SME-based articles for non-SME audiences

​Okay. We’ll admit that the title of this blog—“ SME-based articles for non-SME audiences”—is a mouthful. But it’s also a good, important topic when it comes to business development for your consultancy or professional-services firm. And it speaks to assignments we work on a lot, to our clients’ benefit. 
 
This story starts with a story. We were tasked with writing a highly technical blog article for a high-tech client. So far, so logical. 
 
But the intended audience was non-technical.
 
Aha. 
 
Who’s pulling the purse-strings?
 
Let’s keep one thing clear here: Our mission, at Copel Communications, is to help our clients make more money. Period. All of the deliverables we produce, whether they’re websites or video scripts or blog articles like the one we’re describing here, are designed to soften the beachhead of prospects, and ease them further down the funnel into buyers. 
 
Taking a customer-back approach to the challenge of this article, we asked our client: “Who is this aimed at?” More specifically, “Who would be buying what we’re selling?”
 
This is where it gets interesting. Our client makes high-tech equipment for use in a variety of scientific applications. And there are lab technicians who use this equipment. For them, a highly technical article would be appropriate, with no need for dumbing down any of the nerdy details. 
 
But these lab technicians, although they are users of the equipment, are not the buyers of the equipment. 
 
Oooh. Let’s repeat that: 
 
These lab technicians, although they are users of the equipment, are not the buyers of the equipment. 
 
And this is where the lessons of this story apply to what is likely a ton of scenarios for your business. 
 
Two different audiences
 
The lab technicians’ bosses certainly have technical know-how, given their career path up the corporate ladder. But they don’t need to read an article on the nuts-and-bolts of this technical equipment. They’d rather know the business case for buying one (which often involves replacing an aging or lesser version of the exact same thing). 
 
More importantly, a big, albeit secondary, chunk of the intended audience was relative newbies in the field: People just starting their careers who, despite their schooling, need to quickly get up to speed in the real world to get ahead. 
 
For those people, they’d be Googling topics of interest to learn more. And thus this article was seeded with the types of keywords they’d be searching on; think of it as a “101”-type intro article on the broad applications of this piece of equipment. 
 
Now, why would you want to educate this latter audience, if they’re not doing the purchasing? 
 
Let’s make this easier by re-phrasing the above question: 
 
Why would you want to educate this latter audience, if they’re not doing the purchasing today?
 
Right. Given their ambition and hunger for information, they’ll likely be purchasers of this equipment tomorrow. Time moves fast in business. And they’ll be the ones who will thank this company (our client) for giving them the free knowledge they’d craved to get up to speed in their new careers. Not only that, but said company also proved to be a reliable source of expertise, which burnishes its brand and reputation. Why wouldn’t you go with that brand of equipment when the time comes? 
 
Un-SME-ing the SME
 
So we knew all of what we described above, about the target-audience landscape, when it came time for us to interview the subject matter expert (SME) assigned to us for the article.
 
Not only that, we explained this situation, upfront, to the SME. So she understood what our intention was, and what we needed to do. She was very generous with her expertise, but also helped us to explain the why’s and what-for’s of each nugget of information, so it would be more than just a litany of facts; it would be a basis for working knowledge in the lab.
 
And thus the article. In fact, we did a couple of these; they’re peppered in among the company’s more-technical offerings, which is a smart approach unto itself: Never assume your target audience is homogenous, especially when it comes to their level of experience or expertise. 
 
So the next time you feel inclined to push out technical promotional material to the world, (re)consider your audience. You certainly don’t want to swamp or intimidate the very people who might make formidable future allies—or customers. 
 
Need assistance with this kind of complex communication challenge? Contact us. We help our clients with assignments like this all the time, and would be delighted to help you, too. 

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