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 In order to create awareness for your business, attract and educate your potential customers you need to have a well thought-out content strategy. Depending on your business goals, a content strategy typically aims to increase the volume of incoming leads, generate awareness for your company and educate the market on ways to solve the challenges that your potential customers are facing.
Tired of your marketing efforts not producing results? If so, it is time to revisit your marketing strategy.
Smart marketing starts with a strong foundation and your marketing foundation depends on your company’s ability to identify the characteristics of your best customers, the people who might buy your products and services. This detailed description of your ideal buyer is referred to as a buyer persona. Most companies have a general understanding of who they are trying to market and sell their products to. However, they are not able to describe in detail who their ideal buyers are, their purchasing behavior, challenges and motivations.  Marketing is traditionally the voice between a company and the market. Marketing’s role is about connecting, engaging and building relationships. It is about taking product characteristics and turning them into meaningful messages that highlight the value and the benefits of products. It is about using powerful words that inspire, educate, build trust and loyalty, and prompt action. Marketing is all about effective communication which serves as a means of connection between people. But somewhere along the way marketing has lost its human touch.
 I recently had a conversation with a C-level executive of an engineering firm who needed marketing assistance for a product his firm would soon bring to life. The good news is that his company was thinking about how to market and promote the new product early in the process but the company had yet some work to do to solidify its strategy.
Engineering firms do a great job innovating and building new products. Even if you have a great product/market fit, however, the cliché “if you build it, they will come” is a misconception. The reality often is that if you build it, customers won’t come unless you invest in marketing and start formulating your marketing strategy and go-to-market plan well before you introduce your new product to the market. 
As a technology marketing executive and now as the owner of a technology marketing firm, I get to work with many tech companies which have varying challenges. In my nearly two decades in the world of technology, there are some common patterns that I see regarding marketing mistakes that tech companies make. Here are some of the most common ones:
It usually starts with something like this. Your sales team is complaining that your company needs a better website to help boost sales. Marketing understands that the website needs work and faces intense pressure from the executive team which wants the new website ready “yesterday”. In the meantime, your staff, partners, customers and analysts are all forming their own perceptions about what your company does and communicate your brand to the outside world based on the information they see on your website.
A few years ago I attended a social gathering in Northern California. As I was chatting with a guest about my world adventures and experiences living in the US, he abruptly asked me these two questions: Who are you and why are you here? Everyone who was listening to our conversation up until that moment broke into laughter. As entertaining as his inquisitiveness was, it really made me think.
These two questions lie at the heart of marketing. Whether it is about projecting yourself as a brand to the people around you or your company to the global market, knowing who you are and understanding what's unique about you or your company is fundamental. Communicating it effectively to the rest of the world while delivering to your brand's promise is critical to success. |