For technical audiences, white papers have traditionally been seen as unbiased, lengthy academic articles that look like a chapter straight out of a textbook. However, nowadays many companies commonly use this media format in content marketing to attract and inform customers.

What is a White Paper?

A white paper is text-based narrative that presents technical information in about 1000 words or more. For use both online and in print, they generally contain images, diagrams, and even embedded videos and links. In contrast with blog posts – which are usually shorter, are frequently written and address current trends and issues – white paper content tends to be lengthier and more in-depth. Given the amount of time it takes to create a white paper, choose an “evergreen” topic that is not tied to a specific date or time period. Write the content in a way that addresses common or recurring pain points for your potential customers. Common subject matters include:

• Introductory information about a technology
• How-to tutorials or best practices
• Authoritative reports  about industry changes
• Lessons learned about an engineering challenge
• Analysis from your research and experience

Follow these 3 steps to create a thoughtful and compelling white paper that will increase web traffic and gather highly qualified leads from potential customers.

Phase #1: Establishing the Plan of Action

Before undergoing the writing process for a white paper, it is essential to establish the purpose and parameters of the document. Marketing writers often have standard white paper questionnaires to fill out that lay out all the necessary information in the preparation stage. Details to nail down may comprise of:

A)    Goals and Key Messages

What is this white paper for? What is the end goal you want the reader to do, understand, or believe? For example, Kline Technical Consulting (KTC) has a goal to be seen as the leading industry experts in physical security systems. Therefore, they chose to write about The Top 7 Most Critical Considerations for Physical Security Systems. By discussing important industry considerations interspersed with customer examples, this white paper shows how KTC understands the application pain points and has insights on solutions.

Look at the big picture purpose of the white paper and determine what key messages about the company and its offerings the reader should come away with.

B)     Audience

Who are the primary and secondary target audience for this white paper? What is the reader’s level of knowledge about the subject matter? Make sure you are attracting the right kind of customer with your content marketing.

C)     Tone

Decide whether to use a first person versus third person voice. With the first person point of view, directly addressing the reader with “you” sounds more personal, whereas the third person voice may sound more objective and unbiased. The level of objectivity may depend on the usage of the white paper, such as establishing credibility, attracting new clients, or sharing updates with existing customers. Regardless, use an authoritative tone that shows you are the experts on this topic.

D)    Release date and timeline

Are there any deadlines for the release of the white paper? Will it be used for a product launch or the next company e-newsletter? Make sure that you leave time in the schedule for not only writing, but also for reviews, copy editing, formatting, and printing or uploading onto the website.

E)     Length

If you have a lot of solid source material or if the discussion is fairly lengthy, will you shorten the white paper to make it more concise or will you create multiple white papers? If the subject matter is easily dividable, the content may have more widespread impact or greater longevity as an e-book with several chapters or as a series of articles released one at a time.

Phase #2: Tackling the Writing

The key to writing a good white paper is to put yourself in the reader’s shoes and consider “What does the customer want to learn?” However, the hook is just the first step to get the audience to start reading the article. Remember that ultimately your goal is not necessarily to keep the reader reading, but to get the reader to accomplish your goal and complete that next call-to-action (CTA).

Committing 1000 or more words to paper may seem overwhelming, so the best way to defeat writer’s block is to create an outline. Does the structure and flow of the document make sense and drive to your key points and goals? Once the framework of the white paper has been established, take your source material and organize them under each outline point, adding extra notes and thoughts as they come to mind. Voilà! The first very rough “draft” has been completed.

As you begin thoroughly cleaning up and rewriting each section, it may help to print out the outline with its notes and cross off sections of source material as you use them. Don’t forget to include appropriate references and links to other sites to increase credibility. Since white papers can be very text-heavy, keep the readers interest by visually breaking up the content with quotes, call-out text blocks, and enticing images. Label the pictures, diagrams, and tables with full-sentence descriptions that help summarize the content in case readers scan the material.

This white paper from Viewpoint Systems contained lengthy discussions on five different considerations for prototyping embedded systems, and they broke up the sections visually with prominent summary blocks highlighted in blue that matches the company branding.

