Communication and promotion in the technology world is different from that in the consumer world in three main ways:
- Often lower intensity
- Different targets
- Specific modalities
Often lower intensity
In technology, since success is seen, often legitimately, to be based much more on innovation, technology and product performance than on communication and promotion, the budgets allocated to them are much lower than those allocated to the general public.
In the technological world, this often leads to an underestimation and underfunding of promotion and communication, both of which are detrimental, together with the still sometimes widespread belief that “the right product sells itself”.
However, in the globalised and hyper-competitive world of B2B/B2G high-tech companies, which is not immune to the latest trends in modern communication, under-dimensioning and under-funding of communication and promotion run the risk of being “drowned in the mass” and simply not existing.
Different targets
The targets of promotion and communication are much more confidential in technology than in the B2C world, so much so that it is common for “giants” of a technological sector to be virtually unknown to the general public or barely known through a single activity or a single emblematic product. The whole world knows about Airbus’ civil aircraft, but who knows about all the activities, products and services offered by the Airbus group?
In technology, the targets belong to a specific professional ecosystem.
The company may, of course, have an institutional interest in being known favourably by the general public for reasons of “social good” or communication with the financial community or shareholders if it is listed on the stock exchange.
However, it is the major players or influencers in this ecosystem, the major customers, specific customer groups and their decision-makers, and sometimes competitors, who are the main targets of communication and promotion.
These actors or influencers are both different and much less numerous than in the general public. They will therefore be targeted in a different way.
In terms of internal communication, these targets will be all the players and relays of the Go to market: countries, subsidiaries, sales or business engineers, distributors, agents, partners, OEMs, etc.
Special arrangements
Because of the different targets within a particular ecosystem, the promotion and communication methods are different in the technology:
- The notion of “promotion” does not have the same meaning as in the general public: it is obviously not a question of promotional actions as we know them with, for example, “price promotions”. It is more a question of promoting the company and its products in a “one to one” or “one to groups” mode rather than on a massive scale.
- The technical dialogue with customers about products and solutions is a communication and promotion vector in its own right.
- The technology company often tends to communicate more about itself and its know-how than about its products themselves. This does not sometimes prevent product communication and promotion from being intense around new products or flagship products.
- The way in which the targets are reached, the methods used and the speeches made will be specifically adapted.
Consequently, in addition to the major periodic meetings of the trade fairs dedicated to a particular sector of activity (such as the Paris Air Show, for example), means adapted to a technical universe will be used:
- Thus, technical centres or similar, product demonstrations, communication about recent technologies, proofs of concepts, prototypes or demonstrators, customer tests for fine-tuning and improvements, technical conferences, actions aimed at a particular customer, user groups, all play a much more important role than advertising alone.
- Wider communication will be ensured through the general or specialised trade press, as well as during major events, whether they are generic to the whole sector or organised on a one-off basis by the company
- The question of natural or paid referencing (SEO), i.e. the possibility of arriving in a good position during a keyword search on a search engine (Google in general), may also be relevant to the technology. It will nevertheless require adaptations in the SEO techniques used.
- More exceptionally, it may be deemed useful to use some of the general public or semi-public means of communication, such as popular videos on YouTube or the LinkedIn network for example.
It is therefore both the range of possible actions in terms of promotion and communication and their practical arrangements that are particular.
All these actions are coordinated in the “communication plan” or “communication and promotion plan” of the company or a product.
