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Technographics: A Comprehensive Guide

This guide breaks down the basics of technographic data, from what it is to how your organization can leverage it to optimize sales efforts.

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Logistics leaders examine their prospect pipeline

Chapters

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

Technographic Data: What Is It and How Is It Collected?

Chapter 3

Applications of Technographic Data

Chapter 4

3 Technographics Plays

Chapter 5

How Do You Gauge the Quality of Technographic Data?

Chapter 6

Other Types of Data

Chapter 7

Bringing All These Signals Together

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Introduction

Wouldn’t it be great to know the specific technologies or tools your potential customers are using — especially when they’re using a solution that’s inferior to the one you offer? Wouldn’t it be rad to spot when they’re using a solution that you can level-up through partnerships or integrations?

Technographics provides these insights, which provide an inside track on identifying customers who are likely to be receptive to your solution.

This guide breaks down the basics of technographic data, from what it is to how your organization can leverage it to optimize sales efforts.

Chapter 2

Technographic Data: What Is It and How Is It Collected?

Technographics is a portmanteau of the words “technology” and “demographics.”

Technographic data allows you to understand the technology and tools used by your target accounts. High-quality technographic data also tells you:

  • When a customer started using a particular software
  • When their contract is expected to renew, and
  • A high-level overview of a company’s tech stack

This information enables you to:

  • Spot companies that are investing in solutions similar to the ones you offer
  • Where they might have gaps you can fill in their tech stack, and
  • When they may be ready to swap out an existing solution for yours

How is Technographic Data Collected?

There are three major ways technographic data is typically collected:

1. Surveys

With the help of phone or email surveys, companies can collect information on what technologies power a business’s sales, marketing, revenue operations, logistics, and other efforts.

However, this data can be difficult to gather since not all companies will respond to cold-call surveys or share the information via an email or a form.

2. Data Mining

This means collecting publicly available information from websites by analyzing the source code of web pages that indicate which software is used by a company.

This is more accurate and more efficient than surveys. However, it requires you to build or acquire technology that will collect this information efficiently.

Another drawback is that security protocols used on websites may limit the type of data collected.

3. Third-party Purchasing

This is the most direct method. Cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers have access to robust technographic data sets.

But like any method, this has its own limitations. Here, personal data must be anonymized to comply with privacy laws. Also, not all data providers are equal. Conduct research before contracting with a technographic data provider.

Chapter 3

Applications of Technographic Data

Technographic data helps propel sales and marketing teams with:

  • Precise customer segmentation
  • Account-Based Marketing
  • Customer success
  • Competitor analysis
  • Forecasting
  • Optimizing sales efforts
  • Improving sales and marketing conversations
  • Expanding to new markets

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

Precise Customer Segmentation

Segmenting your prospects enables you to categorize and prioritize prospects based on technology-related factors, and then engage them based on plays geared toward each segment.

For instance: Are prospects using tools that play well with your solution? Use messaging that explains how you can enhance functionality they already have, and how effortless implementation and integration will be.

For instance: Prospects that use a competitor’s tech can be educated with content that compares what they’re currently getting to what you could provide. At-a-glance comparison charts are especially helpful assets.

Account Based Marketing

Personal, relevant messaging is the beating heart of account-based marketing. Knowing the technologies prospects are using helps you understand the challenges they work to solve. By positioning yourself as a solution to those challenges, you gain an advantage over competitors.

Customer Success

Customer satisfaction is directly responsible for maintaining predictable revenue growth by reducing churn and increasing upsells and cross-sells.

Technographics can reveal when a customer of yours might be trying out a competing platform. That signal is an obvious red alert for your customer success team, which should reach out to discover what problems a customer is trying to solve.

If you have a solution, you may be able to keep the customer’s loyalty.

Competitor Analysis

Analyzing what your competitors are selling — and to whom — becomes a whole lot easier with the help of technographics. You can use technographics to identify your competitors’ customers and understand their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

This allows you to triangulate strategies to reach key accounts, and understand which tools and platforms are commonly used by companies in specific industries, or of certain sizes.

Forecasting

When a potential account adopts new tech, it’s a strong sign that they:

  • Have experienced or are anticipating massive growth
  • A team is newly formed or restructured
  • There is new leadership, or
  • Something else has occurred that has created a need for implementing new tools

It’s a strong signal that they are in-market for solutions.

Optimize Your Sales Efforts

Technographic data also helps you understand which prospects are most closely aligned with your ICP. This can help you prioritize outreach.

Improve Sales and Marketing Conversations

Technographic data can help you prepare for technology-related questions your prospect may ask, and empowers sales to ask questions of their own.