No matter how educational or objective the white paper may be, remember to include CTAs, next steps, or related links you wish the reader to follow. You are not writing this white paper for free; it is intended to forward people down the sales and marketing funnel. If nothing else, add a short corporate overview at the end with a link to company website, especially if the white paper will be used as a print media.

Measurement Computing (MCC) wrote a very academic, almost textbook-like document on temperature sensors and how they work, yet they weren’t afraid to outright pitch their temperature measurement products on the last page.

Phase #3: Putting on the Shine

Once the white paper is ready for review, get another set of eyes on it to uncover areas where you may need to explain certain concepts more clearly. Having both reviewers who understand the core messages and technology discussed in the article along with those who aren’t familiar with the subject matter can be very useful. With multiple reviewers, it will be more efficient for the writer if all the feedback is consolidated into one file. Microsoft Word is one of the easiest tools for tracking changes and adding comment boxes. Adobe Reader also has the ability to insert comments, highlight areas, and cross out text.

After all the feedback has been collected and integrated (for multiple iterations if needed), do a final copy edit sweep for spelling and grammar errors. For some extra polish, consider putting the white paper in a design template with elements of your company branding. This can be as simple as adding the company logo and website URL to the footer so people will see it on every page.

MCC used a fully designed white paper template, complete with a cover page, whereas Wineman Technology used a simple header and footer with the company logo.

Now that you’ve spent all this time and effort completing the white paper, how do you get the most bang for your buck? In Part 2, we’ll discuss how to best promote this content so that it reaches the widest audience possible.

Related Blog Post:

Content IS King – 5 Steps to Writing Effective White Papers

As a reader of this blog, you hear the TREW Crew talk often about the marketing funnel, from generating awareness and “getting found” at the top to nurturing your leads and creating opportunities for sales further down. At this point in the funnel, a key marketing tool small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are using is webinars and online events. Marketing webinars – one-to-many virtual events delivered online for marketing purposes – have leveled the playing field so that any business or organization can appear to be a market or thought-leader and expand their reach. A key reason for this shift is the underlying technology, which is low-cost, easy to use and widely accessible.

My name is Scott Serrano, Senior Software Sales Executive of Citrix Online Saas Solutions, and the TREW Crew asked if I’d share my knowledge via this guest blog post to help readers understand the best practices for executing a webinar and how they can leverage online meeting technology platforms, GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar, to effectively market their business online.

Webinars can be a robust and lively marketing tool that effectively showcases your expertise and drives further engagement with prospective customers. Attendees and businesses that host webinars love them because webinars are:

• Powerful in reaching and influencing hard-to-reach prospects or decision makers
• Interactive and social, like a real-world classroom where you can ask questions and chat with the speaker in the conference and outside the conference using social media
• Affordable to host and attend
• Effective at generating leads and qualified sales opportunities
• Re-used as other forms of content, such as blogs, white papers, podcasts, and an on-demand webinars

Want to host a webinar? Here are 10 best practices we share with our customers at Citrix to produce an online webinar event that engages your audience and compels them to take action.

1. Think about what your customers and potential customers want to learn from you. What problems are keeping them up at night? How can you help them resolve those problems?
2. Most webinars can be defined into two categories of content – inspirational and big thinking or tactical how-to. Consider starting with the broadly appealing topic to generate more awareness and leads, and then producing smaller more specific webinars after the first one that reviews how-to and implementation.
3. Really think about your lead form, and use fields that will inform who the hottest leads are to pursue after your event.
4. Show a compelling story. Create visual slides, with one idea per slide, using authentic imagery (not stock).
5. Be a responsive moderator. Good webinars have a moderator who is energetic and pays attention to the feedback of the audience.
6. Always schedule a rehearsal of the webinar before the date. Run through procedures and review the flow with all the speakers.
7. Encourage attendees to interact with the speaker using the chat panel or to chat via social media with an event-specific hashtag.
8. Record your event so you can reuse it as an on-demand webinar for those who couldn’t make the event. This way, it will continue to pay dividends for you by generating leads far into the future.
9. Follow up promptly after the event, ideally within 24 hours, and include any promised additional content, copies of the presentation, and next steps. Have one primary call to action that moves them further down the funnel, and as a result, further identifies strong opportunities for sales to follow-up on.
10. Use a reliable and easy-to-use technology platform to host your webinar event.

