Tech marketing can be daunting to those who don’t have an engineering background, but it doesn’t need to be complicated. When done correctly, tech marketing allows you to be far more effective at marketing your business and gaining new customers than you ever thought possible. When it comes to marketing, you have many options at your fingertips. You can focus on paid advertising, like Google AdWords or Facebook ads, or you can rely on free social media platforms to help spread the word about your business to potential customers.
If you’re unsure how to go about marketing your company—and what resources to use—a technical marketer can help you make intelligent decisions based on data rather than gut feelings and past experience. Here’s why every company needs a technical marketer as part of their team and how they can help improve your business in a variety of ways.
What Is Technical Marketing?
Technical marketing is a highly specialized field that combines science, engineering, and technology to understand how people interact with your product. Technical marketing can lead to a better customer experience when done correctly.
This translates into more sales and a larger market share for any given company. Because of its specific focus, it is rare for any company to have someone whose role is solely dedicated to technical marketing; however, many roles within any given business involve some level of technical marketing. Some companies provide specialized services for technology marketers. Here are two examples:
- Example 1 : [company name] specializes in providing analytics tools to measure customer behavior.
- Example 2 : [company name] specializes in providing tools and solutions to build better websites faster.
Technical Marketing in Action: Look at most websites on the internet today (i.e., Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) Notice how each website has clearly defined features and benefits for its products?
These features help customers make informed decisions when purchasing a product or service. In order to create effective feature-benefit statements, you need to be able to gauge what customers want from your website or product.
For example, if you were looking for a new smartphone, would you rather see one with 8GB of memory or one that will let you take underwater pictures?
The answer depends on what you want out of a smartphone and how much money you're willing to spend. These types of questions are what technical marketers need answers to when they design feature-benefit statements. While there's no exact formula for creating effective feature-benefit statements, having answers to these types of questions will give any business an edge over competitors who don't know their audience as well as they do.
Technical vs. Non-Technical Marketers
One of your first decisions as a new entrepreneur will be whether to hire a technical marketer or someone who doesn’t have much technical expertise. The benefits of hiring a non-technical marketer are obvious: more affordable, lower risk, and less need to worry about salary versus equity negotiations. But what if you can’t find anyone?
Here’s how to know when it’s time to hire your first technical marketer. These experts tend to focus on search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and brand management, in addition to content creation and management. They should also be able to analyze marketing data and provide valuable insight into how things like social reach and page views impact sales. Once you’ve hired one, they can help with copywriting, email campaigns, and landing pages.
For example, they might create an infographic that helps explain how your product works or write long-form articles that rank well for certain keywords.
Hiring a technical marketer is key to getting your business off the ground; even though it costs more than hiring a non-technical marketer upfront, these experts will likely increase sales and save money in other areas by increasing visibility for your business online as they would know about a bunch of technologies.
In fact, companies that use technical marketers typically see revenue growth rates above 25 percent year over year. A good rule of thumb is to look at your competitors and make sure you're using roughly equal resources before making a decision—if everyone else seems to have at least one technical marketer, then it's probably worth it. If not, consider taking advantage of whatever competitive advantage they may not be aware of.
What Does a Technical Marketer Do?
While you may think of your company’s marketing as one cohesive unit, there are actually different types. One kind is technical marketing—the field of getting customers to solve problems and troubleshoot issues with your products and services. If you aren’t sure what a technical marketer does, think about how you might go about solving a problem in your industry. For example, when someone has an issue with a product or service, they often turn to their peers for advice.
A technical marketer is like a friend who knows all about your niche; they can help potential clients feel confident about choosing your business over another. The best part?
They do it all online! You don’t have to be a genius to take on these responsibilities. In fact, if you have experience working with technology (or even if you just know how to use it), then you already have some of what it takes! Here are three ways you can put your tech skills to work:
- Online Support Forum Moderator/Administrator: If you’re comfortable answering questions and helping people out, then an online support forum moderator position could be right up your alley. These positions typically require moderate technical knowledge but also allow you to interact directly with users and create content around those interactions. This type of job is especially suited for those who want more hands-on interaction with customers than a typical social media role allows.
- Software Reviewer: Many software companies hire experts from within their own communities to test out new releases and provide feedback. As a reviewer, you’ll be tasked with testing software and providing constructive criticism based on your experiences using it.
