How to write marketing content if you aren’t a marketer

I’m writing this article for two types of people. If you fit into either of the categories, I’m hoping you’ll find some useful tips that will make your working day easier.

Type 1: You work in a role that isn’t marketing-focused. But you’re regularly asked by your marketing department to either offer input into marketing material or write marketing material (in the form of blogs or white papers, perhaps).

The requests make your heart sink or your hackles rise. The experience of working with marketing — or writing material for them to use — is always painful and protracted.

Type 2: You work in a role that isn’t marketing-focused. But your company isn’t yet big enough to employ anyone to do marketing, so the task of writing marketing materials often falls to you.

It’s a job you put off for as long as possible because it always takes too long and very rarely gets the results you were hoping for.

Why and how this article will help you

I’ve been running my own copywriting agency for 15 years and write marketing material for clients big and small. Before that, I was a web copywriter in a web design agency. And before that I worked in marketing roles at companies such as Oxford University Press. It means I know a thing or two about marketing and writing marketing material.

But more than that, it means I know a bit about working with non-marketers on marketing content. I’ve seen first hand the difficulties — and even conflicts — that arise. I’ve also worked out ways to overcome those difficulties and conflicts.

So if engaging with marketing is one of your pet hates, read on. I’m going to share some ideas on how to approach marketing content if you aren’t a marketer. If you’re tasked with writing marketing content, I hope it will help you next time you have to write. If you’re asked to offer input on marketing content, I hope it will give you insight into the marketing process and why marketers say, do and ask for what they do.

Know your reader

The first step to writing good marketing content is understanding who your customer is. When you’re asked who your company sells to or who your target market is, it’s very easy to think that everyone is. After all, you want to reach as many people as you possibly can, don’t you?

But as we all know, trying to be all things to all people simply doesn’t work. You end up appealing to no one.

Let’s take an example. Let’s say you sell food canning equipment. Straightaway we can say that the only people you need to be trying to sell to are food production companies. Let’s say the investment in the machinery is significant. This means you need to be trying to sell to big food production companies – small, artisan operations won’t have the space or the money (yet, at least). So you need to be targeting big food production companies.

You can and should be even more specific than this. Only a few people at the company will have input into or responsibility for investment into new machinery. Your material needs to be relevant to people such as the factory manager (who will know what machinery the factory needs) and the finance director (who will know what the company can afford to spend).

Let’s take another example. Let’s say you’re opening a new business cleaning people’s homes. Straightaway you can pinpoint the geographical area you want to work in (even if you decide to expand into other areas later on). You can pinpoint more specific areas too. Not everyone can afford a cleaner so it makes sense to target people in wealthier areas who are more likely to have disposable incomes. It’s also probably true to say that the person likely to be making the decision to get a cleaner is likely to be the female within the household (we can discuss the rights and wrongs of this state of affairs another time).

As you start to build up a picture of the person who’ll be buying from you, it becomes easier to know what you need to say to them.

Marketers often take this idea to the next level. They create what are known as client avatars or buyer personas. They’re different terms for the same thing: a pen portrait of an ideal or typical customer. Marketing agency Hyped Marketing sums up the benefit of having a client avatar by saying: “When you understand who your ideal customer is, what they look like, their habits, interests, challenges, aspirations, in fact everything about them, you’ll be much more effective in marketing to them.”

So in the case of the food canning equipment company selling to factory managers we can say the person is likely to be male (again, we can discuss the rights and wrongs of this another time) and in their late 40s (because it take a while to reach the level of factory manager). We can go on into more detail, looking at what concerns them in their working day (for example, they might be tasked with improving efficiency on the factory floor) and what their key performance indicators are (reducing downtime, say).

In the case of the cleaning company selling to wealthy females we can say they’re likely to be working and don’t have the time to clean their own homes to the standard they’d like. We can go into more detail and think about how that makes them feel. Depressed because they don’t like coming home to a dirty or untidy home after a busy day. Embarrassed to invite friends over because of the state of the house.

It’s important to note that a client avatar doesn’t exclude the people that don’t fit into the picture. For example, what if the factory manager is female? What if the householder is male? It doesn’t matter. Because the things that concern them will be the same. The female factory manager still needs to improve efficiency and reduce downtime. The male householder is still too busy to clean their own home. So the things you say to them will still resonate.

What to do next

If you work in a company with a marketing department, ask them for detail on the people they market to.

If you’re in a company without a marketing department, you’ll be able to build your client avatar by thinking about the people who buy from you. Think about the common themes that come up and the problems they’re looking to solve. Marketing software company Hubspot has some excellent resources for building your client avatar. I recommend starting with How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business.

