Technology is continuously evolving, and with it, the media landscape. It's ever-changing, but that's what makes it exciting! But this rapid change is also challenging for tech companies who need to stand out and captivate buyers because they’re often pulled in many directions as they navigate high-pressure, crowded markets full of larger incumbents. Unfortunately, this can prevent these companies from surpassing shinier startups or catching up to larger incumbents, especially if they lack a substantial marketing budget.
Tech companies tired of being just another face in the crowd can implement a few strategic tactics to enhance their visibility and stand out in a crowded market. But before they reach their customers through these tactics, companies must understand the industry drivers and overall media trends shaping their market, then align their current position accordingly to secure coverage in channels that are relevant to their buyers. Understanding these trends can help companies address their target buyer’s pain points, especially as a customer-centric focus becomes increasingly popular in the B2B space.
Ensuring Your Arrow’s Aim is True
A targeted media approach can reveal overall industry trends and help you amplify your voice. But amplifying your voice in a crowded market is not about yelling and selling – it's about joining the conversation in targeted outlets. Furthermore, it’s about using your unique expertise to shape that conversation and provide value to the customers who are listening. To resonate with those customers, you must offer a thoughtful angle on the established truths and realities facing your industry, whether it’s a projection, a key insight or a contrarian viewpoint. But before we explore other thought leadership tactics, let's investigate current telecom and 5G trends to inform our efforts.
The State of Telecom Media in 2023
The easiest way to understand current media trends is to analyze prominent trade shows hosted by media outlets. On the heels of ITW2023 (hosted by Capacity Media) and the Big 5G Event (hosted by Light Reading), Engage PR decided to do your homework for you and research the shows to expose telecom media’s current interests.
As a conference tailored to the wholesale market, ITW’s major topics included capacity, data cloud, messaging and subsea. The keynotes focused on pressing business and societal issues, including inflationary pressures, rising energy costs, cloud infrastructure, edge computing and actionable sustainability initiatives. The conference also included panels on bridging the digital divide in traditionally underserved communities.
The Big 5G Event covered similar topics while portraying 5G as a vehicle for innovation. The event featured ambitious perspectives, with many panels relating 6G development to sustainability and machine learning. Familiar topics included power consumption, enterprise private networking, edge computing and cloud computing. The Big 5G Event also featured Open RAN and similar open ecosystem topics, primarily as they relate to the edge.
Pitch Your Real-World Value, Not Your Technical Specs
So, what can you do with this information? Craft content by considering these topics in the context of your customers’ problems. For example, does your product address problems with edge computing, like subpar capacity or the prohibitive cost of bringing the data cloud to the edge? Does your solution help colocation data center operators reduce power consumption and costs to address the energy crisis? Does your solution enable open ecosystems, empowering service providers with enhanced equipment choice, cost-savings and efficiency? AI is a hot topic in every industry - can you discuss how your product supports cloud infrastructure, thereby enabling AI?
These are simple but important questions that can make a big difference when securing coverage in relevant outlets that your target audience trusts. Remember, your target buyers are human beings with emotions and problems. So, this emphasis on real-world value boils down to one question – how does your product or service help real people? How does it relate to top business or societal trends that the media and analyst communities care about? Relating your product to concrete problems can also help you avoid technical jargon and abstraction when describing your product’s benefits.
Tune in next week for Pt. 2 of this blog, focusing on how to craft a thoughtful thought leadership strategy that positions your business to the right audiences, influencers and buyers through a multi-channel approach, helping you join and drive the conversation.
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