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I also market to engineers and I have thoughts:

> Engineers look down on advertising and advertising people, for the most part.

Most everyone in every industry dislikes advertising.

> Engineers do not like a “consumer approach.

What people say they like and what they respond to in ways that marketers want are not always the same thing. Also, people almost invariably underestimate the impact that marketing has on them. They think they can’t be swayed by it, but they can (why else would GEICO spend $2b a year on it?). More broadly, there has been a major shift towards using B2C-style, informal marketing for B2B campaigns. Even in long, complex B2B sales cycles, attention spans are shorter and audiences are engaging with more consumer-style content like short explainer videos, and not just the traditional 5,000 word whitepapers and such.

> Engineers are not turned off by jargon—in fact, they like it.

In my experience, that’s not always true. What is true is that they use jargon involuntarily and unconsciously because they are so immersed in their niche they don’t even realize they are doing it. Often, when an outsider like me is brought in and I retell their marketing story without the acronyms and jargon, they are extremely pleased to hear it told more plainly.

> Why is jargon effective? Because it shows the reader that you speak his language.

If you’ve done your homework and you truly understand their business and technology, that familiarity will come across in the content even without jargon.




>What people say they like and what they respond to in ways that marketers want are not always the same thing. Also, people almost invariably underestimate the impact that marketing has on them. They think they can’t be swayed by it, but they can (why else would GEICO spend $2b a year on it?). More broadly, there has been a major shift towards using B2C-style, informal marketing for B2B campaigns. Even in long, complex B2B sales cycles, attention spans are shorter and audiences are engaging with more consumer-style content like short explainer videos, and not just the traditional 5,000 word whitepapers and such.

Agree, but would argue this is not marketing to engineers, this is marketing to the business which is interested in things like size and certifications.




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