Re: I have to write some Marketing Literature . . .

[Ted Heatherington <THeather -at- ALPHA -dot- CA>]

Penny, my experience with writing Marketing Lit. is limited and filled
with frustration.  The frustration is that the marketing people here
are hard to get finished ideas from, so there are >dozens< of rev's
that go back and forth as they see their text and allow their ideas to
fully ferment into something palatable.  The other issue was teaching
finer points of technical illustration to the other "marketing" writer
(ie. marketing has text in technical pubs, and we add technical info
to marketing's stuff, too).

Resources?  Look at any advertising literature, like any computer or
electronic spec sheets, flyers, catalogs... they are written by
marketers with technical information.  Find ideas that fits loosely
within the company "look" and go wild.  That is one thing I like about
new marketing projects, you often have wide latitude in what to do.
Within tech pubs, all documents are bent to conform to a standard.

I assume you are somewhere around Winnepeg when I say: check out the
book stores at the malls (W.H.Smith and Coles are good), and the
university and college bookstores.  Is there a Chapters Store in
Winnepeg?  Ask to see the publishers catalogs, and the stores will
order for you, too (ie. find the subject on the shelves, and ask for
the publishers on that shelf; they rarely publish just one on a
topic).  Ask marketing teachers; take one day college seminars, too.

Look at what the competition does, and do it better :)

Ted Heatherington
Technical Writer,
Alpha Technologies, Canada

====================
Date:    Mon, 9 Sep 1996 10:10:08 -0500
From:    Penny Staples <pstaples -at- UBISERVER -dot- CHS -dot- MB -dot- CA>
Subject: I have to write some Marketing Literature . . .

Hi folks,

I'm a technical writer for a small engineering company. In addition
to doing end-user manuals, product specs and requirements, I'm going
to be responsible for writing and producing some marketing literature.

This kind of thing interests me, but I know nothing about Marketing
(and we don't have a Marketing department, so I have no one to ask).
Any suggestions on books or web resources to get me started? Thanks!

Penny Staples

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