How do you approach messaging for a technical audience vs for a non-technical audience?

Your messaging should speak the language of the customer. If your audience is technical, you can use the language that they are familiar with to articulate the value of your product. You don't want to go too jargon-heavy, but for example, if you're product helps streamline API management, and you are selling to IT, you're going to want to use "API" in your message. If you're positioning this same product to non-IT buyers, you might say "connect disparate systems." It's the same thing, but speaking to the right audience.

If you have one product that could speak to multiple audiences, who is your primary audience? That should probably dictate your message. Or if you have a product that targets a non-technical, LOB buyer, but you know the IT department is involved in the buying process, have your messaging target the non-technical buyer, but have resources that are detailed and technical enough for IT.

The best approach for messaging a technical audience is to lead with clear and concise language. Avoid any language that is vague or ambiguous. Technical audiences can spot marketing lingo from a mile away and you will lose trust with this audience very quickly if you try speaking to them the same way you would a non-technical audience.

Here are some tips for messaging a technical audience:

• Say the thing. Don't bury the lead or use too many adjectives. Just say the thing.

• Lead with features and performance

• Use language that is familiar to them

• Let a technical partner or peer tell your message with a case study or testimonial quote. A technical audience with have more trust with a peer than a marketer.

• Hone in on the benefits and metrics that are important to a technical role (development time, performance, cost of implementation)

• Use cases and specific applications are key! Technical audiences want to know exactly how the product will solve x, y, and z.

This is a very common circumstance and can be conflated when a companies products bridge both audiences. Think of a consumer product that also has developer tool versions of their software. API's, open source etc. On one hand one core audience group simply wants to know 'will this product do what I need? whereas the other one will need a much more detailed and technical breakdown of a similar question! Similar to another question here, I would always put myself in the place of the intended audience as much as possible. If I'm a non technical customer/consumer of the product what messaging, language, content resonates with me. Where is the 'technical cutoff' point when it comes to details and jargon? Conversely, if I'm a technical buyer/user..what are the key pieces of data or information I'll expect from a given piece of content to ensure its met my expectations? This is where persona's (or the evolved version of) can be helpful as a guide to ensuring you're creating for specific audiences.

Whether the audience is technical or non technical, you just need to speak their language and use their vocabulary. Using overly simple language for a technical audience won't help build credibility with that audience; using technical language with a layperson audience will just lose them in the process.

As an example, I have been working on some language that's developer facing. With my PM team we've had some debates about some of our word choices. Language that is intuitive for them, isn't intuitive for me...but I'm not the audience. This is one of those rare cases where I'm opting for more technical vernacular because I think the audience will be looking for it and it will resonate with them.

At the end of the day, get to know your personas well and tune your messaging to speak their language, not yours.

I approach them in much of the same way. Product marketing is about storytelling, and being the advocate for your consumer. For either audience, it's about keeping things simple. Your product may provide a different benefit for each audience so make sure to have identified that first, but otherwise there's no need to reinvent the messaging style.

Assuming we’re broadly talking about a technical user, and non-technical buyer here, I would focus first on learning how each makes their buying decisions. Then follow the same structure for both—why now, how we do it, why us—but abbreviate or expand each part according to that buying process. If your technical audience is deciding based on whether they like the UI—you better spend a lot of time explaining the workflow. If your non-technical audience is buying based on ROI—you better spend a lot more time on “why now.”

But everyone—technical and non-technical—wants to know how you solve a problem. It used to be enough to just anchor on the “why” for non-technical audiences but with a much fiercer competitive landscape for nearly all markets, people are no longer just buying the topline value message. Everything they demoed this week claims the same benefit, afterall. Everyone needs some understanding of how you specifically help, and where you fit with their existing stack—what you do, and don’t do. So don’t skip that, even for “non-technical” audiences.

Technical audiences want more feature-led messaging, and your features need to be clearly differentiated from your competitors. You should also invest in content that demonstrates the competitive advantage of your features up front. Technical audiences also typically care more about cost of implementation and maintenance. It's important tie your messaging to those benefits. For non-technical audiences, you can focus your primary messaging more on unique benefits (rather than features) and the outcomes they will get from using the product.