Two-Way Communication is the Key to Technology Marketing Success
High-tech marketing communications was once a simple matter of pushing your messages out into the marketplace. You might advertise, send a press release, place an article in a trade magazine, put up a website, drop a direct mailer, or create a set of brochures, datasheets, and other sales collateral.
The point is, you created your message, chose your media, and let your messages fly into the market.
Those days are gone.
A New Style of Communications
Today’s IT buyers are actively searching for solutions to their company’s challenges. They want information that can help in their quest, when they want it, in a choice of formats, definitely online.
Your job is to listen to what buyers want and provide it.
A New Type of Results
The results you expect have changed as well. Ten years ago, you were likely aiming for “brand awareness,” whatever that meant….Five years ago, executives were demanding sales-ready leads….yesterday!
Today, executives are still demanding sales-ready leads. But there’s a dawning awareness that while many potential customers may not be ready to make a purchase now, they may be willing to take another step along the buying path. And nurturing their progress will help create a healthy business in the long run.
Therefore, your desired results may be as lofty as sales-ready leads…or as simple as moving IT buyers to the next point in the buying cycle.
A New Job Description for Marketing Communications
To keep up with these changes, the role of marketing communications must change. The new tasks of marketing communications include:
- Knowing who your buyers are
- Understanding potential buyers’ marketplace and business issues
- Informing buyers of ways to solve their problems
- Framing the buyer’s evaluation criteria so that your competitors are at a disadvantage
- Providing buyers with useful information that will keep you top of mind, even when they’re not yet ready to make a purchase
- Helping buyers sell your solution within their organization
In other words, as a marketing communications specialist, you need to engage in a two-way conversation with your buyers by finding out what information they need and providing them with the right information using the right media at the right time.
Yet, with the wildly oscillating economy, the IT-buying process may continually change while constantly emerging media tools are transforming your means of reaching buyers.
Matching Marketing Communications with the Needs of the Buyer
High-Tech Communicator is all about helping high-tech companies match their marketing communications efforts to the needs of the IT buyer. In particular, we will talk about how to:
- Use marketing content and media types to facilitate the IT buying process
- Create highly effective content that will get your message across
- Persuade IT buyers to take action
Our goal is to share the expertise we’ve developed over two and a half decades doing marketing communications for high-tech companies. More than that, we aim to create a forum where you can share your thoughts and experiences with other marketers so that we all can further our understanding of best practices…even as what constitutes best practices shifts under our feet.
About Cheryl Goldberg
Cheryl has been a technology marketing writer and journalist since 1983 and the principal of Goldberg Communications, a technology marketing writing firm based in Cary, NC since 1996. She writes white papers, case studies, brochures, datasheets, press releases, thought-leadership, articles, web content, and email marketing pieces for technology companies. Clients include Allscripts-Misys Healthcare, Alcatel-Lucent, BlueArc, CA, Epicor, Informatica, Keynote, Kronos, Orion Health, Polycom, Tellabs, Tibco, and dozens more technology companies of all sizes.
Prior to working with technology companies, Cheryl was a senior-level editor for technology publications including PC Magazine, PC/Computing, Macintosh Business Review and DBMS Magazine. She has also written for Working Woman, InfoWorld, Entrepreneur Magazine and others, as well as for corporate publications published by Adaptec, Oracle, Compuware, Sybase, and more.
“Cheryl Goldberg is a clear standout among the 400 writers in our consultant network. She is one the few select writers we rely on to create collateral for our extremely high-profile client. Cheryl is an outstanding interviewer, writer, and editor, carefully adheres to corporate brand and voice standards, and is patient and diplomatic in driving projects to completion. We are honored to work with such a tremendous professional.”
René Siegel, President, High-Tech Connect
“Goldberg Communications manages our entire customer success story program, from lining up customers to writing the stories to obtaining approval. Their follow up with our internal constituencies and our customers has been diligent and highly professional. That’s eliminated the hassle for me of dealing with the myriad issues that come up in building a results-driven case study program. When writing the case studies, they consistently get up to speed quickly on our various technologies and have been great about bringing out the value proposition of our solution in compelling case studies. Best of all, they’ve been extremely easy to work with and very responsive. ”
Daniel Berkowitz, Senior Director of Corporate Communications, Keynote Systems
“Goldberg Communications is the best marketing communications firm I’ve worked with. They offer a rare combination of business savvy, writing talent, and customer relationship management skills. I especially like the fact that the writing is free of the marketing jargon that plagues most high-tech communications. Unlike most marketing copy that applies equally well to 20 other companies, their text specifically describes my company.”
Craig Kerr, Vice President of Marketing, iPost
Call Us! For help creating superior quality marketing communications materials, please contact:
Goldberg Communications
(919) 621-1041
e-mail: cheryl@cjgoldbergcommunications.com
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