Finding the right webinar technology platform is extremely important in creating a successful online event. Citrix’s GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar is a leading platform, because it is:

• Easy to use, GoToMeeting Corporate enables salespeople to begin meeting with prospects and clients right away.
• Patented bandwidth-adaptive compression technology ensures exceptional performance and successful meetings over any Internet connection.
• All You Can Meet® pricing eliminates meeting duration limits and overage charges, encouraging salespeople to use the service as often as they’d like and increasing their productivity.
• Industry-standard security features are built in to ensure that confidential meeting information remains private.

In addition, GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar include a full array of functionality, with:

• HD Faces Video conferencing: Share up to 6 web cams along with your desktop
• One-click meetings: By simply clicking an icon, a salesperson can begin a meeting.
•  Instantly change presenters: A salesperson can pass control to the prospect or another employee who can show what is on his or her screen.
•  Easy integration: Meetings can be started, scheduled or joined through Microsoft® Outlook®, Microsoft Office®, IBM® Lotus Notes® or various instant-messaging applications.
• Shared mouse control: A prospect can be granted the right to take over the salesperson’s mouse on his or her desktop, enabling the prospect to experience a product firsthand.

To learn more about GoToMeeting, visit Citrix’s client story video and read Citrix press and awards.

TREW Marketing is a partner with Citrix GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar. To learn more about how to incorporate webinars and video in your marketing mix, contact TREW Marketing today.

Related blog posts: 

Why You Need Video in Your B2B Marketing Mix

DIY Marketing Videos on a Budget

“TREW’s marketing expertise and knowledge of the embedded space make them a trusted advisor to help us drive awareness and demand, as we continue to grow our business and market share,” said Jason Clarke, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Crank Software. “They have a proven track record developing and executing strategic marketing plans that focus on results, and we’re extremely pleased with the results they helped us achieve on our launch of Storyboard Suite 3.0.”

Crank Software specializes in embedded user interface (UI) solutions that enable R&D teams to more quickly develop UIs for resource-constrained embedded devices like in-car graphical displays and animated GPS systems.

When Crank needed to launch the latest version of their flagship software, Storyboard™ Suite, they chose TREW Marketing for our experience in developing product launch plans that target embedded design engineers. Crank sought to increase awareness of Storyboard Suite 3.0, drive web visits and capture leads through software evaluation downloads.

Deliverables:

Marketing communication strategy for the Storyboard Suite 3.0 launch including:

• Media relations strategy and execution
• Search engine optimization and advertising
• Launch email and automated direct marketing
• Social media strategy and execution
• Partner co-marketing with QNX in the Consumer Electronics Show concept car

Results:

• 85% increase in evaluation downloads
• 56% increase in online leads following the launch
• 38% increase in total web traffic following the launch
• 237 news release postings to online sources
• 2 contributed articles in RTC and Embedded Computing Design
• +3-minutes time-on-site to launch landing page
• 2-hours time-on-site generated from Twitter links

Beyond the Storyboard Suite launch, TREW Marketing continues to serve as Crank Software’s marketing partner, providing ongoing strategy consulting, brand and product-level messaging and positioning, media relations, content marketing, partner co-marketing, search engine optimization, search advertising, social media and email marketing services.

Want to learn more about product launches?

Last week I attended the Design West trade show in San Jose. The exhibit floor was packed with design engineers looking for new embedded technologies and solutions (attendance looked to be up from the previous year), however I was utterly astonished at the ways in which some exhibitors wasted their marketing dollars. Care to join their ranks? Here are top ways to waste money exhibiting at a trade show:

Fail #1. Have a lousy company website. Trade show attendees, especially engineers and scientists, research exhibitors’ websites ahead of time to determine which booths to visit. If your website does not immediately communicate what you do, how it is relevant to your site visitor, and provide a decent impression of your brand, you are very likely to be passed over on the show floor.