Remember you’re the expert — but your reader might not be

If you aren’t a marketer but are involved with marketing content, it’s likely you’re an expert in your field. Once you know your target audience, you’ll know how much knowledge they have and how that affects the way you write.

Scientifica specialises in providing cutting-edge equipment optimised for electrophysiology, multiphoton imaging and optogenetics research. One of their tips to help you interest and engage your audience include understanding the level of technical knowledge they have:

“It is important to understand how much science your audience is likely to know, so you can tailor your language and ensure they will be able to get the most out of your article or presentation, fully understanding the content.”

Let’s say you’re an engineer and you’ve been tasked with writing a specification sheet. It’s likely the specification sheet will be read by an engineer. So you can assume a relatively high technical knowledge. But remember that while they may understand the subject in general, they won’t necessarily understand your product in particular.

On the other hand, let’s say you’ve been tasked with writing a leaflet to be given to the finance manager on why your machine is such a good investment. They won’t have much (or even any) expert technical knowledge. So you’ll need to bear this in mind if you need to talk about anything technical. (There’s more on this subject later on.)

Before we go any further it’s important to remember to respect your audience, no matter what their level of technical knowledge. Bill Roberts has worked as a psychotherapist, a professor and a change consultant. He says:

“The label non-expert does not suggest stupidity or even lack of interest. Expertise is different than intelligence: it requires massive amounts of information and years of training in working with that information. You are probably appallingly ignorant of marketing or finance or accounting or manufacturing or customer service. We are all non-experts most of the time.”

What to do next

The next time you’re asked to write or assess a piece of marketing material, make sure you understand the knowledge level of the person you’re writing for.

Remember everyone wants to know what’s in it for them

There’s a marketing cliche –no one cares what you do, they only care what you can do for them. In other words, people aren’t interested in the features of your product or service, they’re interested in why those features are good for them. Matthew Stibbe is founder of Articulate Marketing, which offers digital marketing for B2B technology companies. He says:

“Telling somebody that your product has 48 Megafloodles won’t help them make a purchase decision if they don’t know what it means for them. Even if your competitors only have 24 Megafloodles, who cares? You need to tell a story about what your product can do for the buyer. At heart, marketing is talking to buyers about things that matter to them using their words.”

Let’s say your food canning equipment has 48 Megafloodles. What this means for the customer is that it cans food twice as fast as the nearest competitor product, which means you’ll be able to can food faster, which will save time and money. You might argue that your reader will be able to work this out for themselves and won’t need to be told. But that’s a bit of a risk to take. And in any case, why should they bother to take the time to work it out? And if they do know the benefit, why not take the opportunity to remind them of it?

What to do next

If you work in a technical role in a company with a marketing department, bear this tip in mind the next time you’re asked to read or write a piece of marketing material. Of course it’s likely to hurt when all the detail about the cleverest bits of your technical prowess have been stripped down or even stripped out in favour of information about how it saves time and money. But, depending on the target audience, naturally, try to resist the temptation to put it back in. Ask yourself if the details are really something your customers will care about (even if you think they should).

If you work in a technical role in a company without a marketing department, bear this tip in mind the next time you’re writing. How much will your audience really care about the technical detail?

Know the purpose of the material you’re writing

The next step is to know why you’re writing and where it fits into the rest of your marketing. For example, a blog might be to establish your credibility and credentials, demonstrate your expertise or offer insight or opinion on a particular topic. It’s likely to be read by people at the start of their ‘buying journey’ – that is, they’re researching what’s out there before making a decision about which company to work with.

A leaflet might be to introduce your business as a whole or a product or service in particular. It’s going to be sent to people who have expressed an interest in your company or the particular product or service you’re selling.

You also need to know the goal of the piece. The goal of the blog might be for people to share it on social media or sign up to the company’s newsletter. The goal of the leaflet might be to book an appointment for a sales rep to call.

What to do next

If you work in a company with a marketing department, ask them where the piece fits into the overall marketing picture and its goal before you assess it or write it.

If you’re in charge of marketing, take a moment to think about these things before you start writing because it will give you a much clearer focus.

Understand structure

Good copywriting almost invariably follows a formula of some description. Perhaps the most famous — and most often used — is AIDA:

“The AIDA model … describes the necessary number of tasks that are required to move a customer from the awareness stage to the very action that leads to a conversion.”

It stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. You can read about it in depth at The Art of AIDA Copywriting — Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. But in essence:

“You need to get your readers’ attention, an effect usually best achieved with a headline, video or hero image,

Maintain their interest by making them see that you understand their problem and that you have the perfect solution to it,

Instigate desire by showcasing the life-altering benefits of your offer and by demonstrating your product or service in action using photos, videos and testimonials,

Use a clear, unapologetic and obvious call to action that compels readers to act on the spot.”

