B2b buyers in any industry seek detailed information about the products and services they're considering, but electrical and electronics engineers in particular crave highly specific data—for example, about what a component can do and how it will fit into their design. As a result, it's critical that marketers targeting this global audience provide the right content through the right channel, experts say.
“Engineers are information junkies,” said Chris Chariton, senior VP-supplier marketing and product management for GlobalSpec, a search engine and information resource for the engineering, industrial and technical communities. “They want to know as much detail as possible.”
Plus, Chariton said, engineers are being asked to do more projects with less staff, so marketers that can deliver information quickly and conveniently will have an advantage in reaching them.
Engineers want to find a product's specs quickly and insert CAD drawings into their own system model, said Owen Fayle, senior application engineer at Thomas Industrial Network, a company that connects industrial buyers and suppliers. “With electrical engineers, it really comes down to accountability,” he said. “An EE wants to make sure it's the correct product and that it's going to work.”
Explaining how the product works on a scientific basis is important when targeting any type of engineer, said Chris Wirthwein, CEO of 5MetaCom, a marketing communications agency focused on technical and scientific products (see Q&A, this page). The best way to do this, he said, is to show how a product works with pictures, diagrams, call-outs and captions. “I've often dreamed of the perfect chunk of copy and it's nothing but a drawing,” he said. “Show pictures—show motion if you can. It's captivating, and we know that. Folks like me cranking out 1,000 words to explain how something works is not a good idea.”
Online videos—such as instructional videos, product demonstrations and customer testimonials—are a powerful tool for reaching this audience, Chariton said. “It's something that can be done easily and inexpensively,” she said. “You don't have to have a highly produced, highly orchestrated video.”
It's also a good idea to arm engineers with information that they can take to higher-ups, Wirthwein said. “Up the line, you may have more of a business generalist rather than a technical specialist,” he said. “Tell the electrical engineer in his or her terms what your product does but also give them the story they can take to the nontech person that they need to explain that to.”
Marketers may want to go so far as to create a script for the engineer, he said. “We've often created tools that say, "Here's how you explain this to the other guys,' ” he said. “It's very important.”
Making product data easy to find online is also essential. Engineers are often looking for specific products and perform three- and four-word searches in search engines, Fayle said. In fact, he said, about 74% of the industrial searches performed on the company's engine are three or more words. “The sweet spot seems to be four-word searches,” he said. “Those have the greatest conversion rates.”
A marketer's website has to be optimized to be found by such “long tail” searches, said Linda Rigano, executive director of strategic services at Thomas Industrial Network. “The whole thing is really about leveraging your website and using technology to be more efficient and to generate more sales,” she said. “It's about getting repeat business and getting bookmarked. Once these engineers recognize you, they'll come back.”
Marketers should also consider their strategies for reaching audiences in other countries. Countries such as China, Germany and Japan are obvious hot spots, said Jeff Curie, VP-marketing at SupplyFrame Inc., an online provider of electronic component information and advertising; but Brazil, the Czech Republic, India, Poland and Ukraine are also promising markets. “There are companies everywhere designing the local car, or the local telephone switch or the local train,” he said. “There are design engineers everywhere, and marketers are increasingly saying, "I want to be able to go there and I want to be able to go there and there.' ”
Those marketers are getting more sophisticated in how they're targeting their ads to an international audience, he said, determining what ad works best in what language and better measuring how those ads perform.
