MarTech360 Interview With Wendy Covey, CEO and Co-Founder, TREW Marketing

“Companies leveraging today’s martech platforms have a distinct competitive advantage over those that don’t.”

Hi, Wendy, can you tell us something about your professional background?

I’m a technical marketing agency leader, author, and podcast host. I’ve spent my 25-year career  in business leadership, marketing, and product management roles within engineering design,  manufacturing, and software. Prior to co-founding TREW Marketing in 2008, I held numerous  leadership positions at NI (formerly National Instruments).  

I gained national recognition when I was named one of the Wall Street Journal’s 10 Most  Innovative Entrepreneurs in America.  

My book, Content Marketing, Engineered (and podcast of the same name), helps technical  marketers looking to adopt or improve their content marketing programs.  

Tell us about your role at TREW Marketing. 

My days are spent in three distinct areas of the business: strategy, new client acquisition, and  education. Alongside my leadership team, I establish long-term goals and strategic priorities for  the agency, which we then translate into annual business goals and quarterly rocks. I’m also  responsible for meeting prospective new clients to learn about their business and marketing  challenges, and assess a mutual fit.  

In the area of education, I collaborate with industry partner GlobalSpec to conduct annual  research on how technical buyers seek information to make purchase decisions. With our State  of Marketing to Engineers report findings in hand, you’ll find me behind me behind the podcast  mic or on the conference stage helping B2B technical marketers sharpen their skills and gain  new ideas.  

Also Read: MarTech360 Interview With Jeff Ballard, Director Of Partner Marketing, Aerospike, Inc

What sets TREW Marketing apart from the competition?  

For over a decade, we’ve helped engineering and technical companies build trust and fill their  sales pipelines through strategy-first content marketing. We base our work on insightful  research, unrivaled industry expertise, and detail-oriented execution.

We understand that highly technical audiences look past standard marketing tactics, so we take  a strategic, nuanced approach to meet the technical buyer exactly where they are and help  guide them to our client’s solution.

How does TREW Marketing help in driving demand with marketing dedicated to technical organisations?  

TREW Marketing partners with clients, diving in deep to understand their business goals and  then creating marketing plans to support them. From brand positioning and messaging that  clearly defines and differentiates an organization to a steady, strategic stream of lead generating content, we help prospects easily find and learn from our clients, ultimately building  trust in their brand and growing leads to impact their bottom line.

How, according to you, are MarTech and marketing automation helping in transforming the entire marketing landscape?  

When martech tools first arrived on the scene, the benefits were weighed towards marketer  efficiency. Marketers could quickly spin up a newsletter, conduct a multi-touch email campaign,  manage social media, pass leads to sales, and measure results. Then came all-in-one platforms  where all of this could be done from one log-in.  

The next phase was focused on the buyer, with new tools enabling the marketer to gain behavioral insights and build customized campaigns moving away from the “email blast” days.  

Now with underlying AI technology we are entering a new phase of benefits for the marketer  and buyer. Instead of blank email templates, our martech platforms serve up draft copy.  Instead of manually analyzing keywords, our martech platforms assess SEO performance and  serve up keyword recommendations.  

Companies leveraging today’s martech platforms have a distinct competitive advantage over those that don’t. These companies have superior buyer insight leading to higher search  rankings and messages that resonate. They can work faster too, thus able to be more agile and  get more accomplished with fewer staff. 

According to you, where does technical content marketing fit into the MarTech landscape?  

Martech is a content marketer’s superpower. With martech tools, content marketers can gain  insights into buyer behavior, including how they search, what they respond to, and how  engaged they are with the company. Martech tools also help the content marketer to work  faster and be more agile to the changing demands of the business. 

By more quickly focusing topics and generating background information, martech platforms  free technical marketers to spend their time focusing specifically on communicating their  organization’s true differentiators – nuanced benefits of their company’s products, specialized  technical expertise, or novel thought leadership. 

What role does Technical Marketing play in creating a content strategy? 

When developing a content strategy, I’ve found the winning formula to be a small group gathering of three roles: those closest to the solution (e.g. product, service, industry), those  closest to the customer (sales), and a content marketing strategist. With this mix, the group has  the right combined knowledge to identify buyer persona needs and pain points, and map out  specific content themes, topics and form factors all designed to build trust and pull the buyer  through their journey. 

How do you envisage Technical Marketing to evolve in the years to come? 

Being a marketer at a highly technical company can be challenging. Skeptical engineers and  scientists, whose purchase decisions are often highly critical and require much due diligence,  search exhaustively to find very specific content from sources they can trust. It can be difficult  for the technical marketer to think beyond the more obvious content topics and anticipate how  the buyer might find and use their solution. Even if they do anticipate some of these tentacles,  creating content across multiple industries, applications and getting full buyer’s journey  coverage can be time and budget prohibitive.  

The way in which AI-enabled martech tools are evolving looks to be a huge win for technical  marketers looking to go very deep with their content and SEO strategy. This will be a huge win  in performing better in search, gaining trust more quickly, and shortening the buyer’s journey.

Could you name some platforms/tools that you use for marketing? 

We’ve been a Platinum HubSpot Partner for over a decade. In addition, we use SEM Rush, Moz,  Canva, Adobe, Grammarly, Trint and BuzzSprout (to name a few!). We are looking to adopt new  AI-enabled platforms for content strategy and content development, and our shortlist includes  MarketMuse, DemandJump Jasper, Writer, and Ryter. 

What would be your advice for all the aspiring technical marketers out there? 

Most marketers in technical industries are not engineers, and this can feel intimidating. Do your  homework – learn what real-world problems are solved by your company’s solutions, what  makes your company unique, and big-picture care-abouts in your industry. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and lean on subject-matter-experts, but having some basic context will help you  build credibility and get further, faster.  

Thanks, Wendy!