Definition
Contact Research is the process of identifying, verifying, and enriching information about potential buyers or key decision-makers in a company. It helps sales and marketing teams know who to reach, how to reach them, and why they’re relevant to the buying process.
Contact research typically involves collecting details such as:
- Full name and title
- Company name and size
- Email, phone number, and LinkedIn profile
- Department or function
- Relationship history and engagement data
Why Contact Research Matters
Accurate contact data is the foundation of every successful go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Without it, teams risk wasted outreach, poor personalization, and stale CRM records.
Effective contact research helps revenue teams:
- 🎯 Target precisely: Focus on ideal buyers and high-fit accounts.
- 💬 Personalize outreach: Tailor messages that resonate.
- 🧭 Align sales and marketing: Ensure both teams work from the same source of truth.
- 🔁 Maintain CRM hygiene: Keep contact data current and complete.
According to industry data, up to 30% of B2B contact data decays annually, making continuous enrichment essential.
How Contact Research Works
The process of contact research combines manual and automated data gathering.
- Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP):
Identify the industries, roles, and company sizes that best fit your target audience. - Source Contacts:
Use professional platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or B2B databases to find contacts that match your ICP. - Verify and Enrich:
Confirm the contact’s current job role and company, then enrich their record with reliable communication details and contextual data. - Integrate with CRM:
Add the verified contacts to your CRM (like Salesforce or HubSpot) for tracking and engagement. - Monitor for Changes:
People move roles and companies frequently. Ongoing monitoring ensures your outreach stays relevant.
Contact Research vs. Contact Intelligence
While contact research helps identify people, contact intelligence helps understand relationships — making outreach more human and effective.
Modern Approaches to Contact Research
Modern GTM teams rely on AI and automation to make contact research more accurate and scalable.
Instead of spending hours manually verifying data, AI tools can now:
- Detect job changes automatically
- Enrich CRM records in real time
- Identify warm relationships inside the org
- Trigger alerts for re-engagement opportunities
How Boomerang AI Elevates Contact Research
Boomerang AI transforms traditional contact research into relationship intelligence.
It goes beyond static data to show who knows whom across your CRM, meetings, and organization — surfacing hidden warm paths to decision-makers.
Boomerang automatically:
- Detects contact and job changes in real time
- Enriches CRM data across Salesforce and HubSpot
- Identifies warm connections via shared meetings or team overlaps
- Notifies sellers inside Slack or email when new opportunities emerge
By automating contact enrichment and context discovery, Boomerang helps teams maintain cleaner CRMs and build stronger, faster relationships.
Best Practices for Contact Research
- Define and update your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) regularly.
- Use verified, GDPR-compliant data sources.
- Enrich contacts with social, company, and intent signals.
- Automate CRM hygiene and updates where possible.
- Combine contact data with relationship context for more authentic outreach.
Related Glossaries
Summary
Contact Research is no longer just about finding names and emails — it’s about building complete, living profiles of buyers that evolve with their journeys.
With tools like Boomerang AI, GTM teams can automate data enrichment, detect job changes instantly, and surface warm relationships that drive authentic engagement.
Because in 2025, contact data isn’t enough — relationship intelligence wins deals.
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