- Tech Community Manager: Companies will sometimes hire community managers to build relationships between brands and consumers by encouraging engagement through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. To excel at managing a community like this requires strong communication skills along with an intimate understanding of both sides of the equation – i.e., being able to empathize with users while simultaneously representing your brand effectively.
So What Do Technical Marketers Need?: Aside from general computer literacy and strong communication skills, there are some particular things technical marketers need to thrive. First off, most entry-level jobs require intermediate Excel proficiency since so much of their day-to-day is spent pulling data into spreadsheets and performing basic analysis tasks.
Second, technical marketers need excellent verbal and written English skills to write clear explanations for users looking for guidance on difficult topics. Additionally, good writing skill goes hand in hand with good organization skills - not only when writing posts themselves but also when documenting processes that others will need to follow down the line.
6 Advantages of Having a Technical Marketer on Board
Here are the top advantages that Technical Marketer Provide to Businesses:
- First and foremost, a technical marketer can help you sell your product or service by using technical language that your customer understands. While most people may not understand what someone means when they say, I’m an Angular developer, they will get it if you say, I use Angular to build custom web applications. This is important because it shows them your level of expertise in an area they care about (website functionality).
- Second, they can help bridge gaps between departments and levels in your organization by articulating clear needs on behalf of customers so that more cross-functional alignment can take place.
- A good technical marketer can help you distinguish yourself from your competitors. They’ll know how to design your website, product packaging, and online marketing to set you apart from everyone else in your industry. Without a tech marketer, you may not realize that being able to personalize user experiences is a huge advantage over your competition, who are stuck with a one size fits all approach.
- A good technical marketer can help make sure that every person who lands on your site, reads an email, or interacts with one of your other marketing channels has an experience tailored just for them—and most likely will stick around longer than those who don’t get the same experience.
- A great technical marketer can also help you keep up with trends in your industry, so you stay ahead of your competitors. If someone is already doing something similar to what you want to do, they’ll be able to tell you quickly so that way you have time to react and avoid making mistakes someone else has already made.
- Finally, a strong technical marketer knows how important it is for businesses today to have an active presence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. With social media playing such a big role in our daily lives, now it’s more important than ever for companies to use these tools as part of their technical marketing strategy.
But again, if you don’t have a tech marketer on board, you might find yourself at a disadvantage because while some people might be familiar with using social media to connect with friends and family, they aren't necessarily going to understand how to use it effectively for business purposes. So having someone who understands how these sites work can really give your company an edge when it comes to attracting new customers through social media.
What Are The Marketing Metrics That Matter?
At its core, technical marketing is about getting people to pay attention. It’s about attracting customers and motivating prospects to learn more. And marketers measure how effective they are at these goals in a variety of ways. Some popular types of metrics include:
- Conversion Rate: This metric helps you determine how successful your marketing efforts have been at moving visitors from browsers to buyers or users—and it can also tell you when a campaign or site change isn’t working as well as it could be.
- Click-Through Rates (CTR): This measurement tells you how many people clicked on an ad over a period of time, helping you see whether your advertising was successful or not. You can use CTR for both online ads and email campaigns.
- Conversion Funnel: Measuring conversion funnel data helps you track where potential customers drop off during their path to becoming loyal customers. You may discover that some elements of your sales process need improvement or that there are other factors that affect customer loyalty.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS measures customer loyalty by asking survey questions such as How likely are you to recommend our company/product/service? The score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of respondents who said they were unlikely to recommend from those who said they were very likely. That number then falls into one of three categories: promoters (score 9-10), passives (score 7-8), or detractors (score 0-6).
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): This metric shows you what each customer is worth to your business over time. Calculate CLV by multiplying the average annual revenue per user times the expected retention rate. Then divide that total by the average acquisition cost.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): CAC helps you figure out how much money it takes to acquire a new customer—whether through paid search, social media advertising, or word-of-mouth marketing tactics like blogging and guest posting.
- Social Media Engagement: Use social media engagement data to help evaluate which posts get more likes, comments, shares, retweets, pins, and views, so you know which ones work best for your business needs.
