There’s More to Life than Proposal Writing:
Marketing as an Alternative Path
By: Emily Wells
MtM Staff Writer
A leading misconception about technical communication is that it’s all about writing technical manuals and proposals. While this may be a convenient way to explain job possibilities, it is not all that a technical communicator can offer, which W.C. Wiese discussed in his presentation on Using Your Gifts for Marketing Support.
W.C. started by talking about how marketing is a different option for technical writers, explaining that if you can add persuasion to your technical writing skills, you can be a marketing writer. He demonstrated this by sharing his personal story of how he became a marketing writer, offering valuable advice along the way.
For example, he stressed the importance of starting by writing proposals and tech manuals for products, as this can allow you to learn everything there is to know about the product you are selling. In addition to knowing your product, you must also know what the competition is doing and anything else that relates to the economies of your industry. With that in mind, you can then create a media plan to go with it, showing your marketing skills.
This all tied in to perhaps the greatest lesson W.C. imparted: to always look for ways to improve your worth as an employee. For example, as a way to establish himself ,W.C. started a daily newsletter at his company using excess time he had. This served as a “daily calling card” while also showcasing his marketing skills, since the newsletter essentially served as a market analysis report. Fifteen years later, the newsletter is still going strong, and W.C. is working as a valued and successful marketing writer.
