Those familiar with startups often speak their own language, and marketers are expected to follow along. We have to adapt to industry lingo, learn new lexicons and understand emerging technologies just to be able to do our jobs.
While different marketing departments will know more about some industries than others, there’s always something new that needs to be learned. Here’s how Access Marketing Company stays up-to-date about emerging language in the startup industry.
Learn the Lingo
Like any highly technical industry, the language of startups is full of acronyms and abbreviations that confuse the uninitiated. While we look to subject matter experts for content advice, any type of marketing message has to be written in an industry’s lingo, and that means at least knowing how to talk the talk.
Roll with the Industry’s Punches
Marketers must always be aware of what’s happening in an industry to be able to market effectively. Emerging technology may already be solving problems that your company is looking to eliminate. Lead generation may be useless when contact info is rapidly changing. In other words, change is constant, and marketers who aren’t able to shift with a quickly evolving industry will find that their strategies won’t work as well as they used to.
Keep in Touch with Your Audience
If a marketer doesn’t understand his or her audience, the more difficult his or her job will be. Highly technical audiences respond differently to certain messaging than your average consumer. While marketing can include technical skillsets, not every personality type is good at communicating effectively with that type of audience, and extra challenge is involved for those who must market to those outside of their own experience.
Elect an Industry Expert
While every marketer should know the industry they’re marketing to, naming one person to become the team expert will curb the research time needed for the team as a whole. This industry resource should keep in touch with technical resources, guide other marketers on the team when questions arise and take care of fact-checking if the initial meaning of a content piece gets convoluted during the approval process.
Getting used to startup lingo takes time, and most companies know that there will be some simple confusion when marketers first start working in any technical industry. To eliminate these mistakes before any problems arise, marketers should always be staying up on news, headlines and innovations in the industry. For a great example of our AMC’s content concept the technical telecom industry, check out one of our recent pieces created with NEF – a December recap covering international issues and what’s ahead for telecom decision makers in 2016.
