It’s an alarming statistic that only half of marketing content published over the past 12 months gave technology decision makers meaningful value. If you think of that figure in terms of budget and the customer journey, only half is being used to successfully move potential customers forward. The other half is being wasted.
According to Foundry research, technology decision makers report that their top challenges are finding content that:
Potential tech customers aren’t getting what they’re looking for, and not for want of trying. The average successful purchasing lifecycle involves downloading six pieces of content, so the desire to consume content is there.
If your content meets the challenges, it will immediately standout from the majority of technology marketing content.
If you’re responsible for targeting your company’s comms at technology decision makers and you want to make sure you’re not wasting half of your budget and half your content, these insights may help you:
While some of your content should be general, technology decision makers are looking for content that is sector specific. By making your content specific to the sectors different technology decision makers are in, your messages and content will resonate with them. To do this include:
By including all of this, decision makers will understand how your product helps them and their business.
It’s equally important that your content writers understand the lexicon and style within the sector you’re targeting. Software as a Service (SaaS) companies talk in a language very different to energy companies. Speak the right language and your content will hit the mark.
Is making content specific to several sectors costly? It’s far less costly than making content that doesn’t resonate with your audience.
While tech decision makers want independent and unbiased data, the chances of that happening are slim. Your content is there to sell and promote a product; you’re not crafting an academic study. Ultimately the independence and “unbiasedness” of your data will come largely from how its presented; how you frame, talk about, and use your data. But what’s the easiest way to do that?
First (as you’ll see below): cut out the hype.
Second, use reputable third-party sources alongside your proprietary data. This can help to lend authority and legitimacy to your claims. For example, a third-party might have identified an industry-wide challenge. Cite them. Then use your data to show how your product meets the challenge. Reputable sources include newspapers, industry regulators, think tanks, public committees, trade associations and similar. Stats listicles aren’t reputable.
Experienced technology decision makers see through the hyperbolic language used to describe lots of products and solutions. They can quickly tell whether it’s deserving or not.
Over reliance on hype can also create a cynical or sceptical attitude in an experienced reader. They’ve heard it all before, so if some copy sounds too familiar, tired, and hyped, then it could trigger them to dismiss it.
The overuse of marketing hype is therefore an instance of a fundamental copywriting mistake. It’s not writing created with your audience in mind.
To avoid turning off decision makers, go back to basics. Make copy that’s clear, concise, compelling, and credible.
Tech decision makers want to know how new solutions relate to their existing technologies. Is it more expensive? Is it compatible with their existing tech? Does it require new infrastructure to adopt? How does it improve on what they currently use?
To do demonstrate how the new and existing technologies are related, you’ll need to know about the existing systems used by tech decision makers. Your market research, subject matter experts, and marketing agency can all provide insight into those systems. Your writers or agency can then bring those insights to the fore in an impactful way.
Tech relevance is an opportunity to reduce friction for your customers. If your content can provide decision makers with analysis and comparisons of your solution in relation to their existing solutions, then they won’t have to do the analysis themselves; moving them along the buying journey becomes easier.
Overall, the aim of your content should be to give your audience what they need to progress through the buying process. If they want content that’s specific to their sector and existing technology, then give it to them. If they’re turned off by hype and biased data, cut it out of your copy.
We’ve helped many customers improve the quality of their content thanks to our expertise and knowledge of many sectors and technologies. Working with data from weather forecasting models to unified communications, we understand the stats and sources that customers want to hear. Explore the successful messages and copy that resonates with our clients’ audiences here.
