Content Marketing
for Engineering

Insights and opinions from an engineer

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 that’s true. I certainly mostly still think like an engineer, for better AND for worse 😊.

David LaVine, Founder, RocLogic Marketing (BSEE, MSECE)

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Want to create some solid content for your engineering company (e.g. engineering services, custom software development, industrial automation)?

Here’s a few tips to get you started.

Make sure your content matches the needs and interests of your potential customers

You can’t just talk about what you know about and assume it’ll resonate with your audience. In some cases it will (for some of the things your company knows about). In other cases, crickets. And sometimes you’ll think you’re talking to your audience when you’re actually talking to DIYers.

You need to get clear on who you’re really trying engage. For starters, how technical are they? Your company is technical by definition. That means you’re likely going to talk about technical topics. However, based on your audience, you either need to dive in deep and get super technical (if they are), or distill and translate most of the technical aspects into something they care about and can understand (if they’re not technical).

For a technical audience

If the audience is technical, remove the fluff. They don’t want to hear it. You’ll put an awful taste in their mouth that won’t go away. Present facts. You can certainly offer up opinions, just be sure to present them as such.

For technical managers

If the audience is a manager that used to be technical, align your content with what they care about now, but remember that they used to be technical. If you start explaining basic technical concepts to them like they don’t already understand, they may be insulted.

For a non-technical audience

If the audience is non-technical, focus on simplifying and translating the message into things they care about and understand. This is challenging for some technical companies that have engineers and other technical people dominating the company culture. Focus on business benefits, usability, and UX.

Know the purpose of each piece of content

For each piece of content you should be able to answer to yourself or others at your company: why are we creating this?

This should act as a go/no-go gate. Companies create content like a hamster in a wheel way too often. It’s not useful, and it’s raising the content noise floor. Don’t do it.

A few bad reasons to create a new piece of content:

  1. “Someone in marketing told me I need to create a new article/case study/white paper every week/2 weeks/month”. Garbage. There is some rationale behind this advice, but by itself it’s a dangerous oversimplification. You can easily spend your life creating new content and not have a thing to show for it.
  2. “This is a topic I know about.” So what. Many people know about many things. Doesn’t mean it’s useful to your potential customer.
  3. “If I write about it, they’ll care.” This is a build it and they will come. No. They won’t. Or, more accurately, you do not want to count on that in business. Save that thinking for your hobby.

A few good reasons to create a new piece of content:

  1. Our customer base is asking for it.
  2. The sales team is asking for it.
  3. It will likely improve our credibility on this topic.

There may be a couple other good reasons to create a piece of content occasionally (although I’m struggling to think of those reasons), but in general, if your content idea isn’t backed by one of these 3 reasons, question it hard before you put in the effort.

Have a good idea about how you want your content to get to your potential customers

Think this part is magic? It’s not. Although it’s harder than most people want it to be, especially in the B2B world. If you think you’re just going to create content and potential customers will come knocking on your digital door, let me be direct with you to save you some time: they won’t, or at least, you shouldn’t make that assumption.

At the most basic level, you’ve got push methods and you’ve got pull methods. You either need to push your content toward your potential customers, or position yourself so that you’re found when your audience is looking for something. The main methods for consideration are:

  1. Inbound marketing
  2. Social media
  3. Search marketing
  4. Sponsored content (ie. via hosted webinar or white paper)
  5. Trade shows and conferences
  6. Partner channels
  7. Email

You have to decide what combination works best for your scenario (reach out here if you want to chat about this).

What now?

Now you go make sure that each piece of content you’re considering:

  1. matches the needs and interests of your potential customers
  2. has a well-understood purpose
  3. has a defined path to be seen by your potential customers

If it does, you’re in decent shape to start experimenting. RocLogic does marketing for engineering companies. If you’d like help navigating your digital marketing journey, feel free to reach out for a chat.

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