This level of preparedness positions your sales reps as technology experts who can consult with customers on a solution during their B2B prospecting efforts.

Expand Into New Markets

Analyzing your and your competitors’ customer tech stacks can help you identify target accounts in untapped industries that use a similar technology stack and have a need for your solution.

Chapter 4

3 Technographics Plays

Let’s take a look at how technographic data can be used in three different business scenarios.

When Launching an Email Campaign

Let’s say a company wants to launch an email campaign to convert prospects. Without technographic data, it’s often hard to identify which audience will be receptive, or which messages will be compelling. However, if you know the tools and technology they are using, it opens up many possibilities for starting a conversation.

Scaling Your Customer Base

Startups need to know who to target. Here’s how you can use technographics in customer profiling, so you can understand your market potential and scale efficiently:

Subscription-Based Service

Let’s say you’re a business selling a solution that enhances other products in the market. Technographics can reveal which companies are already using tools you can complement. It can then filter these results based on highly specific variables and produce a list of high intent prospects that are worth pursuing.

If you’re a subscription-based service, you can find out which of your competitors’ clients have expiring agreements. You can also use technographic data to disqualify prospects — filtering out those that do not qualify as high intent or convertible, thereby saving time, effort, and resources.

Chapter 5

How Do You Gauge the Quality of Technographic Data?

There are many technographic data vendors to choose from, so it’s vital to select one that can provide accurate and up-to-date information. Here are few factors that influence the quality of technographics data:

  • Accuracy: The information reflects current use.
  • Scale: Probability and numbers play a big part in closing deals. You should have access to a lot of data and easy ways to narrow down to target markets through granular filters.
  • Ease of integration: Introducing new data to your existing systems should not disrupt the utility of tools and processes that you already have.
  • Historical repositories: Historical data can provide deep insights into market trends and help identify multiple factors for better conversions.

Chapter 6

Other Types of Data

There are other types of data that can and should be used along with technographics to determine ideal customer profiles, create segmentation, and create messaging campaigns.

Demographics

Demographic segmentation categorizes individual contacts based on characteristics such as age, education, gender, location, marital status, and location. Demographic data is usually the most easily accessible data, since most individuals make it available to others on social media.

In B2B sales, there are nearly always multiple stakeholders involved in the purchase decision-making process. Demographics can help you recalibrate your messaging to typical concerns of people who fall into different categories.

Psychographics

Psychographics involve understanding the cultural factors that influence business decisions. This includes considerations such as: 

  • Innovation orientation
  • Risk tolerance
  • Cost sensitivity
  • Environmental and social responsibility
  • Collaborative culture
  • Corporate culture
  • Strategic focus
  • Adaptability
  • Customer-centric approach
  • Regulatory compliance

By analyzing these psychographic elements, a B2B company can tailor its marketing strategies to align with the values and preferences of its target audience, ensuring a more effective and resonant approach in the business-to-business context.

Firmographics

Firmographics are to companies what demographics are to people, enabling your revenue team to categorize prospects by factors such as:

  • Industry
  • Location
  • Company size (number of employees or number of customers)
  • Status and structure (relationships between subsidiaries or franchises, or company type such as a private corporation or LLC)
  • Business performance (profit and loss, revenue fluctuations, customer satisfaction, etc.)

Firmographic data helps revenue teams target prospects based on the characteristics of their company.

Examples include campaigns targeting specific industries, highlighting how your solution addresses an industry-specific concern or need, or how your offering is geared to benefit companies of a certain size.

Firmographic changes can signal that a prospect may have an emerging need for your solution. Indicators include:

  • Changes in employee numbers (sudden increases as well as decreases in headcount can suggest a need for tools that improve efficiency)
  • Changes in company structure, and
  • Increases profits and revenue

Chapter 7

Bringing All These Signals Together​​

Technographic data is crucial for seeing the bigger picture of your prospects’ tech stacks and equipping revenue teams with the knowledge they need to drive educational conversations and craft impactful messaging and assets.

But you can get the most clear, complete picture of your ideal customer — and empower your revenue team in the best ways — by putting demographics, firmographics, psychographics, and technographics together.

Great data vendors can provide you with accurate, up-to-date data for all four. Some platforms, like 6sense, take this a step further by layering in intent data — a signal that shows which prospects are ready to buy now.

See how 6sense’s data-driven, AI marketing platform is helping organizations capture the best accounts, target opportunities, and boost sales performance.

Ready to see 6sense in action?

The 6sense Team

The 6sense Team