Technographic Data: Why and How Should You Use It for Revenue Expansion

Cutting-edge technological solutions push your team past their current obstacles and create sustainable, long-term success. Finding and aligning with new technology keeps companies growing, even during challenging economic climates.

Studies indicate that 86% of companies intend to incorporate more digital platforms and applications into their arsenal of technological tools. This is excellent news for all of you B2B tech sales representatives. With such a receptive audience within reach, there is no better time than the present to identify your next potential top-tier clients, facilitate conversions, and drive substantial sales revenue.

The sooner you can identify your ideal buyers amidst a vast pool of prospects, the faster you can seize potential sales opportunities and maintain a pipeline brimming with high-priority leads. Technographic data serves as a valuable resource for finding your ideal prospects.

In the present age, technology is a catalyst for companies to drive revenue expansion. Every business is powered by technology. The tools and apps that businesses use provide insight into their technology purchasing habits, how they work, the issues they encounter, and what technology they will purchase next. As an acknowledgment of this data-driven phenomenon, technographics aim to segment technology at a granular level into several parameters. For technology suppliers, technographics serve as a lens into the world.

If you want to know what that indicates and how to apply it, look no further. We have got all the information you need.

• What is technographic data?
• Why do you need technographic data?
• How to use technographic data?
• How to create a targeted segment using technographics?
• How to identify and reach your potential customers using technographic data?
• Access a wide coverage of technographic data with SalesIntel
• How does SalesIntel provide you with technographic data?

What is Technographic Data?

Technographics is the next step in developing market research after Demographics, Firmographics, and Psychographics. As much as demographics determine people’s behaviors, technographics determine the technologies and software used by your prospects. With technographic data, you can gain an in-depth understanding of the technology stack used by businesses and their potential plan to buy technological solutions in the future.

What Are Technographics in Marketing?

Technographics is understanding the technology and tech stack used by your potential clients. It helps you personalize your messaging based on technographic data while approaching email marketing or cold calling.

Why Do You Need Technographic Data?

A data provider offering you technographic data as a value-add might not excite you if you don’t know the role technographic data plays in prospecting. This might be because you’re not sure about the need for having technographic data in your database. With the increased use of technology, technographic data can turn out to be a vital prospecting tool. In fact, Forbes outlined that 70% of companies either have a digital transformation strategy in place or are working on one.

Technographic data can help you to learn more about:

• Hardware or software applications used by your prospects.
• Remarketing – have they incorporated remarketing or not?
• What are they using – marketing stack or marketing automation?

Imagine a situation where companies A and B have established similar target markets when selling their product or service.

Both businesses utilize firmographic data and demographic data (personal names, personal addresses, social media handling, etc.) to attract their audiences. Nevertheless, company A has access to the technographic data of the audience. With this resource, Company A is aware of the tools that their prospects use. They also have access to the purpose served by these tools and how long they are using the tools. It becomes clear that Company A now has the upper hand and is in a stronger position to convert these prospects.

Since both companies began on common grounds, Company A is a clear winner!

Technographic Data Examples

Technographic data can reveal that a particular company is using CRM software, marketing automation tools, cloud storage services, and analytics platforms. This information is valuable for businesses selling software products or services. Marketing and sales can tailor their sales pitch and efforts to match the specific needs of the prospect.

Technographic data can also include information about the hardware and IT infrastructure a company has in place. This may include details about the types of servers, network equipment, and other hardware components they use. 

For businesses selling hardware products or IT services, this data is crucial for identifying potential customers who may need upgrades or replacements for their existing equipment. It also helps in customizing offers based on the specific hardware requirements of the target audience.

Who Uses Technographic Data and How Do They Use It?

A vast majority of IT service and solution providers already leverage technographic data to some extent. While most enterprise vendors have integrated technographics into their marketing strategies, the adoption of this data among SMEs and startups is rapidly increasing.

The real power lies in combining technographics with intent data. Intent data is derived from analyzing the online research behavior of companies or individuals, providing insights into customers’ or prospects’ research activities and their buying cycle. By integrating both datasets, businesses can gain valuable insights to significantly enhance their sales and marketing efforts.

The synergy of technographic and intent data can yield remarkable outcomes, driving effective marketing strategies for companies. Companies that overlook the value and importance of these enhanced business intelligence capabilities risk falling behind those that embrace them.

By understanding the technology tools you have deployed and the technologies spent by your customers, you will be more successful in your outreach targeting which can lead to more conversions and closed-win results. Here’s a short snapshot of how you can use technographic data for your business growth:

1. Identify Gaps, Challenges, and Opportunities

You can study the tech stack of your prospect as a way of understanding their weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities. Let’s consider that your company develops a platform or an add-on that can be integrated with Salesforce. You more than likely would like to target prospects using Salesforce. Additionally, you can also identify if they are using your competitor’s product or service. This information can help your sales reps prepare and tailor their sales pitch before connecting with prospects.

2. Focused Segmentation

By analyzing your current customers, you can build a broader view of their technology stack and the methods they use to solve issues related to your value proposition.

For example, you may notice that most of your customers use marketing automation tools such as HubSpot and Act-On. Although this information shows which brands they have an association with, it is also an indication of their budget.

How?

Marketing automation is a big investment both in time and in money. If you compare both the tools, each one of them has unique points of differentiation in terms of features and usage. So, you can identify the priorities of your prospects based on the tool they use. These tools also indicate how serious they are about their marketing. Technographic data can also reflect the size of the organization and how advanced its marketing and technology teams are.

3. Customize Your Content Marketing With Technographics

You can use technographics to tailor your content to fit the technology stack of your prospects, which would make it more relevant to them. For example, you can identify the channels your prospects use, the tech challenges they might face, and even the things that do not affect them. This helps you share more information about how to use the technology and tools they are using with insider information to solve problems.

With technographic data, a marketer can refine the entire inbound marketing funnel to better serve the lead by using the right segmentation. Top, medium, or bottom-funnel content can be promoted based on the customer’s technology use. If your prospects are using your competitors’ tools or any other complementary tool, you can mold your content accordingly.

4. Prioritizing Leads for Best Sales Opportunities

When you create a deeper customer profile based on firmographic and technographic data, you can prioritize and distribute targeted leads through your marketing and sales teams.

Lead prioritization is where you differentiate sales qualified leads from those that are unlikely to convert. You can create a richer profile of those high-quality leads by the prioritization of technographic data sets.

Now combine your technographic data with intent data, and you have an automated way to prioritize your leads more robustly. This helps your sales reps who don’t have time to spend on finding accounts that have the best opportunities. They are handed over on a silver plate due to sales automation.

5. Using Technographics for Account-Based Marketing

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has been the major focus of many B2B organizations. 48% of businesses consider ABM an effective marketing strategy. Digging further into the organizations that have the greatest influence on your business offers a more customized and personalized interface with targeted contacts which helps develop a strong relationship with your prospects.

Due to its highly focused nature, ABM is extremely cost-effective. In the B2B domain, casting a large net has become less successful than it used to be. With an effective ABM strategy, you can talk directly to your prospect on a one-on-one basis. This is also where technographic data can be an effective instrument to help personalize your communication and keep it relevant and engaging.

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Wondering how exactly you can use technographic data for prospecting and lead generation? Great! We can show you how to identify prospects based on their technographic data while filtering down to individual personas who have recently shown an intent to buy.

3 Technographics Plays

Let’s go through the applications of technographic data in different business scenarios.

1. Launching an Email Campaign:

Consider a company planning to execute an email campaign to convert prospects. With technographic data, you can highlight relevant integrations with other tools a prospect uses. Or, you could launch a campaign targeting prospects using a competitor. 

2. Scaling Your Customer Base:

For startups aiming to target the right audience, technographics plays a crucial role in customer profiling. Technology used offers a glimpose into the challenges and plans of a company. By understanding market potential through technographic analysis, businesses can efficiently scale their operations.

3. Subscription-Based Service:

Suppose you are a business offering a solution that complements existing products in the market. Technographics can reveal which companies already utilize tools that align with your offering. By applying specific variables to filter the results, you can compile a list of high-intent prospects worth pursuing.

For subscription-based services, technographic data can reveal when your competitors’ clients have expired agreements. Additionally, you can use this data to disqualify prospects that do not meet high-intent or conversion criteria, thereby saving valuable time, effort, and resources.

