(2) Use case: Find companies using specific technologies (competitors, integrations, or replacement targets)

(3) Examples: "Companies using Salesforce and Marketo but not Outreach"

(4) Providers: BuiltWith, 6sense, Clearbit (has some tech data), ZoomInfo Scoops

When to use each:

(1) Use firmographics for broad ICP targeting and segmentation

(2) Use technographics for competitive displacement, integration-led sales, and product-specific targeting

(3) Combine both for precision: "500+ employee companies in fintech using Salesforce and HubSpot" (firmographic + technographic)

Most modern platforms provide both datasets together.

Top firmographic data providers by use case:

All-in-one company intelligence:

(1) ZoomInfo: 100M+ company profiles, deep firmographics + contact data + intent signals. Best for enterprise sales teams.

(2) Clearbit: Real-time enrichment API, clean data, great for product-led growth and inbound enrichment

(3) Apollo: 250M+ contacts + company data, affordable all-in-one. Best for SMB/mid-market.

Funding and financial data:

(1) Crunchbase: Definitive source for startup funding, investors, and valuations

(2) PitchBook: Private equity and venture capital data

Technology and web data:

(1) BuiltWith: Technographics (what tools companies use)

(2) Diffbot: AI-powered web scraping for comprehensive company profiles

Industry-specific:

(1) LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Employee data, org charts, and hiring trends

(2) Owler: Competitive intelligence and company news

Best practice: Use multiple sources in waterfall (try Clearbit first for speed, fall back to ZoomInfo for coverage, add Crunchbase for funding data). Most CRMs can orchestrate this automatically.

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