Basic Marketing Techniques  

Effective marketing is key to your success. Marketing is based on your image and message, both of which can be delivered in a myriad of methods.

Maggiani, Rich. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>TC>Marketing

Communicating Complex Ideas: How Public Prediction Markets Simplify Concepts about Buying and Selling Events and Ideas

Can prediction markets be used successfully in a corporate environment? Kirtland forecasts that making them easier to use just might be the key. Through simple guidelines, he shares strategies for benefiting the wise crowds.

Kirtland, Alex. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>TC>Marketing

Developing Successful Marketing Materials: An Evaluation Workshop  

A marketing piece that holds a reader's interest and delivers its message is successful because it integrates a variety of writing techniques with the visuals and layout. This workshop will help you identify successful techniques for marketing materials such as brochures, data sheets, white papers, and press backgrounders.

King, Janice M. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>TC>Marketing

Enhancing Our Image: Creating Good Public Relations  

Effective chapter public relations results in an increase in membership, more interested and active members, and an awareness of technical communication as a valid and an important profession. This workshop teaches general public relation skills, such as how to write effective press releases, how to get your chapter events treated as news, and how to create and then maintain a press list.

Braz, Lisa M., Susan L. Fowler, Alan Korwin, and Nancy Martin. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>TC>Marketing>Press Releases

Increasing Visibility: Building Demand for Technical Communication Services

Good technical communication is critical to the success of products and ultimately to the success of companies. But even the most perfect manuals may go unread, and the most elegant help systems may go unnoticed unless you take the time to promote the quality and necessity of your work. You need to showcase your talents and to encourage people throughout your company--and the community--to value and understand the work that you do. This will ideally lead to more respect, better pay, and more interesting work.

Huettner, Brenda P. TECHWR-L (2005). Articles>TC>Marketing

Marketing Technical Communication Services Effectively  

During 1993 and 1994, three Western Canadian chapters of the STC collaborated on a research project, funded by Western Economic Diversification and the STC, to discover how clients and practitioners view technical communication. As one of the final products, we commissioned a half-hour presentation designed to market technical communication services. At this session, we describe the project and deliver the half-hour presentation. We invite the audience to evaluate the presentation as a marketing tool.

Conklin, John James and Sheila C. Jones. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>TC>Marketing>Canada

Putting Power, Creativity, and Truth into Your Marketing Message  

Good marketing has a clear, concise, benefits-oriented message. Great marketing adds power and creativity by using effective graphics, headlines that tie the graphics to the message, and body copy that invites the reader in and tells the story of a problem that can be solved. Power results from combining emotion and facts; creativity lets the message break through the clutter, differentiates the product or service from the competition, and helps to convey the company’s values.

Brenneman, Judy Fort. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>TC>Marketing>Emotions

Spread the Word

As technical writers, multimedia artists, editors, Web designers, graphic designers, translators and others who make technical information easily understandable, we are often at a loss to explain what it is we do in our job as technical communicators. We need to provide information to the Des Moines business community through fliers, news articles, and our newsletter. We want to promote recognition of our members who receive awards from their employers for projects well done

Atchison, Beth. STC Central Iowa (2001). Articles>TC>Marketing

Ethos as Market Maker: The Creative Role of Technical Marketing Communication in an Aviation Start-Up    

This study examines how a very light jet start-up, Eclipse Aviation, changed its ethos appeals in order to survive the loss of its principally declared innovation, a jet aircraft engine. Eclipse Aviation’s corporate transformation from a spin-off company to a convergence-of-innovation company hinged on modifying an early marketing strategy. To overcome the loss of the jet engine, employees had to radically modify earlier expert representations and adopt rhetorical appeals that more closely parallel what Miller described as "cyborg discourse." To understand how Eclipse Aviation survived the typically fatal loss of a stated primary innovation and to explore the implications that this particular start-up’s rupture has for technology transfer and technical marketing, this study centers its analysis on a Web site that marketers used to "ventilate" the company and prevent financial collapse. The transformation in the company’s marketing strategy illustrates how cyborg ethos appeals aggregate and discipline distributed stakeholder roles.

Mara, Andrew. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2008). Articles>TC>Marketing>Case Studies