Here’s a trend that I’ve noticed in the tech industry: non-technical marketers rarely talk to the technical end users who they’re trying to message to. This blows my mind because if you don’t know your audience it’s hard to sway them to purchase your product. And some of the attempts to market to techies can feel inauthentic at best, a turn-off at worst.
For the second installment of the Marketing Brown Bag Series, I sat down with Rackspace Principal Engineers Major Hayden and Antony Messerli to talk about their feelings of marketing, how they discover products and how they choose to buy them. These individuals are highly technical, accomplished long-time Rackers (that’s a Rackspace employee) who are part of the elite Technical Career Track program.
While the points presented are opinions, I feel that it’s an important study on how technical folks feel about marketing. And while I’m sure that different tactics can subconsciously affect the purchase process, both Major and Ant give valuable advice on things that can actively work (such as having documentation, technical folks at your conference booth, etc). Some of the questions answered in this session are:
- When I say the word “Marketing” what comes to your mind?
- How do you discover new products?
- How do you decide to purchase a new technical product?
- What’s some of the worst technical marketing you’ve seen?
- How does technical folks avoid marketing?
- What are some technical/company blogs that you read and respect?
- How can marketers work with technical folks?
Like the panel? See a list of all our Marketing Brown Bags here and be sure to bookmark us for future posts! Follow Garrett on Twitter at @pinojo and sign up to the Marketing Bytes newsletter here! Image by Matt Sharpe via Flickr CC.