Tech Copywriting 101
If you’re a copywriter working on freelance sites, then a lot of the potential work you might find (that pays well) will be in the technology sector. Whether it’s sales pages for apps, technical documents for cloud companies or an email list for a software-as-a-service start-up, there’s plenty of work to do in the tech copywriting sector.
There are a couple of good reasons to consider writing technology-based copywriting stuff: 1) It pays well and 2) Your competition will easily weed itself out. Needless to say, those two are related.
Competition for tech copywriting is weaker than you’d think because a lot of copywriters – or would-be copywriters – fail to understand what they’re getting into.
Essentially, you can’t sell a financial transaction app in the same way you’d write “15 ways to make your skin really clear.” There are particularities to writing for the tech field, and a lot of them require a bit of a balancing act. You have to be tech-savvy but not speak like a nerd. You’ll also have to research the marketplace and then barely talk about it.
In this article, I’m going to give you a chest of gold as far as tech copywriting goes. I’m going to explain how I approach the biggest hurdles you’ll come to, and how to solve them.
(For regular readers, consider this the latest update in the software business challenge series. I don’t just generate this info out of nowhere – it’s real-world stuff.)
Remember, Features are Benefits
Ping!
A new copywriter receives an email. “Hey… you’re hired. Write me an article about the SuperSuper App!”
The first mistake the new copywriter is going to make when drafting their article is this: They’re going to think, “Aha, technology sector!” and proceed to make a Copywriting Beginner 101 Mistake.
They’re going to start listing features.
“Oh… it’s got Peer-to-Peer Things!”
“Wow… It connects to your phone AND your tablet!”
For some reason, people assume that technology is sold in a completely different way to everything else. They assume that customers don’t need to read why the product applies for them. They’re supposed to make the connection between 6GB RAM and “loads games quickly” themselves.
Needless to say, this is the wrong approach to take. Whether you’re writing about technology or puppy training you never give a list of features without first reworking them as benefits. It doesn’t matter if the feature is as boring as watching paint dry on a really cold day.
You need to give people an emotional reason for why they care about the width of the bezel on their new laptop. No excuses, no exceptions.
Don’t Be Patronising – “Talk With A Friend”
Alright, so the new copywriter is hopefully reading this article. It’s going to save his bacon. However, he might have read the above point and closed his browser down, thinking, “I’ve got it!” Read on, because this is where tech copywriting gets tricky.
When you’re talking about an advanced topic of any kind, be it tech, law or finance or anything else for that matter, you have to engage in a balancing act.
You can’t just take a feature, say, a security program for a website, and write in, “Our product keeps those big mean hackers away!”I mean you could, but if your clients are multi-million dollar companies, they’re going to think you’re an idiot and go to someone else.
So you have to pitch your tech copywriting at a level that’s informative for the reader yet also doesn’t bore them to death. This can be really tricky, especially if you’re writing for a tech client whose customers know more about the product than you do.
Luckily, there’s a workaround here: Write as though you’re talking to a friend.
Now, you might think, “None of my friends are tech geeks, and I’m obviously trying to target tech geeks, so what’s the deal?”
Good question.
Assume you have just made a discovery in a field where one of your smart friends knows more than you. However, also assume that he doesn’t know about this new discovery. Your job is to inform him of this new discovery and convince him of the accuracy.
If you’re playing along here, you’ll know that this consists of three things:
- Not saying anything stupid
- Not patronising the hell out of your friend
- Still getting across what this is and why he needs to know it
…Providing That Friend Isn’t A Total Dork
You’ll probably have realised from playing the above exercise that the best way to talk about tech from the point of view of a person who probably isn’t an expert to a person who might well be an expert is to be straightforward and honest.
That’s certainly the approach I take. I’ve written for medical companies, legal companies and tech companies using this approach, and it always works. You get the right tone and vocabulary if you talk like an enthusiastic amateur sharing a discovery with a slight-superior intellect.
Now, there comes a separate issue when you go down this route.
You might be tempted to imagine a friend who is a total tech know-it-all.
We’ve all been on forums when we’ve googled, “Which is the best laptop for X?” We’ve all been horrified by the endless rants and diatribes that people will go on – thousands of words of meticulousness about whether Apple is superior to Windows, whether Facebook is stealing your data or whether consoles are superior to PCs for gaming.
This isn’t ever something you want to engage in in a tech copywriting article of any kind. Even if you’ve literally been hired to talk about “Apple vs. Windows” you don’t want to pontificate like the guy at the house party who everyone seems to be shuffling away from.
You don’t need to convince someone of the endless possibilities. Nor do you want to meticulously pull apart every little detail about the thing you’re talking about. Again, even if that’s the job… it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about a security breach on a server or the latest drone camera for skateboarders.
Copywriting is always emotional at its core.
Research is absolutely key and you have to pepper in facts and figures (definitely do this!) but you will absolutely fail if you don’t keep the narrative interesting.
Remember… the buy button goes at the end. Even if you have the most detailed assessment of new technology ever, nobody is going to hit that buy (or subscribe) button unless they get to it.
Final Thoughts
Now there are countless different aspects to tech copywriting – and a lot of them are going to be very subject-specific.
However, if you follow the guidelines below, you’ll be most of the way there:
- Copywriting is an emotional journey from bored to buy
- Write copy like you’d talk to a friend;
- Assume they know more about the general subject than you do
- Assume they know less about the specific thing you’re writing about
- Research enough so that the above line is true, and hopefully enough so that the line above that isn’t true
- Don’t fall into the trap of writing like a know-it-all, endlessly comparing specifications and “is X better than Y?”
Add to that the basics of copywriting – engaging content and an idea of how and when to sell, and you’ll do better than ok!