So who really visits your website? Are they primarily male or are they more female? What age group do they fall into, what are their income levels? What part of the country are they from, are they single, married, recently single, or are they parents?
The chances are, you have absolutely no clue to what the answers are to most of these questions. The nature of the Internet is that the users want to stay as anonymous as possible for security sake. Other than location, web demographics are pretty much dead to marketers these days.
Enter Technographic Segmentation
Technographic Segmentation was originally ‘coined’ and actively used by Forrester Research. Technographic Segmentation refers to segmenting people who visit your site by the technological choices that they make. So when they arrive to your website: the visitor’s operating system, the search engine they used, and the browser they are using comes into play. These are all technographic indicators which reveals the habits and attitudes of your visitor.
Each one of these user choices indicate significant clues regarding the visitor. All that’s required is you having to analyze what they mean, and how you can take advantage of the information.
For Example: A study and its subsequent breakdown revealed that those who used a certain ‘Ad Network,’ showed if they arrived at a website using Bing, they converted around 55% percent better than those who happened to arrive using Google.
So What Do These Users Technology Choices Mean?
The theory is that those who are using Bing, the search engine, are most likely taking the path of least resistance. Bing happens to be the default search engine when using Internet Explorer. So you can infer from their choice of they using Bing, that they really don’t care that much about doing in-depth research using alternative methods of browsing. They have most likely heard of Firefox and Google, which is more tech orientated, but can’t be bothered. They are just concerned with an easy quick solution to solving their problem.
On the flip side, there are those who take the time and effort to choose and research ‘non-default’ technology services, such as Google and Firefox for their Internet usage. This group would seem to be more interested in making concise, detailed and informed decisions, rather than a quick easy one. So they will be lower in conversion and most likely a harder sell, as the effort they put forth indicates a more informed critical consumer.
What To Do With The Information?
To begin with, the technographic profile of your site visitor can give you instant insight into what they are looking for, so give them what they want. Regardless if the conversion rate is just an 1.5% percent advertising click or white paper download etc. You should be able to tailor the message and the density of your ‘Call To Action,’ to the different technology choices of your visitors.
If a visitor arrives at your website from Google, using Firefox and running a Linux built system, the chances are they’re tech savvy specific and may be harder to convert or sell to. For these detail inclined visitors, you can tailor your information to be more technically orientated and less sales oriented. Focus heavily on data and statistics, using comparisons to competing products or services. Also using real legitimate testimonials seems to work better with this type of consumer.
If your visitor happens to be using Windows, Internet Explorer and finds your site using Bing, place more focus on your ‘Call To Action,’ making comparative data available, but not making it the focus. This group of web user may not be necessarily easy to sell to either, but given their technological choices, a quicker decision to them may be the best decision. So allow this group to quickly decide your product or service is exactly what they’re looking for. This should boost your conversion rate.
Although these are pretty general examples, you as a webmaster should be able to find your own specific variations of which technographic segments perform the best.
Break Down The Analytics
Using a free and valuable tool such as Google Analytic’s, allows you to determine what your site visitors’ specific choices may be, and to what degree regarding your conversions. The key as with anything else, is a combination of testing and logic, and see what happens.
The chances are that you will find a high number of visitors with particular technographic tastes are drawn to that particular CTA. But you’ll also find others that are opposed to completing whatever process that you may have in place. That’s when you can begin tweaking your content to their intent, using technographic segmentation to create and converting a group of visitors out of a group that may be completely disinterested. This can be simply done by finding out what you know about what technology they use.