How much time are LLMs saving Engineering & Software Development Firms during Design & Development? Poll results and a few opinions from an engineer turned marketer Yeah, that’s right, I’m an engineer… at least I used to be. Though I’ve been told many times: “once an
What should engineering firms consider when choosing a marketing partner? No-BS opinions from an engineer turned marketer Yeah, that’s right, I’m an engineer… at least I used to be. Though I’ve been told many times: “once an engineer, always an engineer”. I suppose at some level
Brand Marketing for Engineering Companies - Yuck Thoughts from an engineer Brand Marketing + Engineering Firm > Yuck^3. Agreed? I know. That’s how I felt for many years as a marketer. And in some ways, I still feel that way. But here’s why my
Marketing Strategy for Structural Engineering Companies – 33 niches explored Tips and insights from an engineer For this article, we’ll focus on small structural engineering services firms (i.e. less than ~100 employees). Much of this article is applicable for larger companies, but that’s
AI visibility for engineering companies Tips and insights from an engineer First off: take whatever you learn about AI visibility with a block (that’s many grains 😏) of salt, including this article! This is an unsolved, complex, volatile, and quickly evolving subject! Interested
Inbound marketing strategy for industrial engineering services companies - 23 niches explored Tips and insights from an engineer For this article, we’ll focus on small industrial engineering services companies (i.e. less than ~100 employees). Much of this article is applicable for larger companies,
Marketing for Small Engineering Firms How to get more serious with your marketing. Tips and insights from an engineer. What does “small” mean? “Small” means different things to different people. For this article, we’ll break “small” into 3 categories: Uncomfortably small - Less
Content marketing – What to look for in engineers and developers as content contributors For engineering and software development companies Want to create better content for your engineering or software development company? If your content feels too generic, it’s probably because you’re not getting the insights
Lead-focused inbound marketing for civil engineering firms The potential for inbound marketing for small’ish & medium-sized civil engineering firms – thoughts from an engineer-turned-marketer Yep, I was an engineer for many years. But not THAT kind of engineer. I was an electrical / computer / digital /
The Engineering Services Market – Insights and Opinions From an engineer-turned-marketer This is a BIG topic. Like any good engineer would do, let’s start by bounding this discussion a bit: We’ll focus on the engineering services market in the US specifically. We're not going
Marketing for Engineering Consultants Tips and insights from an engineer – no-fluff strategy, niches, plans, and an experimental mindset Marketing and selling a product vs a service – the difference and why it matters Marketing and selling for an engineering consulting company is
Website Strategy for Engineering Companies - Lessons learned from an engineer When heads of engineering companies start talking about big changes to their website, they often start from something that sounds like: “Our website is getting stale” or “Our website needs to be
Lead generation for engineering companies Tips and insights from an engineer Of course you want leads. What else would you want? Well, maybe you want a sustainable business that’s not always worried about where the revenue will come from next quarter. But you believe that
Which sales methods irritate customers most (and least)? Thoughts and opinions from an engineer-turned-marketer Shortest answer: Outbound methods. Why outbound methods irritate customers Outbound irritates potential customers for one simple reason: by definition you’re pushing yourself on them. They didn’t ask you
Marketing for engineers – thoughts on transitioning from engineering to marketing Opinions from an engineer So, you spent all that time and energy becoming an engineer, and now you think you want to get into marketing? Why. Would. You. Do. That. I'm kidding.... mostly.
Advertising for engineering firms (especially Google Ads) Opinions from an engineer Let's check to see if we’re on the same page: When you say “advertising”, I assume you mean creating an ad and paying an advertising platform (e.g. Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising) to place the
Good and bad marketing ideas for engineering companies Thoughts from an engineer Interested in marketing for your engineering company? Need some ideas? Let’s first bound “engineering company” to make sure we’re on the same page. These ideas are primarily intended for engineering services companies that
Niche selection obstacles Poll results and insights From a marketing perspective, selecting niches is usually one of the more important things an engineering services or software development company should do. Why? Two reasons: Potential customers expect it. It can reduce competitive pressure. I
Marketing plans for engineering companies Thoughts from an engineer Let’s assume you head up (or are a partner in) an engineering services company (especially one that develops custom software or hardware) and you want to improve your marketing by creating a plan. Here are some
Creating a no-BS marketing strategy for your engineering company Thoughts from an engineer If you want to create a marketing strategy for your engineering company, there are 3 main things you need to decide on: Your primary marketing goal (awareness vs leads vs sales support).
Why inbound marketing experiments fail For engineering services companies focused on SRLs. The marketing community (agencies, consultants, in-house) doesn't like to talk about failed experiments publicly. I totally understand why. Culturally most of us have been taught that failure is inherently a bad thing.
5 roadblocks that stop tech services companies from moving forward with marketing And tips to overcome What’s the biggest impediment founders face in moving forward on their marketing journey? In other words, where do they get stuck. While I felt like I had a decent handle
Inbound marketing for engineering companies This article is focused inbound marketing for engineering services companies with less than ~100 employees. This is especially for design and development companies. This includes companies involved in product development (entire products or subsystems), those that support the manufacturing world
How to get clients for a software development company This article is for small’ish (less than ~100 employees) software development companies that have been around for several years. If your company is only ~2-3 years old, you might be more interested in How to bootstrap
How to generate leads for software development projects For small’ish software development companies with less than ~200 employees. The shortest answer for how to generate leads: Engage and build enough trust that someone wants to discuss their business needs with you. It’s that straightforward. But
When should you contact inbound leads? Focused on B2B services companies with less than ~100 employees. In order to talk about when to respond to your inbound leads (assuming you have their permission to do so), we need to bucketize first. We’ll define 3 groups of inbound leads: SRLs (Sales
Inbound marketing strategy for business services For small’ish (less than ~200 employees) B2B services businesses. Interested in inbound marketing for your business services company? Here are some important elements to consider as you go through your journey. Are you solving real problems? Do you
Why it’s so hard to calculate the cost of a sales-ready lead For smaller B2B services companies This article is focused on smaller (less than 100 employees) B2B services companies (e.g. engineering services, software development, industrial automation). If you’re reading this article, you’re probably interested in
Marketing problems vs fundamental business problems For small B2B services companies Do you have a marketing problem? Or do you have a more fundamental business problem? Getting a handle on which type of problem you have can help you decide how to proceed. In general, marketing can’t solve fundamental business problems.
