FAQs

Content

1. What is the focus of the Platinum Database and how does it differ from others' content?
2. How accurate is the Platinum Database?
3. What information is included in a full company profile?
4. Where does your data come from?
5. How does Platinum Data qualify its content providers?
6. Does the Platinum Database include web extracted data?

Delivery

7. How is your product delivered?
8. How often is the Platinum Database updated and how often can you deliver it to me?
9. Can I get a sample Platinum Data file for evaluation purposes?
10. In what formats are your company profiles available?

License and Pricing Model

11. Do I purchase or license your company profiles and what is the pricing model?
12. Can third party redistributors license the Platinum Database?
13. Can I rent your profiles for mailing and list purposes?

1. What is the focus of the Platinum Database and how does it differ from other content?

Generally, the establishment profiles in our database are companies that contribute the most to U.S. Gross Domestic Product. That makes them the most interesting for sales and marketing purposes. Many of our content providers are known for and focus their data collection efforts on industry sectors and verticals, such as high technology, manufacturing, healthcare, and financial services. These high growth and vital industries contain hundreds of thousands of excellent prospects for sales and marketing purposes.

Our content is different in a few, essential ways. The quality and accuracy of our records is superior to mega compiled data. We believe this relates to systemic differences in the ways our niche vertical suppliers compile their data versus data compilers who focus on all U.S. companies. Compiling 15 million records is vastly different from profiling tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of establishment records. Other differences include that our suppliers capture fields of information that mega compilers don’t, our contacts, on average, are more accurate, numerous and we estimate 45% are unique or different, and our business descriptions are more extensive and informative.

2. How Accurate is the Platinum Database?

Our numerous data audits of our content providers versus mega compilers clearly indicate that the Platinum Database is the most accurate of its kind (e.g. sales and marketing database for direct mail, prospecting and account management).

We audit each of our content providers’ data before it is accepted into the Platinum Database. These audit results are then rolled up and benchmarked against mega compiled data. Of 37 data elements, 16 of ours were better; 17 were substantially similar.

A key reason that the Platinum Database is of higher quality stems from the close relationship that our content providers have with the companies they profile. The listed companies are motivated to disclose profiles of their businesses to our content providers because the listed companies are published in a high quality directory where they are discovered by suppliers, prospects, and resellers in their industry.

3. What information is included in a full company profile?

Our in-depth profiles include up to 15 core data elements and may include one or more of dozens of industry-specific data elements. The core data elements include basic information such as physical and mail address, phone, fax and web address. Core demographic information includes employment size, annual revenues, year founded, establishment type (e.g., headquarters, branch, etc.), and ownership type (e.g., publicly held, privately owned, etc.). All profiles also include both SIC and NAICS industry codes.

Our profiles are noteworthy too for the quantity, and quality, of executive names and titles that we have for upper and middle management in companies – presently, 3,750,000 in approximately 1,060,000 U.S. establishments nationwide. Our industry-specific information such as number of hospital beds, bank assets, and business location square footage further provide key facts not available in other multi-industry company databases.

To learn more click on the SAMPLE PROFILES.

4. Where does your data come from?

The Platinum Database is a carefully selected and enhanced collection of U.S. establishment profiles that is sourced from seven different content providers. That number will grow as we are in active discussion with a number of new potential suppliers.

In addition to the data supplied by our content providers, Platinum Data does a number of its own enhancements to the business profiles. Some examples are:

• With 15% of the records from our content providers overlapping, we add incremental contact names, bolster any missing data elements, and enhance business descriptions with additional, unique fields;
• We add standardized functions to the thousands of position titles in the Platinum Database in order to enhance screening and sorting of the 3,750,000 decision makers and contacts;
• We use reliable models to derive sizing statistics such as employee count and/or revenue in the few instances where that data is not available.

5. How does Platinum Data qualify its content providers?

We take a number of qualitative and quantitative steps to ensure the quality of our content providers is superior. Our due diligence includes discussing and examining the editorial practices and data collection departments of prospective suppliers. In addition, we request a random sample of records, which we provide to experienced auditors who telephone verify and compare the results to mega compiled data. Our customers and prospects also help us identify sources as well as industries which are of most interest to them.

6. Does Platinum Data include web extracted data?

No. We believe web extracted information is inferior to the data collection practices of the over 500 U.S. based collection specialists who make direct contact with companies via phone, fax, and email. Differences include that certain fields of information are not readily available on the web such as sizing statistics (e.g. revenue and employment). Key contacts who influence or actually qualify and recommend purchase decisions may not be listed in the management or leadership team, which typically are the names for web extraction on sites. In other cases the key contact names and titles on web sites are badly out of date. Our content providers have learned one important lesson from long experience. Namely, while using skilled data collection specialists to create and update company profiles is expensive, it’s the best way to gather accurate and in-depth information.

7. How is your product delivered?

Today, all or a subset of our one million U.S. company profiles are available via a data feed. You can send us your customer and prospect records and we can match, append, and cleanse those records. Here, you simply need to re-integrate your enhanced -file after we return it. Alternatively, we can provide you with company records that match your criteria such as geography, industry, and size. In this case, it is your responsibility to match and integrate the records into your systems.

We are ready to develop API access to our data. We believe an API option may be of greatest interest to end-user organizations that seek to integrate and/or associate the Platinum Data profiles with their internal customer and prospect records.

8. How often is the Platinum Database updated and how frequently can you deliver it to me?

Most of our suppliers update each of their records annually and commit monthly updates to Platinum Data. A couple suppliers commit to quarterly updates to Platinum Data due to the nature of their data, which in one instance is based on annual filings to the U.S. government.

The majority of our customers presently receive a quarterly data feed from us. A greater or lesser frequency can be considered based upon your specific requirement.

9. Can I get a sample Platinum Data file for evaluation purposes?

We maintain and regularly update a randomly generated sample file of 1000 records for pre-qualified prospects interested in licensing the Platinum Database. The test file does not derive sample records by looking at the most populated fields, or largest companies, or other techniques that might create an impression that is not representative of the file at large. Rather, it is randomly generated and therefore representative of field fill rates, the type of data in our records, and the relative quality.

Other test file options may be available depending on your requirements.

If you are interested in a sample file, please Contact Us.

10. In what formats are your company profiles available?

The Platinum Database is provided in a variety of industry standard formats including CSV, ASCII comma delimited, and Excel. A data feed can also be made available in XML, subject to your particular XML data schema. Medium to large files are delivered by FTP and smaller ones via email.

11. Do I purchase or license your data and what is the pricing model?

The Platinum Database is available for license on an annual subscription basis, which includes updates according to your needs.

You can license a subset of the Platinum Database; it is not necessary to license the entire file.

Pricing is a function of the number of users accessing the data, the frequency in which updates are required, the data fields required per profile, the quantity of records licensed, and whether our proprietary matching software and services are required to match your records to ours. Other pricing factors for third party licensees include the size of a third party’s customer franchise and the features and nature of a third parties’ product.

Please Contact Us for more pricing information.

12. Can redistributors or information publishers use your content in their products?

Yes. Platinum Data has the rights from its content providers to license the Platinum Database to end-user organizations as well as third party resellers and redistributors/ aggregators. An example of a third party is our List Manager referred to in question 13 below. Our interests are to ensure that our content providers’ businesses are never adversely affected via third parties’ use of the Platinum Data content. For example, we will not license just one content provider’s records. Instead, we will only license a multi-supplier’s file. It is therefore acceptable to use and/or embed the Platinum Data content as part of your product(s).

13. Can I rent your profiles for mailing and list purposes?

Platinum Data uses a highly regarded list manager to handle our customers’ mail list requirements. The list manager is List Services Corporation. To rent a mail list, please contact Matt Potts at (203) 791-4440 or mpotts@listservices.com.

---