One of the greatest challenges tech marketers face is generating meaningful, technically accurate content—and at scale. Even SEO blog posts, which often get a bad rap, need to provide value to your readers. But this is especially relevant for strategic content assets like white papers, cheat sheets, videos, and other assets that require deep technical expertise.
And no matter how good your tech marketing content people are—whether they’re writers, scriptwriters, animators, or any other title—they’re exactly that: marketing content creators. Meaning they’re not in the trenches, working with the technology they write about day in and day out.
Yet when trying to reach those crucial tech practitioner audiences, whether developers, UI designers, IT specialists, or SOC analysts, you need authenticity first and foremost. Otherwise, they’ll click away without even looking at your message.
That’s why, to give your content depth and authenticity, you need a great relationship with a subject matter expert (SME). The SME is anyone with a deep understanding of the technical topic they’re writing about. SMEs can be engineers, scientists, product managers, or anyone else who has extensive experience with the product or service they’re describing.
In tech writing, SMEs are vital for getting content creators the accurate and most recent information they need. They can also help communicate complex concepts and guide content creators in translating these into clear, concise language. But getting and keeping them on board isn’t always simple.
In this post, the first in a two-part series, we’ll use case studies from IOD’s experience working with the biggest tech enterprises to explore in detail:
- Why building a relationship between SMEs and marketing is so crucial
- What challenges are involved
- How you can start building working relationships that drive powerful, authentic tech content
Why Involve an SME in Tech Content Creation?
The extent to which an SME will be involved will naturally depend on the type of content you’re creating. Here are a few examples of popular tech marketing content categories, along with the range of expertise and level of SME involvement.
| SME role | Level of SME expertise | |
|---|---|---|
| Blog posts | Provide topic suggestions and insights based on trends; consult on technical aspects and industry trends; ensure that posts are accurate, up-to-date, and easy to understand. | Moderate to high (depending on the topic) |
| How-to videos & demos | Provide technical expertise and onscreen demonstrations; help to develop scripts, record screens, and demonstrate step-by-step instructions; anticipate and answer user questions; ensure that videos are accurate, up-to-date, and easy to follow. | High |
| Infographics | Help select a message, along with accurate data and content for the infographic; ensure that statistics and messaging are relevant to prospective user experience and pain points. | Low to medium |
| White papers | Provide technical expertise and insights on complex topics; help develop research methods, analyze data, and validate messaging for a practitioner audience. | High |
| Case studies | Suggest satisfied customers to profile; provide technical expertise and insights on how their product or service solves real-world pain points; help interview customers and ensure the entire case study will appeal to hands-on audiences. | Medium |
| Social media posts | Help plan topics to address in creative, engaging ways; determine which channels (e.g., LinkedIn vs. TikTok) and media types (e.g., short video vs. infographic or quote graphic) are most appropriate for your audiences; select aspects of the new product or service to showcase in fun, interactive ways. | Medium |
In all of these cases, it’s possible to create these types of content, especially the lower-expertise categories, without direct and ongoing interaction with an SME. However, it’s almost always more efficient to bring them in as part of the process from the very beginning rather than simply dragging them in at the end to correct technical errors—especially given that changes in content can be much more difficult to fix at a later stage of the game.
And it’s very difficult to create compelling, authentic content without three essential ingredients that the SME can bring to the table early on in the content creation process:
- Product familiarity: Their intimate knowledge of the platform’s features
- User familiarity: Their grasp of the audience you’re trying to reach
- Workflow familiarity: Their thorough understanding of how users interact with the product and the benefits it provides them
Yet one reason that tech content creators often go it alone—without consulting with an SME—is that it can be so hard to cultivate a relationship with them. So difficult that they start to think it’s not worth it. But with a better mindset and procedures in place across your organization, as we’ll see, it really is possible.
What Are the Challenges in Building a Relationship with an SME?
When you’re trying to establish and maintain a relationship between content creators and the SMEs on their team, the challenges fall mainly into two categories: pushback from the SME and lack of leadership buy-in.
The issue of leadership buy-in obviously starts at the top. For example, leaders in tech companies often simply aren’t aware of how much support tech marketing content creators need from the R&D team. In that case, it can take a mindset shift to convince leadership that deep technical content is the only way to win over audiences in today’s era.
But often, the resistance seems to be coming directly from the SME—and honestly, who can blame them? Their concerns are certainly legitimate:
- They’re busy with their main job, whether that’s development, testing, or something else.
- Content creation isn’t central to their core job description.
- They have multiple demands on their time—including, potentially, multiple marketing teams needing their expertise.
Even once you have an SME on board, things can be challenging. As much as content creators rely on R&D, for instance, they still may not know how to reach the target audience.
For example, they might wind up writing content at a level that’s too advanced for an audience just getting to know the product. And when it comes to technical audiences, they don’t want to be talked down to, have to digest information at hyperspeed, or sit through a video that doesn’t speak their language.
While it’s true that content creators need SMEs, SMEs need content creators just as much to translate technical aspects into more approachable content (More on this in Part 2, we promise!).
In any event, the hazards of not working with an SME can be pretty deadly when you’re trying to establish your credibility as a serious tech brand. You could wind up with content that is…
- Inaccurate or misleading, like poor descriptions of product functionality
- Irrelevant to the target audience, if content is created for the C-suite, not developers
- Boring or uninformative, such as content that is too vague or generic to deliver any value
And of course, the biggest problem of all—since it often means you have to go right back to square one—is that the SME may not like your final product. This, in turn, could damage the tech marketing department’s relationship with them, leading to one of two terrible outcomes:
- They’ll refuse to work with marketing in the future, or
- They’ll insist on creating content themselves rather than leaving it to the experts.
