Stop and think: Have you ever said to a marketing communications writer,

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

If so, it’s very nice of you, but it shouldn’t be necessary. Marcomm writers don’t have feelings. That’s why they’re writers.

A writer with a fragile ego?

Maybe you haven’t put it quite that way. Maybe you’ve said, “The team and I went over the white paper you wrote, and we made a few small changes here and there – nothing big, really, just some minor tweaks,” or “Have a look at our comments. They’re pretty straightforward,” which means you made a zillion changes. Or maybe you didn’t say anything and just made all the changes yourself because you didn’t want to cause a fuss.

If you’re trying to trivialize the changes so that you don’t trigger additional charges for a rewrite of the white paper, that’s one thing. That’s business.

But if you’re trying to avoid bruising your writer’s fragile ego, you should probably adopt a different mindset. Or a different writer.

This isn’t personal; it’s about a work product that is either adequate or inadequate. You don’t need to be rude, but you should be ruthless with your writer, because you’re the one on the hook for copy that falls short.

As I’ve mentioned before,

Writers don’t write. They suggest.

Part of your job as a marketing manager is to reconcile their suggestions to realities your writers do not see: technology changes, market dynamics, layout, tone, fit, office politics and so on.

Don’t worry about hurting their feelings simply because the white paper needs more work.

Good writers can deal with it. Good writers are made of fire.

John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”

photo credit: ncanup

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“By the way,” the creative director asked, “do you speak any foreign languages?”

“Yes, I do. Why?”

“Well, it’s not likely I’ll need you to write technology marketing content in anything but English, but I saw the name of your company and thought you might have some foreign experience.”

“Do you consider that an advantage?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she replied. “I find that the most flexible writers are those who speak another language. If they can’t figure out how to express something one way, their brain is wired to figure out alternates. I suspect it’s because they need to do that, especially if they’re not completely fluent in the other language.”

Stop. Go back. Try again.

Isn’t this what technology writing is about?

Marketing communication writers spend most of their day going down one mental avenue, realizing that it won’t lead where they want the reader to go, then backing out and trying a different avenue. This is an important part of the equation in creating useful content.

Engineers say:

Our tool can currently read a DRC result as long as it’s written out in bare ASCII format, but the LVS and PEX results are written out in proprietary binary format, not ASCII. So, without EVI, you couldn’t do schematic and layout cross-probing, which makes LVS much harder. Also, you couldn’t easily view the PEX information; for example, you couldn’t click on an object from the other tool’s results and get PEX information about it.

and marketing communications writers capture that, look beyond it and extend it for the reader:

The tool is an enabling technology for our users who, in the past, have had to resort to competitors’ tools for DRC. Now they can read these results and model in our tool.

The writers don’t replace the technical copy. They turn it into a guidewire.

Peter Longini cites strategic marketing pro Adam Boone on the old saw about turning “deep-fried dead chicken parts” into “finger-lickin’ good.” Any marketing writer knows that the former will get you nowhere with customers, but it takes mental dexterity to run down and up several rabbit holes quickly until you’ve come up with the latter.

Add “Knows multiple languages?” to the list of questions you ask your prospective marketing writers. It’s icing on the gateau/pastel/Torte.

John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”

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A good marketing communications writer is versatile, but don’t push it. Everybody’s talent stops somewhere.

How thin can you spread your marcomm writer?

Can she do a good job on everything you need, like:

• white papers
• Web content
• technology overviews
• case studies
• press releases
• corporate backgrounders
• annual reports
• blog posts
• SEO copywriting (isn’t that redundant nowadays?)

Or, do you find you need multiple writers for the different stations along your Content Buffet?

Facts of Life about Writers

A man’s got to know his limitations.

-“Dirty Harry” Callahan

Doug Clarke of Hologram Publishing posts that “Good writers, like good singers or dancers, are versatile in numerous topics, formats and genres, and are not just one-trick ponies.” In fact, most marketing communications writers become drawn to other types of content by their clients. “You did an article for a local magazine; can you write our Web content?” Six months later, the writer is hanging out a new shingle.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but as a marketing manager, you have to be sensitive to where your writers’ limitations lie, and be careful not to push them past it, or it will blow up in your face.

4 Questions before Stretching a Marcomm Writer

Here are four questions it’s perfectly fair for you to ask before nudging your marketing communications writer one step closer to his limitations (especially if you’re not sure of what you yourself are getting into):

1. “Can you describe a project in which the format was new to you, and you delivered content that made the customer happy?” Let’s face it – I need the content, and you know writing, but I’m trying to reduce my risk. Tell me a story about when you went through this before, and convince me that you’re up to it; otherwise, I don’t want to chance it.
2. “Can you show me a sample from that project?” Slam dunk if he can, and still iffy if he cannot. He should be able to give you something to allay your concerns, or else point you to another writer.
3. “What method will you follow in writing this?” (Not, “Do you have a method?”) This is part of how he should persuade you that he’s up to the task. If he has written all of your press releases, but never done a case study, ask him how he would plan to go about it.
4. “What do you need from me to write this? Are you able to help drive the project, or do I need to do that?” How much support do you need as marketing manager to drive review loops, work with the designer, birddog subject matter experts or customers, and generally get things done on a project with which you’re not familiar? Somebody – either you or your writer – is going to have to run the project, so you’d better make sure that your expectations line up with those of your writer.

