Although skills are made and practiced across our lifetime experience, talents, however, are not.
After working with many engineers and marketers, the answer became clear to me. Engineers are not born marketers, and marketers are not born engineers.
Without a prior background of knowledge, training, and muddling in the industry for years, marketers will not be able to understand the basics of engineering marketing strategies, and engineers are for sure, not well-versed in marketing. In fact, a marketer can have a background in civil engineering, but fail to market a solar cell manufacturing company if the individual does not have any detailed and first-hand knowledge of the specific product and industry itself.
Some pamphlets and flyers or cold calling won’t make it in the industry today. It’s 2022, and digitalisation has consumed the world on a whole new level that requires precision, big data, and strategy. In addition, the way social media and SEO algorithms work are different than rule-based programming and cloud computing.
B2B marketing is one segment to describe marketing for engineers, but not enough to fully decipher the strategy required to promote, market, and build reputations for different engineering companies.
For example, all industries have sub-categories, for example, manufacturing, production, IT, RPA, SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), infrastructure, energy, and even down the energy industry, you still have different branches of solar, WtE (Waste-to-Energy), hybrid, gas, and many more.
To be in the engineering industry means facing competitors head-on, not only with outstanding, proven, state-of-art technology but also by building a relationship with the SPECIFIC targeted audience. The hardest part of all.
Over the years, AR & Associates has been working with industrial parks, world-class experts such as Profibus, Profinet, Phoenix Contact, Ti2, Siemens, Emersons, Balluff, ABB, and many more, as well as global automation associations and non-profit organisations across Australia and New Zealand.
If anything, working with many industry leaders, professionals, and engineers in the industry has opened our eyes. The best engineers don’t stay afloat on marketing trends, don’t spend hours looking for ways to market their product or services, but instead, outsource it by hiring a CMO – Chief Marketing Officer or a turnkey marketing agency.
When an engineering company along with its company leaders have big visions and rapid growth, it’s obvious that marketing is the least of their concern. Engineering, manufacturing, or automation company that obligates and put the marketing scope of work to their engineers, are NOT utilising the best of their engineer’s capability, but instead hindering a set of skill and talent to something that is in a completely different department.
Over the years, AR & Associates have tried educating companies on the correct way to market their company. Our approach was wrong. In fact, the whole structure has been wrong.
We failed to relay the correct order of marketing, sales, and fulfillment because we thought that by educating engineers, manufacturing, and automation companies, they would finally see the importance of marketing for their company and even more important, the key to generational wealth and legacy-building brand reputation.
After teaching and educating companies, we are constantly seeing that the workforce has slightly been disheveled with the wrong organisation structure. Instead of focusing on each company’s individual HR ability, and strong sets of skills, we’re seeing marketing workload being put on some of the best people in the company, even when that isn’t in the best interest of the individual.
It’s crucial for companies to understand that leadership, management, and marketing walk hand in hand. And more importantly, sales, marketing, and fulfillment.
This is why you often see the most important position in a company go over: CEO (Chief Executive Officer), CFO (Chief Financial Officer), CTO (Chief Technology Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer).
These 4 often interoperate, collaborate, and initiate projects together, then delegate the micro-projects to the workforce.
A marketing department should interoperate with leaders, management, sales, and fulfillment.
Companies may focus on automation and business process, but the human element of a business SHOULD NOT be forgotten.
Many companies today forget the importance of humanity and personal values, building relationships, trust, and loyalty, which causes the big downfall of companies when there is no one to trust.
In a family, we hear, ‘happy wife, happy family.’
In a workforce, happy staffs and employees create a happy and high-performing workforce.
To conclude this brief and short journal, our answer stays as is. Engineers are not born marketers, and marketers are not born engineers.
Outsource your marketing, and focus on fulfillment. Have a sales manager focus on selling, setting up proposals, quotations, and consultations.
Leaders focus on the overall operation of your company. Stop bringing in new ideas all the time, and focus on ironing out and streamlining the entire process of the company before adding small steps of transitions that are sure to improve the company.
AR & Associates have helped IT, Engineering, Automation, Manufacturing, and Energy companies all across Australia to generate leads, increase brand awareness, maintain reputable PR, as well as increase sales.
We know that this is a big scope. Which is why our associates cover different expertise with a very wide set of connection, knowledge, marketing, AND engineering coverage to work with different companies across Australia and New Zealand.
We focus on helping you spend less time in marketing, and more time serving your customers. Leave the matter to the respective experts. As engineers ourselves, we understand the core values and importance of marketing through trust and reliability.
We provide a full tailor-made solution that helps you build your company to the next level through digital and on-site marketing. With expertise in organic omnichannel marketing and on-site event or workshop planning, we offer a full turn-key marketing solution that gives you time, space, and freedom to focus on what you do best, which is to run your business.
Email us here or call us today at (+61) 02 8416 4442 to get more information or book a complimentary marketing consultation or strategy session below.
