How about a book for Christmas?

Buy now

Choosing a suitable Christmas gift can be a challenge. At one time a DVD  was a useful standby gift idea, one that didn't usually require too much knowledge of the recipient's interests, could be wrapped up easily and would be appreciated. But now everyone seems to download movies, box sets and the like and movies have gone the same way as music and to some extent books with their contents held in the ether, or cloud. 

I am not sure we are all yet ready for a fully digital Christmas where in place of opening up intriguingly wrapped presents from under the Christmas tree we sit around with our iBooks, iPads and iPhones and open our downloads! Recently I  received a Kindle as a birthday gift and this has great merit when travelling thanks to it being physically small, lightweight and yet easy to read. In these days of carry on hand luggage, books consume both space and add to weight that could otherwise be used by some essential items of clothing. 

On the other hand, books to read when flying or on holiday will probably be fiction. I was once influenced by a list of titles in a national newspaper recommended as suitable holiday reading for people in business as sources of new ideas, or essential background briefings for anyone with ambitions to succeed. That turned out to be a big mistake. They were just boring. However the concept of reading other people's ideas is quite compelling. Over the years I  have assembled a very small library - well short bookshelf really - of books that once read proved useful to refer to from time to time as a source of information when writing an article, drawing up proposals or prompting thoughts.   These books are all characterised by 'Post-it' notes sticking out of the tops of pages to bookmark some helpful references. Somehow they are more accessible than the links I bookmark to useful online references.

Running a small business which involves marketing strategy and content development, the small office library comes down to just a few subjects:-

Marketing - Marketing in a Competitive Economy by Leslie W Rodger, The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott and the recently published Technical Marketing - Ideas for Engineers by David Brooks.

Management - The Practice of Management by Peter F Drucker and An Insight into Management Accounting by John Sizer.

Reference - The Oxford Dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, two books on web design and HTML, A to Z London and AA Road Atlas Britain, plus a few operating manuals for various bits of kit.

Time to think about how you approach marketing

Technical marketing is founded on the same planning and attention to detail demanded of engineering projects.

Successful businesses have clearly stated goals, a strategy and a supporting financial forecast. Marketing has an important role to play in achieving these business objectives and typically includes new product development, product portfolio management and a marketing communications programme. We should regard marketing as an investment that delivers valid returns just as would be demanded of any other use of scarce resources. Consequently it makes sense to plan marketing activities, apply strict budgetary control, set targets, measure outcomes and use feedback to modify and improve the plan.

It is essential to impose organisational discipline on all marketing activities starting with the marketing team itself, the relationship with both external suppliers and internal customers and in particular with the sales operation. A formal, written Marketing Plan detailing proposed actions, methods, rationale and time scales should be shared with and supported by the whole company. The Marketing Plan should be accompanied by a detailed budget which will be used throughout the plan period to measure and control expenditure. Another essential document is a Corporate Identity (CI) Guide which describes how the company logo and image is to be used consistently across a wide range of materials - not just marketing communications collateral, but from company stationery to vehicle livery and service team work apparel.

The discipline imposed by creating the Marketing Plan will require attention to be focussed on a 'joined-up' marketing communications strategy, so that the various marketing techniques such as advertising, PR, web site and email campaigns, are co-ordinated and have a synergy and integration into a complete programme that is absent in adhoc, unplanned activities. As with engineering projects, planning and attention to detail will pay off when the marketing plan is implemented.

No time for the detail

Despite, or perhaps because of, the proliferation of productivity devices and applications fewer people now appear to have time to look at any detail.

The fact is many of them never did anyway. They were happier firing off one line commands rather than collecting information, analysing data and determining a plan to successfully accomplish a task. Strangely people with limited attention to detail and minimal attention span often occupy top jobs and have a personality that seems impressive at first. "I prefer to take a helicopter view" might seem as though they have a grasp on the big picture, but are the creatures on the ground they view from on high giants or ants?

The problem is people who should actually be looking at detail don't, or may be are incapable of doing so. Managing by forwarding emails is one symptom that should raise caution. It is quite instructive to look at the email trail that typically arrives from some companies. It starts deep within the organisation with someone emailing a colleague a question, one that is dealt with by forwarding to someone else and so on until it leaves the organisation entirely to land in the inbox of an external consultant. Oddly the serial forwarders probably consider the act of forwarding completion of a work task in itself. Sometimes the email goes to a colleague sitting just a few feet away. Perhaps if people spoke to each other more, overburdened email inboxes might be less of an issue and communication more effective.

It is quite common these days to see people working the emails on the move. On the over crowded commuter trains into and out of Euston there are people sitting cross legged on the floor a Mac on their lap busy forwarding their emails. So the working day extends into travel time too - no wonder they have to giveaway the London Evening Standard for free now. Its what the chairman of a company I worked for years ago would call 'being busy fools.'

But marketing only really succeeds if the planning is meticulous something it shares with the military - in fact the approach to a successful marketing campaign calls for the same ingredients such as reliable intelligence, analysis, consideration of options, strategy, detailed planning, marshalling of resources and immaculate execution - plus the flexibility to change if conditions change.  And you can't pull that off without attention to detail.

Marketing for engineering, scientific and technical b-2-b companies

For every Apple, Google, GE and Microsoft there are thousands and thousands of small businesses trading with other small businesses in the engineering, scientific and technical sector that need to market their products to a global audience on a small budget.

It is a big ask for a small business with small budgets to do this successfully which is one reason why we set up Technical Marketing Ltd to help companies like this to succeed. Common to successful engineering projects and successful marketing is the importance of planning and testing first. Our technical marketing philosophy helps engineer marketing solutions that support and aid delivery of company objectives. Starting at the beginning of the planning process is the marketing plan. Very few companies actually seem to have one any more than they have a formal business plan. There is too often the impression conveyed that the only marketing plan is to repeat last year's pattern of expenditure - usually the last several years - which makes it difficult to find budget for new concepts. All at a time when marketing is rapidly evolving. The usual reason given for not having a formal marketing plan is lack of time. But what is the point in spending money without knowing why or having any benchmark to measure whether it is successful? We recommend not only reviewing the marketing plan at least annually, but also setting the budget that will help deliver the results and company objectives. 

Technical marketing brings the same engineering methodology and thinking to marketing - introducing staffing structures, building the team, setting objectives through the marketing plan, formalising budgets, introducing financial controls, defining schedules and setting specifications for creative projects. Too often companies launch into building a web site, designing a brochure, booking an exhibition stand or commissioning an advertisement without first deciding on what they need to achieve. Design led agencies naturally play to their strengths - a flare for creative and compelling designs - and wow clients with exciting images. Arguably engineering marketing, or as we call it technical marketing, lacks some of that wow factor, but what we have discovered is that clients recognise the benefits that our approach can bring to the bottom line. We supply the rationale. And with the increasing importance of the Internet in marketing, a technical competence and comprehension of what works online too.  Of course there is a need for professional creativity, but it requires purpose and direction - in short planning, organisation, discipline and control. So engineering marketing solutions works - our clients testify to that.

So do the marketing techniques employed by giant companies too woo consumers work for the less glamorous world of business-to-business marketing, where budgets are considerably less? The answer is that the general principles of marketing still apply – the challenge is how they are applied. People buying business products and services are also consumers who experience the world of consumer marketing every day, but in their professional capacity will be less influenced by emotional appeals. When buying or specifying b-2-b products the process is not characterized by a spontaneous desire for instant gratification. It is a process of evaluation and consideration which may be quite lengthy. But what might ultimately differentiate one similar product from another is the reputation of the brand of the supplier. Although price will always be important, quality, reliability, technology, availability, post sales support and many other factors may figure in the final purchase decision. Building that reputation for a brand is where marketing performs a vital role in creating an environment where purchasers will ultimately demonstrate a preference for one product over another.

Marketing should not be confused with sales. It is far more to do with planning for the future, with strategy to keep ahead of fast moving trends, the routes to market, and the means of promotion and delivery that provide the essential environment in which selling can be successful. When marketing technical products, there are many facets to the marketing role. Technical marketing will typically embrace new product development, marketing communications and protection of intellectual property. Instead of the emotional appeal of consumer marketing we recognize that in the marketing space we address of industrial, engineering, scientific, technical and entertainment technology products, we are more typically engaged with engineers. Accordingly we have introduced an engineering approach to marketing. Engineering brings discipline to marketing, a discipline much needed in controlling the flights of fancy of the creative media types in getting the i's dotted and t's crossed, keeping feet firmly on the ground and keeping sight of the purpose of marketing a product - not in winning design awards. And if bringing engineering into marketing might seem a strange notion, unless marketing is properly controlled and brought in on budget then it will be a disaster. Engineering projects are as much about planning, adherence to schedules and budgets as they are about technology. In fact engineers are increasingly being employed in some surprising areas including many types of management consulting even in the financial sector. 

