Check out these tips and pitfalls, and make your EMC marketing work smarter
I like reading BtoB Magazine, especially Morrison’s pieces on electronics engineers. In her latest article, she reminds us that EEs are information junkies. But getting the details of your latest filters or lightning test system into the heads of your prospects often leads marketers into a frenzy of useless facts. But this is a really, really important step in the EMC marketing game! So, here is my own checklist of the three things I think EMC marketers need to avoid, and what to do about them:
1. So What! If I had a nickel for every ad I have ever read with “We are the world’s leading provider of blah blah blah,” I would have retired long ago. The only thing your next new customer cares about right now is whether your EMC equipment, component or service can solve their problem. So how do you get that customer-centric focus? Many years ago, an old friend at ETS gave me this great tip: take a Post-It note, write on it, “So What!”, and stick it on your PC screen. After you write that next ad or press release, read it back to yourself, and if you can still make the statement “So what!,” then you don’t have a customer-centric ad. Go ahead, try it – it works!
2. 10-word ad, 1,000-word datasheet – don’t confuse the two. As Morrison points out, you have to give EEs a lot of detail for them to decide if your product meets their needs. But don’t fall into the trap of trying to cram a brochure or a datasheet into a single ad. First figure out what problem your prospects are trying to solve, and address that issue in your headline – be as specific as you can. Then highlight how your product solves that problem in as few words as possible. I find bullet points the most efficient. And remember, your marketing should serve only to get them to your site, so get to the point very succinctly. Once they are on your site, they can absorb as much detail as you can throw at them.
3. A picture is worth what?
There are so many tools available to EMC marketers these days, and yet we still have a tendency to dive for the keyboard and start qwertying our way through pages of copy. Well guess what? If you are writing thousands of words, your average EMC engineer will want to read those thousands of words before even pinging you his first email. So, make it easy on the poor guy – or gal – think about communicating with him visually. Videos are so easy these days and EEs don’t care if it’s not up to Hollywood standards. What about a few simple but well-communicated photos? My favorite visual tool right now is the “gallery.” Take a half dozen decent photos and save them to a PDF file, with some basic features, benefits and contact info. Remember, your goal is to make your prospect just interested enough to contact you, not slow him down.
Work smarter not harder this summer!
Graham Kilshaw
REFERENCES
Details can seal the deal. Electrical engineers connect with marketing components that fit. Mary E. Morrison, BtoB magazine, February 2011.
http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110214/FREE/302149970#seenit