I recommend that you get satisfactory answers to these questions before you dive into the other important questions:

1. How long will it take?
2. How much will it cost?

If you’re not comfortable basing your business decision on the answers to the first few questions, then great answers to the last two questions won’t do you much good.

John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilspicys/ / CC BY 2.0

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Set your marketing communications writers up to give you perfect content. Have them write about what they love (that you sell).

With Valentine’s Day still on our minds, it’s a good time to think about love, as in loving what you write about.

Tom Chandler of the Copywriter Underground posted recently on Tom Gaylord, an authority on airguns. Gaylord loves the subject of airguns so much that he could write all day and all night about them, and he does just that. Chandler writes:

The first words out of Gaylord’s mouth were: ‘Most important is to write about the things you love doing.

‘I see my role as more an educator than salesman,’ he said, and his straightforward style of writing reflects it. He’s been writing about airguns for almost two decades, and expects to ‘continue doing so until I drop.’

‘You should write about the things you love so much that you can’t wait to write the next post or article.’

Do you like that concept? What would you have to do to surround yourself with freelance writers who love writing about your products and services?

Getting Your Writer to Love Writing for You

In surveys of employees, education and training are often among the most valued perquisites. What if your freelance writer, on the other hand, values something completely different?

Like relationship.

Consider these ways to relate to your marketing communications writer:

1. “Horses for courses” – Give your writer the kind of work you know that she likes and at which you know she excels, and keep bringing her back to it. When you first engaged her, you certainly asked, “What kind of writing have you done before?” Did it occur to you to ask, “What kind of writing do you like to do?”
2. Treat her like an insider – “We have a marketing strategy meeting coming up next Monday afternoon, and I’d like you to join us.” How difficult is it for you to arrange that? The sooner you get beyond treating your writer like your auto mechanic, the sooner she can do more than check your fluids and change your oil. Don’t forget that your writer is halfway between you and your audience, and a professional writer will pick up valuable things you’ve overlooked.
3. Personal rapport – How many kids does your writer have? Where is she going on vacation? What’s her favorite cuisine? How is her day going? A lot of people don’t have the personality to ask questions like this, but it’s how relationships are built. You know these details about some of the people in your life; why not about your writer? The writer who knows that her relationship to you is important, is the one who can love writing for you.

Of course, writers are in it for the money, but when that’s all they’re in it for, you can usually detect it in their work product. When you as a marketing manager engage your writer in a relationship, the writer is inclined to fill that work product with more of herself. You win, the writer wins and your content wins.

These are extensions of some of the ways you can help your writer over the hump. When she’s completely on your side and loves writing for you, you’ve got a big-time ally.

John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sis/ / CC BY 2.0

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While most job-seekers rely on a résumé to describe who they are and where they’ve been, professional marketing communications writers often prefer a marketing piece more akin to a brochure.

Do you ever ask for a freelance writer’s résumé? What for?

Most freelance writers don’t deal in résumés. In some large companies, the function of hiring a freelance writer ends up in Human Resources, where the starting point for everything is a résumé. This is especially likely if the writer is a sole proprietor billing against a personal Social Security number.

As a marketing manager, getting a résumé from a freelance writer may strike you as a square peg in a round hole. After all, a writer is either:

1. freelance
2. full-time
3. pseudo-freelance while looking for full-time
4. your cousin

If he’s #2 or #3, he’ll have a résumé because he’s in the mood for a job. (Don’t hire him if he’s #4; I guarantee you’ll regret it by the next family gathering.) If he’s #1, he usually hangs out his shingle in other formats:

• E-brochure – The kind of thing you’d expect to see on a Website, with statements of capabilities and services offered. These have the stigma of being “not what Web 2.0 is about,” but how else can you as a marketing manager figure out whether you’re dealing with a writer or a refrigerator repairman? A tastefully executed Services page on a Website or blog readily answers the question, “Is there some chance you can solve my business problem?”
• Portfolio of writing samples – Unless he’s been writing top-secret papers for the intelligence community all of his professional life, the writer should have samples and be prepared to display them. If you don’t see them on his site, ask for them. Challenge the writer to show you something that is similar to what you need written; however, don’t shut the door just because you don’t see the 6-page white paper on interferometric modulation that you want him to clone for your company. You may need to assess the writer’s ability to digest a new topic and deliver a good technology essay based on it. Which leads us to…
• Testimonials – Referrals and endorsements from any marketing communications writer’s other clients should leave you comfortable that he will do what he says he’ll do – the cornerstone of any business relationship – and write the paper that you need. If for some reason he has no references and you still want to work with him, you can always try…
• Your network – He may know somebody you know and trust, and perhaps that’s enough of a shingle for you. There’s a lot of value in your network and the trusted relationships you have, and a connection like this may be all the writer needs to market himself. Some writers don’t bother with marketing material, samples or testimonials at all because their own network connects with yours, bringing all the work they can handle right up to their door. These people certainly don’t need a résumé.