This is especially true if it’s the SME’s name that will be appearing in the byline, as they are rightfully worried about their reputation in the industry.
Cautionary Tale: CommsCore
The story of “CommsCore” (not the company’s real name) is a cautionary tale, one of many from IOD’s long experience, of a time when a lack of SME coordination led to a marketing disaster.
CommsCore was a traditional large tech brand, a leading software & services provider to large communications and media companies. They were used to working with tech writers alone, which yielded generic, “fluff” content that lacked technical depth.
When they initially partnered with IOD to outsource their tech content writing, their marketing team filled in IOD’s standard briefs with only the barest details of what they wanted us to write. IOD’s own SMEs flagged the briefs they’d filled in, saying they weren’t detailed enough, especially as CommsCore had said they wanted to target practitioner audiences.
At that point, IOD suggested bringing in its own “SME gatekeeper,” who arranged for CommsCore’s SMEs and tech marketers to meet with IOD’s writers, kickstarting IOD’s tried-and-true process for creating winning technical content:
- The client or IOD content strategist fills in the brief, indicating exactly what is needed (format, topic, length, deadline, voice, and more).
- The client has the opportunity to speak directly to the IOD content writer to clarify relevant product details, USP, and any other aspects needed.
- IOD’s content team produces an outline.
- The outline is revised and honed until it’s approved by the client’s tech marketers and SMEs.
- IOD’s content creators produce a content draft based on the client-approved outline.
- The draft is revised and honed until it’s approved by the client’s tech marketers and SMEs.
Thanks to this rigorous multi-step process and IOD’s onboard tech experts, CommsCore was finally able to start reaching the audiences that were so critical to its acceptance and growth in the tech community.
Crucial to this shift, as mentioned, was improving the procedures and mindset across the organization. The old mindset, which did indeed stem from CommsCore’s leadership, was that SMEs didn’t need to bother working with tech marketing. For example, they believed that filling in the brief was a task for marketing—in part because marketers were reluctant to involve SMEs in tech content creation due to inefficiencies. This resulted in a cycle in which, for the most part, tech experts were relatively uninvolved in content production.
Once leadership began communicating the importance of making inroads with tech audiences and incentivizing SMEs to get involved—and IOD helped establish a clear process that involved them—SMEs also began to step up and help out.
4 Tips for Getting and Keeping SMEs on Board
Getting SMEs to collaborate with tech marketing efforts doesn’t have to be like pulling teeth. Based on our extensive experience working with the world’s leading tech brands from startup to enterprise scale, here are a few tips for engaging SMEs and keeping them active and interested in helping out with tech marketing tasks.
1. Educate SMEs for Success
Nobody likes unknowns. Boosting SME participation in your tech content production often starts with letting them know:
- Why they should be involved
- How it helps the organization
- What exactly the process will be
Make sure they know what’s expected of them. Reassure them that they don’t have to leave their comfort zone or do the heavy lifting of content creation by themselves.
2. Incentivize Participation
When SMEs say “It’s not in my job description,” they’re not usually wrong. So find ways to offer them incentives to participate in tech marketing, like bonuses or recognition. And make it part of the business culture going forward: Let new hires know that collaboration with marketing is both expected and a fantastic way to advance their career in the organization.
3. Highlight Benefits for the SME
Help the SME understand that participating in the tech marketing process can benefit them personally, allowing them to:
- Share their expertise with a wider audience
- Learn new skills
- Think about their product from new angles
- Position themselves as industry leaders and authorities, especially if they’re given a byline
- See how their work is helping achieve business goals
4. Communicate Respect
Make the process as efficient as possible so you don’t waste the SME’s time. Prioritize transparency, setting clear meeting agendas and hard time limits. Also, be aware that development or production demands may call them away or limit their availability at times. You should also make sure to minimize demand on any one SME by having multiple SMEs to call on.
With these guidelines in place, ideally, you’ll start seeing greater buy-in over time. And as SMEs start seeing results, their enthusiasm will grow; they may even begin taking a proactive approach to support tech marketing efforts, like noticing industry trends and suggesting blog posts or angles for social media engagement.
The Secret to a Healthy SME-Content Marketer Relationship
Ultimately, building a healthy relationship between content creators and SMEs comes down to what every relationship demands: mutual respect, understanding, trust, and clear channels of communication. Yet because many organizations still place tech marketing in its own silo, or have a culture that doesn’t foster this collaboration, the challenges persist despite the benefits of working together.
SMEs bring the technical expertise that tech marketers and content creators need to reach the practitioner audiences essential to a company’s success. When these two groups work together, they can create powerful tech marketing content that educates, engages, and inspires potential customers.
In our next post in this series, we’ll look at some of the challenges that run the other way: When people who are deeply involved in the technical side of things attempt to create and share content without bringing in marketing experts. While content creators need SMEs, the opposite is also true; writers are not tech experts, but tech experts are also not writers or content creators. You need both to drive a truly effective content creation machine.
Looking for a way to connect your SMEs with a content marketing team to help you generate meaningful tech content at scale? Want to take the burden of your R&D team and tap into an extensive network of tech experts, bloggers, video pros, and more? Get in touch with IOD today.
