Despite sounding like a genre of underground rave music, technographics can be one of a B2B marketer’s most important tools when building an audience that will be receptive to their messaging.
Technographics are the technologies within a company’s tech stack like sales and marketing automation, CRM, content management systems, ad networks, analytics tools, and many more that B2B marketers use to segment their audience and find new potential target accounts. Think about how B2C marketers use information about consumers’ buying habits to predict what they like and what they might buy in the future. B2B marketers use technographics to do the same thing for their target companies.
How do you use technographics?
There is a wide range of use cases for technographics, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some of the popular ones:
- Educated guesses about target audiences
By looking at a company’s current tech stack, you can make educated guesses on allocated budget and investment spend in technologies across departments.
For example, if a company is currently using a sales automation tool with a starting price of $50,000, it would be reasonably safe to make a couple of different assumptions. They recognize the value in sales platforms, and they have a decent-size budget (at least for that particular type of technology).
- Enhance a company's tech stack
Once you’ve determined which technologies a particular company is already using, you can determine what technology they might be interested in integrating into their existing platforms. If your products optimize or improve technologies in their current stack, you have a much better chance of getting buy-in and user adoption.
- Building targeted technology-based campaigns
It’s no secret that a cornerstone of account-based marketing is personalization - creating messages that show how your products solve your target audience’s pain points. Knowing what technologies a company uses will help you craft messages that can speak directly to the pain points they might be experiencing by using specific platforms or services.
- Identifying technology gaps
Just as important as knowing which technologies a company is using is knowing which ones they are not using. Seeing where a company’s technology gap might be could be an excellent opportunity to show them how adopting your technology could improve their business.
- Outselling competitors
Maybe you sell a competitive product to one of the platforms they already use – don’t get discouraged; this is a good thing. You already know they find value in your type of product; now, you just have to demonstrate how yours provides more value. Go get ‘em, tiger!
How do you find a company’s technographics?
Luckily, for B2B sales and marketing professionals, you don’t have to look too hard to find a company’s technographics.
KickFire Prospector is a free Google Chrome browser extension that allows you to get valuable company data whenever you visit any company's website. Once installed, you’ll be able to see the firmographics and technographics of any company with just one click. Things like industry, revenue range, employee count, and company headquarter location – all vital information for building prospect lists, powering your sales and marketing strategies, and more.