What Are Technographics And Why Does It Matter In Sales & Marketing?
Learn how understanding technographics boosts sales and marketing strategies for increased efficiency and ROI.
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Choosing the right technology for your business can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. With so many different types of software and tools out there, it can be hard to know which ones will help you achieve your goals and solve your most pressing challenges. When it comes to B2B sales prospecting, for example, not just any software will do. You need to find the tools that can help you improve your processes and align with your existing systems. Technographics, or studying a business's technology and software usage, can help uncover these insights and inform your prospecting efforts. This blog will cover technographics, why they matter in sales and marketing, and how to use them to drive better business outcomes.
Aomni’s website technology checker is a valuable tool for achieving your goals, such as learning about technographics and why they matter in sales and marketing. This free resource lets you quickly and easily uncover information about your target’s existing technology to inform your sales and marketing efforts.
What is Technographic Data?
Technographic data, or technographics, reveals the technologies companies use to achieve their goals. The term refers to a group of data providing insight into a company’s tech stack and operation. Technographic data can tell you the following:
- What hardware and software does a business use
- Which tools they’ve implemented
- How they utilize their varying systems and platforms
For example, if your team uncovers technographic data on a prospect’s use of marketing automation software, this information can reveal details about:
- Their processes
- Efficiencies
- Scale
- Even their buying intentions
Technographic Data vs. Firmographic Data
Firmographic data provides the foundation for B2B prospect analysis, providing basic details like company size, industry, location, and revenue. This information is essential, but it only tells part of the story.
Technographic data adds an extra layer by showing you what technologies a company uses. A company might seem like a perfect fit based on firmographics, but the timing might be off if its tech needs don’t align with your solution.
Leveraging Firmographic and Technographic Data for a Holistic Understanding of Company Needs
Combining both data types gives you a complete view of the company’s technological needs. For example, knowing a company is a mid-sized healthcare provider in Boston (firmographic) becomes even more valuable if you know they’re using outdated software or looking for marketing automation solutions (technographic).
4 Examples Of Technographic Data
1. Technology Used
Technographic data zeroes in on the specific tools and platforms organizations employ to run their operations. This category includes:
- Software
- Hardware
- Industry-specific tools
- Social media platforms
Here are some examples of each:
Software
- CRM Systems: Examples include Salesforce and HubSpot, which are critical for managing customer relationships.
- Marketing Automation: Tools like Marketo and Pardot streamline campaign execution and tracking.
- Project Management: Platforms such as Asana and Trello help teams organize and track project progress.
- Content Management Systems (CMS): WordPress and Drupal are widely used for managing digital content.
- Accounting Software: Solutions like Xero and QuickBooks manage finances effectively.
- Data Analytics Platforms: Tools like Tableau and Power BI offer insights through data visualization and analysis.
Hardware
- Operating systems (e.g., Windows, macOS, Linux) reveal preferences for computing environments.
- Mobile devices (iOS, Android) offer insights into mobile technology adoption.
- Cloud service providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) indicate infrastructure and storage preferences.
Industry-Specific Tools
- Design software (Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch) for creatives.
- Legal platforms (Westlaw, LexisNexis) for legal professionals.
- Financial platforms (Bloomberg Terminal, Refinitiv) for trading and finance sectors.
Social Media Platforms
Identifying which platforms a company uses (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) and their engagement levels helps gauge online presence and marketing focus.
2. Technology Usage
This category delves into how companies interact with their chosen technologies.
- Purchase Date and Version: Knowing when a technology was adopted and whether it’s up-to-date provides insights into an organization’s commitment to innovation.
- Usage Frequency: Understanding how often software is used highlights its importance in daily workflows.
- Integration Details: Knowing whether tools like CRMs and marketing automation systems integrate efficiently showcases technological sophistication.
- Emerging Technology Adoption: Insights into the use of AI, blockchain, or IoT can indicate a forward-thinking, innovative approach.
3. Additional Sources
These sources enhance the depth and accuracy of technographic data collection.
- Website Crawlers and Tracking Pixels: Reveal backend technologies, plugins, and software used on a company's website.
- Data Enrichment Platforms: Tools like Clearbit and ZoomInfo add layers of technographic insight, including detailed usage patterns and adoption dates.
- Social Media Listening Tools: Track mentions of tools and technologies, uncover trends, and identify active users.
- Partnerships with Industry Associations and Research Firms: Provide exclusive datasets and insights unavailable through public tools.
4. Case-Specific Applications
These examples show how technographic data answers specific business questions.
- Security Platforms: It is crucial to determine whether an organization uses encryption or multi-factor authentication to evaluate cybersecurity readiness.
- Collaboration Tools: Discover if teams rely on Slack or Microsoft Teams for communication, highlighting their collaboration dynamics.