Fail #2. Place a big trade show logo on your home page.  Unless you combine the logo with a headline or copy with a direct tie-in to your company’s value proposition, accompanied by a meaty show landing page, this logo does absolutely nothing to influence a potential booth visitor (or web prospect, for that matter). Instead you’ve wasted prime web real estate, which could have instead be used to promote something compelling, such as a software demo or case study.

Fail #3. Sit on a stool, frown, and play on your smartphone. Your lack of enthusiasm and engagement gives me a very poor impression of your company. While I am combing the show floor for a solution to my engineering challenge, you seem to be tired and are clearly not interested in talking to me.

Fail #4. Blow off social media. “Engineers don’t use social media,” right? WRONG! Events are one of the best times to engage in social media, especially Twitter and LinkedIn. There were very active Twitter threads, using the event hashtag (#designwest), about the conference and expo. Exhibitors show attendees, and the trade press were all engaging together virtually. The reach extended well beyond the walls of the show, as others following Design West who could not attend were no doubt interested in the buzz and could follow through their social media accounts.

Fail #5. Use Twitter as SPAM. There were a select few exhibitors who drove us all CRAZY by posting banal messages, such as “Stop by booth xx for a free recycled shopping bag,” which don’t add real value or help show attendees learn or find solutions. The worst offender would send the exact same message 10 times in succession to fill our newsfeeds with this garbage. Marketing FAIL!

Fail #6. MIA. I have two categories of MIA. 6a. Put some literature and a demo board on a table, and then leave the booth unstaffed. This approach guarantees you will bring home a full box of lit and no leads. 6b. Forgo the booth backdrop, relying on the show organizer’s small stencil sign to serve as your banner to the world. This sends a “my company is broke and does not really care about this trade show anyway” vibe. And since the stencil signs are too small to read, you are almost guaranteed that no one will know that you were at the event anyway.

Ok, so now that you’ve heard my list of how to waste money, I’ll leave you with a few images of smart trade show tactics from my time at Design West.

Synapse Wireless created CapNet, the “world’s largest wireless network of propeller beanies,” and heavily promoted this in their booth and social media. The beanies created much buzz and had big staying power on the heads of attendees during the show. Synapse did a great job tying in another exhibitor, Altium, whose software was used in the design of the beanies.

Not only did the Silex booth staff know their stuff, they were so friendly and energetic I just had to jump in a photo with the group!

Stonestreet One did a great job of demonstrating their partnerships with bigger companies, such as Texas Instruments, through hardware on display.

Rohde and Schwarz held short product seminars inside their eighteen-wheeler, parked on the show floor

TREW can help you create a smart event strategy, from planning promotion, design execution, and post-show lead nurturing. Contact us today for more information on trade show marketing.

Related blog posts:

Trade Show Media Relations Do’s and Don’ts

TREW’s Top 5 B2B Trade Show Items & New Ideas to Boost Your Booth Traffic

6 Smart Trade Show Tactics Seen at Design West 2012

So you’ve developed a new product for your technical industry – spent hundreds of hours and undergone multiple rounds of revisions and beta tests, figured out your pricing and distribution model – and now it’s time to bring it to market.

The initial step towards launching your product is to name it.  You’ve invested significant time creating it and it’s your baby — not just any name will do. It needs to be memorable, searchable (particularly on search engines), unique in your industry, and relevant to your target audience.

So where do you begin? First you need to collect ideas. Gather a cross-functional team from across your organization of at least 3, but no more than 10, to brainstorm name ideas. After the initial brainstorm, have a few decision makers come together and decide on the top 5-8 names. Then take those 5-8 names and create an online survey that you can distribute to your internal key decision makers.  From there, you can reduce the options down to the top 3, and vet each one out and make final recommendations.

The following 7 tips will help guide you through items to discuss when narrowing down the choices to a final product name.