In the context of hiring a freelance writer, these four formats go much further towards demonstrating to you his ability to solve your problem than a résume does.

John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

photo credit: SOCIALisBETTER

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When you meet marketing communications writers in networking situations, here are 5 useful questions for qualifying them.

Believe it or not, freelance marketing writers do get out in the wild from time to time, where, if you’re shopping for writers, you can hire them.

You may encounter them at chamber of commerce meetings, industry get-togethers and networking mixers for your profession. Note that they don’t frequent the same venues as most technical writers or even copywriters. Some of them fancy themselves closer to the people whose custom they seek than to their colleagues and peers.

Still, they all want work, and they may even want it from you. Here’s a sequence of questions you can pose to determine whether to short-list the writer who approaches you in the wild:

1. “What do you write?” This is the first hurdle. Regardless of his industry or specialty, you want to know what kind of content the marketing communications writer generates. If you’re a product manager or an engineer who needs a white paper, and the answer comes back “direct mail copy and press releases,” this is a bit of a stretch. Or, if you need a grant written, and the answer is “case studies and LinkedIn profiles,” you’d better keep looking.
2. “Are you freelance?” Don’t forget that many agencies and companies have their own in-house staff of writing talent. There are freelancers who work for agencies, and that’s not an obstacle to your hiring them, but if they work as employees anywhere, they won’t likely have time to dedicate to your projects when push comes to shove.
3. “Do you have a card?” Asking for a card is just an expression of interest, not a tacit commitment to hire. You can’t judge a book by its cover, but I recommend you judge a writer by her card. A serious writer has a serious card. If it’s flimsy, or it reads “vistaprint.com” on the back, then you’re probably holding the card of an unsuccessful or fledgling writer. Maybe that’s all your budget can support, but know what you’re getting into. If she says, “I have a résumé,” that is NOT a business card; it means this person has not yet decided to make a living of freelance writing, and you should not yet decide to hire her. If she says, “I don’t have any cards with me,” then she’s an engineer – they never carry business cards with them (or are hopelessly stingy about giving them out).
4. “Do you have a Website or a blog?” A blog is the easiest thing in the world to put up nowadays; a small Website is the second-easiest. This question is another way of gauging the seriousness of the writer. If your needs will tolerate a good writer who is clueless about visibility on the Web – are there any left? – then don’t worry about the answer to this question. Otherwise, visit the site with measured expectations; it’s not going to look like disney.com, but it should satisfy your basic curiosity.
5. “Where can I see your writing samples and clients?” Frankly, hoisting lots of writing samples onto a site is rather laborious, so you may have to content yourself with e-mail attachments. Once I hired a writer who had NO electronic samples – he mailed me an envelope of printouts – but I needed his subject matter expertise. Note that there is a bad reason for having no writing samples: The writer is just getting started or is dabbling. Note also that there are good reasons for having no samples: The clients have so “enhanced” the writer’s work with typographical and other errors that the writer no longer feels any ownership, or the writer has written pieces which the client has not released externally.

In short, most real marketing communication writers have:

• a card with an address on it
• a phone that isn’t the house phone
• a Web site or a blog with occasional updates
• examples of their work
• a client list

In addition, most really professional marketing communication writers have:

• a compelling piece on why you should hire them
• a social media presence (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Ning, etc.) that demonstrates a following
• endorsements from clients

The kind of writer with which you want to do business DOES NOT have:

• excuses for any of these things

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1. “Let’s Have the Tech Writers Do It”

Sure, this is all work for hire, and a freelance writer won’t have the dedication to your company that a full-time employee will, but what’s wrong with asking for a little commitment?

The Marketing Writer’s Commitment to You

If you’re structuring the engagement correctly, you as the marketing manager commit to paying and the writer commits to delivering the content you want. That’s not very complex, and each of you knows where the other stands.

But, it’s really only a transaction.

Don’t you want a relationship? Don’t you want a marketing writer who’s visiting places you don’t go and sending you back ideas? Don’t you want a writer who sees your overall content landscape and writes from that background?

Suppose your writer asked you to put him on your newsletter mailing list. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head?

