Find your thing -
Find your market
Marketing for engineering consultants
and technical service providers
Things you know about
Things your customers care about
Connect around
Things that matter
Understanding the things that matter allows you to differentiate your offering and build genuine connections, while developing your brand and grounding your marketing
1
Clarify your value proposition
2
Become a thought leader
3
Attract a community of followers
4
Identify what resonates
Who is this approach for?
Your services are the best in your field but you still lose bids to lesser rivals, who compete on price. Prospects don't get the value you offer. You need a better way of sharing that.
You are tired of constantly educating prospects, giving away your best insights with no certainty of getting the work. You need to minimise the BD burden and find better leads.
Your team thrives under pressure in boom times but your work pipeline is uncertain. To avoid the bust times, you need relationships that deliver work regularly.
You have a small to medium sized team that punches above its weight. You want to grow your business to rival the big players but you need a marketing plan you believe in.
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You are your industry's best kept secret, but are too busy delivering services to market your brilliance. You need to shine and build a strong brand where people come to you.
You have tried all the usual marketing approaches, but the connection between marketing and sales is a mystery. You want a strategy you can understand and works.
Four things that will transform and ground your marketing to build your work pipeline
1. Value proposition Analysis: Identify the things that differentiate
2. Growth Hacking: Experiment to find the things that work
3. Thought Leadership: Create things that unify your marketing
4. Communities of Practice: Things that bring people together
You are operating in a highly competitive market. It's not enough to offer what everyone else does. Dig deep to find the Things that customers care about that are unmet or underserved needs. Use these to develop strategy.
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Your industry is a complex ecosystem where traditional practices are not guaranteed to deliver outcomes. Experimentation is required to identify the Things that work best for your unique context.
In the age of AI, where everyone has access to the same tools, marketing is getting harder not easier. True thought leadership is needed to stand out from the crowd. Find the theme among the Things that matter and drive it.
People crave human connection and they connect around Things they have in common. Use things that matter to attract people into your sphere then evolve them or co-create new things to keep them there.
We work with you to connect the dots (things!)
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Every aspect of marketing can be connected by the things that matter, as follows:
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We identify the Things that really matter through a value proposition analysis process, involving interviews with all key stakeholders including customers.
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Key Things include jobs-to-be-done, factors of competition, and thought leadership positions.
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A strategic plan is developed, a working theory, where we aim to identify Things that may differentiate your firm and gain market traction.
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Strategic assumptions, being the things we think really matter, are A/B tested via various marketing channels and activities as we begin to implement the plan.
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As we firm up Things we know really matter, we develop associated thought leadership positions, that help cut through and build your brand.
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The Things that really matter form the basis of attracting people to your own private community of like-minded people, where the things evolve in a co-creative process.
The real power of this approach is the building of a body of market knowledge that is evidence-based, tested and evolves over time. It provides confidence that what you do is truly aligned with what your market wants. No more guessing! Knowledge is power.
InDepth is proudly different
Most marketing companies don't really understand they psyche of engineering and technical services. Founded, owned and operated by an engineer, InDepth not only brings broad knowledge of your industry to our services, but a heartfelt appreciation and admiration of what you do.
We also get how smart you are and that's why we are confident our systematic "things" based approach will resonate with your logical mindset. While our core techniques are based on traditional and proven marketing foundations, the way we go about it is entirely different from other marketers.
In particular, we are building capability in Graph RAG, a foundational basis for informing AI tools of your unique context to improve marketing outputs and eliminating hallucination - a critical factor for any company trading off their knowledge and reputation. We believe all companies will need to develop knowledge graph capability to fully leverage the power of AI and we are working to co-develop this capability with our forward thinking clients. Research the impact of knowledge graphs and Graph RAG on the future of business, then talk to us.
With 20+ years of experience in engineering communication and marketing across all engineering disciplines and industries; having worked as an engineer in consulting; and a knowledge management PhD in how Things drive connection across organisational boundaries, InDepth Communication is uniquely placed to assist you. Read more About Us
InDepth Owner Dr Tim Kannegieter
Core Services
Value Proposition Analysis
This is the core of our service offering and the basis of all good marketing, identifying customer Jobs-To-Be-Done, Pains and Gains and we extend the analysis to include identification of Factors of Competition. The process includes interviews and workshops with customers and other stakeholders. Transcripts are parsed to identify the things customers care about. A process of affinity mapping and abstraction arrives at the key factors that underpin your marketing strategy. No matter how well you think you know market, this process is guaranteed to generate ideas on how to improve what you do and how you market your business. Deliverables include:
● Service alignment recommendations
The value proposition process include development of recommendation for altering or reframing your company’s core Services to address customer needs. This include framing of your Pain Relievers and Gain Creators.
