While marketing has always shifted according to the times, it has, historically, not been a very tech-focused field. And dealing with more tech-based problems and solutions can provide its challenges.
But luckily, there is a group of people you can turn to for guidance and suggestions on how to better present your marketing information, and that’s engineers themselves.
After all, if you’re marketing to engineers, why not learn from them to create the best marketing strategies? And learn from them to navigate a more high-pressure, challenging environment?
Engineers are known for their precision, problem-solving skills, and very logical approach to tackling challenges. These qualities can be useful to you when you’re looking to develop results-driven marketing strategies.
So in this article, I’ll take you through 7 industrial marketing lessons you can learn from engineers and apply to your marketing efforts.
1. Problem-solving abilities
At the end of the day, engineers are problem solvers. They create products that solve problems and are thus generally quite well-versed in problem-solving techniques.
Marketers also solve problems, albeit of a different nature.
So why not turn to engineers to learn some effective problem-solving and critical thinking skills? You can even learn to use some great problem-solving techniques and tools like case analyses, flow charts, fishbone diagrams, and strategy maps.
These skills and tools can all help you solve a problem more effectively.
2. Technical competence
Engineers have to demonstrate extreme technical competence — they need the ability to seek, learn, and use technology to support their goals. If they don’t, they’ll very quickly fall behind.
You wouldn’t think this was relevant to marketers, but it’s becoming more and more important.
After all, the world of technology evolves quickly, which is why we’re now seeing the terms “digital” and “marketing” used together so often. Digital marketing, in fact, has only been around for the last 30 or so years, and it’s continuously growing in importance — and ever-changing!
To navigate the modern digital marketing world, marketers have to learn new skills and programs in order to design, execute, and analyze marketing projects.
Modern-day industrial marketers will likely have to be competent with a range of project management and data analysis tools, such as those required to analyze SEO strategies. These help you to manage multiple projects at the same time and determine the success of the project once completed.
Only by understanding what works and what doesn’t can you use your research to influence future decisions.
3. Detail orientation
A successful engineer must be able to understand a multitude of tiny details in order to develop an efficient engineering product. This is a normal component of an engineer’s job.
Meticulous attention to detail allows engineers to solve complex problems.
But it can also help with achieving industrial marketing objectives.
Being detail-oriented as a marketer means you’ll pay attention to every tiny little detail of a task or project, paying attention to aspects that other people may find trivial.
Industrial marketers who are detail-oriented pay close attention to every area of a project and are continuously looking for ways to work more efficiently.
4. Leadership
Engineers are considered leaders in the realm of innovation.
As an industrial marketer, leadership is another valuable skill that can keep you ahead of the competition. Internally, it means taking charge of particular projects or assisting juniors with their tasks. Externally, it gives you the ability to position yourself as someone with innovative marketing approaches and strategies.
Every step you take must be made with an industrial marketing goal in mind. And if you constantly push yourself to be the best, you’re more likely to position yourself as a thought leader.
5. Adaptability
Engineers are good at adapting to new challenges. In fact, adapting to new or anticipated developments is one of the most vital skills an engineer can have!
Like engineering, marketing is a dynamic sector where innovative strategies, techniques, and guidelines appear regularly. This is especially true for digital and social media marketing, since these platforms and their relevant algorithms are constantly changing.
Marketing departments are also often faced with constraints or time-sensitive amendments.
For example, you may receive a last-minute assignment, or something major may have happened in the engineering world (or the world in general) that your company needs to, or could, respond to. You then quickly have to step in to change your content plan.
This requires you to have the adaptability to work in a fast-paced, constantly changing environment.
6. Visual design
Engineers are skilled at designing and developing new products. To do so, they rely on skills that enable them to develop a product that fulfills its function as effectively as possible.
But in many engineering industries, the final product also has to be visually appealing — think of Apple, for example.
Just like aesthetic design can be one aspect of engineering, it can also be an aspect of industrial marketing. After all, marketers frequently work with graphic designers or website developers to create their marketing material.
But having some visual design knowledge and basic design skills will help industrial marketers navigate this field more effectively.
7. Automation
Engineering automation is the process of reducing or removing human involvement from a project, while also improving its quality and performance.
With marketing automation, some part of this is true, but automation processes also have a strong time-saving component.
For example, industrial marketers can work with project management tools like Asana, social media management tools like Meet Edgar, or AI writing tools like ChatGPT to both automate and speed up certain processes.
Both engineers and marketers need to keep on top of the latest automations. After all, if you fail to adapt and adopt new tools quickly, you can easily be left behind the competition.
Why industrial marketing lessons matter
Marketing, and especially digital marketing, is an ever-evolving field.
So why not learn from the engineers in your business and hone the skills that can help you succeed?
The above 7 elements can form vital industrial marketing lessons that you can take with you.
For more information on engineering and marketing-related content, feel free to drop me a line!
Industrial Marketing FAQs
Industrial marketers don’t only learn marketing skills from engineers. They also have to learn some technical and engineering concepts. Understanding technical features and industry-specific jargon helps marketers communicate more effectively with their target audience.
While the engineers in your company have their own tasks to deal with, the industrial marketing team can definitely turn to them when required. Perhaps you need to get some marketing insight or need help understanding a certain product? Your engineers can help you here.
Engineers always consider scalability when designing products. After all, how much use is a product if more of it can’t be produced? Marketers can learn from engineers by designing marketing campaigns that can easily be scaled up as the business grows.
The concept of “fail fast” refers to the idea of testing lots of different options and learning from failures. Engineers often take this approach because it prevents them from investing too much time in a project in case it doesn’t work. It’s better to try multiple things quickly and decide from there what to pursue.
You, as an industrial marketer, may find this helpful in your approach to strategy as well.
