Robert Desprez Communications

  • My Services
  • My Blog
  • About Me
  • Contact Me
You are here: Home / Career Development / TECHNICAL WRITERS ARE RELUCTANT SELF-MARKETERS

TECHNICAL WRITERS ARE RELUCTANT SELF-MARKETERS

June 21, 2011 by RDesprez 5 Comments

Tweet

I don’t know how many times I’ve talked to tech­ni­cal writ­ers who’ve said to me that they dis­like self-marketing.

If you’re employ­ee and you don’t like mar­ket­ing your­self, it may mean you suf­fer from a lack of vis­i­bil­i­ty with­in your com­pa­ny. Peo­ple know your name but they may not under­stand what you do or how you add any val­ue to the orga­ni­za­tion. If you’re a con­tract writer and you dis­like mar­ket­ing, the results can be more serious—a track record that is marred by long peri­ods of unemployment.

Why do tech­ni­cal writ­ers dis­like mar­ket­ing so much? Here are a cou­ple of guesses:

  • Most tech­ni­cal writ­ers are intro­verts. By their very nature, tech­ni­cal writ­ers don’t like to stand in the lime­light or toot their own horns. They enjoy work­ing alone, not net­work­ing, and cer­tain­ly not pre­sent­ing a top­ic to others.
  • They haven’t learned about mar­ket­ing. Many writ­ers I’ve talked to often wrin­kle their noses when talk­ing about mar­ket­ing as if it’s a dirty word.

Mar­ket­ing, in my mind, is vital to the ongo­ing suc­cess of an orga­ni­za­tion. As a con­tract writer, I believe it’s impor­tant to remind clients and prospects about who I am and the ser­vices I offer, even when I’m work­ing on a long-term con­tract. If you don’t remind peo­ple of the ser­vices you provide—whether it’s an e‑mail, blog post, or upcom­ing pre­sen­ta­tion you’re sched­uled to deliver—people for­get about you. And if they for­get you, you won’t hear about upcom­ing jobs.

Some­times peo­ple dis­like some­thing because they don’t under­stand it. If you’re a con­tract tech­ni­cal writer strug­gling with lin­ing up con­tracts and feel that mar­ket­ing is not your forte, I’d rec­om­mend you read Duct Tape Mar­ket­ing by John Jantsch, which pro­vides an excel­lent overview of mar­ket­ing activ­i­ties for a small busi­ness. Who knows? You might start enjoy­ing mar­ket­ing after all.

Filed Under: Career Development, Robert Desprez | Vancouver technical writer | Blog Tagged With: career development, technical writers

Comments

  1. Frederic says

    March 16, 2012 at 6:50 pm

    Hel­lo Robert,

    I was able to rec­og­nize myself in this arti­cle; I am the invis­i­ble employ­ee at the com­pa­ny I work for. Thanks very much for this arti­cle; I am going to look for the book you rec­om­mend and, hope­ful­ly, increase my visibility.

    Good luck!

    Reply
  2. Robert Desprez says

    March 16, 2012 at 6:50 pm

    Hi Fred­er­ic,

    You’re wel­come!

    Reply
  3. Corry says

    March 16, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    And maybe a third rea­son — a guess also…
    No mat­ter how many times you tell your sto­ry, you prove your added val­ue and the added val­ue of your work — tech­docs are still con­sid­ered a cost instead of an asset. And every so many months a new man­ag­er comes by ask­ing why we make it so com­pli­cat­ed. Why not just do a Word doc­u­ment with a few screenshots?
    But that is mar­ket­ing of course. You tell it 50 times. It’s the 51st time it will stick… 🙂

    Reply
  4. Brian says

    March 16, 2012 at 6:52 pm

    So true, so true. Most of the peo­ple in oth­er depart­ments (if they know I exist at all) think that because I am an employ­ee of IT, I must work only on con­tent “for IT”, because I’m often doc­u­ment­ing soft­ware that their depart­ment does­n’t use. 