Planning needs to be followed by effective implementation. This is an important part of our client involvement – working as part of the team to actually implement the plan at an operational level. By working in partnership with our clients, changing circumstances can be easily accommodated in the plan. We bring experience in a range of marketing disciplines from traditional to evolving online techniques and can handle some or all of these to an agreed plan. The mix will differ according to each client’s own specific needs and resources. Most of our clients now regard Technical Marketing Ltd as part of their team thanks to long standing business relationships.

If you market technical products and think your business could benefit from working with us then get in touch. If you are just interested in what we do then sign up for our e-mail newsletter or just follow us on Twitter or any of the other options offered on the web site. We are here to help businesses succeed.

Synergy shifting

In the last blog, we noted that the conclusion in a recent survey on B2B purchasing preferences rated White papers as the most influential sources of information, and their content features highly in the early stages of the buying process. 

Presenting sales information to a technical market has always been a subject of hot debate and compromise, usually resulting in a plethora of glossy brochures, data sheets, specifications and catalogues all saying more or less the same thing in different ways, backed up by White Papers, sales scripts, PowerPoints and all manner of peripheral marketing materials. 

In the current atmosphere of belt tightening, it is interesting to see a nascent trend appearing which moves the compromise balance of sales information into condensed print material. One of our recent projects involved marketing a highly technical and specific range of Ethernet devices. The core influencers in the purchasing cycle were identified as technical consultants - not end users or fund holders - and their decision making process was predicated on concise information, simply put. The client’s marketing budget had been slashed - no more separate glossy catalogues, price lists, data sheets etc. More would be squeezed out of the website to provide those searchable details. But there was still a need for a publication that could be supplied to dealers for onward distribution to specifiers for retained reference purposes. 

The result was a ‘briefing booklet’. It developed as a technical white paper with an overview of current system design techniques, a few appropriate case studies, and concise technical specifications of key elements of the system from the company’s broad range. Publishing such a document helps confirm authority and thought/knowledge leadership that regular sales blurb doesn't achieve.

Does the Internet threaten brands?

Although the Internet offers small companies a global platform it also provides new challenges to Intellectual Property according to a recent report.

The report by patent and trademark attorneys Marks & Clerk highlights concerns by brand owners across a number of infringement opportunities that have become possible due to the Internet, are difficult to police and where law in the digital space has yet to catch up. IP issues that undermine legitimate brands operate at a number of levels.  

The Internet has provided new distribution channels for counterfeit goods with leading auction sites playing an important role. It is no longer the case of buying something that had 'fallen of the back of a lorry' or 'from a man in the pub', instead a degree of apparent legitimacy is bestowed thanks to the branding of the channel itself. At another level editorial content is freely stolen and images used outside of the company control. Of course getting widespread publication of attributed editorial is a good brand building thing, but being plagiarized to promote rival products or counterfeit goods is another matter entirely.

According to the report, "63 per cent believe that search-advertising such as Google AdWords is unacceptable when businesses bid on the name of a rival’s trade mark" and "Almost 7 in 10 (69 per cent) predict that social media will become the “next big threat” to brand owners in protecting their brands online". So the threat is not just from counterfeiters and forgers, but from otherwise legitimate competitors using the Internet to ride on the back of their rivals investment in marketing.

Then of course there are disgruntled customers and users who can exploit the Internet to not just air a grievance but conduct campaigns and rally support.  Social media has been extolled as a channel for companies to converse with their customers but for most b-2-b businesses it is very early days. Some - a few - have embraced sites like Facebook, while others won't even entertain the idea. Marks and Clerk's report notes, "With Facebook reportedly having the world’s ‘third largest population’ – more than 400 million users, compared to a population of just over 300 million in the US – it is little wonder we are seeing increasing protectionism and nervousness from brand owners.” 

From our experience in social media it is difficult to point to concrete benefits either, except getting picked on search and generating useful links. This will be the subject of a future blog.

Feature v Benefits

All too often businesses promote product features while customers are actually seeking benefits.

