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When our first book -  ‘Techniques in Technical Marketing’ - was published in 2000, marketing was poised on the threshold of a new era. 

What advertising and design agencies then termed ‘New Media’ was merely a glimpse of what was to follow as the Internet came to dominate and transform the way we did things. 

We coined the term Technical Marketing to describe a new way of operating for businesses and how they marketed their products and services on a global platform.

In 2006 we started our Technical Marketing  blog.

 ‘Technical Marketing: Ideas for Engineers’ – retains a major opening section from the first book covering traditional marketing theory and the Rationale of Marketing.

 

The second section of the book demonstrates how online and offline techniques can be integrated into an effective marketing communications plan.

The final section of the book reviews the still evolving possibilities of digital marketing which is beginning to re write the rules of marketing.

The new 374 page book - Technical Marketing - Ideas for Engineers  - is now  available online from www.etbooks.co.uk

ISBN 978 94031 85 7 is published by Entertainment Technology Press Ltd part of Cambridge Media Group.

... an extract from the book

Why some engineers become marketers

Soon after graduating, if not before, some smart engineers figure out there are better paid jobs in business and finance than in engineering.

Ever since I joined the Institute of Electrical Engineers [IEE] which has since morphed into the IET, from time to time on the letters pages of the Institute's publications there has been a debate on the status of engineers. Generally the story is that on the 'Continent' engineers are widely respected as professionals, akin to lawyers and doctors and the term 'Engineer' proceeds their name, where as in the UK  such letters appear after the name and nobody knows what they mean. But worse, friends and relatives look to their engineering friends and relations to fix the TV when it goes wrong and sort out the washing machine or toaster. What nobody in these occasional righteous bouts of concern and feeling disrespected ever mentions is ... money.

After graduating, my employer a major British electrical manufacturer circulated my details throughout the organisation and offers of interviews flooded in. Most were in engineering departments, but one interestingly enough was from the Accounts Department at Head Office in London's West End - a change from the northern, midland and south coast towns where all the factory engineering and R&D went on. As a student apprentice I had plenty of experience in factories, R&D even in HR, but none of my work stints had taken me into finance. As I waited for the Financial Officer to call me in for my interview a secretary from another department asked me to wait afterwards as her boss wanted a chat. The interview seemed to go pretty well and an offer seemed likely to follow. As I left the interview the mysterious secretary was waiting to conduct me to her boss who turned out to be the Marketing Director. He wasn't a large man, in fact quite short and unusually for the era of broad flamboyant neck-ties, he wore a bow tie. He occupied a vast office with views to Trafalgar Square and other London landmarks. The interview was short and to the point. "How much did those book keepers offer you in salary he asked?" I named the figure, which I guess he already knew anyway. "I'll pay you so many thousand pounds a year more he responded." And so I left engineering and joined the Marketing Department.

 ... read another extract

Once you could only buy advertising space or ‘buy’ editorial mention

Before the widespread adoption of the web there were only two significant options for a business to gain attention for its products in the media – to buy expensive advertising, or buy PR for third party column space. It was ‘above the line’ and ‘below the line’ promotion. The glitzy world of advertising or the manipulative black arts of press and pubic relations.

Aficionados of the Mad Men television series set in the 60s will have gained some insight into the presumed excesses of the advertising world portrayed by the fictional character of creative director Donald Draper. A world inhabited by snappily suited ad men with a prodigious appetite for the consumption of alcohol, smoking and the pursuit of attractive women. Set in a fictional advertising agency on New York’s Madison Avenue - home to the advertising industry - the name ‘Madison Avenue’ was used as shorthand for the industry itself - hence the play on words for the series title. The only evidence of work appeared to be scribbling doodles on restaurant napkins or lying on a couch in their extravagantly appointed offices ostensibly thinking up creative ideas and occasionally attending the client meetings to ‘sell’ a concept. The expensive offices and lavish lifestyle called for clients with big budgets to bank roll advertising land. My own occasional glimpses of London’s West End advertising agencies showed grand offices and generous expense accounts were normal here too. I cannot vouch for the rest of the life of the ad men.