The Benefits of Technographic Segmentation

The phrase “enabling greater personalization of the customer journey” may sound like typical marketing jargon, but there is substantial value behind it. Let’s explore the significance of this concept further, particularly in the context of prospect and opportunity identification before any customer engagement.

Finding prospects matching your ideal customer profile can be challenging and time-consuming. Technographic data offers apparent benefits, such as a SaaS marketing content provider knowing the specific marketing automation solution a prospect uses. However, there are additional advantages to consider.

1. Enhancing Sales Productivity:

Sales reps often spend more time on non-revenue generating activities like researching accounts and their existing infrastructure. Research takes away from time spent selling.  Technographics can eliminate this wasted time by enabling salespeople to focus on selling rather than searching for and qualifying potential customers on their own. By integrating technographic data into account profiling, you can achieve a more accurate representation of your Total Addressable Market (TAM), leading to increased sales efficiency.

2. Discovering New Opportunities:

Thanks to technographic information, technographic segmentation can uncover opportunities in previously untapped markets. With knowledge about a prospect’s technology stack, you can effectively tailor your marketing content for initial contact. Customized messaging demonstrates that you understand their current challenges, making positive responses more likely. In fact, 90% of marketers believe personalization contributes significantly to profitability. 

3. Enhancing Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Campaigns:

For those practicing Account-Based Marketing, technographic data is invaluable. Augmenting existing firmographic knowledge with technographics can improve messaging and foster synergy between marketing and sales teams. This data empowers you to target companies based on their tech stack and create ads or emails that align with your prospects’ interests. As you learn more about your prospects, your lead scoring will improve, allowing you to focus on valid leads that are an ideal fit for your solution.

4. Improving Customer Retention:

While converting prospects into customers is a significant achievement, maintaining long-term, mutually beneficial relationships is the ultimate goal. Technographic data aids in market forecasting and allows you to anticipate market-driven issues that may impact at-risk accounts. This insight can also inform product development decisions, allowing you to offer solutions that meet your customers’ needs. Identifying customers using competitor tools or services presents opportunities to increase market share by targeting the competition’s customer base.

Overall, applying technographic segmentation can lead to numerous benefits, including improved customer success, upselling, cross-selling, and identifying renewal and expansion opportunities. As a result, many companies already incorporate technographic analytics into their marketing activities and customer analysis.

How to Create a Targeted Segment Using Technographics?

Market segmentation is desired by every marketer and sales manager in order to present a more realistic picture of their consumer base. However, one of the most critical issues of B2B organizations is identifying and profiling consumer attributes and behaviors through the segmentation process.

There are numerous options for segmenting accounts to target for marketing campaigns or sales activity. So, how can you simplify, sharpen, and increase the effectiveness of segmenting? Data.

B2B marketers gain greatly from technological segmentation. Technographic data can help you construct firmographic profiles, identify trouble points, and enhance customized marketing initiatives. Regardless of industry, many businesses now rely on their technology stack to fuel growth, competitiveness, customer interactions, and more.

If you work in the B2B sector, it’s crucial to understand how technographic data can help you target the most qualified audience for your business.

How to Identify and Reach Your Potential Customers Using Technographic Data?

Now is the time to look for companies that use specific products or providers that correspond to your ideal customer. Perhaps you want to identify companies that use a competitor, or perhaps you simply want to find companies that use Salesforce.

You can define, filter, and search the exact contact data you want using SalesIntel, knowing that they are already qualified to be clients.

For instance, you can look for businesses that utilize VMware as a vendor. If there is a general topic on which you want to narrow your search. You can also search by category, such as Communications Management – Email. To locate the best-qualified contact information for your needs, use one or all three technographic fields.

Once you understand your prospects’ technological stack, you can adapt your marketing campaigns for the first point of contact. By customizing your message to the specific demands of the consumer, you increase the likelihood of a positive response by demonstrating that you have taken the time to analyze their present issues.

Here’s a video that explains how you can navigate, and find qualified leads right in the SalesIntel database.

How to Get Technographic Data

Marketing and sales teams often lack direct access to insights about their prospects’ tools and software, necessitating their reliance on external sources to acquire technographic data.

One approach for GTM (Go-To-Market) teams is to conduct surveys by phone or email. Setting up surveys is relatively straightforward, but obtaining sufficient responses can be challenging. Moreover, with a small sample size, this method becomes impractical.