For many products, particularly those utilising new technologies, it is the new features that are most loudly proclaimed. The problem of marketing a product by focussing on features is that it presumes your target audience - your prospects have sufficient insight to translate a particular feature into something that is of benefit to them. Features are often seen as selling points, or specification clauses used to exclude rival products that do not enjoy that particular feature. I strongly suspect that feature-rich products such as smart phones, digital cameras, remote control devices actually cause confusion to prospects that just want to make a phone call, take a photograph or turn on the TV. A quick glance at many control surfaces or keyboards will often confirm by patterns of wear and dirt which keys are actually used and how many neglected. A feature is a statement of fact and making a potential customer work hard to figure out how it might benefit them is not going to help sell the product.

Prospective customers should not be made to do all the work. Many will be looking beyond features to issues such as value, reliability, availability and ease of use. Those TV manuals that arrive in 50 languages and in in several volumes show scant regard for targeting the user who only wants his language and is embarrassed by the paper wasted on the rest, but then discovers the hand book describes endless features that have curiosity value and no obvious benefit to the buyer. When marketing products, promoting benefits will be far more beneficial. It requires knowing  your target audience and presenting features in terms of benefits that will make their life easier, their businesses more efficient, their bills reduced - not clever technological functionality they cannot used to their benefit. In short it is 'what's in it for them', not look at how clever we are. If you need help in taking a fresh look at your business and products then a technical marketing specialist can bring this perspective and create compelling content that delivers results.

 

How will content be consumed in future?

In the last few days there have been a number of related announcements from different sources  that in their different ways point to a new future for content  and how it will be read. Who can have failed to notice the UK launch of the Apple iPad splashed across billboards, on TV and in the press - a device designed for online consumption of content from books and news to Internet and e-mail. 

This week Technical Marketing client, print giant Polestar Group plc announced, "Polestar is launching a service to enable its customers to publish their printed publications on the new Apple iPad, iPhone and online. Polestar Digital Editions – powered by award-winning YUDU technology – enables files received by Polestar for print purposes to be converted to online publication simultaneously across all platforms." In the same week, trade journal Automation sent their 'voucher copy' not by post, but by e-mail using this very technology. Meanwhile in Management Today in an article titled 'Yesterday's News, Today's new hope' the whole issue of charging v free content is examined.

Whatever the future - the devices, the software, free or subscription it is content itself that is essential. For b-2-b  enterprises anxious to keep their name in the news then a partner like Technical Marketing Ltd will become even more essential as this new future unfolds.

The importance of a clear and concise brief

Marketing is most successful when there is a clearly established client brief. Starting out on a vaguely defined project such as "we need a web site", or "we need a new brochure" is to court disappointment. It is the planning and research that goes into developing a brief that helps ensure that the resulting collateral is on target. That is why starting with a Marketing Plan is such a good idea, because individual projects will themselves be components within an agreed framework. Of course this takes work and effort in the first place, but the value of a marketing plan that can be shared with the rest of the company is realised during the year as individual campaigns, projects and material is rolled out. The rationale for that new web site or brochure will have been determined, objectives set, target audiences and target markets known and budget allocated. But it is still important to have a clear, concise brief that a designer can work to. Each element in a campaign that itself is part of an overall plan needs to be detailed and the usual format for this is a Design Brief.

The Design Brief should allow the designer to be creative, but focussed into delivering a piece of work that positively promotes and communicates your marketing message. Without a brief there is the risk the designer will allow creative imagination to dominate and run riot rather than deliver a message that hits the target. And it is important to use a professionally trained creative rather than having assembled all the information be tempted to carry on and do the brochure yourself. The reason is your time does actually cost money and however pleased you are with achieving the task, your customers will notice the difference between professional work and sub consciously this will be a judgement on your company, your products and services. 

Small businesses need marketing too

According to the Office of National Statistics there are 2.16 million businesses registered for VAT and PAYE in the UK. Of these just 0.4% employ more than 250 people, 98.1% employ less than 50 and 89% less than 10. Adding in those below the VAT threshold and one man businesses it is clear that in terms of numbers, most UK companies are very small businesses. Look at another statistic 17.4% are less than 2 years old and 32.6% under 4 years old. A large number of small businesses that could benefit from marketing in growing their business. You might expect that the demand for marketing services would be strong from the large group of small, new businesses but small new enterprises typically have little to invest in marketing.

