How Big Data Can Be A Game Changer By 2020
September 16, 2018
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Sales can be described as a war in disguise. A salesman might be able to tell a hundred stories & how he survived through bloodbaths to achieve victory, which in sales terms means completing the target. This is one of the reasons why many concepts of war can be applied to the art of sales, which includes knowing the enemy.
Knowing the enemy means winning half the battle which is as same in sales. A salesman’s time is valuable. It shouldn’t be wasted upon the prospects that are never going to buy products/services from him.
The marketing gurus of organizations should act as war strategists to provide leads to the salespeople which are worthy enough to target. This is where the importance of the modern concept of account-based marketing (ABM) comes into play.
With the help of ABM, marketers can build ideal customer profiles, which can help turn prospects into ideal customers. But for this, a lot of suitable information is needed. This is where the influence of Technographics in modern marketing comes into the picture.
Multiple data sets come into play that goes into building an ideal customer profile to aid the sales & marketing activities throughout the customer journey. These include demographics which are data related to people, such as name, work title, etc. & firmographics which are data related to companies, such as company size, revenue, etc.
But Technographics is the one that provides a clearer picture of the customer environment. It can give information regarding the kind of software installed by the customer, when it was purchased, where it’s being used & how long it’s been in use. All this information is crucial in developing highly targeted customer messaging. For example, “Company A” & “Company B” both have identified small & medium manufacturers as target markets for their SaaS offerings.
On basis of account histories, both companies see a high likelihood that the prospects in the market will want what they are selling. Both companies have the same demographical data & firmographic data but “Company B” also has technographic data which reveals exactly what EPR technology the prospects are currently using, approximately how long they have used it and when they last upgraded. It’s clear that who will win the business, right.
Technographics tells a lot more than just about prospects working with which product or competitor. The tech stack of every company will be different. By noticing that you will be able to identify what they are willing to spend money on, their experience in tech, and several other factors unrelated to the technology itself. Technographics can also have a great deal of effect on the empathy of your salespeople.
Salespeople worldwide are done with them being referred to as con-men who try to sell customers things that they do not need for making money. Empathy has always been at the heart of understanding & creating real connections with others. More than just information is needed to empathize with prospects while moving forward along with assessing the sales opportunity at hand. Technographic data enables you to place yourself in the prospect’s shoes & create that shared emotional experience in an authentic way.
Your marketing’s competitive sweet spot is where firmographics & demographics intersect with technographic which helps in the identification of best-selling opportunities. To your prospects it means that you are no longer pushing hit or miss messages at them but proactive, result-oriented messages & solutions in response to your understanding of their real needs.
Technographics totally change the game in prospect identification which finally results in the churning to customers. If you are still not impressed by our pitch, we have jotted down a few ways Technographic data will change your way of business.
Understanding buyer personas is really important in marketing. If you don’t thoroughly understand your buyers, how will you target new, qualified prospects? Sales & marketing teams of organizations can build segments within their target market based on the technographic to identify opportunities & build personalized marketing strategies for each segment.
For example, the marketing team of a specific company can create a target market segment for companies that have a certain technology provider on their marketing website & develop a personalized & optimized marketing campaign for this target market segment.
Knowing about the customer is a big deal that can help a sales guy in determining whether to spend valuable time on a particular prospect or not. Technographic data can provide valuable insights to sales teams regarding the prospect’s technology usage. By analyzing the prospect’s technology stack opportunities or gaps in the workflow or strategy can identify.
The sales team can also gather insight into prospects’ buying habits by monitoring changes in technology investment. Personalized messages can be crafted that can be used for meaningful conversation with prospects rather than plain old cold calling with the use of Technographic data.
With the help of technographic, marketing teams can identify specific customer challenges on the horizon & could address that head-on by providing apt solutions. This means the sales team doesn’t even have to try to win deals on price. Data-driven insight enables the sales team to analyze the situation & recommend the best path forward- whether if it’s offering a compatible solution or pitching to replace a competitor.
Understanding the technological landscape can reveal opportunities to marketers & give a better understanding to them in reaching new markets. By analyzing the technology stack of potential buyers, the marketers can identify new market opportunities & demand for new products and services.
With technographic insights regarding customers, technology can be acquired that will allow sales teams in identifying at-risk accounts. This can help the sales teams in proposing solutions that’ll guarantee customers’ continued business. Also, technographic data help companies to create plans that encourage leveraging all features within the product for optimal success.
Edward Forrest in his 1985 study of VCR users for the Journal of Advertising Research, wrote that customer profiling “should be based on an amalgam of variables which might best be referred to as ‘technographic’…which focuses on motivations, usage patterns, attitudes about technology…as well as measures of a person’s fundamental values and lifestyle perspective.”
This perspective on consumer market data works equally well for today’s B2B markets & in fact, may, in fact, be more easily understood based on the amount of company information available online today.
Technographic data can provide marketers with an empirical set of facts of the key technologies installed at an account, allowing being more strategic.
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