- Marketing Technology Stack: Analyze tools used for:
- Email marketing
- Retargeting campaigns
- Social media advertising
- Data Management Practices: Understand whether companies use cloud-based or on-premise data warehouses, offering insights into their data strategy.
Using Technographic Data to Enhance Marketing Strategies and Drive Informed Business Decisions
By understanding these categories and examples, businesses can use technographic data to tailor marketing strategies, identify potential clients, and predict market trends, enabling more informed decision-making and precise targeting.
How Aomni Revolutionizes B2B Sales with AI-Powered Account-Based Strategies and Sales Intelligence
Aomni is an AI agent platform designed specifically for B2B sales intelligence software. Our solution empowers enterprise and strategic account executives to execute account-based sales and marketing strategies with unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness.
Our key features include:
- AI-powered prospect and account research
- Comprehensive account mapping and planning
- Data-driven sales strategy development
- Automated call preparation
- Personalized AI agents for sales optimization
- AI chat interface for streamlined sales processes
- AI-assisted Account Based Sales/Marketing campaign execution tool
Aomni addresses critical pain points for sales managers whose Account Executives, Account Managers, and Customer Success Managers must perform better and include quotas. By leveraging our advanced AI technology, sales professionals can significantly enhance their preparation for customer conversations, leading to the following:
- Larger deal closures
- Increased promotion opportunities
For individual sales professionals, Aomni provides the tools and insights needed to:
- Elevate their performance
- Close more substantial deals
- Accelerate career progression
Our platform transforms how B2B sales teams operate, ensuring they enter every customer interaction fully prepared and strategically positioned for success. Try our sales intelligence software and our website technology checker for free today!
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Why Is Technographic Data Important For Businesses
Get with the Program: Why Technographic Data Matters for B2B Businesses
Understanding technology is understanding that it is a modern evolution. There is no resisting it. You adapt, or you perish. This holds if you are a business reliant on accurate prospecting data to drive your marketing, an established brand looking to identify niche personas, or a startup yet to make your first sale.
Like it or not, if you want to survive, you must give yourself every available competitive edge. Prep your sales and marketing teams with data-driven strategies.
The Strategic Role of Technographics in Identifying Competitive Opportunities and Targeting Untapped Accounts
A study by Demand Gen Report found that 66% of B2B marketers use technographics to identify competitive opportunities and target accounts that are not yet using their products or services. For B2B businesses, technographic data is not just another dataset; it’s a vital component of the intelligence that drives strategy.
It’s not enough to know who your customers are demographically or what industry they operate in. You must understand how they operate, and technographics can provide this insight.
Using Technographic Data to Assess Prospect Readiness and Tailor Sales Approaches
Technographic data is crucial because it allows you to gauge a prospect’s readiness for your product or service. Knowing that a prospect already uses cloud-based services can signal a smoother transition and higher receptiveness to your pitch if you sell a SaaS solution. Conversely, a company heavily invested in legacy systems may require a different approach, focusing on the benefits of digital transformation.
Technographics Predict Market Trends
Technographic data can signal market trends, showing you where there’s a growing demand for certain types of technologies. This can help you anticipate needs and tailor your offerings accordingly, potentially getting ahead of competitors who are not leveraging this information. And, be in no doubt about it, the explosion in data we’re currently experiencing is mind-blowing.
Technographic Data Enables Personalization
With a better understanding of a prospective customer’s technology stack, technographics enable greater customer journey personalization. According to a report by Forrester, 75% of B2B customers expect companies to personalize their messaging and offerings based on their technology use. In a world of all but equal solutions and services, those who provide superior customer experience will win every time.
How To Collect Technographic Data
Phone or Email Surveys: A Thing of the Past?
Surveys for technographic data might have been popular once, but they aren’t the go-to methods anymore. Phone and email surveys are slow, often unreliable, and counterproductive, especially when dealing with cold calls. Sure, these methods still have their place, but there are more effective ways to acquire technographic data in the age of big data.
Data Scraping: A Limited Approach
Data scraping involves extracting code from websites—to identify key information about a company’s technology use. Sounds great, right? The problem is that only certain types of software leave traces on websites, and scraping has no value in identifying hardware.
Data scraping suffers from severe limitations that are prohibitive in the long run. For one, the data you collect will frequently be old or outdated. Ethical questions also arise from these practices that need to be considered.
Buying B2B Technographic Data: The Smartest Move You Can Make
Purchasing a technographic database is the easiest route to usable technographic data. Historically, buying data has been viewed as a gamble due to issues around reliability. This is understandable. Until recently, the capability to quantify and update the required volume of data at the necessary speed and scale didn’t exist, and companies selling technographic data couldn’t guarantee results. All that’s changed.