1. Determine a naming strategy that you will follow for this and future product names. Two primary strategies exist in the realm of product naming: highly descriptive and suggestive. The former will roll under your company brand and will not be trademarked, the latter may be stand-alone brands or can be linked with your corporate brand and can be trademarked. An example of a descriptive naming strategy is Apple, with its iPod, iPhone, and iPad products. OXO is an example of a suggestive naming strategy with names like GoodGrips, Touchables, and SteeL. While less descriptive than Apple’s product names, the OXO product names still strongly suggest what distinguishes the different line.
2. Use short, descriptive names that are generally three or fewer syllables.
3. Make it easy to spell, pronounce, and remember. Italics and capitalization of different letters make it difficult for people unfamiliar with the product name to remember how to spell it correctly.
4. If the product will be launched and used globally, consider the implications of the product’s name in other countries.
5. Avoid naming a product by an acronym that has to be spelled out in order for the public to understand the mark.
6. Research potential product names by performing online searches for third-party use of an identical or similar name, mark, or description used in connection with similar products
7. If you plan to apply for a trademark, visit www.upto.gov to search the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for third-party applications or registrations of a similar designation for a similar product. If the application or registration has been abandoned or listed as dead, know that the third party still may have rights, where you would want someone in the legal field to review.

Evaluate the potential names with specificity and objectivity. It’s not enough to say, “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” Use the following eight categories to understand why a name will or won’t work.

1. Appearance – Is it easy to spell? And how will the name look in a logo, ad, billboard, etc.

2. Distinctive – How different is the name from the relevant product competition?

3. Depth – Names with depth have layers of meaning and association, and keep surprising you with new ideas with each layer.

4. Energy – Does the name have life to it? Can it carry an ad campaign on its shoulders?

5. Positioning – How relevant is the name to the positioning of the product?

6. Sound – This is two-fold – how does the name sound and how easily is it spoken to the customer? Word of mouth is a big part of marketing, but if people aren’t comfortable saying the name, the word won’t get out.

7. Trademark – This is easy, is it available? It’s either likely available, may be available, or not available.

8. Web Domain Name – Again, this is easy, is the URL available? If so acquire it before someone else does. If not, determine if the URL is available for your option 2 or option 3 name; or find out who owns the URL and see if you can acquire it from them.

After you have chosen a name for your product. It’s time to launch it. Smart Product Launches for Engineers provides a framework for how to plan, position, and implement a marketing activity plan that generates buzz and drives leads for your new product.

Related Blog Posts:

How to Use a Well-Time PR Launch to Spread Your Message

Practical Steps for Creating a Product Positioning Statement

Want to Marketing Against Your Competitors? Proceed Carefully

Today, TREW Marketing released a new e-book, written specifically for the business owner, product manager, and marketing leader preparing to launch a product targeted to technical audiences in the B2B space. Available for download on our site, Smart Product Launches for Engineers provides a framework for developing your product launch plan, discusses how to position your product in the marketplace, and includes practical tips for choosing, implementing, and measuring smart marketing activities and tools. It also includes case studies of three diverse, successful product launches.

In this guide:

1. Plan the Launch
   You spent a great deal of time and resources developing your product, now you need to launch it to market, but how? You need a plan. Walk through the process of creating a successful product launch plan that can have significant long-term success. Identify your target audience and determine your marketing goals and measurable objectives.

1. Brand Your Product
   With a plan in place, follow our three step process and learn how to define your product brand and position it in the marketplace. Also included are examples that help illustrate the process.

1. Determine the Marketing Mix
   Execute your product launch and achieve your objectives with a smart mix of integrated marketing activities. Review important considerations and explore various activities to determine which marketing channels will make the greatest impact at driving awareness and generating demand.

Looking for additional insight? Check out our TREW Talks- SEO Slideshow

Unlocking the secret to keyword ranking success

Looking for additional insight? Check out our eBook: A 15-Point Checklist to Evaluate Your B2B Technical Website.

