Writing Content Technical Buyers Won't Dismiss

To write content technical buyers won't dismiss, replace adjectives with specifics: how it works, what it connects to, where it falls short and what it costs to run. Let your engineers shape every technical claim, and be honest about trade-offs. Technical readers trust proof, not polish.

A marketing leader I spoke with recently said her first move when joining a company is to make best friends with the engineers, because any technical buyer will sniff out marketing content so quickly, and they'll dismiss your brand immediately.

That matches what I've seen selling to IT and engineering teams. They aren't looking for reasons to like you. They're looking for the first sign you don't know what you're talking about.

Why fluff costs so much

With most buyers, a vague page is just a weak page. With technical buyers, it's worse. One overblown claim and they decide the whole company is marketing first, substance second. They won't read further, and they'll say so to their colleagues.

That means a single bad page can cost you deals you'll never see.

Make friends with your engineers

Your engineers know what the product actually does, where it struggles and what technical buyers ask about. Most marketing teams barely talk to them.

Fix that first:

• Interview engineers for every technical piece. Thirty minutes is often enough.
• Have them review any claim about how the product works.
• Ask them what questions they get from customers' technical teams.
• Put their names on deeper pieces when they've contributed real expertise.

Engineers are often happy to help when they see their input makes the content better, not just louder.

Swap adjectives for specifics

Go through your technical pages and look for words like seamless, revolutionary, powerful, next-generation, best-in-class. Each one is a place where a specific should be.

• Instead of "seamless integration," say which systems it connects to and how.
• Instead of "blazing fast," give the actual performance under realistic conditions.
• Instead of "enterprise-grade security," list the specific controls and certifications.

If you can't fill in the specific, that's a sign the claim isn't ready.

Show your limits

Technical buyers trust a vendor that says what its product doesn't do. A short section like "when this isn't the right fit" can do more for credibility than any feature list. It also saves your sales team from bad-fit deals.

Let them verify

Wherever you can, give technical readers a way to check for themselves: documentation, sample configurations, a sandbox, a free trial, a public changelog. Link to them from your marketing pages. Content that invites verification signals confidence.

Write the bottom-of-funnel pages carefully

Comparison pages, integration pages and alternatives pages are where technical buyers make decisions. They're also where fluff does the most damage. Make these the most specific, most honest pages on your site.

Signs technical buyers are dismissing you

• Engineers visit your site, skip the product pages and go straight to the docs, or leave.
• Technical stakeholders drop off after the first sales call.
• Your sales engineers spend time "un-saying" things from your marketing.
• Comparison pages get traffic but almost no demo requests.

What to do this week

Take your most-visited product or comparison page and print it. Hand it to one of your engineers with a red pen and one instruction: circle anything you'd be embarrassed to say to a peer. Rewrite every circled line with a specific, or cut it. Then ask that engineer which three questions customers' technical teams ask most, and check whether the page answers them.

A worked example

Take a typical integration page: "Seamlessly connects with your favorite tools." A technical buyer learns nothing. Rewrite it as: which systems it connects to, whether the connection is one-way or two-way, how often data syncs, what happens when a sync fails, and what it can't do. It's longer and less flashy. It's also the version an engineer forwards to their manager with "this looks legit." Add a link to the docs, and you've given them a way to check every claim.

Common mistakes

• Hiding the docs. If technical buyers can't find documentation from your marketing pages, they assume it's thin.
• Writing for the economic buyer only. The engineer reads the page too, and often first.
• Overclaiming performance. One number that doesn't hold up in testing undoes every other claim.

See which technical searches you're missing

Technical buyers search for specific comparisons, integrations and alternatives. The 15-minute traffic check shows which of those searches you show up for, and which you don't.

See the traffic you're missing. BoFu, Baby builds bottom-of-funnel content engines for B2B companies: 15 money pages and 15 supporting posts in 90 days, built to rank on Google and get you named by ChatGPT. See what you're missing.