Technical Marketing

Marketing to Technical Audiences

When developing strategies for penetrating the HPTC market, we created the following set of assumptions.  While elements of these assumptions are specific to HPTC, much of it is applicable to any technical market -- engineers and technical professionals have much in common, whatever their area of focus!

  •     Traditional "decision makers," notably senior executives, do not so much make decisions on product selections as they affirm the recommendations made by their technical staff.  They still hold the ultimate power, so it is necessary to market and sell technical products to multiple audiences at the same time -- technical, financial and executive.

  •     Technical markets are technically astute and demanding

    •     They value and demand solid, content-rich, credible information.  They reach decisions and take action based on research and analysis.

    •     They are used to doing research -- it is part of their daily life.

    •     They rely on technical journals, papers and magazines for much of their information.  They value quantitative data.

    •     They will read publications of almost any length -- if it is credible and useful!

    •     They absorb data, evaluate alternatives, reach conclusions and make decisions.

  •     They have little interest in -- or tolerance for -- traditional marketing and sales materials.  They have an effective "marketing firewall" that filters out anything they perceive as marketing or sales.

  •     They demand performance, are price sensitive, but often have the ability to make large purchases.

  •     These markets are fragmented and diverse.  It is necessary to implement programs that have both broad-based and highly focused elements.

  •     For smaller products, purchasing decisions are decentralized, and made at a relatively low level.

  •     Benchmarking is an extremely common component of the sales process.

    •     For large products, major hands on benchmarks are run.  These are expensive for everyone involved, especially vendors, and are becoming less common.

    •     For less expensive products, "paper benchmarks" and detailed comparisons are usually done.  It is critical to both supply sufficient information to enable these comparisons as well as to properly position this information.  Explanation of the significance of specific features and how to compare them can be critical in coming out on top in these comparisons.

  •     There is extensive networking and sharing of information within each community.

 

Elements of Technical Marketing

Marketing to a technical audience has many elements common to traditional marketing, but it's own unique characteristics.  The key element to keep in mind is that these people pride themselves on making decisions based on hard, quantitative data.  This data is delivered to them through a variety of sources:

  • Technical Collaterals

  • Press Relations and Analyst Relations

  • Direct Marketing

  • On-Line (Web) Presence.

    • Multiple levels of detail starting at a high level with the ability to "drill down" to greater detail.

    • Search driven -- location of relevant information through search engines.

  • Conferences and Events

  • Sales Training

  • Customer Visits