Your chief engineer can explain the metallurgical properties of your latest alloy development in exhaustive detail. Your technical director can describe your machining tolerances down to the micron. Your project manager can walk through your quality assurance process step by step.
And none of that is helping you win work.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: the technical excellence that makes your engineering brilliant is exactly what's making your marketing ineffective. Your engineers write like engineers because they are engineers. They're being entirely rational, accurate, and thorough. They're just not being commercial.
And if your website content, case studies, and proposals are written primarily by technical people (or heavily influenced by them), you're almost certainly losing opportunities to competitors who are less capable but more articulate.
The Engineer's Curse
Engineers are trained to be precise. To avoid ambiguity. To support every claim with data. To never oversimplify. These are exactly the qualities that make someone excellent at engineering and terrible at marketing.
When an engineer writes about your capabilities, they instinctively focus on what's technically interesting: the specifications, the methodologies, the tolerances, the certifications. They write for an audience of other engineers who will appreciate the technical rigour.
The problem? Your buyers aren't reading in engineer mode. They're reading in buyer mode.
Even when your buyer is technically qualified – and in engineering B2B, they often are – they're not reading your website to learn about your processes. They're reading to answer a much simpler question: "Can this company solve my problem?"
And if they have to work too hard to find that answer, they won't bother.
What Engineering-Speak Actually Sounds Like
Let's be specific. Here's the kind of content we see constantly on engineering company websites:
"Our advanced CNC machining capabilities include 5-axis simultaneous milling with positional accuracy of ±0.005mm, supported by our Renishaw Equator™ comparative gauging system and full CMM verification to ISO 10360-2:2009."
Technically accurate? Absolutely. Impressive to other engineers? Definitely. Meaningful to the operations director trying to solve a production bottleneck? Not remotely.
Here's what that same capability sounds like when written for buyers:
"We deliver precision-machined components that meet your exact specifications, first time, every time. Our 5-axis CNC capabilities mean we can handle complex geometries that other suppliers can't, and our verification processes ensure you receive parts that are guaranteed to fit."
Same capability. Completely different impact.
The Technical Accuracy Trap
Engineers hate the second version. It feels imprecise. It doesn't mention specific standards. It oversimplifies the complexity of what you do. It sounds like marketing.
Which is exactly the point.
Your engineer is worried about being technically incorrect. Your buyer is worried about making a bad decision. These are fundamentally different concerns, and they require fundamentally different communication.
This doesn't mean lying or exaggerating. It means leading with outcomes instead of specifications. Benefits instead of features. Results instead of processes.
The technical detail still matters – but it belongs in the supporting evidence, not the headline message.
Who's Actually Reading Your Content?
Here's something most engineering businesses don't fully appreciate: the person reading your website or proposal often isn't the technical expert who will ultimately use your product or service.
They're a procurement manager who needs to create a shortlist. They're a finance director who needs to understand why you're worth the premium. They're an operations manager who needs to know you can deliver on time.
Even in highly technical industries, buying decisions are made by committees. And not everyone on that committee has an engineering degree.
The technical expert on their team will absolutely dig into your specifications eventually. But if your content is so technically dense that the non-technical stakeholders can't understand it, you won't make it to that stage.
You've optimised your content for the final 10% of the buying journey and made the first 90% unnecessarily difficult.
The Pattern We See
Engineering companies that struggle with this tend to follow the same pattern:
Their "About Us" page reads like a capabilities list rather than explaining who they help and how. Their case studies focus on what they did instead of what the client achieved. Their service descriptions explain methodologies when they should be explaining outcomes.
Their content answers the question "What do we do?" when buyers are asking "What can you do for me?"
And because this content is often written or heavily reviewed by technical people who care deeply about accuracy, it gets progressively more detailed and less accessible with every revision.
This Isn't About Dumbing Down
Let's be absolutely clear: we're not suggesting you remove technical content or oversimplify your capabilities. Your technical depth is a competitive advantage. Your engineering expertise is what makes you valuable.