The reality is that it is the established companies that recognise the value of marketing most and allow some budget for the purpose. Many of these are classified as SMEs and are cautious in adopting new ideas so put most of their marketing investment into traditional communications such as directories, trade magazines and literature. As a broad statement both small new businesses and established businesses are slow to fully leverage online marketing methods that are both affordable and effective. For the price of a couple of full page display advertisements in a trade journal, a company could have a Virtual News Office up and running. Add in a press release or two each month and you have an on-going campaign that publicises the business and thanks to in-bound links from the press release archive, improves search engine ranking too - all for a fraction of a print based display advertising campaign. The news stories can additionally be fed into social media campaigns too. If an affordable marketing campaign seems like a good investment, the get in touch with Technical Marketing who can help you achieve this.

 

Do offline channels drive online search?

Press Release authors love numbered lists - example "1o things you should know about marketing", or "8 marketing tools you must use".  By putting an exact figure to any subject there is an implication that if you follow that advice, then success is ensured. We advocate the use of an appropriate mix of marketing methods integrated into a coherent marketing plan, not a list to  simply be ticked off as done. This includes a mix of offline channels as well as online activity. Writing about market research is another fertile source for PR people too, so it was interesting that Marketing News Flash, an e-mail newsletter published by Industrial Technology, selected a statistic from some previous research to support the value of advertising in magazines. Print advertising  rather than being in terminal decline, according to the research is the stimulus that prompts 30% of all online searches. The magazine's own research found that "76% of readers prefer magazines to keep up to date with new products and information relevant to their job. 66% also find out more information from a supplier after seeing an advertisement in the magazine".

However looking at the market research conducted in America in June 2007 by iProspect and Jupiter Research, further interesting figures emerge demonstrating the importance of offline marketing channels in prompting further search online. Television advertising at 37% was in top spot, but hot on its heels at 36% was word of mouth recommendation by a friend or acquaintance, then indeed 30% due to print advertising in newspapers and magazines. Perhaps of equal interest was that the company name or brand at 68% was the most commonly used keyword.

Although clients typically report that most of their sales leads come from their web site, what is very important is that more than two thirds are searching for a company or brand rather than a generic product category and most of them will have discovered their awareness of the brand offline. So perhaps it is premature to move all marketing investment to the Internet. Customers are still strongly influenced by the offline world and turn to the Internet as a convenient tool to learn more. At Technical Marketing Ltd, we help businesses put together and implement marketing plans that develop the brand message, raise top of the mind awareness and develop compelling content that provides the information your prospects are searching for. Informed people then make enquiries. 

Image: iProspect.

News bearing web sites

Several years ago it became apparent to the team at Technical Marketing Ltd that much of the content for a company web site was pretty much static. The products, services and stuff about the company itself, didn't really change that much, or that often. What did change was news. 

News can be about company results, investments, acquisitions, appointments, contract wins and  projects.  Or new product announcements, exhibitions, events, market research findings and comment on industry issues. The problem we recognised is that the PR people who were schooled in copy deadlines, embargo dates and other timing issues didn't run the web site. The IT guys did web sites and often it was pretty low on their priority list as well. If they had to fix payroll software then it could be a couple of weeks before they got round to posting news items if they bothered at all. 

All that changed, for our clients at least, when we rolled out the Virtual News Office. With a VNO, stories could be published online as soon as they were ready to go. In fact every story can be published rather than end up in some editor's waste bin. Although our goal at the time was to provide a service that got company news accessible through the company web site we soon realised it was also getting indexed by search engines and because the news story actually resides on the VNO server it was creating relevant links to the company web site, in turn improving ranking of that site.

I have written before on the inevitable shift of emphasis from print to Internet as the place where news is published and consumed. The print business model based on advertising revenue and free distribution is under threat and many publications now charge for news publication and in doing so forfeit editorial control over the news pages. Not only does this degrade quality, but some magazines now resemble a notice-board patchwork of press releases. Whatever journals do they cannot match the immediacy of the Internet. However the sustainable business model for online aggregated news sites is taking time to emerge, as generally these sites offer free news and have no subscription revenue. Interestingly, in the industrial and engineering sectors, industry web sites that are mainly news oriented, or as someone called it today - 'news bearing' - are emerging as important resources for enquiries for engineers or architects. 

Because such industry sites contain so much relevant content about a product category an engineer searching for a component will most likely find the that site higher up the search results than any one manufacturer of that component. So what he reads initially is a press release that in turn provides links to the supplier. And online aggregated new sites are becoming more selective, only publishing interesting news and carefully monitoring how many hits each attracts. The most popular news suppliers find their news items featured and fed to Google News and other participating sites. So this trend once again emphasises the importance of news creation and news delivery and increasingly as a direct source of sales leads.   