● Unique Value Proposition
The analysis helps articulate your core services in a way that is aligned to customers needs. The differences between you and your competitors is teased out to help form a Unique Value Proposition. An elevator pitch and tagline can also be generated.
● Marketing Plan Input
The VPA forms a key element of the Strategic Planning process and provides input to brand and thought leadership recommendation. All key messaging can be traced back to actual quotes.
Thought leadership marketing
Building on the value proposition analysis we identify and group related insights to identify thought leadership positions that help you stand out from crowd. From there we identify an overarching theme that should permeate all marketing activities. Services and deliverables include:
● Theme identification
We facilitate collaborative brainstorming of thought leadership content so you totally own the process and outputs.
● Campaign Plan
We identify the range of topics to be covered in a thought leadership campaign, as well as recommendations on the formats and channels to deliver your messaging.
● Collateral generation
We draft content, gain your feedback and work with third party providers to deliver content in formats that break through, including podcasting, video production and more.
Community Facilitation
To build your audience, we support and facilitate the development of your own private community of practice, focused on your niche. We identify the Things that will attract people and what Things they want to collaborate on with like-minded peers. We then help organise and run community activities. Activities and deliverables include:
● Community infrastructure
We establish the mechanisms by which people join your community, register for events and access member-only materials.
● Program of events
We establish a program of events and activities that correspond to identified Things that Matter. We help find and schedule speakers, panellists and activity leaders.
● Collateral generation
We process event recordings to deliver output collateral in multiple agreed formats and channels, including event recordings, summary of learnings, and collaborative evolution or development of Things, including tools, techniques and other such practices.
Marketing strategic planning and monitoring
We start by auditing your current marketing practices, identifying pain points and possibilities that align with the InDepth marketing approach. We identify low-hanging fruit options and how to fill gaps in best practices. The audit also includes an examination of the complexity of your specific context, identifying the sources of complexity that are preventing the expected marketing outcomes. This process is ideally delivered in conjunction with a Value Proposition Analysis, Thought Leadership, and Community services (see above), but can precede them and evolve over time. Services and deliverables include:
● Marketing strategic plan
This includes a summary of initial findings and recommendations from the initial audit, complexity investigation, and other InDepth services (if conducted). This will integrate and summarise the value proposition, thought leadership and community strategies. The plan may also include business recommendations to ensure alignment between the delivery of services and the marketing promise.
● Marketing Playbook
This sets out all the key marketing elements, including messaging, brand guidelines, and SEO/AIO strategy, as a guide to people carrying out the marketing activities and sub-contractors delivering specific marketing tactics.Supporting services
Digital marketing - advertising and promotion
Implementation of advertising and promotional campaigns. Deliverables include: ● SEO for the AI era: Creating "helpful content" to optimise your website for the new AI era approach to SEO. ● LinkedIn campaign management ● Google PPC: Pay-per-click advertising for search, display and remarketing. ● LinkedIn Advertising: Choose from the full range of options to promote your content or display advertisements on the premier social media platform for professionals. ● Conversion rate optimisation: Analyse the performance of landing pages and implement website changes as required.
Regular marketing support activities
Delivery of regular marketing activities as required including: ● Content marketing: Writing blog and social media content including technical talk for your geeky fans, company news that positions your organisation, relevant industry news, staff profiles and more. ● Collateral development including Product/Service brochures; presentations, case studies, downloadable lead generation assets. ● Exhibitions: Development of displays and banners for exhibitions.
Communication coaching
People and their skill in communication is at the heart of all effective marketing, and engineers often struggle. We help our staff communicate better both internally and externally. Deliverables include: ● Personality profiling using DISC customised to communication traits ● Public speaking fundamentals, group courses or one-on-one coaching and ghost writing speeches ● Personal thought leadership coaching
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Ghost writing, grant applications, bid documents
Contact Us
Have a marketing communication challenge? Contact the CEO, Dr Tim Kannegieter, for a free consultation.
Email:
Phone:
0407 219 570