"Very knowledgeable, easy to communicate with, very proactive. I can't think of anything you could improve; everything went very well."
Tod Schiff
Field Applications Engineer
Analog Devices
TechPromo, April 2007
Marketing Newsletter For Technology Promotion
How To Talk To A Dead Engineer
Grab The Technical Prospect With Your Message
If you've been in high tech for awhile, engineers lose their mystery. During a lot of years in Silicon Valley, I got to know many of them well. No, engineers aren't little green aliens with Spock ears. As much as they'd like to think so, they're not completely logical, either. Whenever marketers who ought to know better insist engineers are different from the rest of the population, I get bug-eyed crazy.
The thinking goes like this:
Engineers aren't like you and me. They might not wear pocket protectors or slide rules anymore, but their minds work differently. They want to know all the numbers, all the features, and none of the benefits.
Or do they?
Engineers are people, just like the
rest of us.
They get emotional, work hard, vacation in Disneyland with
the family. Yes, they convince themselves they make decisions based on logic,
and they're swayed by authority figures like National Semiconductor's super engineer
Bob Pease. They do respond to time pressure, and they're concerned about job security.
And they rage at management decisions they don't like.
But you need
to give them messages that tap these emotions in their terms.
They need
all the specs and features to see if your product will do their job. But they
also need to see the time savings and a clear picture of how well it performs
in their application. Otherwise, you won't wake them up to request a datasheet,
sample or demo.
Engineers hold the keys to your profits.
They
lack signature authority, but they're usually the recommenders. They start the
purchase process. Your initial message needs to speak to their needs.
How do you find out what those are?
The answer is simple and complex: talk to them. But in their language. If you don't have a technical background, find someone who does, and get them to ask about the biggest problems your product solves. Engineers respect someone who understands their work, and may give that person answers a non-technical questioner won't get.
When you find out
what that problem is, build a message around key numbers in the solution:
HIGH-LINEARITY,
FINE-GAIN-STEP, DIGITALLY-PROGRAMMABLE VGAs PROVIDE 690MHz BW, 24dB GAIN RANGE
FOR NEXT-GEN BASE STATIONS
This headline addresses engineers looking for an adjustable analog front-end for a 3G or 4G multi-carrier wireless base station. It tells them how the product solves their problem, in a unique, useful, specific way. The accompanying announcement stresses the time, power, and PC board space-savings the product, an analog integrated circuit, gives the engineer. It also shows how the bandwidth and fine gain control maximize use of the available wireless spectrum space for high-performance base stations.
You should
discover some of your message when you talk to customers during product planning.
But the best solutions and their messages come from people using the product.
The second best come from applications experts who solve customer problems in
the field. In fact, regular conversations with your best customers from the planning
stage to product sampling and release will make sure you create accurate messages
to attract everyone else.
No, you can't talk to all the engineers who need your product. But you'll need specifics that survey results can't give you to wake them up.
Mark Bohrer is a technology writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has appeared in EDN, Portable Design, Electronic Design, and Elektronik i Norden. He's also written technical advertising copy for agencies and Fortune 500 companies. Mark is a 25-year veteran of Silicon Valley. Visit www.precision-copywriting.com to download his free report, Technical Articles For Leads And Sales: Nine Ingredients to Grab Your Customers.