Marketing to a budget or on a budget?

In these times of economic gloom sound marketing advice, based on research, is to maintain the marketing activity while the financial management tendency, based on prudence, is to cut marketing expenditure. 

Research by Harvard Business School has shown that it is essential to maintain marketing spending, even more so in a recession and to emphasise core values. “It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times. Uncertain customers need the reassurance of known brands.”

In the last blog I talked about the importance of a Marketing Plan and closely linked to the plan is the Marketing Budget. As with the marketing plan - a statement of intent, a manifesto and plan of action - time should be spent on carefully building the accompanying marketing budget. Companies without a budget seem to be more easily tempted to buy special advertising offers and buy into all kinds of special deals than companies who have planned ahead and purchased at more advantageous series rates for marketing services that are core to the plan. Not only are the bargains not always appropriate but it is amazing how quickly the costs mount up and without apparent benefit. 

I have frequently referred to the engineering philosophy behind technical marketing. Take the case of purchasing a new machine or piece of equipment. It is regarded as an investment that will be justified on the benefits it will bring - lower costs, improved productivity, better quality. We look at marketing as an investment, an investment that should deliver valid returns. Just because there is often a significant creative element does not devalue the investment benefit. Equally there should be benchmarks and goals set that are measurable.

Another more subtle way of cutting the marketing budget is to cut quality. Where marketing is not valued by a company, then purchasing marketing services cheaply can be tempting. The problem with this interpretation of budget is that the downgrade in quality that usually accompanies becomes apparent to customers. They start to perceive the company as a 'budget' brand and lower their expectation of both the quality and value of that company's product accordingly. Interestingly people buying marketing services at a budget price might think otherwise in their day to day lives. They would probably opt for experience rather than trainees or amateurs and recognise that experience may appear more expensive but is actually the safe option. The same people that wouldn't let a student do their hair or fix their teeth will happily let a relative or man they met in a pub have a bash at their web site, design a brochure or photograph products. Although professional marketing advice might come at a higher hourly rate it can prove a wise investment in doing things right and helping the company build credibility.

Does social media deliver for small businesses?

A recent survey reported by emarketer points up a gap between social media usage and effectiveness in creating sales leads for small businesses. The report also highlights an issue previously noted of the resource needed to operate blogs, tweets and facebook to mention just 3 from a rapidly expanding stable of social media sites. Previously we noted some possible b-2-b uses that some companies had found not only useful but effective - but to make it work needs a commitment and manpower resource. As a means for presenting a company's public face this is not an easy call when some 63% of respondents surveyed found social media 'not helpful at all' for lead generation and a further 13% thought it 'not very helpful'. By contrast just 3% considered it 'very helpful' and 9% 'somewhat helpful'.  On the other hand these are early days for small b-2-b companies  in the big social media pond, they will typically not be big brands individuals will rush to 'follow' either so both a reticence to invest time and disappointing response are not surprising .   Perhaps the best way into social media is smart repurposing of PR material that can be provided from an existing resource to gain experience and build followers and monitor results.

Engineering marketing solutions

In the previous blog - 17th September - reference was made to the difference between sales and marketing personalities, with marketing described as far more to do with planning for the future, with strategy to keep ahead of fast moving trends, the routes to market, and the means of promotion and delivery that provide the essential environment in which selling can be successful. Consider now another dimension, that of introducing an engineering approach to marketing. Engineering brings discipline to marketing, a discipline much needed in controlling the flights of fancy of the creative media types in getting the i's dotted and t's crossed, keeping feet firmly on the ground and keeping sight of the purpose of marketing a product - not in winning design awards. And if bringing engineering into marketing might seem a strange notion, unless marketing is properly controlled and brought in on budget then it will be a disaster. Engineering projects are as much about planning, adherence to schedules and budgets as they are about technology. In fact engineers are increasingly being employed in some surprising areas including many types of management consulting and in the financial sector. 

 IET magazine recently ran a piece entitled 'Engineers in the City' which included the following extract.

" During the past two decades an increasing number of mathematicians, physicists and engineers have switched to work at investment banks and hedge funds, lured by the boom in financial engineering and quantitative finance. Talented engineers found they could make more money on Wall Street or in the City than in academia or industrial research. ... the new breed is called 'quants'. Perhaps the jewel in the quants' crown is the Black-Scholes theory.  ... a formula for valuing options in terms of underlying security and cash. It quickly became used by all option traders and revolutionised finance".

