October 16, 2009
In
Public Relations, Technology, Uncategorized
Hey Marketers: Don't Count Out the Developers!
By Suzanne McGee, Account Director, Fusion NY (@mcgeepr)
Today’ blog post by Max Kalehoff, entitled, “Are Marketers More Important Than Developers?,” caught my eye. I’ve never thought that there was a difference in terms of involvement, strengths or needs when working with internal development or marketing teams. Both serve very different purposes, but both provide unique benefits and insights to their company.
In our PR work, we welcome the opportunity to meet with everyone from developers to sales pros to executives. They all have very valuable contributions and viewpoints that are helpful in telling corporate and product stories. In fact, it’s an area of concern for us if we can’t speak to a range of audiences, including company employees. Most will never talk to reporters, but they have insights that we find helpful in our jobs. And many times, it’ll be a developer or sales rep that may see a new trend coming that we can promote.
Include ‘em all – a company is made up of everyone working in it. Anytime you leave someone out, you don’t have the full story.
Chris Michaels
October 16, 2009 at 1:13 pmExcellent point Suzanne. You can't ignore internal groups.
At Fusion, we often enjoy the meetings with development teams. Even some members of our staff were former engineers, product developers, programmers and management consultants. That experience, allows us to understand clients not only on the macro level of how the company plays in the marketplace, but also to the micro level of how the product/service works. Moreover, the knowledge gained in these types of meetings is invaluable when you have to take technical concepts and translate it in ways that resonate to specific audiences (e.g analysts, media, other developers, etc.).
Additionally, the "in-the-trenches" staff brings a different perspective to the table, and often rich insights into trends, customer concerns or even holes in the competition's offering. Developers, engineers and product managers are a valuable resource that cannot be ignored.