Engineers love details: clock speeds, API endpoints, pin counts. Investors and customers don’t. They want to know how those details translate into profit, productivity, or peace of mind. Bridging this gap is not about dumbing down your message but reframing it from the listener’s perspective. Here’s how to transform your engineering language into narratives that resonate with non‑technical audiences.

Start With Feature → Advantage → Benefit.

Ann Wylie outlines a simple framework for turning features into benefits. The process starts with the feature (what it is), moves to the advantage (what it does), and ends with the benefit (what it does for the user).

• Feature: An attribute of your product—e.g., a battery with 12‑hour capacity.
• Advantage: Why that feature matters—e.g., the battery is long-lasting.
• Benefit: How it improves the user’s life—e.g., you can watch movies on a transatlantic flight without the battery dying.
• Lead with benefits: Wylie recommends opening with the benefit and supporting it with the advantage and feature. For example, “Play movies for up to 13 hours with our new long‑lasting battery.”

Use the “So What?” Trick

Enchanting Marketing advises repeatedly asking “So what?” for every feature until you uncover a tangible benefit.

• Example:
  • Feature: The device preheats quickly.
  • So what? It’s ready to cook sooner.
  • So what? Dinner hits the table faster.
  • So what? You spend less time in the kitchen and more with family.
• This exercise forces you to connect technical attributes to outcomes people care about, like saving time or reducing stress.

Avoid Jargon and Buzzwords

Investors and customers tune out when they hear strings of acronyms. The Kinsta guide warns that overly technical marketing pushes buyers to compare on price, not value. A Lucidchart article likewise advises avoiding jargon and explaining acronyms plainly.

• Simplify language: Use plain words. Instead of “high‑availability multi‑region Kubernetes cluster,” say “our system keeps your service running, even if a data center goes down.”
• Provide context: When technical terms are unavoidable, briefly define them or provide a glossary so non‑technical readers aren’t lost.

Focus on Impact and Tell Stories

Non‑technical audiences care about outcomes more than mechanisms.

• Impact over mechanics: Lucidchart recommends highlighting how a technology affects the business or user rather than explaining how it works. For example, rather than detailing a new patching protocol, emphasize that it reduces the risk of a costly data breach.
• Narrative storytelling: Stories help people remember. The Tech for Non‑Techies perspective stresses that product storytelling shows how the product improves lives rather than listing features. Use anecdotes about how a client used your device to solve a real problem to make the benefits tangible.
• Problem‑Agitate‑Solution (PAS) framework: Kinsta suggests the PAS formula: state the problem, agitate it to remind your audience why it matters, and then show how your product solves it. This structure naturally turns features into benefits tied to real pain points.

Tailor the Message to the Audience

Different stakeholders care about different outcomes.

• Investors: Focus on return on investment, market potential, and risk reduction. Translate engineering efforts into cost savings or new revenue. For example, highlight that a more efficient algorithm reduced power consumption, lowering operational costs.
• Customers: Emphasize convenience, reliability, and usability. Please explain how your product helps them do their job faster, safer, or with less hassle.
• Executives and mixed audiences: The aforementioned Lucidchart article recommends knowing your audience and balancing detail levels. Provide enough detail to satisfy technical curiosity, but always bring the conversation back to impact.

Use Visuals and Analogies

Visuals can bridge gaps where words fail. Lucidchart notes that diagrams and models help non‑technical audiences synthesize complex information.

• Create diagrams: Show a high‑level architecture or a before‑and‑after workflow. A picture of the user journey often communicates more than paragraphs of text.
• Analogies: Compare your technology to everyday items. For instance, compare a network switch to a highway interchange that efficiently directs traffic.

Encourage Questions and Feedback

Communication is a two‑way street.

• Invite questions: Encouraging questions during presentations builds trust and ensures clarity.
• Iterate on feedback: Refine your message if investors or customers seem confused. Each explanation is a test of your narrative.

Translating engineering language into persuasive stories is both an art and a science. By focusing on benefits, eliminating jargon, telling stories, and tailoring your message to the audience, you make your technology accessible and compelling. The next time you pitch your product, leave the spec sheet at home and speak to the outcomes that matter. If you’d like help crafting narratives that resonate with investors and customers, ping us; we live for this kind of translation.