Technical Marketing ideas for Engineers

When Andy, Steve and I set up Technical Marketing Ltd in 1999, b-2-b marketing communications were primarily display advertising in the trade press, exhibitions, mail shots, telemarketing, PR and product literature. The world wide web and email was slowly gaining traction, but use and acceptance was patchy at best.

We had arrived at TML  from running a global marketing team for a leading company in the entertainment technology sector. We had set up email piecemeal. The R&D teams in London and Los Angeles had an email set up which we linked up with a marketing network. Eventually the rest of the company realised the benefits of email and a company system followed. Web sites were not that impressive in the early days and print which was quite sophisticated was thought superior. Even then few people had PCs on their desk, mobile phones, or more often, car phones were still fitted into cars, or at least to some company cars.

It was into this background that  Technical Marketing Ltd was launched to introduce the emerging Internet technologies and indeed use them to run a 'virtual' business ourselves. In 2000 we launched a book - Technical Marketing Techniques - through Entertainment Technology Press which itself used then pioneering 'print on demand' methods. Fifteen years on, the Internet is an essential enabling technology for marketing - web sites, email and social media for a start. Updating the book became essential to recognise the massive changes in marketing possibilities. 

Because we started from an engineering background and many of our clients are smaller engineering companies, the new title - Technical Marketing Ideas for Engineers - is now preferred. The original book started with marketing theory, worked through product development and marketing communications before concluding with predictions for the future, including making the case for web sites, email marketing and e commerce. The new title retains the marketing theory introduction, but now includes digital marketing as a mainstream subject and includes much more discussion of the evolving marketing space. 
Look out for further announcements.

Once you could only buy advertising space or ‘buy’ editorial mention

Before the widespread adoption of the web there were only two significant options for a business to gain attention for its products in the media – to buy expensive advertising, or buy PR for third party column space. It was ‘above the line’ and ‘below the line’ promotion. The glitzy world of advertising or the manipulative black arts of press and public relations.

Then into this expensive publicity mix of advertising and PR along came the Internet and the World Wide Web. The media opened up to even the smallest business, not just locally, but globally. Since we published Techniques in Technical Marketing in 2000, the web has moved to a new phase with social media offering very affordable alternatives to the main ‘above the line’ media options.

Our book was intended as a simple introduction to marketing, particularly for engineers needing to understand how to go about presenting their products in a fast changing world. But technology enabled marketing has also been rapidly evolving. So it is time for a new book. A book looking at where marketing has been headed in the last decade and some things that owners and engineers in small to medium size businesses in the B-2-B area should know.

This week in marketing

It was the week BBC TV's Apprentice show had its annual go at advertising.

Whether it is a business programme or simply another game show loosely associated with business, the Apprentice is compelling viewing. Lord Sugar who presides as judge and jury - "You're Fired!" - has established himself as a celebrity business man, but what that business is these days is a bit vague since the distant days of Amstrad electronic consumer products. Of his two cohorts, Karren Brady is probably better known than PR veteran Nick Hewar who may have had the unenviable task of helping market the Amstrad stuff which Alan Sugar - as he was prior to his elevation to the peerage -memorably described in his first biography as "a mugs eyeful" to explain the point of LEDs blinking away on the front panel.  Karen meanwhile fronted Birmingham City FC at the time bank rolled by more interesting business men who were the real story for the press. If the 'board' are unusual business characters, the wanna be candidates are a potential employers worst nightmare.

After a recap of the previous week's disaster, the episode starts with a telephone call to the house where the would be apprentices are billeted together in ostentatious luxury. I thought it was said that the call was timed at 4.30 am, but maybe I  misheard, anyway the message is generally the same and along the lines that "the cars will be with you in 20 minutes", or "Lord Sugar will meet you in 30 minutes." How on earth they get showered, dressed and breakfasted in 20 minutes is intriguing and possibly the most challenging achievement of the task. Lord Sugar - everyone uses the 'Lord' bit as though he is real nobility - meets them at some well known London landmark each week to deliver the 'brief' - brief being just that and nobody ever has any questions despite the outcome for failure being a firing. Last night the venue was the American Embassy, the brief to develop a soft drink for the American market and create branding, TV ad and web site. His Lordship usually steps regally from a Rolls Royce, but due to some unspecified  reason appeared on a TV screen from some remote location, but still flanked by his two acolytes. Sufficient to say, the execution of the task was the usual fiasco and a lesson in how not to plan a product development and launch campaign.

