Re: Fw: 47. RE: Okay all you independent contractors: hit the bricks with THI---S
And marcomm is a little different, I believe, as they focus on emotionalThe division of technical writing/rational and marcom/emotional is often assumed but, in my experience, it doesn't have much basis in reality, at least if you're working in technical marcom.
impact. So their stuff doesn't have to make a lot of rational sense, but
make emotional appeals.
To start with, to say that marcom in general is emotional is like saying that resume-writing is emotional. In both cases, the writer shouldn't be concerned with making an emotional impact, but in selection of detail and the emphasis of important points. It would be more accurate to say that they are persuasive genres, rather than emotionally based ones.
That is especially true for technical marcom. The audience for technical marcom strongly dislikes hype, and even a hint of it can often destroy the effectiveness of your copy. In general, the audience likes to believe that it will base its buying decisions on rational decision-making.
That belief may or may not be true in individual cases, but, as a technical marcom writer, you have to act as though it is always true. That means that your efforts come down to one of two things (or both): either emphasizing the facts that will encourage people to buy the product, or else drawing the audience to a website where it can find the facts.
The only exception to this general description I can think of is humor. A technical audience is very likely to appreciate humor, and it is really the only form of emotional appeal that will work in technical marcom.
--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield
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I didn't see it then:
March until your feet get sore,
You never dance again."
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Fw: 47. RE: Okay all you independent contractors: hit the bricks with THI---S: From: Eileen Neumann
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