But technical depth belongs in the right place, at the right time, for the right audience.
Your website homepage needs to communicate clearly and quickly what you do and who you serve. Your case studies need to demonstrate outcomes and value. Your service pages need to connect capabilities to customer problems.
Then – and only then – you can get into the technical specifications, the methodologies, the standards, and the processes that prove you know what you're doing.
It's not dumbing down. It's appropriate sequencing.
The Translation Problem
The real issue is translation. Your engineers understand your capabilities intimately, but they struggle to translate that understanding into language that resonates with buyers.
This isn't a criticism. Translation is a specific skill, and it's not one that engineering degrees teach.
A good marketing writer working with your engineers can take their technical knowledge and express it in commercial terms. They can lead with benefits whilst maintaining technical accuracy. They can create content that works for both the technical expert and the non-technical stakeholder.
But this requires your engineers to accept that technical accuracy and commercial clarity aren't the same thing – and that both are necessary.
What This Looks Like in Practice
When engineering businesses fix this problem, they don't stop engineers from being involved in content creation. They just change how that involvement works.
Engineers provide the technical substance, the proof points, the specifications. Writers shape that content to lead with what buyers care about: outcomes, capabilities, and differentiation.
Technical detail still exists – it's just positioned as supporting evidence rather than the primary message.
Case studies still describe your methodology – but only after they've explained what the client achieved and why it mattered.
Your website still demonstrates your technical expertise – but through clear, accessible explanations rather than specification sheets.
The Competitors Who Are Winning
Here's the really frustrating part: your competitors who are winning more work aren't necessarily more capable than you. They might actually be less capable.
But they've learned to communicate their capabilities in language that buyers understand and respond to. They've learned to lead with outcomes instead of specifications. They've learned to make the buying decision easy instead of intellectually challenging.
And whilst your engineers are perfecting the technical accuracy of your website copy, their engineers are building things and winning work.
What Needs to Change
If your marketing content is written primarily by engineers, or if technical accuracy is your primary content criterion, you're making this harder than it needs to be.
You need content that serves two audiences: the technical experts who will eventually evaluate your capabilities in detail, and the non-technical stakeholders who need to understand why you're the right choice.
That means leading with clarity and commercial value, then supporting it with technical depth. It means writing in language that connects with buyers, not just engineers. It means accepting that marketing content and technical documentation serve different purposes.
Most importantly, it means recognising that your engineers' expertise is an asset for content creation, but their instinct for technical communication isn't.
You're Not the First
Every engineering business we work with has this conversation at some point. The engineers hate the "simplified" marketing copy. The commercial team knows the technical content isn't working. Everyone's frustrated.
The solution isn't to choose between technical accuracy and commercial clarity. It's to have both, in the right balance, for the right audience.
Your engineers should absolutely be involved in content creation – their expertise is what makes your marketing credible. But their technical depth needs to be translated into commercial language by people who understand how buyers think.
The Fix Is Simpler Than You Think
This isn't an insurmountable problem. You don't need to rebuild your entire website or start from scratch. You just need to:
Start with the buyer's question. Before you write anything, ask: what does this person need to know to feel confident choosing us? Then answer that question before you get into technical detail.
Lead with outcomes, support with specifications. Tell them what you can achieve for them, then prove it with technical depth.
Write for the committee, not just the expert. Assume at least some of your readers don't have engineering degrees.
Let writers translate your engineers' expertise. Technical accuracy and commercial clarity require different skills. Use both.
Most engineering businesses don't need to create more content. They need to make their existing content work for buyers instead of engineers.
Your Engineers Are Brilliant. Your Marketing Shouldn't Sound Like a Technical Manual.
Your technical expertise is your greatest asset. But if buyers can't understand how that expertise solves their problems, it's an asset they'll never get to appreciate.
You don't need engineers who think like marketers. You need marketing that translates engineering excellence into language that wins work.
And that, like most engineering problems, just requires the right expertise applied in the right way.
Red Evolution is a digital marketing agency specialising in helping engineering companies market their services.