Meanwhile over on Fox Business channel an executive of I think MCD Digital Agency in New York was being interviewed at top speed explaining the growth in digital adverting, citing Harvard research into investing in marketing during a recession and how those who over invested had gained market share. All good stuff and delivered in no more than a couple of minutes. Pity the apprentices sent to New York didn't look this guy up.

Finally another email from David Cameron. He likes sending me emails, but somehow it feels like stuff from an imaginary friend on Facebook. His friends, Boris Theresa and the rest email me too. it is well done and informative, yet somehow it doesn't have any emotional appeal that would motivate recipients to vote for Dave's party. It's business, factual logical and unemotional and well executed PR. But that's Dave's expertise. Interesting to see if it works at the General Election.

Time for budgets

For many companies the end of 2014 will also be the end of the budget year and marketing managers will be thinking about the budget for 2015.

Hopefully there will be a formal budget and not just a sum of money allocated to marketing. And that budget should be detailed, typically on a spreadsheet to show how the investment is to be deployed in accordance with a marketing plan. I use the term investment because the whole point of a marketing plan and the accompanying budget to implement it, is to achieve a return on the investment just the same as if investing in new plant to improve efficiency for example.

A problem with budgets is the tendency to take last years' numbers and add a few percent for inflation. This lazy approach prevents new ideas being funded and perpetuates spend on things which may no longer be valid, so it pays to rethink the marketing strategy,  marketing plan and supporting budget.

A question I sometimes  get asked is how much should the marketing budget be? Some people would like this expressed as a percentage of sales, but this will vary from business to business and what needs to be achieved. One approach is to decide the marketing strategy and write the marketing plan, then figure out the cost of implementation - 'to cost the need.' The reality for most companies is driven by affordability and then prioritising the budget for most effect.
  

Lest We Forget

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

To the Fallen

They shall not grow old,
As we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun,
and in the morning,
We shall remember them.

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red 11.11.2014.

Photos: David Brooks

888,246

Blood Swept Lands And Seas of Red. Tower of London. 11.11.2014.

  Paul Cummins & Tom Piper. Photo: David Brooks.

It's a global market

The Internet has been a game changer for entrepreneurs by opening the door to a global market.

In a recent blog we reported on the growth of homepreneurs in the UK, some 2.9 million largely creative businesses operating from a home office. This group are distanced from the similarly large group of tradesmen - builders, painters, plumbers, gardeners and the rest serving very local customers. The home based entrepreneurial businesses are said to be contributing £300 billion a year to the UK economy, with one third operating in international markets. Interestingly 65% plan to stay home based.

Think about this for a moment. An important sector of the reviving UK economy is not based on a traditional business model and nearly two thirds plan to stay with this model and not convert to a 'bricks and mortar' operation. Clearly a lot of entrepreneurial talent finds the fluidity of this approach works for them. A big difference is that homepreneurs might be driving business forward in global markets, but are not necessarily creating new jobs on the traditional basis of providing premises to which employees can commute and earn a salary. Instead the work opportunities they create for others is more likely to be awarded to similar businesses or individuals who are not employees. In short the Internet has allowed home based entrepreneurial businesses to flourish without employees and the whole raft of management, personnel and legal issues that accompany the traditional model of providing employment. Entrepreneurs are not necessarily best at staff management any way and need to concentrate on the core aims of the business, not trying to do something they are not skilled at.

Now think about the approach of successive governments. Most have recognised the need to encourage new businesses to start up and over the years various incentives and support structures have been tried. But ultimately their goal seems to be one of providing employment opportunities. They actually talk about creating jobs. Do the entrepreneurs see that as their purpose, or are they thinking of wealth creation not job creation? Creating work for others is a consequence of the needs of a growing business rather than its purpose.

As we approach next year's general election, the European Union the source of most UK legislation is already a major issue with advocates  arguing that membership is vital since 3 million UK jobs are said to depend on the EU. What is not mentioned so often is that the UK is the EU's best customer and 5 million jobs are related to trade in this direction. Others draw attention to the huge membership cost to the UK and volume of legislation businesses have to comply with. Some 1,139 new business regulations were passed by Brussels in the last year alone. Meanwhile businesses are looking  at global markets, not just one geographic trade area.

So we have governments with a focus on finding ways to create jobs, not just via new businesses, but in the public sector. On the other hand businesses, certainly the new enterprises are pursuing wealth creation and ultimately that wealth will pay people and support public funds too through taxes. Whether the UK leaves the EU or not there will remain a big global marketing job to do, at home, in the EU and the whole world.

Supporting our troops & remembering the 888,246  British  fatalities in the Great War.