    One good way to improve vis­i­bil­i­ty is to get your­self assigned to any project for the Human Resources depart­ment, and impress them. For exam­ple, every­one uses some kind of payroll/timecard sys­tem (chances are it is poor­ly doc­u­ment­ed.) Then, even if peo­ple in oth­er depart­ments don’t see your val­ue (or don’t see you at all), at least HR will know you are an impor­tant con­trib­u­tor. And they’re the ones who pay you. Also, if you meet some­one from any depart­ment, and they don’t have a clue about most of the top­ics you write about, you can at least say “I’m the guy who did the User Guide for enter­ing your [time­card, vaca­tion time off, etc.]”

    Reply
  5. P. Robertson, dba FineLines says

    March 16, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    I pre­sent­ed on this very top­ic at STC Sum­mit 2011 as part of the Lone Writer Pro­gres­sion. My the­sis was/is that we spend most of our careers writ­ing, edit­ing, and pre­sent­ing some­one else’s mes­sage, of some­one else’s own­er­ship. It’s time that we did some per­sua­sive writ­ing on our own behalves!
    Out of my own strug­gle to prove my val­ue and edu­cate my non-pro­fes­sion­al-writer col­leagues, I devel­oped “mar­ket­ing col­lat­er­al” for my role as Techi­cal Edi­tor under con­tract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About Robert Desprez

I have worked as a Vancouver technical writer for more than 20 years, working at some of British Columbia's largest high-tech firms. I have served in leadership positions for the Society for Technical Communication and have worked as a writing instructor at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University.

Robert Desprez Follow 1,150 239

Vancouver Technical Writer. Former Instructor at Simon Fraser University. Dog Lover. Coffee Drinker. Tennis and Piano Player.

robert_desprez
robert_desprez avatar; Robert Desprez @robert_desprez ·
21h 1931387924311912959

Companies must make changes for training to be effective for younger workers /via @globeandmail

Image for twitter card

Companies must make changes for training to be effective for younger workers

Bottom line: for training to be effective today, especially for younger employees, it needs to be customized, relevant and timely

www.theglobeandmail.com

Reply on Twitter 1931387924311912959 Retweet on Twitter 1931387924311912959 0 Like on Twitter 1931387924311912959 0 Twitter 1931387924311912959
robert_desprez avatar; Robert Desprez @robert_desprez ·
26 May 1927021047175430324

How to throw a little luck into your career /via @globeandmail

Image for twitter card

How to throw a little luck into your career

What if you could create some of your own luck?

www.theglobeandmail.com

Reply on Twitter 1927021047175430324 Retweet on Twitter 1927021047175430324 0 Like on Twitter 1927021047175430324 0 Twitter 1927021047175430324
robert_desprez avatar; Robert Desprez @robert_desprez ·
20 May 1924848939888738806

Is AI helping workers and improving productivity or just creating more work? /via @globeandmail

Image for twitter card

Is AI helping workers and improving productivity or just creating more work?

To reap the full benefits of AI, companies must be more creative than using it to automate existing tasks, one expert says

www.theglobeandmail.com

Reply on Twitter 1924848939888738806 Retweet on Twitter 1924848939888738806 0 Like on Twitter 1924848939888738806 0 Twitter 1924848939888738806
robert_desprez avatar; Robert Desprez @robert_desprez ·
16 May 1923413647243559161

Image for twitter card

I Regret My Tesla | The Walrus

I wanted to be good. Then the car company fell from grace

thewalrus.ca

Reply on Twitter 1923413647243559161 Retweet on Twitter 1923413647243559161 0 Like on Twitter 1923413647243559161 0 Twitter 1923413647243559161
Load More

Recent Blog Posts

  • ChatGPT: The AI-Powered Proofreader
  • Four Ways Confluence Could Be Better
  • First impressions of MadCap’s purchase of IXIASOFT
  • Online Conferences for Technical Writers in 2023

About Me

Robert Desprez I have worked as a Vancouver technical writer for more than 20 years, working at Kodak, Boeing, Teck Resources, and FortisBC. In addition, I have worked as a writing instructor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

Contact Me

Robert Desprez Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Inc.
North Van­cou­ver, British Columbia
Canada
Phone: 604–836-4290

  • Email
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025  · Robert Desprez Communications Inc.