An alternative technique involves website scraping, extracting information about prospects’ online activity to uncover the apps and services they use. Although website scraping can yield more valuable results compared to surveys, it demands technical expertise that many companies lack. Additionally, stringent security measures on modern websites restrict the amount of information that can be mined.

For most marketing and sales teams, the most effective way to obtain technographic data is to purchase it from a reputable data provider that utilizes sophisticated and compliant data collection methods.

Purchasing Technographic Data

Due to the growing prominence of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS vendors, third-party providers of technographic data have become adept at harnessing this valuable information, assists marketing and sales teams in knowing prospects’ technology landscapes.

Certain top-tier providers can go even further by helping you pinpoint hardware and technologies not readily accessible to suppliers relying solely on web scraping methodologies.

If you choose to procure technographic data from a provider, ensure they employ compliant methods to detect technologies beyond simple webscraping. These methodologies may encompass HTML and DNS tracking, data aggregation, artificial intelligence, and a blend of data-gathering and creation techniques. By partnering with a provider that can access detailed information, you can construct a comprehensive and robust technographic profile of your target customers.

How Do You Gauge the Quality of Technographic Data?

When choosing a technographic data vendor, it is crucial to ensure they provide accurate and up-to-date information. Several factors influence the quality of technographic data, and here are some key considerations:

1. Accuracy: The information should reflect the current usage and technology stack of the prospects or customers.
2. Scale: The volume and probability of data play a significant role in closing deals successfully. Access to a vast amount of data and easy-to-use granular filters are essential for effectively targeting specific markets.
3. Integration Ease: Introducing new technographic data into your existing systems should be seamless and should not disrupt the functionality of your current tools and processes.
4. Historical Repositories: Historical data can offer valuable insights into market trends and contribute to identifying various factors that lead to improved conversions.

By assessing these factors, you can choose a technographic data vendor that best suits your needs and enhances your marketing and sales efforts.

Technographic Data Vendors and Providers

SalesIntel: 

SalesIntel is a highly respected and leading technographic data provider in the industry. Renowned for its exceptional data accuracy and real-time updates, SalesIntel offers a comprehensive suite of technographic data solutions. Access to millions of  accounts with technographic details and over 300 million technographic data points helps sales and marketing teams identify the right prospects and create highly targeted campaigns. 

With a seamless integration process, SalesIntel ensures that businesses can easily leverage technographic data to enhance their customer profiling and boost their conversion rates.

Datanyze: 

Specializing in web technology usage data, Datanyze focuses on providing actionable insights to companies seeking to understand their prospects’ online tool landscape. Their platform allows businesses to track website technologies and integrate this data into their lead generation and sales processes. By analyzing technology adoption trends, Datanyze assists organizations in staying ahead of the competition and making informed business decisions.

Clearbit: 

Clearbit offers a diverse range of data solutions, including technographic data, to help businesses gain a deeper understanding of their prospects’ technology preferences. Clearbit’s platform enables marketers to personalize their messaging and target prospects based on their tech stack, improving the relevance and effectiveness of their campaigns. Additionally, Clearbit’s enrichment capabilities enrich existing lead data with technographic information, enhancing the overall lead scoring and segmentation process.

ZoomInfo: 

ZoomInfo technographic data is known for its extensive coverage of company technology stacks and firmographic information. They offer insights into various industries, enabling businesses to discover potential prospects and track their competitors’ technology usage. Their platform provides detailed company profiles, contact information, and sales triggers, enabling sales teams to identify promising leads and tailor their outreach strategies effectively.

Want to compare and learn more about ZoomInfo technographic data with SalesIntel?

Read More – Zoominfo Alternatives

HG Insights: 

HG Insights specializes in technology intelligence, providing in-depth technographic data to assist businesses in refining their target market strategies. With a focus on technology adoption trends and market insights, HG Insights helps companies identify potential opportunities for growth and expansion. Their data empowers sales and marketing teams to prioritize high-intent prospects and align their messaging with the specific technology needs of their target audience.

The Future of Technographics

With tech stacks growing and changing faster than ever, the significance of technographic data is only growing. The incorporation of AI and machine learning is set to enhance the precision and depth of technographic analysis, empowering businesses to extract more profound insights from their data. This, in turn, will fuel the development of more personalized marketing campaigns, streamlined sales processes, and improved business intelligence.

