Importance of Data
We’ve all become aware of the importance of data driven marketing. Having the right data can be directly associated with the success, or failure, of your company. High-quality data should guide business decisions, provide accurate forecasts, and optimise and refine marketing and sales strategies. This data-driven style of marketing allows B2B organisations to connect with customers in ways they’ve not previously been concerned with, gain insight into the buying behaviour of decision-makers, and optimise their customer journeys.
However, demographics, and data that are widely available online, can only take B2B Tech organisations so far. Simplistic targeting criteria, such as demographics, cannot provide technology marketers with essential information about the technology a prospect, or a target company, may be using. But when they know this information, their potential for growth skyrockets. It can provide extensive insight into the value of a lead and its pain points. It provides B2B marketing professionals and sales teams with a competitive edge and efficient targeting strategies.
What is Tech Install Data?
Tech install data refers to information collected from databases of people using various technological platforms. Marketers can use this data to target prospects based on their technology requirements, helping them to create more impactful and customised campaigns (Mane, 2020). By utilising tech install data, B2B organisations can target prospects with the right technology profile.
Today’s technology-based world is about more than just phones and computers; it’s also about apps, social networks, data capture and integration, analytics and CRM. Organisations that gather information on customer and prospect technology stacks, and make sense of it, are a force to be reckoned with in the marketplace. Having a clear understanding, or sometimes just guidance, on the technology your target audience uses can help determine and optimise your targeting strategies and your marketing messages and can increase the accuracy of sales pipelines.
How to Collect Tech Install Data and Why it Can Increase your ROI
Existing Customer Base
There are a few different ways in which technographics can be captured. Ideally, you will have maintained good data on your existing install base (The Infinity, 2018). This data should not only include up-to-date contact information but also include technographic details, such as what technology stacks they purchased from you, upselling opportunities based on complementary technology, and when you should reach out to them again.
With this data, you can increase your ROI by communicating with your existing customers regularly ensuring; they receive excellent customer service; they extract maximum value from your product; you build customer loyalty; gain insight on their pain points; you generate revenue by upselling, cross-selling, and referrals (The Infinity, 2018).
New Prospects
The first approach to collecting tech install data on your target audience and prospects is by cold calling. Cold calling your target audience, and asking them about their current technology stack, their future requirements, and their current provider will give you insight into your competitors, as well as your prospects’ technology requirements. However, cold calling is time-consuming, and in short, prospects have grown to find sales calls annoying. In an era of technology, cold calling seems outdated and somewhat unnecessary.
Data collection through surveys is considered less annoying and less intrusive. Creating a campaign, or an online survey with incentives, that gathers technographic information organically means you have a deeper understanding of your buyer’s persona. However, like cold calling, you are relying on your prospects to willingly provide this information.
The alternative approach is to scrape the data. Techniques like web scraping can be applied to gather many data from a prospect’s website, including technographic data (Mane, 2020). By crawling prospects’ online platforms, scraping algorithms can be developed to collect information about their technology stacks. This approach is the most commonly used method to collect technographic data because of its high scalability. Natural Language Processing technology, which allows scraping algorithms to better understand the context and semantics of words, improves the accuracy of scraping, meaning it can be used on a wider range of sources (Datarade AI).
The chances of you being able to get your competitor’s customers to consider your offering are limited. Without a thorough understanding of their technology requirements, IT budget, and purchase decisions, it’s even more limited. Technographics provides this information, and multiple opportunities to increase ROI:
- Identify opportunities
- Personalise marketing messages
- Prioritise prospects based on value and likeliness of converting
- Upselling
- Improved customer service
- Market analysis
- Development of new products