Technical marketing brings the same engineering methodology and thinking to marketing - introducing staffing structures, building the team, setting objectives through the marketing plan, formalising budgets, introducing financial controls, defining schedules and setting specifications for creative projects. Too often companies launch into building a web site, designing a brochure, booking an exhibition stand or commissioning an advertisement without first deciding on what they need to achieve. Design led agencies naturally play to their strengths - a flare for creative designs - and wow clients with exciting images. Arguably engineering marketing, or as we call it technical marketing, lacks some of that wow factor, but what we have discovered is that clients recognise the benefits that our approach can bring to the bottom line. We supply the rationale. And with the increasing importance of the Internet in marketing, a technical competence and comprehension of what works online too.  Of course there is a need for professional creativity, but it requires purpose and direction - in short planning, organisation, discipline and control. So engineering marketing solutions works - our clients testify to that.

Technical Marketing blog is now on ET Express

Starting this week, the Technical Marketing Diary Blog will be published on ET Express, the weekly e-mail newsletter for the entertainment technology market. The blog is replacing the former "One Minute Marketing" feature that for some time now has signed off the ET Express news that pops into e-mail in-boxes each Friday. "One Minute Marketing" was written as a simple briefing on marketing techniques covering a range of topics from advertising to public relations and intended for the benefit of engineers and entrepreneurs without marketing knowledge and with limited time, seeking to promote their products in a competitive marketing place. Articles from this series are still available and have been collated so that they can be downloaded as a PDF booklet from the Technical Marketing web site. Our blog takes a much wider brief allowing us to comment on marketing practice, ideas, new developments, technologies and campaigns. For example recent blog stories have covered such diverse topics as publishing trends, in-bound marketing, Twitter and marketing through the recession. Technical Marketing Diary blog headlines are also published on Twitter.

Our focus will be towards business-to- business (b-2-b) marketing where probably the biggest difference from consumer marketing is the size of marketing budget. But just because budgets are much smaller there is no reason why b-2-b marketing should not be professional. It is tempting for modest sized businesses, particularly in difficult trading times, to resort to in-house solutions. Unfortunately prospective customers can also spot an amateurishly produced brochure or web site and what message does that convey about the company's products and services?

Now social networking tops e-mail for popularity

 We have been experimenting with social networking and blogging with one of our clients for a while now but it is still too early to draw any conclusions as to the business value. One thing that soon became apparent was that blog content rapidly appeared on Google searches which must be a positive result if relevant in-bound links to the client's site are rewarded with higher ranking. But our adoption of social bookmarking links is even more recent  so far with no tangible results, but due to the adoption of such august organisations as the BBC and the sheer number of users (110 million according to Nielsen) it must be worth a try. I have personal anecdotal evidence from the younger (twenties) ladies in my family that Facebook in particular  is being preferred by them to e-mail as a communication tool with their friends. Recent research from Nielsen reported by Webpronews seems to confirm this through actual research and finds that over two thirds of the online population goes online to visit social networks and blogs. It also confirms that Facebook is the most popular and that more older, but not old,  users are joining. Another  finding is that mobile is "playing an increasingly important role in social networking". Of course there again the young early adopters of Facebook are prolific users of mobile communication too, so it is not perhaps surprising  now that the technology facilitates access to social networking sites from a mobile phone. Of course what is actually communicated is another matter, but unlikely to be very business oriented. Despite the undoubted prominence of Facebook it seems but a short while ago that MySpace was the place to be. An article appearing  on the BBC site posed the question - "Has MySpace lost its cool?" 

This article also points out the importance of the advertising funded business model. Will Facebook similarly lose its shine? For marketers many of these web 2.0 applications are both accessible and plausible but for those of us in B-2-B marketing still difficult to recommend with any confidence especially if they prove to be no more than a passing fad. On the other hand, it was not much more than 10 years ago when we were challenging clients to invest in a web site at all, then suddenly every business had a site. So what about e-mail then? It is  a very cost effective tool for communicating with the target audience but does require a lot of work in building and maintaining a good database and more and more organisations are blocking deliveries of messages. On the other hand, looking at the one or two web sites in the same market sectors as our clients that have a Facebook page, typically they have very few "friends" and fail to actually use or develop it. Back to the old problem then of generating content and this is where a good outsource specialist knowledgeable in the market can bring the experience and expertise to build and maintain the brand whatever channel is used to deliver the message.

Servitisation

According to E&T journal ‘servitisation’ is a term originally coined in the ‘Harvard Business Review’ in 1988. In the same issue as its ‘Are you being served article?’ which discusses the reinvention of product companies as service companies is a major series to co-incide with the sixtieth anniversary of publication of George Orwells’ book ‘1984’. The journal looks at how far his scenario has been realised at least in terms of technology. Of course as with science fiction - Arthur C Clarke’s ‘2001 Space Odessy’ serves to illustrate that to imagine a future is very different from putting a realistic date on when it might happen. Both 1984 and 2001 are already history and some predicted technology inspired products have indeed become commonplace while some have come and gone. I am not sure whether much was predicted about outsourcing or off shoring sixty years ago, but today as a country the UK has outsourced production, call centres, software development, service support and arguably politics and law making. In previous blogs I have noted the problems facing one client where the traditional sales support model through development into volume production is no longer relevant. I have recently received their instructions for the launch of a new product. There is nothing new about the product except that it is produced in China and no doubt costs a whole lot less than making the same item in Birmingham. So while some companies are transforming into service organisations, keeping very close to the customer by consulting during the development phase and putting themselves into a better position to then supply product for volume manufacture others like our client are using low cost sourcing to stay in the game. I suspect the service route will prove more sustainable

How to make your customers pay for your advertising

Interesting isn’t it how as consumers we accept a role similar to the sandwich board man when we shop in the high street or shopping mall of carrying branded bags around proclaiming the names of stores we have patronised. Of course it wasn’t always like this. At one time purchases would be discretely wrapped in brown paper packages tied up with string, or smaller items in plain brown paper bags, or vegetable sold loose and tipped into our own bag or basket. But this was all a long time ago in the days when shop assistants brought out the product, before we had to do it ourselves and present our selections at a check-out. Taking your own shopping bag into a store suddenly became suspicious and to avoid accusation of shop lifting we accepted that our purchases would be shoved into a store bag that also served as a form of receipt. You also needed the bag should you return goods as some sort of proof of purchase. Before long supermarkets had piles of flimsy plastic bags at the till and you simply helped yourself to as many as you wanted. But wait, these same stores are now telling us that their plastic bags, the ones we didn’t ask for in the first place by the way, are destroying the planet. Marks & Spencer has even taken the step of charging 5 pence for every bag you accept as some sort of fine. I have refrained from shopping in their store, but should I be asked to pay I feel inclined to ask for a plain bag – or else present a rate card for my advertising fees.

Lies, dammed lies and statistics …

The advent of Google Analytics has ushered in a new era of web site accountability. Suddenly the colourful Webalizer charts have given way to the free to use but rather dour monochrome displays offered by Google. Now there is a heap of data that can be sifted by activity and time frame to reveal a wealth of statistics. What it doesn’t actually offer is information - that requires interpretation of the statistics. OK so we know that the bounce rate is 50% for example, but what does that mean? That half the visitors find your web site of no use to them, or half the visitors are not your prospects, or they went there by mistake, or are stupid, or just surfing anything hopefully? The problem with this data is it begs the questions of why? And what does it all mean? Then there is the mismatch between what Google says happens and what the accounts package says was actually ordered and you have to wonder whether it is most useful to indicate trends rather than give an absolute measure. Then there are some recent top-level statistics from BRMB that provide interesting statistics on the use of the Internet. Still top at 73% is e-mail followed by online research at 48% and online banking at 35%. Top sites are Travel at 48%, Weather forecasts (38%), cinema listings/events (35%), Music/mp3 (32%), Sport (27%), Jobs (26%) and News (24%). It is curious that weather sites should rate so highly – perhaps a weather forecast should feature on all sites. But as with all statistics there will be flaws in the validity of how they are collected, how they are interpreted and how they are used and this is where solid marketing experience comes into play and basic common sense. It can be useful to stand back and ask the question – does it make sense? Of course the data can be used as a guide to make changes and observe the results, but some things will remain constant. With ‘General Research’ being the second most popular use of the Internet after e-mail, first make sure people can find your web site when searching for sources of supply for their specific need. Then ensure that they can find the information they need and finally they can contact you to enquire further or place an order. And once they have found you, use means that give them a reason to return and become a loyal customer.