Maybe it’s because we work with so many engineers and techies, but here at TREW, we can be real skeptics. We take an “I’ll believe it when I see it” approach – relying on hard data and proof points when making decisions on the most effective ways to help our clients market their brand.

So when it comes to creating effective web layout and designs that get results, we rely on usability data from trusted sources to help us make sense of how people use the web. One type of web study we rely on – and prove out time and time again – is eye tracking research.

Eye tracking is a form of research that allows the proctor to track web visitors’ eye movements across a page, providing insight into what people truly spend time looking at on the screen, what order they look at it, and what their eyes avoid. Some of the key questions eye tracking research can address include:

• Which area of the page draws a web user’s attention?
• What do users tend to look at first, second, third?
• Which areas of the page do users avoid or ignore?
• What specific elements of content do users gaze at for more than a second or two?
• Do web visitors notice key elements of the page or recall key messaging?

By incorporating what we learn from eye tracking research, we can determine the best format and placement for content, and establish optimal page layout. It’s truly an opportunity to apply hard data to marketing activities for improved ROI.

Below are 3 key takeaways that TREW has learned from recent eye tracking studies performed by Jakob Nielsen and the Poynter Institute and successfully applied to our clients’ web redesign efforts:

1. Follow the Zig-Zag

Eye tracking studies consistently show that most web visitors approach a web page similar to reading a book – we start at the top left and move right with our eyes.  People’s eyes fixate first in the upper left of the page near the logo, then pause in that area before going left to right. This is often called an “F” layout or even a “Z” layout because our eyes zig-zag across the page as we skim it.

The heat map on this web page shows a distinct F pattern where web visitors eyes focused on the page

2. Keep it Short and Sweet

When you have something to say on a page – especially a home page or a campaign page that serves as an entry point to your site – make it brief and impactful. Why? Because eye tracking research reveals the following about web users’ behavior:

• You have only about 20 seconds to pique a web visitor’s interest before they lose interest
• Web visitors only read about 20% of the words on a page
• Users tend to gaze more at brief headlines in large fonts than any other words on a page

This means you have very little time to capture the interest of your very busy and distracted audience. Don’t waste it with lots of text in small fonts. The shorter and more actionable your headlines, and the easier they are to read, the better your success at communicating your message.

Notice the brevity of text and large fonts that help simplify this home page for TREW client Asuragen

3. Navigation is Power

Eye tracking reveals that the top action on any web page is clicking on buttons and links, and the global navigation – when situated at the top of the page – is gazed at and clicked on much more than sidebar navigation. What does this all mean?

Keep it simple – If you offer global navigation across the top of your site as well as section-specific navigation down the left, you may quickly overwhelm your web visitors. Unless your site includes hundreds of products and offerings, the top navigation alone can do the job. People are more likely to use it as their “anchor” on your site to find their way.

TREW client Parallon’s corporate site section relies on top navigation, freeing up the entire body of the page for relevant content

No dead ends – When you get on a boat, you want to go somewhere, not just sit there. People coming to your site have that same need for movement. Make sure no page is a dead end, and that you offer links to compelling content or to related pages so users have the ability to carve their own path through your site.

These are just a few of the key points eye tracking data has revealed about web users’ habits and preferences. Knowledge is power, and eye tracking research provides a great deal of knowledge that allows TREW the ability to build the best and most effective websites around. Talk to the web usability experts at TREW today to find out how we can apply eye tracking research to your next web redesign.

Looking for additional insight? Check out our eBook: A 15-Point Checklist to Evaluate Your B2B Technical Website.

Looking for additional insight? Check out our guide: Smart Marketing for Engineers

Last month, we gave insight on how to hire a technical marketing manager who can propel your marketing efforts forward and add value to your organization. In Part 1, we focused on prioritizing candidates’ talent, culture fit, and experience, and in Part 2, we gave the practicals for actually hiring your technical marketing manager, based on proven experience.

