This is Part 2 of a Multi-Part Blog Series Derived from Our New Guide, How To Market Complex Products & Services. In this part we present three technical writing tips.
People are still people, even when they’re on the job and deciding what technical products to buy. In technical writing, when you present features, translate them into benefits that make an emotional appeal. Avoid industry buzzwords like “resonate” and “disrupt” in favor of simple language. If nothing else, this strategy will differentiate you and make your message stand out compared to marketers who only speak in jargon.
Another way to look at this is to keep it simple. Tell your complicated story in basic human terms that boil down to easily understood story lines. A copywriter might think it’s hard to know which of the technical specs is most important so they better include all of them. Or, this buyer will need a lot of information in order to justify the cost. But humans can only absorb so much information, especially when they may not have asked for that information in the first place.
Even if your prospect is the chief technology officer of a large company, they’re also a human being and will evaluate rationally, but ultimately make an emotional decision. At the end of the day they want to be praised for their good work, have a comfortable lifestyle because they’ve been promoted, and go home at a reasonable hour instead of having to solve headaches. Your job is to make the connection between your product or service and these fundamental needs.
Three Technical Writing Tip on How To Write Tech Copy that Gets Results
One of our copywriters shared his tips for writing tech copy that consistently gets outstanding response:
The first thing I believe about tech writing is that you need to understand the product—not necessarily on a programmatic level, but the problem it solves, and why it does this better than other options. I’m not a scientist but I love to learn how things work.
Secondly, I believe that technology buyers are people with the same personal motivations as those buying consumer products. They want to be secure, avoid conflict and achieve recognition, and in an indirect way, technical products help them do this.
Finally, I always ask to interview the sales team so I can understand the objections that are typically raised and the hot buttons that get prospects excited about the product. I go to CES most every year (and attended Comdex before that) and spend most of my time hanging back near kiosks to watch sales engineers do technical presentations.
I believe these steps are missing in a lot of the copy I read for technical companies that reads like a laundry list of specs. If I beat more than my share of direct marketing campaign tests, it’s not so much because I was a dramatically better writer, but because I was diligent in my preparation. As Woody Allen said, 80% of success is just showing up.
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Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing