6 Ways to Leverage Technical ArticlesWritten by Christine Taylor
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Product Briefs The article can serve as a great basis for expanded product briefs – say front and back of an 8-1/2x11, or a longer technical brochure. Edit article for length and jazz up text, and you’ve got a solid technology basis for marketing document. (Good marcom can explain what a NAS gateway is, but not by yammering about “enterprise-wide intelligent data management portals.” Puts readers right to sleep.) Booklets One of best press kits I ever saw included a sharp and informative booklet on vendor’s technology. The booklet explained general technology’s development and background, presented vendor’s product, and listed clear customer advantages. It impressed both journalists and customers in a way a press release or even a white paper wouldn’t have done. Booklets are labor-intensive, so use your trade journal article as basis for writing your own. Speech Outline and Handouts Use existing articles as basis for client speeches and presentations. Since trade journal articles are usually vendor-neutral, they’ll work as-is for similar talks. When presentation is about a product you can still use article outline for background technology and analysis then add product details, customer case studies, and Q&A’s. You can use article reprints as a handout, or turn outline into speaker’s notes and use that instead. If your client gulps at cost of developing a trade journal article, don’t leave them gasping for breath – list all ways they can leverage it to increase market exposure and profits.
Christine Taylor is president of Keyword Copywriting, which helps marketing and PR pros leverage their relationships with technology clients. E-mail her at chris@keywordcopy.com, call her at 760-249-6071, or check out Keyword’s Website at www.keywordcopy.com.
| | Dreading the Writing Assignment? Outlines to the RescueWritten by Christine Taylor
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•Outlining shrinks your writing time by a third to a half. How do you whittle down that pile of research notes and interviews into an article or white paper? You guess it – outline it. By assigning sections to your notes before you start writing, you’ll categorize, simplify and clarify. Not bad before you’ve even written an introduction. For example, let’s say you’re writing an article about mirroring. You can divide such an article into several different sections depending on what your client wants to get across. Here are some examples of different outlines: o1) Explanation of mirroring 2) Differences between local and remote mirroring, 3) Contrasting mirroring with other forms of replication, or o1) Define mirroring 2) List environments that require mirroring 3) Decision matrix for assigning different mirroring levels.Once you’ve done your research it’s simple to assign pieces to different sections. Believe me, it’ll light a fire under your writing time.
Christine Taylor is president of Keyword Copywriting, which helps marketing and PR pros leverage their relationships with technology clients. E-mail her at chris@keywordcopy.com, call her at 760-249-6071, or check out Keyword’s Website at www.keywordcopy.com.
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