5 reasons why Engineers are good for Marketing

by | About Me, Business, Marketing, Personal Stuff

In this post I will share with you the 5 main reasons I believe make us Engineers are good for Marketing as marketers or analysts. This is applicable for organizations of any size but it is specially critical for small businesses and startups.

You may not know, but I am an Engineer. I started my studies in Materials Engineering but had a mid-career crisis and decided to swift to Production Engineering, which is base on proceses, waste reduction and optimization in all stages of a production process (for products or services). Then I got an MSc Degree in Marketing and later I completed Postgraduate studies in Digital Marketing.

So, let’s begin with the countdown.

1. We are obsessed with numbers.

And thus for that reason we like to put a cost, price tag, a number onto everything. This comes really handy whenever you need to prioritize needs or resources but it is specially important when you need to measure KPI (Key Performance Indicators) that might be relevant for your business.

I’ve experienced myself how this numbered-minded approach allows small teams to achieve their goals successfully and I’ve also seen how this skill helps to organize and assign priorities in large teams that are frequently rambling with a huge amount of goals and work to do.

2. We tend to be organized.

That is not to be mistaken with tidiness. The thing is whenever we are presented with a new challenging project we have an imperious need to design a plan (even if it’s only in our head). I guess all those years studying math and physics so we could solve several exercises in our mid-terms and finals prepared us to identify the key variables in every situation that could define the outcome for a given situation.

This structured mindset will help an engineer to design an action plan that takes into consideration every variable, asset and stakeholder in order to achieve a common goal. Is like having a project manager that can understand production processes and has the ability to detects faults on the way.

3. We’ll try to fix everything.

Engineers tend to have an unstoppable desire to fix everything, even when it doesn’t need to be fixed. I bet the famous phrase “If ain’t broke don’t fix it” made a lot of sense back then at Ford Motors assembly factories.

But picture this: you have an engineer at any position in your organization’s marketing department and suddenly he or she finds out something is wrong with an upcoming campaign, activation or ad. You can be assured that he/she will try everything to fix it, even if this implies to ask others, with the knowledge needed to find a solution.

4. We are problem solvers

Engineers don’t get afraid when presented with difficult, unknown issues. We don’t tend to panic easily (thankfully) and will take a deep breath before heading toward a new challenge.

Surely you don’t remember NASA’s engineers panicking when presented with the challenge to get to the moon or to bring back the Apolo 13 crew safe and sound to Earth. If there is a problem, we know that is up to us to find the best solution but more importantly to stay calmed and extrapolate that assurance feeling to the rest of the team.

5. Engineers are less passionate, sometimes.

Some people criticize that some of us seem to be wired like computers with just a limited amount of features built in into our brains making us sorta “socially awkward”. This stereotype became more real with The Big Bang Theory. But all jokes aside, it is true that we tend to have the ability to separate our passional vein when we need to focus in an objective.

With this an engineer becomes an easy team member to work towards a goal. Even if he or she have issues or differences with other team member the chances are that it will not interfere with the normal development of the team work.

Have you worked with an engineer in marketing tasks? What are your thoughts on this?

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