- Analytics: Google Analytics is free and provides detailed information about how people interact with your website. This data can help you understand what's working with your content, products, and services so you can make better decisions going forward.
- Bounce Rate: Bounce rate refers to a visitor viewing only one page on your website before leaving without engaging further with any additional pages or content. A high bounce rate indicates that something might be wrong with your site design or content, but it could also mean that traffic sources aren't sending good leads.
- Time Spent On Site: Time spent on site refers to how long someone spends reading a page of text rather than clicking away after viewing just one page. If your time on site is low, it could be a sign that your content isn’t compelling or relevant to your audience.
- Average Session Duration: Average session duration refers to the amount of time a person spends on your site over the course of one visit. If you notice that people are spending less and less time on your site, it could be because they’re finding the content irrelevant or unhelpful.
- Number Of Pages Viewed: This metric helps you understand how far down the page visitors are scrolling and how much of your content they’re consuming. If you notice that people are skipping around and viewing fewer pages, it could be because the navigation is too complicated or because they don’t find what they want quickly enough.
How to Fuel Up Company's Growth With Technical Marketing Fluency?
If you’re a CEO or marketer, you know that it is increasingly crucial to be able to wield digital technology as a key marketing tool. For small and medium-sized businesses, however, their limited budgets often restrict them from hiring specialized digital marketing professionals. Larger companies have no problem paying more than $150 an hour for a digital marketer's services. Smaller companies need some guidance on how to use online tools like Google Analytics and A/B testing apps in order to grow organically and drive qualified leads through their website at affordable rates.
- With a strong technical background (e.g., coding), any passionate marketer can quickly get up-to-speed with what today’s modern business owners need to survive in today’s tough economy. Marketers who understand web development languages like PHP, HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript are perfectly positioned to fill in gaps where traditional marketers fall short. The skillset needed to optimize websites using these languages has evolved into a specialty niche known as technical marketing.
The demand for technical marketers is growing fast – especially in industries where success depends heavily on building robust relationships with new clients and retaining existing ones. What makes Technical Marketers so special? They offer insight into both sides of online marketing campaigns – strategy AND execution - which allows them to offer practical solutions based on real data instead of speculation or guesswork.
So why aren't all small businesses looking for one? Well, they don't know they're missing out! Let's change that!
To find out if your business could benefit from hiring a technical marketer, answer yes or no to these questions:
- Are your marketing goals related to building your email list, driving traffic, and increasing conversions on your landing pages?
- Do you want faster growth but are not sure how to achieve it?
- Would you like someone who understands your customers better than anyone else?
- Have you been searching for an affordable way to expand into overseas markets without breaking the bank?
If you answered yes to all of these questions, it’s likely that a technical marketer would be a great addition to your team!
Here are five short reasons why every company needs a technical marketer:
- Brand Building: When it comes to branding, techies make great copywriters because they naturally gravitate toward creative outlets such as music, graphic design, and photography. Their ability to build innovative brand identities through social media platforms will make you stand out among your competitors.
- SEO Expertise: SEO should be implemented from day one when launching a new website or campaign. Hiring experts is too expensive for most businesses though, and even DIY tutorials leave much room for error. Technical marketers know the ins and outs of search engine optimization and can help your business rank higher in search results, leading to increased organic traffic.
- Email List Building: Every marketing campaign starts with a solid foundation – an email list of potential buyers that you nurture over time. Technical marketers know how to leverage free tools like MailChimp, Aweber, and Constant Contact to quickly build an email list that keeps on giving.
- Landing Page Optimization: We’ve all heard it before: Content is king! But unless your content converts into leads or sales, it won’t do you much good! Technical marketers know the ins and outs of landing page optimization for eCommerce sites and can help you optimize your conversion rate for maximum profits.
- International Expansion: Online marketing is a global game, and that means you need to be able to reach your audience wherever they are. Technical marketers can help you launch localized versions of your website in countries where English is not the primary language. This will allow you to tap into new revenue streams while staying true to your core values and target market.
Conclusion
In this blog, we have gathered knowledge about Technical Marketing and the importance of technology marketers. The cost of hiring a technical marketer is typically much lower than hiring an SEO expert or digital marketer full-time, making it an affordable option for small businesses with big dreams. So look no further – technical marketers might just be right for you!
