Marketing to Engineers is a Funny Business

Hey Reader!

If you’re a fan of Digital Marketing For Engineers, you know it’s the mission of this blog to publish the most data rich and thorough examinations of marketing in the engineering world. 

Lately, we’ve dropped some pretty heavy articles on you:

• We went over step-by-step how you can use machine learning to improve your email campaigns
• We revealed our editors’ three step method for creating marketing content that reaches engineers (they’re still mad we gave that away btw)
• And we reprocessed the data from the 2018 Budget Trends In Industrial & Technology Marketing Research Report to tell you what secret moves marketers growing 3x faster than their competitors are making.

Data, data, data, serious, serious, serious.  That’s what we’re about…Except this week.  Collectively, we’re all at the end of Q2 and dreaming of that July 4th Vacation, we need something a little lighter….

[**For our non-American readers enjoy your Canada Day, Heroes Day (Hey Zambia), Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day (best holiday name ever), or whatever mid-year holiday is celebrated in your region.]

We need something funny.  We work in a quirky little corner of the B2B world, marketing products and services to some of the most highly intelligent, analytical, and marketingphobic people on the planet – engineers. 

So lets have a little fun with our target personas.  Here are some of our favorite jokes about engineers and engineering.  Some are funny, some are actually funny, and some are just so bad they become funny.

1.  On The Importance of Civil Engineering

 

 

2. The Optimist, the Pessimist, and the Engineer

The optimist says: “The glass is half full.”
The pessimist says: “The glass is half empty.”
The engineer says: “The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.”

3. How Engineers See Marketing Majors…

4. The Laws of Engineering

• Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.
• Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget. A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection. If you can’t fix it — document it.
• The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the servicemen.

5. When Dad Jokes are Told by Electrical Engineers…

 

 

6. What Happens When a Physicist, an Engineer, and a Statistician Go Hunting?

An engineer, a statistician, and a physicist are out hunting. They spot a buck, and each take turn to try and bag it.

The physicist goes first. He pulls out his lab book and quickly calculates the trajectory of the bullet, assuming it is a perfect sphere in a vacuum. The bullet falls 20m short of the deer.

The engineer goes second. He pulls out his engineering pad and book of projectile assumptions. After a few minutes he’s ready. He takes aim and he fires. The bullet lands 20m passed the deer.

The statistician triumphantly leaps in the air shouting, “We got it!”

7. As Any Marketer Tasked With Going Over an Engineer’s Whitepaper Can Attest, That Grammar Clause Can be a Real $#%(^!

8. On How Engineers and Management Interaction

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The woman below replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 59 and 60 degrees north latitude and between 107 and 108 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be an engineer,” said the balloonist.

“I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman below responded, “You must be in Management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

9. On Finding One’s First Job in Engineering…

Reaching the end of a job interview, the HR manager asked the young engineer fresh out of university, “And what starting salary were you looking for?”

The engineer said, “In the neighborhood of $100,000 a year, depending on the benefits package.”

The HR Manager said, “Well, what would you say to a package of $200,000 a year, 5 weeks of vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary and a company car leased every 2 years – say, a Mercedes?”

The engineer sat up straight and said, “Wow!!! Are you joking?”

And the HR Manager said, “Of course…but you started it.”

10. Sometimes Engineers and Marketers Don’t Really See Eye to Eye…

11. Bonus! But Hey, Sometimes It’s Our Fault for Asking Too Much From Our Subject Matter Experts…

 

 

Have a great 4th of July or whatever you celebrate! Thanks for reading,

Andrew