I'm Zach Ronski. I'm the Marketing Director at Fello Agency in Toronto's Art & Design District.

We're a specialized B2B / B2C tech branding and marketing shop. Specialist team. About 15 - 11 of us. Built from the ground up with no venture capital. We've done 50+ projects and we sit around a 4.9/5 client rating. Clutch has recognized us as a top creative, branding, and web design agency in Canada, which is cool - but I care way more about one thing.

Can your company commercialize?

Because in AI, robotics, quantum, MedTech, advanced manufacturing, defense tech... the tech is rarely the reason you lose. You lose because your communication makes you look risky.

I've watched a company with warehouse management software lose a massive deal to Amazon for a brutal reason: their collateral was garbage. They got meetings. They got the shot. But the visuals and the story didn't match what they were trying to sell, so they weren't taken seriously.

That's what tech communications is. It's trust. It's clarity. It's the system that turns "interesting technology" into "approved vendor."

If you're a CMO or VP of Marketing, you already know the pressure. Pipeline targets. Board scrutiny. Sales teams asking for "better leads." A long sales cycle where attribution feels like a fight every week.

So let's make this simple.

This is my no-fluff guide to tech communications that actually drives revenue.

1) Translate the tech into business - or stay in the lab

People love saying "we translate complex technologies." What they really mean is "make it easier."

That's part of it. The real point is commercialization.

Your buyer doesn't buy complexity. They buy outcomes. They buy safety. They buy time back. They buy a win they can defend internally.

And this is where deep tech teams get stuck.

Technical talk vs. business talk

Your engineers speak one language. Your buyers speak another.

Deep tech websites fail when they try to impress people with technical talk on page one. Specs. Architecture. Benchmarks. Acronyms. A wall of genius.

It feels smart. It doesn't sell.

I say this all the time because it's true: your website needs to speak business.

If you want the blunt version I've said in meetings with founders: if you wanna make money, you're gonna pivot to an ROI narrative or you're gonna stay in the lab. I'm not saying that to be dramatic. I'm saying it because the market doesn't reward a research problem.

The order matters more than the words

Here's how I structure tech communications when we want it to convert.

You open with the outcome. Then you prove it. Then you explain how you do it. Then you let technical buyers go deep.

Most companies flip that. They lead with how it works. Then they wonder why nobody books a call.

If you're selling into enterprise, your first job is to reduce perceived risk. The fastest way to reduce perceived risk is to show a clear, simple business win and back it up with real proof.

"Sell a lifestyle" even in enterprise tech

I'm a big believer that B2B should steal from B2C.

Not in a cringe way. In a human way.

People don't want to buy a device. They want to feel smarter using it. They want to feel faster. They want to feel in control. They want to walk into their next meeting with confidence.

I say it like this: it's not how smart the device is, but how much smarter you're going to be.

That's the level your messaging needs to hit.

And if you're thinking, "Zach, my buyers are engineers," cool. Engineers still want a cleaner workflow. They still want fewer failures. They still want less pain at 2 a.m. during a deployment.

Which brings me to one of my favorite phrases.

Find out what pisses off your clients the most. Then build your story around fixing that.

2) Trust is the real product in deep tech

Enterprise buyers aren't just buying your tool. They're buying the risk of choosing you.

That risk shows up in a hundred ways. Procurement. Security reviews. Stakeholder politics. "Nobody ever got fired for buying X" energy.

So you need trust signals everywhere. Especially in what people see first.

Here's the stat that backs up what every CMO already feels in their gut: 75% of buyers judge credibility based on website design.

That's not "design matters." That's "design is a credibility filter."

And if you're thinking, "Okay, but our buyers are rational," look at this: 89% will switch to a competitor after a poor website experience.

People don't say, "Your UI hurt my feelings." They just move on.

Visual trust closes the gap your product can't close

I define branding in a very specific way.

Branding is the act of authenticating your claims.

A lot of technical founders believe their product is world-class. I often agree. But their brand shows "believing" without "authenticating." The visuals don't validate the story. The website doesn't look like the price tag. The deck looks like it was made in a weekend.

