Technographic Data is a market segmenting tools that captures the hardware and software companies are using to operate their business. This could include CRM software, analytics tools, and payment platforms. Understanding technographic data is crucial to successful ABM and competitive intelligence strategies.
Looking under the hood of your neighbor’s car.
Data as a concept is incredibly broad, encompassing a wide variety of discrete definitions which are uniquely optimal for a multitude of different use case scenarios and applications. Even business data outlines a number of different sub categories and sources that each provide a particular benefit to the organization in question.
Demographic data, for example, can help business to customer organizations understand, infer, and define their ideal customer profile based on client behavior and identity. Firmographic data provides a similar advantage for business to business organizations, giving companies insight into the spending habits of corporate-level clientele.
Technographic data is an idea with special relevance to the digital era, and allows organizations operating within the tech industry to discern a client’s relationship to relevant products and solutions. This in turn enables the business to create a more successful marketing and sales strategy.
An organization’s technographics describe their specific use, integration, and purchase habits as they relate to technology. The word ‘technographic’ itself is an amalgamation of “technology” and “demographic,” defining the what, where, how, and why (or why not) of a company’s interaction with technological solutions.
More specifically, technographic data includes information relating to:
Technographic data provides greater insight into a target’s buying potential.
For B2B companies, firmographic data allows you to understand a company inside and out. But even if that company presents a bespoke fit against your ideal client profile, you won’t know how likely they are to purchase your product without understanding their buying habits and relationship to technology.
For example, a new target may have all the cosmetic features you look for in a potential buyer. But without technographic data, you won’t know that the CEO insists on an analog solution to the product you offer. On the flip side, they may have just cancelled their subscription to a solution lacking the one critical feature that you have, giving you the key insight you need to make a successful conversion.
Simply put, technographic data allows you to narrow your sales funnel at the lead end, while widening it near purchases.
Let’s dive a little deeper into the value of technographic data.
Just like firmographic and demographic data, technographic data can’t be effective if it exists within a vacuum. It has to be treated as an essential tool in a greater toolbox, combined with targeted marketing and in-depth sales research to better understand, reach, and convert your most valuable prospects.
Used correctly and in context, technographic data offers 4 specific benefits to the leveraging business.
Knowing how your targets use technologies internally will allow your team to create granular client categories according to current and ongoing buying potential. Knowing what your leads and clients need now, and what they are likely to need in the future, means you can allocate marketing and buying efforts with greater efficiency.
Firmographic data, as well as internal demographic data, lets you create a personalized pitch whereby you can make a case for your product. With technographic data, you can present an even more precise argument and demonstrate how your solution not only addresses a problem experienced by your target, but also fits into the greater technological culture within the organization.
Technographic data helps you to further optimize your marketing and sales efforts by helping you to prioritize outreach and interaction based on which targets are more likely to make a conversion. This way you are only spending time working the leads with the best potential.
The less you know about a lead, the longer it will take to nurture that relationship and produce a conversion. Having your target’s technographic data gives you the information you need to make efficient and effective contact decisions that result in shorter conversion periods.
Here are a few methods you can use to gather informative and actionable technographic data.
Intricately is one of these third-party data solutions that can give you the technographic data you need to make informed, efficient, and effective B2B marketing and sales efforts. Our cloud-based solution gives you a go-to-market competitive advantage with unparalleled insight into a target organization. Sign up for a free demo today to see what else Intricately has to offer.
Want to hear our take on creating better B2B marketing strategies? Check out our other insight – Enterprise Marketing: How, What, When, and Why.
In this chapter, we predict trends for 2020 based on our analysis of the global adoption of APM.
Our goal in this chapter is to emphasize the importance of APM for enterprises but also highlight new ways APM sellers should be thinking about their market.