By now, you may have spotted that a lot of copywriting is about putting the customer and their needs first. The AIDA formula is just another example of that. Don’t think about the way you want your product or service presented to the world. Think about how your customer will want to hear about it in a way that will make them want to buy it.

What to do next

If you work in a company with a marketing department, understanding copywriting formulas is a useful way to deconstruct a piece of marketing and understand why it’s been written in the way it has.

If you’re responsible for your own marketing, remember that using a tried and tested formula makes writing easier and is more likely to get results. AIDA is the best starting point when you’re writing outright marketing materials such as sales letters, leaflets and flyers. If you want to know about other formulas, probably the most comprehensive list of formulae for writing marketing materials is at The Ultimate Guide to No-Pain Copywriting (or, Every Copywriting Formula Ever).

If you’re writing blogs or articles, there are seven ideas for article structures at 7 Simple Formulas for Writing Articles That Get Read. You might also like Six Logical Writing Structures.

Take note of style

Copywriting is often dismissed as ‘wordsmithing’. Copywriters are often asked to ‘sprinkle a bit of copy magic’on something. As I hope you’ve started to see, if copywriting is going to do its job (i.e. get someone to buy or do something) it isn’t about making something sound pretty. There’s a lot of thinking and cold hard fact (or, at least, there should be) behind every piece of marketing material.

This isn’t to say it isn’t important to try to write beautiful prose and make something enjoyable to read. (And if you’re interested in this sort of thing, I recommend Shani Raja’s Writing With Flair course on Udemy.)

However, style is perhaps less important than you might have believed. More important is that it is easy to read. Never choose style over substance or trying to write in a way that shows off to or tries to impress your reader.

George Orwell’s advice is a useful starting point:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Remember too copywriter Bob Bly’s advice:

“[I]f you have to make a choice between making your copy too simple or too sophisticated, err on the side of making it too simple. Reason: in my nearly 30 years of writing business-to-business copy aimed at engineers, scientists, programmers, and other techies, I have never once heard a prospect complain, “This brochure is too easy to read.”

There’s another very good reason to choose clarity over complexity, as Sarah Richards of Content Design London explains:

Think about these stats:

- the average reading age in the UK is about 9 years old

- 1.7 million adults in England have literacy levels below those expected of an 11-year-old …

Writing for an age range isn’t the same as writing to that age. Most 9 year olds will not be interested in insurance or benefits applications … But someone who is 49 with little time, a small phone screen or a life to live, will benefit from clear writing.

If you’re focused on your target market, all this will start to come naturally. Because you’ll know that your reader won’t be impressed by — and may even be turned off by — fancy language.

What to do next

If you work in a company with a marketing department, you’re likely to have a style guide that says something very similar. Copy isn’t there to sound good, it’s there to do a job. Focus on clarity every time.

If you’re responsible for writing marketing copy in your business, this is my advice. If you’re going to take the time to write something, you might as well maximise the chance of it being read. Don’t try and over-complicate things or choose a fancy word when a plain one will do the job just as well.

Lastly, remember that they need you and it’s good for your internal PR to work with them

If you work in a company with a marketing department, all-too-often it can feel like they think you’re a necessary evil. But the secret truth is that they need you and your expertise.

Jamie Cartwright, Product Manager at Betterment, says in The #1 Asset for Marketing: Non-marketing Staff:

“Looking deep within a business’operations, there are usually plenty of people who may not be experts in promoting a company’s brand, but they know exactly how to compete in their industry. Beginning with the CEO and going all the way to entry-level operators, every company out there is rich with human resources that marketers can draw on to show off what the company is about.”

And just as marketing need you, you need marketing. Here’s what Cliff Gilley of The Clever PM has to say (my bold):

“First, and foremost, we can help provide [marketing] with useful and usable content. Whether this is writing up feature/benefit documentation, collaborating on positioning statements, or even creating drafts of collateral for them to modify as needed, every little bit can help. You should also consider guest posting for the company blog — this helps build your own authority as well as the trust customers have in your product. We need to remember that we are the experts on the product, and we should be able to describe how everything that we’re doing and building will benefit our customers and our prospective customers in the market.”

To sum up

I’ve witnessed (and been involved in) plenty of conflict between marketing and the rest of the business over the years. As with all forms of conflict, it’s important to step back and see things from the other’s point of view. I hope this insight into writing marketing copy will help you understand where marketing is coming from the next time you’re asked to collaborate on something.