And then they wonder why they keep getting "this is interesting" instead of "send the contract."

Here's the phrase I use when I'm being direct: if it looks like bullshit, no one's gonna want to work with it.

Not because buyers are shallow. Because buyers are protecting themselves.

Overselling kills credibility fast

If you want the fastest way to lose trust, it's simple.

Oversell. Underdeliver.

I see it constantly in tech. Big promises. Soft evidence. A lot of "coming soon."

Deep tech buyers are skeptical for a reason. Their downside is massive. So your job in communications is to be ambitious and still be honest.

Be careful with the data you pull out. Be careful with what you claim. If you can't say it publicly, then build proof in other ways. Use customer perspective stories. Use visuals. Use third-party validation. Use key opinion leaders where it makes sense.

And for the love of God, don't run "mission-led" theatre while the product isn't real. I've had space companies approach me wanting to IPO or sell merch when they haven't launched a rocket still. We walk away from that stuff. We can spot bullshit a mile away.

3) Your website is your first sales call now

A lot of CMOs still treat the website like a brand asset. It's bigger than that.

Your website is doing sales work before sales ever gets involved.

Look at what buyers are telling the market: 81% chose their preferred vendor before talking to a sales rep. And nearly 70% of the process is done before they engage with sellers.

So when a founder says, "We'll explain it on the call," they're already late.

And Gartner's data makes the same point from a different angle. 61% of B2B buyers prefer a mostly rep-free buying experience.

That doesn't mean sales is dead. It means your marketing and website need to carry more weight earlier.

Homepages and landing pages need ROI up front

If someone lands on your homepage and the first thing they see is "we leverage cutting-edge AI," you're wasting the most valuable real estate you have.

Your homepage should quickly answer three things: what you do, who it's for, and what it changes for them.

And if you have proof, it needs to show up early. I push teams to lead with ROI metrics and case studies before specs, because it instantly frames the conversation in business terms.

Most buyers don't need you to be smart. They need you to be safe to choose.

Inconsistency is a silent killer

Here's another Gartner stat that should make every CMO sweat a little: 69% of buyers see inconsistencies between what the website says and what sales reps tell them.

That's not a messaging nitpick. That's trust erosion.

If sales is pitching one story and the site is telling another, you end up in long cycles filled with "wait, what do you actually do?" meetings. Your team burns time. Your pipeline gets messy. And the board starts asking why CAC is creeping up.

4) Site architecture: build the highway properly

I use a highway analogy when I explain websites to exec teams.

You need fast lanes for deals. You also need collectors that feed long-term trust.

A lot of deep tech websites smash everything together. They try to convert and "tell the story" on every page. That's how you get a bloated site that doesn't do either job well.

Collector pages vs. landing pages

Collector pages build loyalty. They build belief. They make people want to follow you. They're where you put "meet the team," partnership pages, mission pages, behind-the-scenes content, and the stuff that gets people into the heads of the engineers.

Landing pages convert. They're built for one audience and one action. They should feel sharp. They should feel specific. They should show proof quickly.

When you separate those two, everything gets easier. Your analytics get cleaner. Your content strategy gets clearer. Sales gets better pages to send prospects. You stop arguing internally about what the homepage should do.

Talk to specific ICPs, not "everyone"

I've seen this work repeatedly: build pages that speak directly to the buyer's world.

For Sphere, an XR collaboration platform, we created distinct industry pages so the story felt native to different ICPs in factories, medical tech, and defense. It wasn't the same generic pitch copy pasted three times. It was the same product framed in the language of each market.

The result mattered. According to the project write-up, that work helped Sphere increase lead generation by 3x.

There's also a buyer behavior stat that explains why this matters: 73% of buyers actively avoid suppliers that send irrelevant outreach.

A generic website is irrelevant outreach in website form.

If you're selling into multiple verticals, your job is to make each one feel seen. Fast.

5) CMS and UX: if your team can't ship, you don't have a system

This is unsexy, but it wrecks companies.

A lot of teams are trapped in unmanageable website builders. Updating the site becomes a dev request. Publishing becomes a sprint. Simple changes take weeks.

