Technology companies, since they are largely peopled by technically oriented individuals, often fall into the trap of creating marketing and sales materials that are overly focused on the technical side of the product. Product Managers usually play an indispensable role in pulling the development of marketing collateral and sales tools over towards the business perspective.

There are a number of reasons why marketing and sales efforts at technology companies tend to be too technical despite the fact that there is a great deal of specialized marketing knowledge out there in the market, with plenty of skilled marketeers. First, as with all other industries, people who start at a company due to their technical training rise through the ranks and take positions in the Marketing department. Such individuals may have a bent for marketing or sales, but lack a systematic exposure to marketing concepts and skills.

Second, formally trained but very business-oriented marketeers at technology companies find themselves dealing with a complex and inaccessible product that is a challenge for a typical non-techie to learn. Therefore they depend upon a cadre of technical people for explanations of how the product works, how it’s used, and why people use it. Their best efforts to provide clear and plain spoken explanations still reflect the strong technical bias of their sources of information.

Third, technology companies are more than happy to target prospects in IT and other technical areas because they think that is their audience of potential buyers. This is usually incorrect, since the buying power is with the business users or the executive team, but if you assume you are targeting IT departments, you craft a very technical message.

Product Managers, as individuals whose job it is to understand the business perspective on the product in order to translate it into requirements and other technical instructions, can also provide the right input to Marketing and Sales, input that focuses on the business side.

Read on below for some pointers on creating business oriented collateral and sales tools that successfully convince executives and non-technical managers to make a purchase.