If you’ve now hired your technical marketing manager, pass along this information to help them understand the breadth and depth of technical marketing. Or, if you’ve just been hired as a new technical marketing manager, congratulations! These 10 keys – which focus on brand, positioning and website plans, content marketing strategy, and awareness and loyalty campaigns – will strengthen the skills and knowledge you need to be a successful technical marketing manager:

Technical Positioning, Brand, and Website Development

1. Create a Successful Marketing Plan

Having an effective marketing plan and following it will be critical to your success as a technical marketing manager. Without a plan, how do you know what you need to do, in priority order, to get there? In busy times, the tendency is to rush and complete any marketing tactic that looks promising at the moment, without taking into consideration your marketing strategy and goals. So, take the time to truly define your marketing goals and measureable objectives.

• Related Post: How to Create a B2B Marketing Plan that Drives Results
• For more about how to create your plan, read about 5 Critical Steps to Developing a Marketing Plan.

A well-defined marketing plan will set the course for your company’s marketing efforts.

2. Position and Brand Your Company Creatively and Carefully

Your brand is of utmost importance to your company, as it conveys who your company is and your unique value proposition. Positioning your brand well will be critical to the long-term success of the business. In marketing terms, your brand is personified both visually – through your company logo and branding style guide – and contextually – through words, such as your mission, vision, and positioning statements; core company and product-level messaging; and company and campaign taglines.

• Related Post: Understand the Components of Brand Messaging
• For more about positioning competitively, read about What Goes into the Decision to Market Against Your Competitors

3. Holistically Evaluate Your Website to Maximize Your Future Time and Spend

Your website will be at the core of your marketing efforts, so before you make any major changes to it, audit your web site so that you can prioritize how to go about making changes and additions to it in the future.

Evaluating your site holistically will help you create a better web experience for all visitors to your website no matter where they are in the buying cycle – those researching your business, learning more about your products and services, preparing to buy, or returning for another purchase.

• Related Post: A 15-Point Checklist to Evaluate Your B2B Technical Website
• For more detail on web systems, read about What to Ask Yourself Before You Buy a Web Content Management System

Content Marketing Strategy

4. Show Your Products or Services in Practice with Compelling Case Studies

Customer case studies are a great marketing and sales tool. By reading about how customers have benefitted from using your products and services, prospective clients know they are not the first to choose your company, and can hear from real customers to supplement what they’ve learned from reading your marketing brochure or website. To succeed as a technical marketer, you’ll need to know how to prioritize the most important applications for case studies, tell your customer’s story clearly, ask for permissions from the customer’s company and streamline and leverage your work.

• Related Post: 5 Tips for Developing Customer Case Studies
• For more, read about 8 Quick Tips to Create Great Case Studies

Learn all of the elements that make up a compelling case study.

5. Offer the Technical Data Your Customers Are Searching For

Because your company is trying to generate leads, create opportunities that engage customers, and ultimately close sales, it’s imperative that you offer the data, insight, and information that your prospects need and want. Offering quality content will cause your customers to see your company as an expert in the industry or technology area in which you work, and direct them to your products and services as solutions to their challenges. In addition to case studies, targeted presentations and white papers that cover relevant topics will build credibility, show your company’s experience, and convey a memorable message.

• Related Post: 4 Best Practices for Creating Effective Presentations
• For more on white papers, read about 5 Steps to Writing Effective White Papers

6. Engage with Your Prospects by Making an Investment in Video

Here’s a statistic that will make your head spin: according to Pingdom, a website monitoring firm, more than 800 million web visitors watch online videos per month. And, YouTube is now the second most popular search engine on the planet, just behind Google. Web visitors are drawn to video, so you should be creating videos as a technical marketing manager to add a dimension to the web that text and imagery alone cannot achieve.

• Related Post: Why You Need Video in Your B2B Marketing Mix
• For more about creating videos yourself, see DIY Marketing Videos on a Budget

7. Optimize your Content Marketing with Content Re-Use and SEO

One piece of well-written, well-placed content can have multiple uses. You can blog about it, amplify it as a call-to-action on social media sites, and repackage it in the form of a video, webinar, or white paper with tags and meta data that search engines will see. Just think about how that one piece of content used in multiple ways and channels can drive your search marketing efforts. And, search engine optimization (SEO) is all about tweaking your website to make it more search-engine friendly and earning inbound links through stellar content that others want to reference. Driving inbound marketing will help you widen the funnel of awareness, gain more leads, and convert leads to sales.

