Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Writing is never easy, but technical writing takes the complexities to a whole new level – it can be tremendously difficult to market technical, engineering, or manufacturing products.
Not only does your text need to be easy to read, but it also needs to be technically accurate, regardless of whether you’re writing copy about your product or service or a long-form blog post about something complex. Your chosen writer needs to match a deep understanding of technical concepts with the ability to communicate these clearly to a wide-ranging audience.
A technical copywriter is usually the best person for the job.
Let me take you through some of the advantages you’ll gain when hiring a technical copywriter.
A technical copywriter has one core function – excellent communication. Perhaps I should say a technical writer since there are some distinctions between copywriting and content writing, and you’re likely looking at both if you want to fully develop your engineering blog.
With a unique set of skills, technical writers are masterminds at converting complex terminology and ideas into easy-to-understand text, communicating efficiently, professionally, and simply.
This is great for your potential clients.
Would you invest in a service if you didn’t understand what the business offers? Would you read through a news article if the content was so complex that it felt like slaving through a doctoral thesis?
Probably not.
The same is true for your company’s text, regardless of whether this is for the brochures you have lying in your office, the press releases you send out, or the information portrayed on your website.
While clear and professional communication is important, you’re still working for an engineering company and technical details are bound to crop up time and time again.
While website copywriters are excellent at communicating clearly, they won’t always have the expertise to master the technical side of things.
That’s where technical copywriters come in handy.
They’ll be able to take something like product information and translate it into text that suits your target audience well, using language and descriptions that can be understood by the people you’re most trying to influence.
Saving money is always a good thing, but you may be wondering how hiring a technical copywriter will help save you money?
Employing a freelance or contract technical copywriter can actually reduce your overall expenses for multiple reasons:
- – If you pull an in-house employee, like an engineer, to complete your technical writing duties, you’ll be taking them away from their area of expertise and losing some of their work. This won’t be a very efficient use of time, and will drastically decrease productivity.
- – If you work with a professional copywriter who doesn’t have technical expertise, you may get all the same writing benefits, but they’ll take longer to complete technical projects since they don’t have the engineering background to translate complex information. This also isn’t a very efficient use of time.
Technical copywriters are highly skilled at what they do, meaning they’ll be able to craft top-notch engineering copy in a fraction of the time it’ll take someone else to do it – and their final output will be much higher and of a much better quality.
And, ultimately, that’s what you want.
It is true that your in-house engineers will be the most knowledgeable about products or services, but this doesn’t mean that they’re the best employees to create blog posts or other written copy.
Think of it like a mother and a baby. A mother loves her child, no matter what, and will always highlight the positives. She’s emotionally invested.
The same may be true of an engineer and a product or service they’re very invested in.
A technical copywriter, however, is one step removed, allowing them to write from a more neutral standpoint – and that’s what you want (and need) for technical writing. You need someone who can write clearly, providing details and benefits, of course, but also remaining objective.
We’re all familiar with kitchen fiascos, when you’re trying to make coffee and toast and press the oranges for fresh juice and get the perfect scrambled egg cooking – it’s a recipe for disaster.
But for some reason, this is more difficult to understand when it comes to business. While juggling many different projects at the same time isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is vitally important to focus on one thing at a time. Statistics show that multitasking leads to a 40% drop in productivity and that only around 2.5% of people can actually multitask effectively.
This isn’t good news if you’re trying to run your department or design a new product while thinking about the lengthy blog post you have to write. And it goes without saying that writing in-depth blog posts does take time and effort.
So it’s best to leave the writing of your engineering content to someone who can give it their full attention. And since they’re focused on only this one task, your blog post will be finished much more quickly.
Since technical copywriters know what they’re doing, they instinctively choose the correct layout.
Professional content will usually meet the following criteria:
- – It’s well-structured and easy to read, making it a joy for your customers or blog audience to go through.
- – It’s usually visually attractive and easy on the eyes.
- – It relies on standardized fonts, text sizes, and color palettes that make reading easier, something that’s particularly important for web content.
- – Of course, the content itself will be free from grammar and spelling errors.
Hitting all of these key points will showcase your firm’s professionalism, helping build your brand’s authority in the engineering market you’re targeting.
We’ve already established that hiring technical copywriters can save your engineering firm money, but it can also reduce workloads for other departments.
How often do you have potential clients calling in to ask questions about your product or service? How often do you struggle with complaints because a client misunderstood your service?
These issues are largely due to bad communication, regardless of whether this refers to too-complex explanations or descriptions lacking information. If your customer isn’t receiving the knowledge they need to proceed, your communication process – and sales funnel – is hindered.
But a technical copywriter can write from a customer’s point of view, answering the most common questions and addressing the most prevalent issues.
If the writing is easy to grasp, customers are less likely to contact customer service looking for assistance. This eases the pressure on what is often already a very stress-filled department.
As we’ve seen, a technical copywriter’s primary responsibility is to communicate difficult concepts and information in a manner that everyone can grasp. And employing a technical copywriter not only saves time and money, but also allows you and other team members to focus on more important tasks.
Feel free to contact me if you need a technical copywriter for your engineering blog.
Of course, you’ll be looking for someone with a strong writing background – that’s paramount. But you also need someone with experience in engineering or technical fields or experience in technical writing.
Yes, unless you have a ton of work that needs to be completed on a monthly basis, you can also hire a freelance or contract technical copywriter. This may be a good idea if you’re just starting your engineering blog and need someone to help you out on an ad-hoc basis.
Some technical writers will also be apt at drawing up content plans, but if you’re responsible for the overall content direction, you’ll also need to provide your writer with a brief. We can help with your content strategy if needed. Learn more here.
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