When it comes to marketing to engineers and other technical professionals you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. That’s their job! Marketers’ involvement is in needing to facilitate their success in that reinvention process.
And while that’s what a good inbound marketing strategy should do in the first place – that is, continually deliver value that helps potential customers choose you to resolve their pain points – it requires a precision approach that respects an engineer’s time, talent and intelligence.
The good news is that engineers are already comfortable with online life and are finding more value around the digital landscape. In a 2024 State of Marketing to Engineers Report, 41% of technical buyers reported regularly turning to vendor websites for information; 37% said the same about online technical publications. 98% of respondents also reported subscribing to newsletters, with 91% subscribing to LinkedIn newsletters.
At Kuno, we recognized this shifting trend years ago. We’ve worked with technical and engineering-minded companies worldwide, including engineers from fabricators to electrical connectors to medical devices and software, virtually since our beginning. In that time, we’ve tried, tested and validated key methods to convey value propositions and messaging in a way that will capture their attention, consideration and their business.
Insights on Marketing to an Engineering Audience
Keep Your Messaging No-Frills, But Not Bare Bones
Engineers are busy: when they’re not actively working, they tend to be thinking about work, looking for new ideas and insights on the topics driving their projects. Similarly, your messaging should be tight and efficient, but not so sparse that it doesn’t paint the clearest picture possible.
Solution: Video. Where there was once some hesitation around video, the temperature with engineering types has warmed by quite a bit. Video – behind-the-scenes videos, brief how-tos, streaming events and more – is a game-changer. Being able to see and internalize potential solutions or innovative insights affords engineers a better sense of control in processing new ideas, weighing potential alternatives or roadblocks and developing their internal sense of buy-in. Well-executed video can also act as a positive signal for SEO purposes.
Make Your Messaging Accessible (In Every Way)
If an engineer can’t immediately connect with your message, they won’t waste their time. Whether you’re developing written content or video, keep it short and no-frills as mentioned above, but also accessible on-the-go and ungated. Again, if you’re not delivering value to a technically-inclined reader out of the gate, or you are arbitrarily creating artificial roadblocks between the reader and the content they want to read, they will look for insights and answers elsewhere.
This doesn’t just mean tight content marketing copy offering a validated value proposition from the jump, it also means extra emphasis on calibrating content for search engines.
Solution: SEO. Now more than ever, engineers are leveraging search engine results pages (SERPs) to support their research and purchasing decisions. Your site should be mobile-friendly, easily accessible and easier to navigate and in tune with keywords and personas that are dialed in to industry experts, covering the elementary SEO basics.
Images Bring Your Message Into Focus
Everyone knows that pictures help clarify concepts, improve readability and amplify the core message you’re trying to convey.
Strong, tightly contextual imagery, graphs, charts or animations serve to hammer your points home and deliver digestible data to technical audiences. They also act as an opportunity for SEO uplift through alt text and utilizing modern image file formats designed for mobile-first web principles and fast rendering.
Engineers Use Social Media, Too
The rise of social media amongst engineers, namely LinkedIn and YouTube, is a major shift. Across various age groups, a large percentage of those polled in the 2024 State of Marketing Report cited these two as extremely or very valuable social media platforms in their work. If your brand isn’t on LinkedIn or YouTube, you’re missing a growing and vibrant community of potential contacts, leads and customers.
Marketing to Engineers In Action: Resources and Blogs That Get It
Cases By Source
Product case designer and manufacturer Cases By Source has a brand video that runs in the background of their homepage. At a glance, engineers can get a behind-the-scenes look at the craftsmanship that goes into developing their cases. They’re also invited to watch the full video, where they can dive deeper into CBS solutions and hear from engineers and other individuals they’d collaborate with.
Throughout the website, engineers also find animations that illustrate how a custom product case evolves from initial concept to fully realized solution. By repurposing these visuals on platforms like LinkedIn, CBS showcases their expertise and final products to a wider audience in the engineering community.
Amerline
Circular connector manufacturer Amerline’s Resource Center is a straightforward catalog of information for product offerings, product manuals, user guides and more. Developed in partnership with the team here at Kuno, this layout gives the reader quick, filtered access to anything they might need surrounding electrical connectors.
Amerline’s site navigation includes a competitor part number search bar. With this tool, engineers can easily find drop-in equivalents from Amerline to replace connectors from other manufacturers. It’s a convenient way for technical minds to locate the product information they need without having to pick up the phone.
Big Bolt
Big Bolt’s approach to marketing to engineers is rooted in a strategic SEO focus. When they first partnered with Kuno for a branding and website redesign project, each content-rich web page was developed with a target keyword in mind. To further support engagement, a blog was introduced with keyword-informed content.
In just a short period of time after site relaunch, Big Bolt snagged the number three spot on Google’s page one for the term “bolt failure.” This kind of visibility on SERPs helped to position Big Bolt as the trusted resource for engineers seeking solutions for critical issues in manufacturing.
Kuno Creative’s Expertise and Experience + Your Brand and Offerings = Real Marketing Results
Marketing to engineers online is largely an exercise in respecting their time and intelligence, letting them have the power to choose their own destiny. Content should be impactful yet brief, and an omni-channel presence leveraging social and video provides ease of access to data that gives people in engineering roles reason to keep coming back to you for insights, as well as good reason to work with you on future projects.
As highlighted in the examples above, our experience working with technical professionals and creating successful marketing communications and sales enablement strategies for them speaks for itself. We can deliver real results for your company, as well.
Schedule a consultation today to see how we can add value to your brand.