An additional promising frontier in the future of technographics is the integration of augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies. As these technologies become more prevalent, they will introduce new layers of data, providing insights into user behaviors, preferences, and interactions within virtual spaces.

In summary, the future of technographics is bright. As businesses continue to improve their prospect targeting and segmentation, technographic data will function as their guiding compass, leading them toward well-informed decisions and sustainable growth.

Access a Wide Coverage of Technographic Data With SalesIntel

Knowing which hardware, software, tools, and applications a company uses can enable B2B marketers and sales professionals to take a focused approach and save a lot of time. However, to ensure that you make the most of technographic data, your data provider should have wide coverage of technographic data.

SalesIntel has excelled in this area. You get every detail your company requires for exponential growth. This widens your prospecting options while keeping the focus on your ideal customer fit. You can find more information here.

SalesIntel provides its customers with the most accurate and reliable technographic data in the industry. Technographic data along with other valuable data sets like buyer intent, and firmographic data, helps our clients have the best view of the entire B2B purchasing landscape.

SalesIntel’s technographic data, with its innovative, intuitive taxonomy, is built to best service modern go-to-market practices in the B2B world. Our proprietary technographic data icomes from 15 years of first-party B2B account data collection experience, continuous input of over 2,000 human research-on-demand experts supporting tens of thousands of customer surveys each year, and our patented AI technology.

With more than 16,500 unique technology products across 22M companies, and over 225M technographic data points into our technographic classification, we have one the most accurate data available in the industry. Our 2000 strong human research team continues to supports routine technographic data updates, including the addition of new technologies on an ongoing basis. With technographic data updates available to our clients within days, instead of the months and years which is typical of ageing technographic data sources with many of the vendors in the space, our clients have a clear competitive edge with us.

Through this SalesIntel feature, you can find businesses that directly use products or vendors that fit your ideal audience. This feature also grants you the ability to find companies that use a competitor, or companies that just use Salesforce.

We have quality data sets that you can identify, filter, and scan exactly the contact data that you want with the assurance that you are finding a qualified customer prospect. Search companies use technographic filters to find organizations based on which vendors they may use. The more filters you add, the more qualified the prospects you get with SalesIntel.

Example:

• Search for businesses that use HubSpot as a CRM
• Then filter your search by category such as “Communication Management – Email”
• You can further narrow down your search using sub-categories.
• Add filters to reflect the types of contacts you want at these companies. For example, VP or Director of Marketing.
• Then hit the “Contacts” radio button to expose relevant contacts that work at these companies.

Try it for yourself.

Technographic Data FAQs

1. How can technographic data benefit my company’s marketing and sales strategies?

Technographic data offers invaluable insights into your target market’s technology preferences and usage. By understanding the specific tools and software prospects use, you can tailor your marketing messages and sales pitches to resonate with their needs. This level of personalization enhances engagement and increases the likelihood of conversion. Technographic data also helps identify high-intent prospects, enabling your sales team to focus on leads with a higher chance of conversion, thereby improving efficiency and productivity.

2. Where can I source reliable and comprehensive technographic data for my target market?

SalesIntel is an excellent source for reliable and comprehensive technographic data. Their detailed and accurate data is regularly updated, allowing you to access the latest information on your target market’s technology landscape. With SalesIntel, you can trust the data quality and leverage it effectively to enhance your marketing and sales strategies.

3. How can technographic data help me identify and target the right technology users and buyers?

Technographic data provides valuable insights into the technology preferences of your prospects and customers. By analyzing this data, you can identify prospects already using or interested in technologies that complement your products or services. This enables you to target the right technology users and buyers more likely to be interested in what you offer, increasing the chances of successful lead conversion and driving growth for your business.

4. How does technographic data contribute to better customer segmentation and personalization?

Technographic data plays a crucial role in customer segmentation and personalization. By categorizing customers based on their technology usage, you can create tailored marketing campaigns and offers that address their specific needs and pain points. This level of personalization fosters a deeper connection with your customers, leading to increased loyalty and higher customer retention rates. With technographic data, you can better understand your customers’ preferences and behaviors, allowing you to provide relevant and meaningful experiences that resonate with them.