• Related Post: Content and SEO Fuel Inbound Marketing Results
• For more about SEO, read about how Killer Keywords are the Secret to Search Engine Success

Loyalty and Awareness Campaigns

8. Increase Customer Engagement Regularly with E-Newsletters

Staying top-of-mind with prospects and customers is a challenge you’ll probably always face. E-newsletters are a great way to maintain a conversation with your target audience, promote valuable content, and help nurture your lead base to increase customer loyalty and move prospects closer to the sale. A corporate e-newsletter, done right, can be one of the most effective and strategic marketing activities a company undertakes. You need to understand all aspects of e-newsletters, from design to content to mailing lists, in order to create ones that build your brand and bring new leads to your company.

• Related Post: Nurture your Leads: Harness the Power of E-Newsletters, Part I
• For more about e-newsletters, read about Nurture Your Leads: Harness the Power of E-Newsletters, Part 2

Use E-newsletter campaigns to stay top-of-mind with customers.

9. Get more Blog Traffic and Grow Your Potential Customer Base

Blogging is a great way to bring more visitors to your website, so you’ll want to constantly be seeking to get more blog traffic (and in turn, get more prospective customers to your site). It takes consistent investment of time, creativity, and ideas to develop a successful blog and reach an increasing percentage of your target audience, but the payoff can be worth it in the long run. Maximize that investment by understanding the potential of your blog, getting discovered, converting readers into subscribers, and finding advocates for your blog.

• Related Post: 4 Ways to Get More Blog Traffic
• For more, read about how you can Improve the ROI of Your Blog

Looking for additional insight? Check out our guide: Smart Marketing for Engineers

10. Grow Awareness and Traffic With Media Coverage

News coverage generates awareness about your company and its products and services, boosts organic search for your company, and drives traffic to your company web site. Quality news coverage starts with strong, longstanding relationships with journalists, so you’ll want to begin building those contacts. Overall, your interactions with the press should be productive if you’re willing to consistently contribute strong and relevant information that they can use to better inform their readers. They’ll come to appreciate your insight and value your relationship as an industry expert as much as you value their ability to widely publicize your company or product name.

• Related Post: 4 Steps to Building Meaningful Relationships with Journalists
• For about interacting with the media, read about Trade Show Media Relations Do’s and Don’ts

Want deeper insight?

Based on our decades of experience building hundreds of customized marketing programs targeted to engineers and scientists, we have written this guide to help you get started in your technical marketing career.

Download Smart Marketing for Engineers – an e-book that helps technical business leaders build and execute an efficient and effective marketing program where every dollar and every hour spent drives results.

TREW Co-Founder Wendy Covey recently sat down with Michael Aivaliotis from VI Shots for an interview titled “Why Engineers Should Love Marketing.”  Michael Aivaliotis, founder of VI Shots, records audio podcasts targeted to scientists and engineers who use LabVIEW. The podcasts include interviews, discussions, and ideas centered around LabVIEW development and growing a successful technical business.

In this interview, Wendy discusses how to approach B2B marketing to technical audiences and provides practical advice encompassing a range marketing topics, from planning and positioning to conferences and social media.

Highlights from the podcast include:

• Planning– what are your business goals?
• Messaging – how are you truly unique?
• Branding – it’s more than pretty colors and a creative logo
• Website and Content – your virtual storefront and the #1 marketing investment you should make
• Conferences – personify your brand, capture leads
• Thought leadership – it’s a marathon, not a sprint
• Social Media – start with a blog, listen first
• Email – stay top of mind

Listen to the podcast at VIShots.com.

Related blog posts:

New eBook: A 15-Point Checklist to Evaluate Your B2B Technical Website

Infographic: B2B Marketing in 2013

How to Create a B2B Marketing Plan that Drives Results