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Growing your tech business is no walk in the park.
Unlike other products, tech doesn’t usually market itself. It’s hard for the average consumer to understand what tech products do and how they work, so companies need to do a lot of legwork to make sure that they are communicating clearly and effectively.
We’re here to help! As marketers with plenty of experience in the tech industry, we know all about how to get your product in contact with the right people. Read on for our step by step guide on how to market your tech company like a pro.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
One of the major reasons that so many young tech companies fail is that they fail to attract a core user base of people who will actually use their product. Usually, companies set their target audience too broadly (there is no company whose target market is ‘everyone’), meaning that their messaging isn’t specific enough to appeal to any particular group.
The first thing you want to do to grow your tech business is to identify the specific audience who will use your product. Try asking yourself:
Is this a B2B or B2C product?
Is the product specific to a particular industry?
Is the product suited to a particular age group?
What is the price point of the product?
What circumstances does someone have to be in to use the product? (eg. do they need to have a car?)
From here, you can whittle down your target market to something quite specific. You might find that you want to target ‘Young People who work in a trade’ or ‘Engineering firms with IP to protect’. The more specific you are, the better targeted your messaging can be!
You can also try identifying a few different ‘customer profiles’ ie. the different types of people who will use your product (if there are multiple). For example, your salespoint app might be used by clothing retailers and restaurants . You’re going to need to market differently to each.
2. Develop Core Messaging
The next thing you need to do is develop your brand’s core messaging. Core messaging is your brand’s go-to wording that clearly defines it’s purpose, usefulness, and point of difference.
Brand messaging doesn’t have to be fancy or have all sorts of bells and whistles, in fact it can just be a word doc that you share around your business. The important thing is that you have your messaging completely clear
Here are our tips for brilliant core messaging:
Limit the Jargon
With your core messaging, your goal is for users to be able to clearly and easily understand exactly what it is you do and why they should be interested. When messaging uses too many unfamiliar terms, or is too technical and informational, then the intention of what you’re saying can get easily misinterpreted. If you need to use complex terms, make sure to define them clearly or make them interpretable through context clues.
For instance, ‘our X8iO2G processor means you can enjoy faster speeds.’ is better than just listing ‘X8iO2G processor’ as a benefit.
Include Your Unique Value Proposition
Point out the key features and benefits of your product that make it different from everything else on the market. These features and key words will need to be prominent on your marketing material.
Identify Pain Points
Always be clear about the common problems and pain points that your product addresses. These are a key part of why a user needs your product. Think about which situations your product helps avoid. Common answers for tech companies include: wasted time, lost data, or security breaches.
Decide on a Consistent ‘Brand Voice’
We feel more connected to the people around us because we are aware of who they are. In that same vein, we would likely feel confused and a little put off if someone we knew started acting completely differently. The same thing is largely true for your brand: consistency is key.
So, ask yourself, what is your brand’s personality? Is it serious and professional, or quippy and fun? This is going to impact the wording you choose in your core messaging. For instance, one company might describe their processor as ‘powerful, state of the art technology’, and another might say that it has ‘awesome processing power that’s gonna knock your socks off’.
3. Develop your Socials Strategy
Once you know who your target market is and have refined your messaging, it’s time to start connecting with those potential customers. Social media is one of the best ways to do that.
Depending on the particulars of your product, you’re likely going to have more success on some platforms than others. Try to focus your marketing efforts on the platforms in which your target audience will most likely be hanging out. For B2B companies that’s LinkedIn, for B2C and consumer tech it might be Tiktok or Reddit. In general, it’s better to maintain a couple of really professional looking profiles than slap-dash ones on every possible platform.
Next up, you can begin to use your brand messaging to build profiles and create content on the social media platforms you want to focus on. Here are a few tips for best practice on social media:
Always use high quality, engaging visuals
Decide on a visual ‘brand voice’: what colours, shapes and icons can users associate with your brand?
Limit your text, and keep your brand voice in mind with everything you write
Post regularly to social media: at least once a week
Use hashtags to help new users find your content
Keep a mix between promotional and informative / entertaining content
4. Create Value Content for SEO
SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’, and can be the key to connecting your product with the users that are actively looking for solutions. The general principle here is that you want to identify what your target users are going to be searching for (called ‘keywords’), and then try to create content that puts you as the top result for that search term. It’s usually helpful to develop a list of keywords that you think your target audience will search for. Tools like SEM Rush can help you with that.
Creating what’s called ‘value content’ is the key to improving your SEO. Value content is content that provides value to users by giving them information or entertainment. It’s the opposite of purely promotional content. As a business, you want to create value content because it’s more likely to drive user engagement and traffic to your website.
Blog posts are the holy grail of value content for SEO. Start writing blog posts for your company website a couple of times each week. For each blog, choose a keyword you want to target, like ‘powerful computer processor’ and use it as the basis for your content. For instance, you might write a blog titled ‘Three things to look for in a powerful computer processor’.
You can also begin exploring video content. For tech companies, informational videos and graphics are usually a great way to communicate clearly to your audience, and can be a chance to get creative.
For more information about boosting your SEO, you can check out our blog post on simple ways to boost your google rankings.
5. Build your Email List
We could go on about this one for hours, but building a substantial email list is one of the best, and most highly underrated, ways to secure a future for your brand.
The advantage of an email list is that everybody on there is already interested in your product, and has visited your website before. This means that you’ve essentially got a free, engaged, and receptive audience. Woohoo!
There are a few easy ways to build your email list:
Offer perks to those on the list
Create a pop up on your website
Advertise your email list on social media
Require joining the email list for any giveaways and promotions
Once you’ve built your list, make sure to nurture it with regular, relevant content. This might include: company newsletters, tutorials, and information about promotions and new features. We recommend keeping a plan or calendar or your upcoming emails to make sure that you have a good mix of content.
6. Get Help Where You Need It
Take it from us marketers, marketing is hard work and doesn’t always go to plan. When you feel like you’ve hit a wall, or need some extra guidance to take your tech business to the next level, then it’s often a good time to enlist some outside help from a marketing agency.
If you want to know how you can improve your strategy, or even where to start, get a free digital audit from our team today and we can help you bring your strategy to life.