3 Ways to Use Technographics to Deliver a Relevant Customer Experience

You should be leveraging ways that identify technographic data to help give your customers what they want.

Earlier this year, Orbitz stirred up controversy by directing certain Mac users to costlier travel options than their Windows counterparts. While this tactic raised eyebrows, the role of a marketer is to use all of the information at your disposal to develop a solid customer profile and deliver the right content, at the right place, and at the right time.

Data from the Ecommerce Quarterly backs up the idea that customers visiting on different devices and operating systems exhibit different behavior while engaging with your brand online. Identifying the technographic characteristics of customers when they browse your website can provide a direct route to better understanding the customer and delivering them a more relevant online experience.

For years, sharp email marketers have been doing something similar by analyzing what percentage of traffic is driven from AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail accounts. The AOL user, for example, typically represented a more established household, while the Gmail user tended to be more technologically sophisticated. Considered a fundamental email marketing tactic, email marketers learn a lot about the customer this way and tailor messages based on that profile.

While some may view this as controversial, at the end of the day you have to identify ways to effectively use data to shape the customer experience or you run the risk of missing opportunities. This isn’t black magic; instead you should be leveraging ways that identify technographic data to help give your customers what they want.

Here are three ways technographics can be incorporated into your marketing or CRM process in order to make the online experience more relevant for your customers.

Device-Based Information

Understanding whether customers are visiting your website from a Mac or Windows operating system, iPhone or Android smartphone, or iPad vs. Android-based tablet is one of the most fundamental ways you can use technographics to tailor the online experience.

smartphoneshare

As smartphones continue to account for a larger share of website visits, use what you know about the mobile user’s device to your advantage. For example, you know that iPhone visitors are on a major wireless carrier vs. an Android user that may be on a month-to-month plan. Since the iPhone user is typically paying a higher monthly data rate, consider delivering a more relevant experience tailored to her economic situation.

The New Browser Wars

Similar to the email marketer paying attention to subscribers’ service providers, identifying the web browser a customer is using when she visits your website will tell you a lot about her level of technical sophistication.

browsershare

If a customer is visiting your website via Internet Explorer 6, for example, you can reasonably assume that she is less technically sophisticated than a visitor using a new version of Google Chrome. Although this piece of data doesn’t provide a direct map to household income, it will give you strong insight into what type of consumer she is, which can impact the offers you present to her.

Viewport: The New Screen Resolution

Another important question to ask is what does the specific experience the customer is engaging with look like to her?

While display screen resolution is nothing new and can certainly help in customizing the user experience, if viewport isn’t on your radar it needs to be. Viewport is the area of a web browser where users can see actual content of a web page.

As the desktop handles an increasing number of applications, the web browser’s viewport size and not the display resolution will become increasingly important. In other words, regardless of whether someone’s screen resolution is 1920×1080 or 1024×768, she’s likely viewing your website much smaller.

The move to responsive web design can improve the user experience and address some of the challenges that viewport presents. At the same time, you’ll be able to extend your user experience efforts to non-PC traffic like the increasingly popular tablet and smartphone devices mentioned earlier.

Focus first on your conversion path. For instance, test treatments such as site search, navigation, and image size layout before you go crazy with responsive design and relaunch your entire website.

Test Your Assumptions

Technographics provide you with a good starting point for getting to know your customers better, but depending on your product or service offerings, it is essential to test your assumptions. By testing you will validate whether these technographic behavior patterns are proven.

Listen to what your customers are telling you. By analyzing technographics such as the devices, browsers, screen resolutions, and viewports that your customers use, you will learn a lot more about them and can put this information to good use.

Subscribe to get your daily business insights

Whitepapers

US Mobile Streaming Behavior
Whitepaper | Mobile

US Mobile Streaming Behavior

5y

US Mobile Streaming Behavior

Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing habits. Streaming video, however, still comes with a variety of pesky frustrations that viewers are ...

View resource
Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics for Media Groups
Whitepaper | Analyzing Customer Data

Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics for Media Groups

5y

Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics f...

Data is the lifeblood of so many companies today. You need more of it, all of which at higher quality, and all the meanwhile being compliant with data...

View resource
Learning to win the talent war: how digital marketing can develop its people
Whitepaper | Digital Marketing

Learning to win the talent war: how digital marketing can develop its peopl...

2y

Learning to win the talent war: how digital market...

This report documents the findings of a Fireside chat held by ClickZ in the first quarter of 2022. It provides expert insight on how companies can ret...

View resource
Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Experience Economy
Report | Digital Transformation

Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Experience Economy

1m

Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Exp...

Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...

View resource