Marketing is an umbrella term. Much of what you hear and read about it does not apply to technical companies. In fact, 80% of marketing advice is fruitless for companies providing complex products and services. Technical marketing is a field of its own that requires a different vision and approach.
If deployed for the right reasons, technical marketing can yield great results. But first, it is important to know what works and what does not. That is the knowledge we will share in this article about the five success factors of technical marketing.
Technical Marketing - Factor 1:
Choose an attainable goal
“We want to improve our brand awareness.” A common answer when we ask management or the sales department of a manufacturing company why they deploy marketing. Marketing for the technical industry is often perceived as just ‘promotion’.
Promotion to improve awareness of the company in the market. That is what many manufacturing companies’ marketing managers are mostly occupied with these days.
The question is: at what point can you say that you have enough brand awareness?
Niche market
The general marketing principles for B2C and B2B do not apply to technical companies. These principles mostly focus on ‘visibility’ and aim to reach as many people as possible.
But as a industrial manufacturer, this is utterly useless to you.
Technical companies usually serve a niche market. Reaching as many people as possible should not be a priority at all. After all, the number of potential clients is limited for technical companies that produce specific products and services.
Technical marketing serves only one purpose: to get in touch with potential customers.
Technical marketing is explicitly not about reaching as many people as possible, but about purposefully reaching the right people, at the right time and with the right information.
So, the goal of technical marketing? To get in touch with potential customers.
This, of course, with a long-term view, especially given the length of both the customer journey and the purchasing process in the industry.
TIP: As a technical company, only invest in marketing when you have a concrete and achievable commercial goal in mind.