There are now reputable providers in this space, like DemandScience. Each B2B data provider has its technology installation base, providing accurate information on thousands of companies and technologies. It has taken time for this market to mature sufficiently, and, as with most things in life, the old maxim ‘caveat emptor’ (“Let the buyer beware”) holds… But, with proper research, several technographic data providers now offer precisely what is described on the tin.
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How To Use Technographic Data In Business
Improves Lead Qualification
Technographic data helps you quickly spot prospects who are a strong fit for your product or service based on their tech stacks. This way, you can focus on those most likely to become satisfied customers. Want to stop wasting time on leads that go nowhere? Build qualified leads with technographics.
The more you learn about a prospect’s technology, the better you’ll understand their needs and how your solution can help. As you gather more information about their tech profile, you can even create a lead scoring system to help your team prioritize outreach to the most qualified leads.
Enhances Customer Segmentation
Marketing isn’t one size fits all. Technographic segmentation allows you to group your audience based on their tech profiles. For example, you could target companies using certain software programs or reach out to those with older systems. Each group gets messages tailored to their exact technology preferences.
You can even create marketing lists based on the exact solutions a company uses, allowing you to personalize outreach and target prospects with a specific solution in mind. This kind of personalization can significantly improve your marketing campaigns and boost conversion rates.
Informs Sales Conversations
Technographic data gives your sales team the info they need to have better conversations with prospects. Rather than asking broad questions, they can jump into what matters, showing how your product fits the prospect’s technology stack. This efficiency leads to more meaningful discussions and stronger connections with potential and existing customers.
As your sales team gathers more information about a prospect’s technology, they can further personalize their outreach for even better results.
Increases Customer Retention
Keeping customers happy is key to long-term success. Technographic data helps you stay in tune with your customer’s needs as their tech changes. You can offer timely support, suggest upgrades, and recommend new solutions before they even ask. Offering more proactive and personalized support makes customers feel understood and valued, which boosts loyalty and keeps them coming back.
Enhance Account-Based Marketing Campaigns
If you’re into Account-Based Marketing (ABM), the benefits of using technographic data are clear. Adding technographic data to your existing firmographic insights can sharpen your messaging and improve teamwork between marketing and sales.
You can target companies based on their tech stack and create ads or emails that speak to what your prospects want to hear. As you gather more information about your prospects, your lead scoring will improve, letting you spend more time chasing leads that are a perfect fit for your solution.
Try Our Website Technology Checker for Free Today
Aomni B2B Sales Prospecting Software: An Overview Of Our Platform's Tools And Features
Aomni’s artificial intelligence (AI) sales prospecting software features a wide variety of tools that help sales teams prepare for and execute their sales strategies with:
- Precision
- Speed
- Personalization
Here are just a few of the key features of our platform:
AI-Powered Prospecting Tools
Aomni’s AI prospecting tools automatically research and analyze target accounts to help sales teams build personalized strategies for each organization. Our software uncovers critical information about business prospects, including firmographics, technographics, and detailed insights into their existing technology systems. This can help sales teams tailor their pitches and identify ways to add value to their operations.
Account Mapping and Planning
Aomni streamlines account mapping and planning to help sales teams establish effective organizational charts and identify key stakeholders within target accounts. Our software allows sellers to visualize the relationships between different business units and their decision-makers so they can develop personalized sales strategies that facilitate communication and rapport with the right people.
Data-Driven Sales Strategy Development
Aomni leverages AI to help sales teams develop data-driven sales strategies for B2B prospecting. Our software analyzes historical sales data and uncovers actionable insights to help sellers improve their performance. By using Aomni to inform their sales approach, teams can close deals faster and reduce the risk of missing targets.
Automated Call Preparation
Aomni’s AI technology significantly enhances call preparation for B2B sales teams. Our software automatically analyzes calls and other sales communications to identify areas for improvement. It also provides personalized recommendations and actionable insights to help individual sales reps optimize performance and improve prospect interactions.
Personalized AI Agents for Sales Optimization
Aomni creates personalized AI agents for individual sales personnel to help them optimize their performance for B2B sales prospecting. These agents use natural language processing (NLP) to facilitate interactive conversations with sales reps and provide detailed information about:
- Target accounts
- Prospective buyers
- Effective sales strategies
AI Chat Interface for Streamlined Sales Processes
Aomni features an easy-to-use chat interface that allows sales teams to interact with our AI technology in real-time for quick answers and actionable insights.
This helps improve sales productivity by making account and prospect research more efficient. Teams can spend less time preparing for meetings and more time engaging with buyers.
AI-Assisted Account-Based Sales and Marketing Campaign Execution Tool
Aomni includes an intelligent campaign execution tool that helps sales and marketing teams effectively align and execute account-based strategies. Our software provides detailed recommendations for executing account-based sales and marketing campaigns to help teams improve performance and communication with target accounts.