Suppose your writer followed you in other channels – videos, webinars, tweets, press releases – and sent you a list of new content ideas with a note:

I’m not just angling for more work, but here are some opportunities for new content that we can jump on. What do you think?

What can you do to get that kind of commitment?

Ask.

Your Commitment to the Marketing Writer

Once you’ve determined that you and the writer get along, and that he’s willing to learn about your business and do better work for you, bring him in closer. Try these:

1. “I’m going to send you a sample of our product (or a guest login to our Website, or a free hour of our service).” Offer to pay for an hour or two of his time to learn your product or service better, so that he builds context and background around the terms he uses in his pieces for you.
2. “I’ll have our Web marketing team send you our latest basket of keywords.” This is so drop-dead simple – it helps your writer give you more-searchable content – but it’s a big leap for a marketing manager to think of it. Plant the relaxed, high expectation that he will do the necessary research to use the keywords properly.
3. “I’d like you to dial in to our weekly marketing meetings for the next couple of months.” Even if he’s just a fly on the wall, he’s going to pour things through important filters and come back with ideas that have not occurred to you. Ask him for them after a few calls.
4. “I’ll put you on our mailing list so you can see the kind of content we’re generating all the time.” No writer interested in a strong relationship with you will consider that spam. He doesn’t need to cling to every word, but he ought at least to find patterns or opportunities. Or maybe just typo’s.
5. “We’re sending you a plane ticket so you can work on the next paper on site for a few days.” Some writers will say they’re too busy to do this, and you may have to punt, but having your freelance writer in house for a few days will shift a lot of relationship-building into high gear.

What have you tried to bring your marketing writer in closer? Has it worked?

photo credit: Vinay Shivakumar

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Here’s a shortlist, happily unencumbered by research but underpinned by years of dealing with writers.

1. Go dark. How about those writers who “run silent, run deep,” don’t return your calls or e-mail, and pop back onto radar when you least expect it? Are you breathlessly relieved to hear from them again, or put out?
2. Overturn your edits. You spend two hours revising a draft and changing text, then get the next draft back with most of your comments unincorporated and no explanation from the writer.
3. Pull an end-run on you. Maybe they contact somebody else in your department without your knowledge, or send e-mail to one of your customers without copying you. This is felony-dumb behavior.
4. Tell you your business. You and your team have decided how you want to use the content you’ve hired the writer to produce. The writer may suggest additional options, but only a bad writer will tell you that you’re off message or pushing a rope or missing opportunities. That’s what marketing and PR consultants are paid to evaluate.
5. Avoid discussions about money. You’re a businessperson with a budget and a boss and a finance department and a recession on your back, not to mention the need to publish content. Isn’t it helpful to you to deal squarely with a writer about things like hourly rates, fixed bids, late payments and when you can get her the check? Sure, not everybody is Howard Hughes, but these are loose ends you don’t want to leave untied. It’s easier when the writer meets you on the level about them.

These and other sins generally boil down to two factors: communication and professionalism. Writers who have mastered these lost skills of business are an asset.

The others are a pain in the…

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More to the point: How can you be ruthless in your feedback on a draft?

I consider the line a good ice breaker. I’ve used it with marketing managers and engineers who appear uneasy about the process of judging my writing. It’s not really that I want them to tell me that my work is a great heap of useless nonsense, but I don’t want politeness to get in the way of information, because that will slow down the business at hand.

Here are a few ways of interpreting it:

1. “I don’t deserve your praise, so lower the boom.” If you’ve hired a writer with an inferiority complex – or worse yet, somebody incompetent – you’ve probably hired the wrong writer. If you get ruthless with this person, you’re going to ruin the relationship and the document.
2. “Let me put you at ease: You’re not going to hurt my feelings.” This writer is a “pleaser.” It’s hard to know whether pleasers are really working with you, or just satisfying their urge to please. They’re generally honest when they tell you that you won’t hurt their feelings, though, so don’t be afraid to criticize their work roundly.
3. “Look, you’re the one with the information, I’m the one with the keyboard, and we both need this piece to tell your story properly. Let’s not allow politeness to interfere with the job we both have to do.” This is a pretty businesslike way of looking at the matter; “be ruthless” doesn’t really do it justice, but this is what it boils down to.

As on the Web, people usually find it easier to be ruthless when they’re not sitting across the desk from you and looking you in the eye. So, if you’re still new to the concept of being ruthless with your writer, you’ll find it easier when you’re not reviewing a draft in real time. Tell the writer you need some time to go through the piece on your own and then get back with comments.

You can be much more ruthless and businesslike when the only personality you’re dealing with is that of a red pen or a blinking cursor. Let the writer deal with it afterwards.

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Our new writer hasn’t.

Actually, that’s a good thing.

Funny how several of us are quick to reject the writer’s tainted perspective on our products and specialties just because ‘taint ours.

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