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In article <306961FA -at- ncr02> "Delaney, Misti"
<ncr02!ncr02!mdelaney -at- ucs01 -dot- attmail -dot- com> writes:
>From: Price, Becca
>Subject: RE: Writing vs. Marketing: Good diatribe
>Date: Wednesday, September 27, 1995 10:34AM
>in a nutshell: it seems to me that there are one major difference between
>marketing and technical communication: intent. the intent of marketing is
>simply to *sell* - tech. com. is to *inform* or provide instructions on how
>to use a thing... there was a big frufraw a bit ago in an stc competition on
>whether a cookbook was technical writing. after a lot of discussion, the
>consensus was that it is.
>marketing may contain technical information, but again, the intent is to
>convince the audience that *this* gizmo is better than any other gizmo, or
>meets a need that no other gizmo does (even if it has to invent the need).
> It may seem like it's informational, but the intent of the piece
>categorizes it as a marketing document.
There is a pretty well established marketing/sales philosophy that true
sales technique is consulting--i.e., selling one's product or service by
showing the prospect how it solves their problem or benefits them in some way.
Some years ago, I did a rather large technical writing/training job for Warner
Electric Clutch and Brake of Madison, Wisconsin, in which the company's goal
was to train salespeople in how Warner's products solved problems for the
kinds of companies that would have use for those products. Warner wanted con
conventional sales technique--no hype, etc--but only pure trouble-shooting,
diagnosis, and application taught. My personal experience, conducting my own
several businesses in the past, have borne out the wisdom of this approach to
my satisfaction.
***
Herman Holtz [holtz -at- paltech -dot- com], marketing consultant & freelance writer.
Author best-selling How to Succeed as an Independent Consultant (Wiley),
many other how-to business books for entrepreneurs, and publisher of how-to
reports for writers. (Free report with list on request.)
