Is Marketing and Technical Writing compatible activities?

[David Fredericks <davidf -at- APC -dot- NET>]

Some TWs, amazingly, see marketing and technical writing as water and oil . . . activities that don't mix. But such thinking betrays a naive and damaging level of thinking that explains why many technical companies don't make it in the marketplace. Engineers and programmers are more likely to perpetuate this myth than are writers and artists (I was a field engineer for years). This is a residue from an ancient era.  Any writer with a modicum of creativity (salesmanship) and knowledge of how business works understands that the marketing perspective is important to everybody, from the janitor to the president.

 

The truth of this should be obvious to all writers because marketing is the sum total of activities that has to do with the transfer of goods and services from the seller to the buyer. Nobody works if companies don't do everything possible to market and nurture their products and services to all users. Naturally, a company's written communications, internal and external, is a big component in marketing.

 

Unlike many technical writers, I have for 20-plus years straddled the disciplines of technical writing and marketing/public relations/ advertising writing. Which has been wonderful.

 

1) it prevents burnout.

2) it broadens your ability, writing, skill and knowledge.

3) it fattens your paycheck.

4) it gives you job security.

5) it adds tremendous value to your writing talent and service.

6) it add visibility to writing activity, thereby adding to the respect of our profession.

 

And anybody who has ever worked with a technical writer who also writes print ads, brochures, proposals, articles, direct mail, etc., knows the technical writing skills of these people is markedly superior than that of those who cannot, especially those troglodytes who are contemptuous of the people who can communicate on a human level.