"After some research and customer interviews, Mark built a persuasive message around one of the most important advantages FotoMagico offers - creating great shows fast. I am very happy with the results."
Oliver Breidenbach
Director
Boinx
Software Ltd.
TechPromo, October 2007
Marketing Newsletter For Technology Promotion
Timing Is Everything
Get Your Message To Your Target Audience When THEY'RE Ready
Smart guys never kissed a girl at the start of the first date. You talked to each other, went to the movie, and held hands a little in the dark. Heck, you even bought the ice cream cones afterwards. You walked her to her door, and if she turned around before she went inside, then you kissed her goodnight. You probably celebrated a little in your car afterwards - you knew you'd see her again, and there'd be more talking and kissing.
Distributing an unbiased white paper or article to generate leads is like timing that first kiss. You'd better check the calendar first.
Is there something to attract your audience going on around your product's release date? Is there an industry show coming up, one with a targeted audience already interested in your offering? Or a special issue of an industry trade journal about the product's applications?
Getting audience attention is tougher in today's marketing overload. A valuable white paper you can hand out from your booth at Interop or an Audio Engineering Society convention cuts through the clutter to people who are already interested and looking for your product.
An unbiased tradeshow presentation from an expert adds credibility, and that's even better. You find an audience completely focused on your new offering. Their registration information and business cards show you who to market to right now. But your expert's script can't be too promotional, or he'll drive your audience away. The best scripts will state the problem, consider the positives and negatives of several solutions, and show that yours is the best as objectively as possible.
Many trade journals have special issues focused on specific market segments. EDN has a special Analog design cover story every October. Design engineers choosing op amps for a data acquisition system are much more likely to read that issue, so an article about your new precision op amp would get an extra boost from it.
Of course, there's lots of competition for article slots in well-known journals. You may be better off choosing a journal that specializes in your product's market.
That's the approach one client took with an article I wrote for them on a new synchronous buck power controller for next-generation laptop PCs. They chose to publish in Power Electronics Technology to target their audience, rather than push for space in a better-known electronics journal's special issue.
On the other hand, the same client placed an article I wrote on a power controller for desktop PCs into a general-coverage European electronics journal around product release time. That gave a big boost to leads and sales of the new I.C.
Some journals publish their annual editorial calendars online before the new year. And some show submission deadlines, so you know when to submit pieces for possible publication. You should be pitching topics and proposing outlines to editors several months ahead of those deadlines for the best chance of placement. One article I wrote on networking and communications apps for a high-speed op amp sat for nine months before it appeared in Electronic Design.
Is it absolutely necessary to synchronize your product's release with article publication in a special issue or a trade show presentation? Absolutely not. You'll get some leads from press releases in journals your audience reads regularly, or from articles whenever they appear. You'll also get a boost from shows a few months after your product comes out.
You'll get a better bang for your buck with synchronized events, though. Promotional timing should be part of your release schedule from the beginning, not an afterthought. Guys put a lot of thought into that first kiss before it ever happens.
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.
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