Importance of Technical Writing: 3 Little-Known Ways Technical Writing Affects Your Bottom Line
Much has been said about content writing, but little is spoken of technical writing.
Yet, technical writing is a significant part of every business. It has a massive impact on customer satisfaction and your business's bottom line.
Technical writing is all about ensuring your customers make the most of your product and services. Without access to technical writing, your customers would be muddling through a product, not really understanding its full benefits. And when fed up, abandon it for an easier and well-documented product.
Here are all the benefits you stand to gain by incorporating technical writing into your business.
But first things first…
What is Technical Writing?
Technical writing is any form of writing used to explain or instruct your products or services' uses, technicality, and functionality. In this article, we will focus on technical writing geared towards customers.
Technical writing simplifies the complex, clears cobwebs, and helps the customer better understand a product or service.
This type of writing is more common in industries with complex or sensitive information. Typically these sectors cut across healthcare, aerospace, engineering, and finance. However, technical writing is still popular in most other industries.
Relevant reading:
Everything You need to Know About Technical Writing.
Your Ultimate Guide on How to Create Technical Blogs.
Characteristics of Technical Writing.
6 of the Best Techincal Writing Examples
Examples of Technical Documents
Technical documents come in many forms depending on the intended user. The most famous technical documents are user manuals and product manuals. However, case studies, white papers, proposals, and industry reports are also examples of technical documents.
Here are 4 examples of technical documents:
- The product manual that came in with your iPhone 13 pro
- The assembly instructions you got after buying the IKEA Poang chair
- The industry report whitepaper you just downloaded last week
- The content marketing proposal your colleague presented yesterday morning at work
Content Marketing vs. Technical Writing
Content marketing is an umbrella term that describes the creation, sharing, and distribution of various content forms to attract, retain and educate customers.
The main goal of content marketing is to attract and educate customers on the value and benefits of your products. The content form mainly used in content marketing can include blog articles, infographics, videos, and images.
On the other hand, technical writing teaches customers how to use your products and services. In most cases, technical writing is presented in detailed knowledge hub articles, videos, and screenshot images.
Both content marketing and technical writing have the aspect of educating prospects and existing customers. However, technical writing explains more technical and complex issues.
The technical writer also needs to have a subject matter expertise level to create excellent technical writing. Technical writing will delve into the jargon, clarify terms, and provide step-by-step instructions on using a particular product or completing a process.
Content marketing is more lightweight and shorter. In most cases, it's also a high-level overview of particular themes and categories a business operates in.
Now let's see the importance of technical writing to your business.
Here's How Technical Writing Helps Your Bottom Line
What if you had the most incredible product this world has seen. Your product can do wonders, change people's lives, and lessen a lot of frustration for customers.
That would be great, right?
But then, what if people couldn't use your awesome product because they didn't know how.
That would suck for both you and them.
And it would end with your customers dropping your product off as quickly as they learn they can't use it.
Fortunately, technical writing removes this risk by closing the gap between your product and what customers can do with it. By investing in technical writing, you allow customers to understand your product inside out.
But don't get me wrong.
Technical writing is not stuffy or hard to understand. Like content marketing, technical writing should be simple and provide quick answers to your customers and prospects.
Technical writing helps your business bottom line in these 3 main ways:
- Increases customer satisfaction
- Enhances product adoption
- It helps your internal teams serve the customers better
1. Increases Customer Satisfaction
Let's say you just purchased a SaaS subscription.
If you're anything like most people, once you land your hands on the product, you want to explore it from all angles.
You want to know how it works, how many ways you can use it, what a particular feature accomplishes, and most importantly, how to change the UI to dark mode (Just me?)
The same applies to your customers.
They spent money on your product, and they sure want to know everything that your product can do for them.
Typically, customers will figure out most of these benefits on their own. However, to fully understand a product and its value, customers will need access to more information on how to use the product.
This is where technical writing comes in.
Technical writing helps customers learn about your products through getting started guides, web training materials, and videos that break down complex product features into easy-to-navigate segments.
Good technical writing helps customers find answers. Great technical writing, on the other hand, empowers users. Such writing makes users feel like the heroes in a story since they can resolve their own issues.
The result of great technical writing is more satisfaction from users who feel empowered to solve challenges through your product.
When customers can find answers easily through documentation, reports, whitepapers, and user manual, reliance on the support team is reduced dramatically.
On the other end, when customers have readily available answers and instructions, they can take full advantage of a product. This level of product utilization leads to an increased perception of value for their money.
Ultimately, the customer uses the product longer and has more satisfaction with the overall brand.
2. Enhances Product Adoption
Once a customer buys or subscribes to your product, it doesn't end there.
They can always choose an alternative if they find your product too hard to use or navigate. And here's where technical writing showcases its true benefit.
When customers have access to the user manuals, product documentation, and the like, they can better use your products and reap the full benefits. This means that customers use a product for longer. Customers will also share and recommend your products more.
If you sell a software-based product, technical writing is even more critical.
As you iterate your product, you need to ensure customers know that a particular new feature exists and what the feature can help them achieve. Without technical writing, customers would be blindsided on important product feature updates and, consequently, the benefits of these features.
Here's how technical documentation comes to the rescue:
- Easily available 24/7
Most of your customers dread calling customer support. And who wouldn't anyway? Contacting customer support for many means waiting for ages on hold, listening to some not-so-cool on-hold music, and a menu that's always changing.
If there's another way for customers to access answers, they'll jump on that opportunity. Technical documentation is that knight in shining armor. One, customers can have access to technical documentation 24/7. Two, customers don't have to chat with a bot, go through back and forth emails, or wait on hold to learn how to use a product.
In the 1990s, General Electric found that they reduced customer calls by 125 calls per month when they updated their user manuals with clearer languages. In addition, the company saved between $22,000 and $375000 a year once they introduced the easier-to-navigate manual.
Even as you create your technical documents, ensure it's in a language customers can understand.
- Comprehensive answers
With technical documentation, the customers find most if not all answers to their queries in one place. The customer can quickly scan a knowledge hub article or watch a video, and in a snap, they have a better idea of how to use a particular feature.
Without such documentation, customers would have to hop on a call each time they have a question about a product feature.
3. Helps Your Internal Teams Serve the Customers Better
Technical writing geared towards customers can prove beneficial for your internal teams too.
For instance, the sales team can use technical documentation to explain the benefits of a product to prospects and customers.
Marketers can use the same documentation to derive key benefits of a product and transform this into a value proposition during advertising campaigns.
Finally, your support team can use technical documentation to understand the product inside out and provide better and more detailed support to customers.
Marrying Technical Writing into Your Content Marketing Strategy
Now that you know the importance of technical writing, how do you make it work for your business?
It starts with integrating technical writing into your content marketing strategy. Technical writing is more like an extension of your content marketing strategy.
Think about it.
Once a customer subscribes to your product, say an Email automation tool, they will require technical documentation to help them make full use of the product.
So, your blog posts and infographics attract customers to your products. However, the technical documents help them use the product to its full capacity.
These technical documents need to be created by an expert who can balance the technical aspects of the product and the creative element of writing.
Enter Zoey Writers.
We have a team of writers who can balance your product's technicality with copywriting prowess to deliver technical documents that instruct on processes and clarify your products to customers.
Feel free to check out our technical writing services to find out how we can help you create lively, engaging, and easy-to-understand technical documents.
Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash
