Technographic data is the most sufficient and complementary data type for understanding the target audience and delivering better marketing campaigns. You can collect technographic data, analyze it, and use the insights for your further marketing efforts or strategic decision-making.
As the competition between B2B markets increases, it’s important for businesses to start relying on data-driven decisions. While everyone is in the know about collecting and performing actions on demographic and firmographic data, technographic data often gets underestimated or left out. But, in reality, it can offer a lot more benefits for businesses if used and implemented correctly.
What is Technographic Data?
Technographic data is information on an exciting or potential customer’s technology stack and how and when they use their technology. You get a complete picture of the technologies an account uses to run its business from which you can then segment accounts based on their technology stack.
The type of information you receive from technographic data can give insights into a prospect’s philosophy, flexibility, scalability, budget, and more. Utilizing technographic data to discover and certify prospects could lead to finding the competitive advantage you need.
Why is Technographic Data Important for Businesses?
Demographics and firmographics used to be the key figures of marketing strategies. However, this data reveals statistics about the characteristics of human populations and companies, thus isn’t enough. Therefore, technographic data was introduced, which supplies businesses with estimates of prospects’ willingness to purchase technology.
According to a survey by ZoomInfo, 81% of business owners that use technographic data say this type of data offers a more complete view of their target audience, potential customers, and prospects.
What Can Technographic Data Be Used For?
The most common use cases of technographic data are the following:
Personalized Experience
With the analysis of technographic data, there is a greater opportunity to personalize the customer journey. An ideal marketing funnel alongside a personalized customer journey will increase engagement and conversion rates.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Technographic data is the main information used for an account-based marketing approach. With the assistance of technographic, marketers can identify and score accounts. The sales team can then prioritize accounts based on the technologies they use.
The selection of appropriate accounts can happen via:
- Complementary solutions. Use technographic data to detect accounts with complementary technology products to your own. Target these accounts with highly relevant offers.
- Lookalikes. Find accounts that resemble your best customers and focus your outreach on them.
- 360-degree view. Technographic data provides answers to many questions. Insights on select accounts and their readiness to upgrade or consider an alternative solution.
Technology Intelligence
Technology intelligence is an activity that provides businesses with predictions on opportunities and threats that can affect their future growth or survival. Identify accounts with the highest propensity to buy, accounts that use technology from competitors, and build strong profiles to influence your target market.
How is Technogpahic Data Collected?
There are three main procedures businesses use to collect technographic data on their prospects:
- Surveying via phone or email. The mass of B2B tech companies send out surveys to ask prospective clients about the technologies they use, they gain an understanding of the client’s needs. These surveys can be sent by email or a direct phone call to the prospect.
- Data scraping. It’s the approach to extracting structured data from websites. The disadvantage of data-scarping tools is the access to only specific types of software that the website owners use. It’s not possible to get information related to the company’s hardware stack.
- Data marketplaces. Buying information from third-party owners. Data marketplaces withhold external information that can improve a business’s functions by blending it with enterprise data. This can be considered the most effective option since data is optimized and tends to be clean and comes with extensive metadata to enable data processing.
The Benefits of Technographic Data
The advantages of using technographic data include the following:
- A better understanding of accounts. You can leverage technographic to enable sales representatives to have a more educated and successful conversation with potential customers because the representative will know what technologies are required for them.
- Higher customer retention. Since the competition between businesses increased, retaining customers is more important than ever. Businesses know how and why customers use their technology and can identify at-risk accounts using the insights gathered from technographic data.
- More conversions. A recent study has shown that 63% of sales representatives’ time is spent on work that doesn’t generate revenue. When the sales teams know more details about prospects, there are more chances of getting a higher conversion rate.
Conclusion
Technographic data is a necessary component of customer and client engagement in the digital age. Once your sales and marketing team has access to technographic data their efforts will be more effective. Technographic data is one of the main types of data. In a ruthless marketplace, technographic data can give you a competitive edge. It will ensure that your business stands out and drives sustainable client conversion.
