In a recent episode of The Inspectations Podcast, CEO of The Aebli Group, Justin Starbird, sat down with Russ Fordyce, Director of Content Marketing for Infinera, to talk about the challenges they face each day in marketing cutting-edge, yet complex technology solutions.
Infinera is developing the latest technologies for the optical networking industry. As Russ explains, "Basically, if you think about your internet connections, somewhere outside your house is a fiber optic cable, and at the end of each fiber optics is a laser. Infinera makes the hardware and software to build these optical networks."
It is a very complicated subject, but everybody understands the problem. We're all in need of more and more bandwidth. The way to get more and more bandwidth is to innovate at the optical level, which is what Infinera is doing.
There are many challenges when it comes to marketing and selling innovative and new technologies, especially one so complicated. Not only do you need to build brand awareness, but you need to do so in a way that allows your clients to understand your solutions and where they fit into their network.
One key to doing so is knowing who you’re talking to. "Ours is a very technical sale," Russ says, "you're talking about how light works, how lasers work, and the theoretical and real limitations of those technologies. You really have to know where you are in the sales cycle for a piece of marketing or sales content. Who is it aimed at? Is it aimed at the CEO of a big service provider, or is it aimed at the director of technology for a data center provider? Those are very different stories, very different roles inside a company. We're really making sure that we know when in the buying cycle and where in the buying cycle our content is going to be most useful."
Russ also says that "When the decision maker of a company is not an optical engineer, we have to find ways to explain our technology in simple terms so they can understand the impact. "
The secret sauce, Russ acknowledges, is telling the story in a way that meets the audience.
To do so, Infinera develops a set of marketing initiatives and collateral for every product. Products get a webpage, a two-page overview sheet and a sales presentation at a minimum. The rest is developed based on the target audience and sales cycle. Infinera uses animation and explainer videos, with the help of TAG, to effectively tell the story of each solution.
"Explainer videos are important for us," Russ explains. "We’re developing brand new technologies so we need an effective way to build awareness and explain how something works in layman's terms. These videos have really helped us tell those stories."
"Using the TAG team to help with these videos is beneficial," Russ says, "because we're giving them a script and some ideas on a storyboard, and they come at it with a fresh perspective and bring that narrative to life. They're not experts in optical networking, so they're helping us make it more useful just by taking ownership of that video and really making it their own."
They are also continuing to evolve the way they use these video stories. As Russ explains, "Our engagement rate when we use video in social networking is taking off. We are working on the early phase of the sales funnel where we are building awareness and making sure customers know who we are, what we do, and that we're different. We find that social media is a very good awareness platform and using video is getting us more traction."
“We're focused on launching new products into the market and making sure we have awareness of our current product. That's job number one,” Russ says. “Then what we're doing is enabling our sales team with the materials they need to get in the door and to showcase products in a meaningful way over a multi-year sales cycle "
To learn more about the amazing innovation at Infinera and the ways in which they are connecting with their clients, listen to "Telling a Simple Story About Cutting-Edge Technology" on The Inspectations Podcast. Live now!
The Inspectations Podcast brings together business leaders from all industries to talk about best practices, innovation, leadership, and business development. The concept was born from an internal conversation within the TAG team, which resulted in the realization that processes and systems could be improved.
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