What is Technographic Data? (And Why It Matters)
Digital transformation is more than just a buzzword — as noted by Forbes, 70% of companies have already deployed a strategy to improve digital service and solution uptake or are actively working on one.
And, in 2019 alone, enterprises spent more than 2 trillion dollars worldwide to help drive digital adoption and improve overall organizational performance.
For product and service providers in the technology industry, this presents an opportunity: If B2B sales teams can determine where enterprises are struggling with digital transformation initiatives, they can improve targeted marketing efforts and boost total sales.
But how do they bridge the gap between potential conversions and practical insight? Technographic data. In this piece, we’ll break down what technographic is (and isn’t), how companies can collect this data at scale, and why this data is important to help enhance B2B sales efforts.
Let’s get started.
What is Technographic Data?
Technographics is a portmanteau of the words “technology” and “demographics”, and refers to information that describes the use of technology solutions, their adoption rates, and the potential challenges they present for organizations.
The challenge? This technographics definition isn’t terribly useful without context.
First, let’s talk about what technographics isn’t:
Demographic data
Demographic data focuses on information about people — how many people are employed by a specific organization? What points of contact exist? How have companies’ sizes and staff configurations changed over time, and what’s on the horizon. This information is critical to help identify potential leads and develop initial marketing efforts but offers no insight about technology use.
Firmographic data
Firmographic data refers to information such as company size, product offerings, industries served, total revenues and even physical locations. This data is useful to help create targeted campaigns that drive B2B sales interest but doesn’t include technology metrics or measurements.
So what exactly is technographic data? Put simply, it’s the practical application of information about the technology stack used by a prospective customer — everything from the infrastructure and network tools they’re using to the applications they prefer and the adoption rate of these applications at scale.
Effectively used, technographic data can help companies align their product offerings with digital transformation needs and capture client interest.
Worth mentioning? There’s a distinction between pure technographic data and social technographic data. While technographic data speaks to the use of software, hardware, and networking technologies within an organization, social technographic data focuses on the consumption and use of social media technologies within an enterprise.
While this is useful for social marketing efforts, it doesn’t serve the same function as technographic data for B2B marketing efforts.
How to Collect Technographic Data
When it comes to collecting technographic data, three broad methods exist:
1. Surveys
The most direct method of collecting technographic data starts at the source: Staff at target companies. Using phone or email surveys, companies attempt to collect information about how technology is adopted, deployed and used to boost B2B efforts. The challenge? Most companies won’t respond to cold-call surveys, and many aren’t …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog
