Why you Should Hire a Technical Writer and a Content Person

“I can’t seem to get that copy the right way. It looks more like a how-to.”

A fellow colleague, who takes care of writing technical articles in the team, told me once. I could completely relate to her. I was a technical writer once, and thought I love writing, I couldn’t get a decent marketing copy out those days. It’s not that I was bad at writing. It’s just that I was tuned to writing a certain way.

A lot of startups and small businesses hire people in the name of “Content Writers” and give them technical and marketing articles to write. Though both are some form of content, it’s two different genres of writing and it’s impossible for a person to handle both the roles.

Technical vs Content Writing — The Difficult Switch

Technical writing and content writing are two very different genres of writing. It’s like reading a Harry Potter and The Bone Collector, or eating Pizza and Biryani at the same time.

The switch while reading two extreme genres or while eating two extreme dishes is difficult. Your tastebuds would be tuned to whatever you eat first that the latter wouldn’t appeal to you at that time.

That’s exactly how a person handing technical and marketing copy feels. They are tuned to writing a certain way that the switch between the two becomes extremely difficult.

But it’s all about writing.

That’s a common notion among the non-writers, but allow me to correct it. It’s about writing but it’s the WHAT and HOW of writing that’s different.

A technical piece is a set of instructions to get something done. It’s the HOW-TO-DO-THIS-STUFF of writing along with WHERE-TO-FIND-IT, and WHO-CAN-USE-IT. It should be simple, crisp and really easy to understand.

A technical writer (a.k.a as a person in charge of User Education) usually handles,

• Guides 
 • Training Manuals 
 • FAQs 
 • How-to video script 
 • Transcripts inside the product, and 
 • Technical White Papers

A marketing copy, on the other hand, talks about the benefits, use cases and value props of the product. In short, it’s the WHY and WHAT of writing and does not include the HOW like the copies in,

• Blogs 
 • Website 
 • Email 
 • Presentation 
 • Brochures, and 
 • Ebooks

Now, that’s a difficult switch for a sole writer to make. It’s unfair to make him/her handle it, and worst to judge their quality of work based on it.

If you know anyone who is handling both technical and content writing, here’s something they won’t tell you — the pendulum would eventually lean over the side they like the most, ignoring the other.

So before that happens, hire a technical writer and a content writer, and keep your technical and marketing materials up-to-date, perfectly!