Technology marketing can be a tricky undertaking. On the one hand, the people who work closest with the tech are the ones who know the most about it. On the other hand, those same people can be magnificently bad at presenting the finished product. This isn’t the result of a lack of intelligence or communications skills. It has everything to do with explaining and promoting the right way.
Most tech solutions have more than one potential audience. One piece of content won’t impress — or even get the attention of — every possible demographic. You likely will need solid technical content to present to developers, industry insiders, and consumers alike. Determining what kinds of content to develop will always be contingent on how involved each group is in the process of implementing and using the solution(s) in question.
Today, I want to give you just a bit of a push in the direction of several types of content that you should consider developing for every new product, process, and solution. If you haven’t used any of these before, it might be time to consider trying them. If you’ve tried them in the past and didn’t have much luck with them, it may just be a matter of making a minor shift in how you present and market your content. I’ll also offer some advice along those lines as we go, so be sure to read this post all the way to the end.
Long- and Short-Form Press Releases
Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of press releases. You might wonder how many people actually see them or are influenced by them. To that, I have several responses. First, if you set your press release up for good propagation, plenty of people will see it. Next, how influential they are has everything to do with how they are presented. Lastly, there are different approaches to press releases that have varying degrees of effectiveness.
Use short-form press releases (under 1,000 words) to get the attention of a consumer audience or of buyers, affiliates, and distributors. In fact, it’s most effective to develop releases for each of those groups since the handling of the product or solution will be different for all of them. Press releases are fact-based, not sales-based, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them to generate the types of conversions you want and need.
Long-form press releases are more comprehensive. They draw more from non-consumer technical documentation and other forms of industry content and are aimed at developers and engineers tasked with implementing new tech solutions in the enterprise.
Think of long-form press releases as comprehensive outlines. You should back up those outlines with other searchable, verifiable sources that you link to in your press release. Make the main points and inform the reader where to find more information.
Whitepapers
I can think of no better type of content to complement a good press release, especially long-form. Anyone who will take the time to read a lengthy press release clearly wants to know as much as possible about your new tech. If you can back up a good, attention-getting outline in a press release with a whitepaper, it will help build credibility and show readers that you pay attention to detail.
Be sure that there is consistency between the messaging in other forms of support content and your whitepaper. This is a crucial element for several reasons. First, if you linked to your whitepaper from another piece of content, such as a press release or long-form article, your readers will have a working knowledge already. Don’t confuse them or cause them to question inconsistencies.
Second, it will help affiliates and marketers explain key details to their own audiences and potential buyers. A well-organized, well-written whitepaper follows a progression that effectively steers potential users toward implementation.
Lastly, if you pique reader interest with support content and follow through with a whitepaper, it will leave readers with fewer questions and address common objections without prompting. This is another way to establish trust in your knowledge, expertise, and innovative prowess.
Relevant Social Media Channels
Social media is an important consideration when marketing any product or service, but you cannot expect just any social platform to be an effective marketing tool. Specialized platforms, like LinkedIn, could be better for attracting an industry audience than something like Twitter or Facebook that is geared toward a mainly consumer market.
Of course, if you’re a marketer or affiliate who uses a more consumer approach, there will always be more flexibility here. In those instances, driving the possibilities that a new tech product or solutions create can be a highly effective strategy.
Explainer Videos
This is another remarkably effective solution but also one that must be tailored to the right audiences. Standard animated explainers may reach consumers, but a more polished, professional, and fact-based approach will be necessary for attracting developers.
The length of your explainer will also vary based on your audience. Consumer explainers tend to make people’s attention trail off after about a minute. However, an industry insider video can be as long as five or even 10 minutes and accomplish the goals you designate. Again, make sure there is consistency between your explainer script and the support content that got viewers to click through to your video in the first place.
Comprehensive FAQs
My last suggestion today involves taking the concept of answering questions and fielding objections one step further. A comprehensive FAQ can help people understand your product or solution even better and position you as the kind of expert they can trust. There will always be more questions and concerns than what you present in an FAQ, so use the feedback you receive to develop even better ones in the future.
As always, I just want to mention that working with a technical copywriting team like Beez is always a good and recommended course of action, mostly for the reasons I mentioned at the beginning. Technical content can be a tricky thing to communicate effectively. To learn how BeezContent can help you find that balance, contact us today. Let’s put together a tech content development strategy that will help you meet or even exceed your goals.
