What Quentin Tarantino Can Tell You About the Importance of Technology Expertise in Content Marketing

Using freelance resources to produce content that properly positions your company’s products and elevates your brand can be a cost-effective approach to content marketing — especially in an unstable business climate.

Fractional marketing services or outside contractors are often less expensive than maintaining in-house strategic marketing expertise.

But relying too heavily on freelance marketers — especially individuals who lack the insider knowledge of an in-house team — can be risky, putting your business’s hard-earned reputation and thought-leadership credibility in jeopardy.

Can you partner with outside agencies and writers who have the skills and credentials to meet your content standards? Absolutely. I’ve worked with several that routinely deliver white papers, ebooks and other collateral that — after a little tweaking — effectively advance a company’s thought-leadership mission.

So, where’s the danger? Just do a little due diligence to weed out weaker contributors and you’re golden, right?

Not always. Like any endeavor requiring insider expertise, it’s often the subtle — not the glaring — mistakes that can sink you.

Any viewer of Inglourious Basterds, the Tarantino film indirectly referenced in this post’s title, probably knows where I’m going.

About halfway through the WWII-set movie, a group of American and British soldiers posing as German infantry are exposed as impostors after one of them uses the wrong hand gesture.

Despite nailing the accent and demonstrating impeccable knowledge of mid-20th-century

Europe, the impostor is undone by a small cultural misstep: he doesn’t know how Germans indicate the number three with their fingers. The seemingly innocuous gesture is a red flag of inauthenticity to the native Germans in the room.

The same kind of thing happens when creating content for a tech-savvy audience — an audience that speaks an insider language steeped in jargon and esoteric idioms. Use the wrong term or misrepresent a common convention, and you’ll likely be outed as a poser.

Unlike in the movie, the misstep won’t trigger a bierhaus massacre. But expect a metaphorical bloodletting — in the form of long-term damage to your reputation and credibility as an industry thought leader.

And while it’s possible to recover from a credibility lapse, most technologists align with Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice when it comes to forgetting and forgiving:

“My good opinion once lost is lost forever.”

This is the potential fate of any technology company — even those with in-house marketing teams that have years of industry experience and an intimate understanding of your business and, more importantly, your customers’ business. Mistakes happen. Things slip through.

But the odds of a serious credibility hit increase exponentially when your content is produced by writers who lack a deep familiarity with your industry and audience. The most polished prose in the world can’t make up for a lack of technical understanding or insider fluency.

So, what can a tech company without in-house strategic marketing do to protect its reputation?

Start by ensuring there’s someone on staff — often in product management or engineering — who can review outsourced content for technical accuracy and “inappropriate hand gestures,” so to speak.

Also, carefully vet freelance writers. Look for industry experience. Ask that same internal SME to review the writer’s portfolio. They don’t have relevant examples or can’t convince you they can navigate insider-only minefields? Move on.

And don’t fall for the ChatGPT trap. AI is a huge productivity booster (a topic for another post), but it doesn’t yet have mastery of insider-speak — and it’s more likely than a human to make reputation-ruining usage gaffes.

The good news? It is possible to outsource much (or all) of your content creation without sacrificing credibility.

Just follow the steps above — and don’t be bullied into taking shortcuts by internal stakeholders who are unaware of the long-term strategic value of authentic, engaging and audience-resonating content.

In short, don’t let the unaware — inglorious or otherwise — grind you down or compromise your standards.