Cindy Lynes
The cornerstone of all successful B2B marketing strategies is to know your target buyer and know them well.
B2B marketers invest a lot of time profiling their ideal customers so they can more fully align their messaging and programs to drive results. For many, developing detailed personas on their target buyers are a must. Typical information for these personas includes title, reporting structure, education, work experience, age, leisure activities…you get the idea.
But what if you could get a real glimpse into how your customers and prospects work every day? Think about it…the types of technologies they utilize on a daily basis to get their job done can provide a snapshot into their specific work responsibilities and daily workflow.
The reality is that businesses today could not function without the many technologies they utilize to simplify and automate everyday functions. At 1.8 billion users a day, Microsoft Office is a given for business professionals. If you are in Accounting or Finance, ADP, Concur, NetSuite and others will be part of your daily workflow. If you are a small business, it may look like QuickBooks. As a Marketer, Marketo, Eloqua or Salesforce.com will be part of your technology suite.
The type of technology a company chooses to invest in often can tells a better story about their priorities than a title can. For example, the responsibilities of a Director of Marketing can vary considerably from company to company. Yet if you know the company is using Eloqua for marketing automation, it suggests that they have a fairly sophisticated digital marketing strategy, high-level marketing operation expertise, and a significant budget.
Looking beyond persona development, having an inside track on which technologies a company chooses to install, can provide complementary and competitive intelligence that can drive more effective demand generation execution. If your business provides a connector to ADP, Salesforce or Marketo that provides financial or contact data, honing in on those companies and contacts that utilize these software programs allows you to target your marketing efforts where you can have the most impact. Or, in the example of competitive intelligence, what if you had intelligence on organizations using a competitive technology or a tier 2 solution? When a company invests in a similar solution to your own, the business need and budget are already established (two of the biggest obstacles in the sales process). Before you send an email or your sales team picks up the phone, you already know the key selling points you need to make to go for the win.
For sophisticated marketers, this kind of technology intelligence can take your targeted campaigns to whole new level of effectiveness. At the end of the day, it just makes sense.
At Dun & Bradstreet NetProspex, our TechProspex data tracks over 5,000 technologies across 2,200 product mapped to over 4M companies with a 90% plus accuracy. When it comes to targeting, the more you know about your prospects and their technology, the better. Let our high-value TechProspex data give you a distinctive competitive edge.
Want further insight? Download our Five Targeting Strategies for Technology Marketers to learn more.
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