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.
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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!
Hi Frederic,
You’re welcome!
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…
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.]”
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.