That's not "annoying." That's a growth choke point.

I set a benchmark for CMS efficiency that people remember because it's so specific: your team should be able to launch a blog post within three minutes. If it takes longer, your system is broken.

I've watched a company struggle because a legacy backend built by a developer who got terminated made it impossible for them to publish guest blogs about acquired technologies. They weren't blocked by strategy. They were blocked by tooling.

So yes, we build autonomous, editable websites as a selling proposition. We use tools like Framer and we engineer the templates with SEO and blog structure baked in. The point is simple: marketing shouldn't need permission to communicate.

And if you need the CFO-friendly justification, here it is: every $1 invested in UX returns about $100.

You don't need to love design to love that math.

6) Case studies: the fastest path to trust

If I'm reviewing a deep tech website and I can't find a dedicated case study or testimonial page, that's the biggest red flag.

It tells me the company wants enterprise trust without enterprise evidence.

And buyers agree. A G2 study showed 92.4% are more likely to buy if they can read a trusted review. Another stat from the same report says 90% are more likely after reading a positive review.

So when companies treat case studies like a "later" task, I push back hard.

Tell the story from the customer's mouth

I have a rule at Fello: case studies should be told from the customer's perspective. Not the company's. Not marketing's voice.

That's how you build authenticity.

When I interview customers, I'm not chasing only metrics. I'm chasing emotion. I ask them about the frustrating times before they used the product. That's the moment where your next buyer leans in and thinks, "That's me."

You can add performance data after. You still need proof. But if you miss the "before," you miss the hook.

Video case studies: when to spend, and how to stretch it

Early-stage R&D startups can survive on PDFs for a while. Once you raise Seed or land your first solid deal, you should move into video fast.

If you're asking for high-six-figure contracts, written testimonials alone usually feel cheap. The production level needs to match the ask.

We've used video case studies for Mosaic Manufacturing to show the real operational benefits for an orthotics business owner using their device. The video wasn't a spec sheet in motion. It showed the lifestyle and the day-to-day win. That's what moves deals.

And when we spend on a video case study, we repurpose it aggressively. One strong asset becomes a written PDF, a blog post, sales clips, trade show loops, social cutdowns, and pieces for decks. That "bang for your buck" approach keeps content from turning into a money pit.

7) Long sales cycles need connection, not nurture spam

A lot of deep tech deals take six months to two years. Aerospace and defense can stretch even longer.

During that quiet time, most companies do the same thing: they send boring nurture emails. Nobody cares. It doesn't build belief. It doesn't build momentum.

I've worked with a top aerospace defense firm under NDA. One thing that helped was sending monthly video updates. Real updates. Work in progress. Team progress. Momentum.

People want to feel like they're part of the club. Rocket Lab USA does this incredibly well. It's behind-the-scenes, it's lab tours, it's making the audience feel close to the mission.

And yes, human selling still matters. AI doesn't remove that. Older demographics are still buying. Deal cycles are long. Trust is personal.

I say it simply: you still need a driver behind the car.

Content downloads that actually do something

One of my favorite tactics in long cycles is valuable downloads. Brochures. One-pagers. Anything that earns you the email without begging for it.

That gives you a clean way to stay in someone's world. It also helps sales, because now you know what they cared about enough to download.

Tech communications is often about staying present without being annoying.

8) Alignment and speed: the two multipliers CMOs control

A lot of marketing failures are not channel failures. They're org failures.

Misalignment between sales, marketing, and leadership. Boards changing direction. Founders wanting everything approved by everyone. Committees.

So my first gut check is always people. Are the stakeholders looped in? Do they care? Are they moving?

At Fello, we use a sequential research approach. We interview customers first, then sales, then marketing, then leadership. That order matters. It prevents internal politics from rewriting reality.

Then we get prescriptive. We do three to five weeks of research, and we dictate the strategy. We do it because endless options kill speed.

And speed matters. I tell clients constantly: you need to move 10 times faster than you think you do. Product and market, faster than you think you do.

Canada builds great tech. We're slow at go-to-market.

I'm Canadian. I love building here. There are great resources like InGen and venture labs. The ecosystem is strong.

But we're terrible at going to market. The culture is risk-averse. Founders hear "why" all the time. In the US, it's "why not."

If you're a CMO in deep tech, you're bushwhacking. There's no perfect playbook. The winners are the teams that ship, learn, and sharpen the story in public.

If I had a magic wand, I'd make companies obsessed with going to market. Life-or-death obsessed. Even if you have to pay early users, the first customer story is worth it.

9) Defense and regulated tech: show capability without breaking rules

Defense is its own world.

You often can't show the product. Footage gets redacted. Details get classified. The buyer still needs proof.

So we use 3D renders and simulated environments. Air, land, water. Whatever the context is, you can create credible visuals without leaking restricted information.

We also helped a confidential Canadian counter-drone defense company secure funding by creating product renders when they had no physical prototype. That's what good tech communications does. It makes the invisible real.

Defense pages also need to speak to multiple stakeholders at once. Politicians care about funding and outcomes. Operators care about usability. Technical primes care about integration.

So we structure those pages with a high-impact visual, a clear CTA that explains why the conversation matters, and then segmented proof below. And emotionally, we anchor around soldier safety and speed of threat diffusion. Procurement officers are humans too. They feel risk.

Anduril is a great example of a defense company that competed against incumbents with strong branding and product visuals. The old primes have started copying that playbook. The market noticed what works.

10) AI is everywhere. Generic is a brand risk.

AI speeds things up. I'm not anti-AI.

I'm anti "AI-generated slop."

There's a quote from The Incredibles I use all the time because it nails what's happening to content: "if everybody's super, then nobody is." When everyone uses the same tools with the same prompts, you get the same output. And your brand becomes a blur.

I've watched a VC brag about building websites in two days with AI and get lit up in the comments because the site looked terrible. That's not disruption. That's reputation damage.

Use AI like a paintbrush, not a crayon.

And don't skip the hard parts. Naming. Positioning. Messaging. This is where you overspend for the politics of the words. I've seen companies delay a naming exercise for months because they kept using AI generators instead of doing real strategy work. They weren't saving time. They were avoiding decisions.

Closing: the real job of tech communications

If you take one thing from me, take this.

Your job is to make your company feel like the safest smart choice in the market.

That happens when you speak business first, prove your claims with customer stories, and back it all up with visuals that match the price tag. It also happens when your website ships fast, your CMS doesn't trap you, and your sales story matches what the site promises.

You're not just building a brand. You're building a revenue system that makes buyers comfortable moving.

And when you do it right, you win very heavily.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I justify a high-end web redesign to a CFO who treats marketing as a cost center?

Stop talking about aesthetics. Talk about efficiency. The math is undeniable: every $1 invested in UX yields about $100 in return. If your interface looks cheap, you are paying a 'credibility tax' on every lead. You aren't buying art. You are buying a conversion engine.

Our engineers want to gate all technical specs to capture leads. Is this still a valid strategy?

It is a dangerous one. Modern buyers treat forms like walls. With 81% of buyers choosing a vendor before talking to sales, gating your best proof means you are opting out of the decision-making process. Give them the data to feel safe, then let them book the call.

Why are we losing deals to 'inferior' competitors who just have better branding?

Because 'ugly' reads as 'risky' to an enterprise buyer. It is visceral: 75% of buyers judge credibility based on website design. If your visual identity looks like a weekend project, they assume your code is messy too. Design is your commercial authentication.

How do I fix the friction between what Marketing publishes and what Sales actually pitches?

You must treat this as a trust crisis, not a messaging sync. 69% of buyers spot inconsistencies between your site and your reps. If the story drifts, trust erodes. Make your website the 'source of truth' that is so effective your sales team <i>wants</i> to use it.

Is third-party validation really necessary if our internal benchmarks are industry-leading?

Absolutely. Your benchmarks are marketing claims. Reviews are proof. 92.4% of B2B professionals are more likely to buy with a trusted review. You need to validate your tech through the voice of the customer, or you are just another vendor making noise.