Are you a technician or manager (or a non-marketing staffer) who has to write, approve or edit the copy from a marketing department - how can you ensure the finished brochure is the one most likely to hit its target?

Here are 5 Straightforward Tips for Better Technical Product Brochures.

In a previous incarnation in the world of professional associations, one responsibility I took pleasure in was to act as a "business-knowledge" go-between from the marketing department that was writing our product brochures, and our technical staff who were developing the product.

Coming from a technical background, I could help review the marketing brochure drafts that the marketers had submitted to our developers.

As guilty of the same as I have been in the past, many of the technical staff would grumble that the marketing department didn't understand the product that they were developing - or that they had misjudged the intended audience of the product.

To their credit, the marketing department would often come to meetings with us, and suggest that it was in fact the engineers who didn't know their onions on the advertising side.  The marketers wanted to keep the brochure high-level and not confuse prospects with the minutia of a technical product.

It was all very polite, but there was obvious conflict as to who knew best.

With a foot in both camps, it is reasonably easy to see that both sides had some merit to their argument.

WHO KNOWNS BEST

The single most common concern from the technicians was that the brochure was far too breezy and light-weight, and didn't do justice to the no doubt highly-involved product.  The brochures were often dazzling in their execution - glossy, full-colour, and with (more often than not) a defiantly creative brain doing the writing/design.  No bad thing, but do we really need to include a spongy stress-ball in the shape of an zinc ingot as a gimmick in the mailing package?

But the key to the technician's argument was normally boiled down to this: the writer hadn't dug far enough into the product.  They were lazy in their research, or they'd not been given (or asked for) all the materials available to inform themselves with.  Usually, a reader with even an intermediate knowledge of the product's marketplace would think "this writer has no idea what this product does".  In short, it was flannel.

Now, many of the marketing departments I worked with were fantastic.  They weren't overly 'clever clever' for the sake of it, and didn't go in for puns or petty word play.  That is a good thing.  Even at the arguably stuffy level of technical brochures where light relief may have been welcomed, writers usually remembered the Claude Hopkins mantra of "no ones buys from clowns".

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

And to be fair, the technicians were usually down-to-earth people, who didn't callously set out to baffle the marketers or their audience, but sometimes it's difficult to avoid jargon when discussing "Fix-Gateway Online Non-Ferrous Metal Trading Systems" or a "Certified Account Technician Scheme - Recording Financial Transactions" program.

So, assuming you're coming at this article from the position of a technician or manager (i.e. a non-marketing staffer) who has to write, approve or edit the copy from a marketing department - how can you ensure the finished brochure is the one most likely to hit its target?

Let's keep it simple, with 5 Straightforward Tips for Better Technical Product Brochures.

1. Clarity
Sit down and clearly define what your topic is for this brochure.  Not for some other strategy, not for some global solution. For this brochure.  Be specific.  Is the brochure about an all-in-one solution?  Or a learning system? Is it a new range of drainage pumps? Your newest state-of-the-art top-of-the-range drainage pump perhaps? An after-sales service for your new accountancy students?

That's it.  Simple.  Define what the brochure is about.  Now, as odd as it may seem, being more focused, specific and narrow on this point can in fact make it a more successful brochure.  The brochure doesn't have to cover everything.  That's what the manual is for.  If you try and hit every target audience with one brochure, you're more than likely to miss everyone.

What is a more attractive premise for a product brochure?
"Accountancy Qualifications for Recent Graduates" or "Failed University? - A Career In Accountancy Can Still Be Yours".  They're not great I grant you, but you're going to catch the eye of EVERYONE who flunked university with the latter, rather than a passing interest from graduates with the former.  That's because you're being specific.    And everyone loves to be address specifically.  You can cover much of the same ground, even offer the exact same product to both parties in the brochure, just angle it at a specific group.  You still get paid for your product.

2.  Know Your Target
For technical software products, is your brochure being mailed to software developers, or their managers who control the purse strings?  The developers might want to know how fast the software will compile their code, or automate test scripts.  The manager will probably want to know more about the license costs, upgrades, and possible ROI.

Whoever is your target, it is unsurprising that people seldom complain that there was "too much explanation" in the brochure (once you of course have followed Tip 1 and are being specific).  Don't leave to chance that the software developer reading your brochure knows that your testing software provides  "a rich set of assertions as static methods of the Assert class".  Or whatever.  You get the point.  Give them the details of what's on offer.  "Tell to sell", as Dan Kennedy might say. Spell out your specific message.  Don't leave it to chance that the reader will think "uh...I'm not sure if this does what I need it to do", and bin your brochure.

3.  Write with the end in mind
What is the ultimate objective of this brochure that you've spent time and not inconsiderable expense producing?  Is it a puff-piece to get your name onto the coffee table in an industry leader's office?  Is it to show that you provide more features on your gaskets than your nearest competitor?  Or that you can cut lawns and hedges quicker because you have invested in superior equipment from Sweden?

You must have an idea that you want to communicate to the reader, and so you should write with that in mind.  It can be simple like "Child-Friendly Dentistry", or "Risk-free business consultancy".  Whatever it is, keep it in mind, and write around it in a comfortable way and don't lay it on too thick.  Everyone likes a little bit of sugar, but not too much.  Once you have a theme for your brochure, writing it will become more automatic.

4.  Know the world in which you sell
Well, if you can't "know" it inside out (there's often no need to), at least understand it enough to hold your own.  Like all marketing, it comes down in some form to three basic things.  Argue against this if you wish, but I haven't found anything that describes the various selling environments as clearly as the following:

The buyer didn't know they had a problem.  This can be the software developers who didn't know they were taking 40% longer than the industry average to develop their website.  Or maybe it wasn't much of a priority.  In this case, you want to show in some dramatic or at least noticeable way the severity of their problem - and how your product or service can fix it!  As soon as you show the prospect that they have problem, and that you are the solution, they can join the dots themselves and buy your product or service.

The buyer knows they have a problem, but need convincing that your service is their best solution.  Maybe you have to offer your consultancy service as a no-obligation trial for one hour.  Once convinced by this no-risk offer, they'll be more likely to buy.  There are of course issues with offering something "for free", but there are creative ways around this if you're not too pushy.

The buyer knows they have a problem, they know the kind of widget they need to fix it, but are unconvinced that yours is the widget they should choose.

Something as mind-numbingly straight-forward as a comparison table can work its magic for you if included in your brochure.  It's not rocket science, it's not hypnotism, it's just giving the prospect some excuse to buy your product.  Not to advocate mis-selling - and we always want to provide valuable services or products - but many prospects are looking for a standard widget out of twenty standard widgets.  Give them the backup they need - the comparison table will take the decision out of their hands and you will make it for them.  Simple.

5.  At the very least - include just these two things

1. What the customer needs to know about your product to make them buy it
2. What you should say to persuade them that yours is the best product or service in the market place.

Just get into the guts of it.  Be your customer.  Don't dilly dally.  If your prospect's project, or next career move, was depended on what was in your brochure, what would they be thinking?

If your marketplace is over-populated, other aspects you can go into are the uniqueness of an aspect of your product.  Or get personal testimonials from respected industry figures. Or print an excerpt from a favourable review.

There are many copywriting techniques available for you to produce an effective brochure that will bring in the business you want.  But to get a basic bootstrap brochure out there, you can't go far from success with these 5 bullets.

[photo: http://www.govicinity.com]