Practical tips for Selling Software Development Services Looking for some tips on how to increase your chances of getting more (or better) customers for your software development business? Let’s say you’ve got potential customers (in the form of sales-ready leads) to try and sell to. If that’s
Inbound Marketing Readiness Self-Assessment Calculator For B2B tech services companies Wondering how ready you are (or aren't) to get started on your inbound marketing journey? Take this self-assessment with a grain of salt of course. There are additional factors not included in this
Pros and Cons of Paid Search This article is focused on smaller (less than ~100 employees) B2B tech services companies, but a good portion of these thoughts apply more broadly as well. Paid search (text-based) is basically a mechanism to pay an advertising platform to show
SEO for Engineering Insights and lessons learned from an engineer SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a huge topic. Even within the narrowed scope of engineering companies, there’s a lot of important context based on where you’re at in your journey: your company’s culture, your company’s
Pros and Cons of SEO This article is focused on smaller (less than ~100 employees) engineering and software development companies, but a good portion of these thoughts apply more broadly as well. SEO is basically a mechanism to try to position yourself ahead of time for when
Partner channel sales & marketing tips For small B2B services companies Partner channels can be great when they work, frustrating when they don’t. There are a couple main reasons you may want to associate with a partner company: Sales-ready leads Credibility with your customer base In this article we’ll
Marketing Machine Gotchas and Tips Are you inadvertently hurting your chances of obtaining sales-ready leads? For small B2B services companies Sales-ready lead focused marketing machines for B2B services companies are complex (even the sentence is complex 😊). There are lots of ways for the machine to fail to start
Website overhauls - considerations for sales-ready lead generation For B2B services companies Thinking about overhauling your website to turn it into a lead-generating machine? Then I’ll challenge you to re-think your strategy. Re-doing / overhauling your website likely won’t get you more sales-ready leads. Why? Because getting sales-ready leads knocking
How to encourage referrals when the work you do isn’t super remarkable Not all work is flashy. Some work just isn’t super remarkable. And that’s okay. To be clear, I'm not saying the work you do isn't impressive. It often is impressive. It just doesn't always get significant
How to bootstrap your marketing – for founders of early-stage engineering services and software development companies (e.g. software development, hardware development, engineering services, industrial automation) Let’s say you’re heading up an early-stage company (usually less than ~3-5 years old depending on how fast you've grown). You’ve got the business off
Inbound marketing strategy for software development companies With inbound marketing you’re trying to position your company ahead of time for when a potential customer needs something. What is that something? In the world of software development, this mostly boils down to 2 likely possibilities: Someone wants
How to promote a software development business Want to promote your software development company? You’ll want to: Determine your niche(s) Get specific about the word “promote” Select marketing methods to start with Create content Experiment & iterate Before we get into this, let’s address this concept of a “marketing plan”.
Assessing the health of a B2B services business Want to assess the health of your services company (e.g. engineering services, product development, software development, industrial automation, system integration)? You’ll want to make the assessment on a service-by-service basis. Why? Because it’ll make it easier to see where to make
How to market a B2B service Business services marketing strategy tips for smaller companies (<100 employees) Marketing a service is different than marketing products. Why? Because with a product you’re leveraging trust that’s built into the product being sold. With a service, you’re selling something that doesn’t exist
How to sell to existing customers For B2B services companies (e.g. software development, industrial automation) Quick poll - Vote to see how your peers voted Everyone gets all excited about new customers, and yes, new customers are great. But, if CLV (Customer Lifetime
Marketing strategy for launching a new service How to bootstrap your company into a new service Getting a new service off the ground is hard. There's a good chance it'll outright fail or won't be as effective as you'd like. Let’s say you’ve been in business for
How to benefit from Inbound Marketing B2B inbound marketing ideas for services Inbound marketing is well-positioned to cope with the realities of marketing B2B services (e.g. selling things that don’t exist, long buying timelines), because instead of actively pursuing potential customers, you’re positioning yourself ahead of time with the
Marketing strategy for software development companies Marketing custom software development / software consulting services is near the top of the pyramid when it comes to selling the invisible. Why? Two reasons: You’re marketing / selling something that doesn’t exist yet (a common challenge within the
How to align sales and marketing For B2B services Want your revenue-generating teams to be even somewhat optimized? Then they need to be working closely together and marching in the same direction. The first thing to do is to assess how healthy the relationship is now.
Actionable inbound sales tips For your first meeting with a potential customer If you’re starting to see sales-ready leads (SRLs) trickle in, you’ve likely been working pretty hard at inbound marketing. There’s probably been some blood, sweat, and tears to get to this point, and you don’t want to see
Account-Based Marketing (aka Account-Based Engagement) vs Inbound Marketing Trying to decide which method to experiment with? Here’s how to go about it. In the long run you don’t need to just do one or the other. They aren’t mutually exclusive, and as you’ll see below, you can
