Writing for a specialist audience

Taking a technical topic and turning it into an insightful and engaging piece of content can be a challenge, but here are three rules to consider when approaching a technical piece of writing.

Use your experts

We can’t all be experts in every field, so when approaching a complex topic, it’s important to engage any experts you have access to. Without their vital insights, your content will lack depth and technical accuracy.

At Aberfield, when we’re drafting a long-form article, report or whitepaper, we always locate the expert closest to the given topic first and gather as much information from them as we can. This helps us cover all bases for potential angles and ensures that we’re properly utilising their expertise.

This approach proved immensely successful when we were tasked with creating a piece of CSR-driven thought leadership for our client Young’s Seafood. For those in the seafood industry, reducing and managing the environmental impact of their work is paramount. Young’s wanted to showcase its achievements working closely with several Fishery Improvement Projects and its knowledge of these sustainability initiatives.

Marine conservation is a challenging topic, underpinned in marine biology, therefore we knew that we had to draw on Youngs’ expertise to create accurate and precise copy. Having a great relationship with the broader Young’s team meant that we were able to quickly identify our expert, set up a call and run through the key points we wanted to make within this article, working together to determine how his insight could fill the gaps.

As a result, the final piece was incredibly detailed as we drew on our expert’s insight while using our communications experience to create relevant and incisive copy. The article was featured on Undercurrent, a leading seafood trade title and can be found here if you want to read more!

Don’t overcomplicate it

Once we’ve engaged our experts, the next step is to ensure the content is clear and concise. Expert insight helps to create an argument and provide the detail necessary to speak to a specialised audience, however, technical team members are not communicators (and that’s why we’re here!).

Using all the insight provided can overwhelm a piece of writing, so we always try to condense it down and draw out the most salient points. For instance, earlier this year we had the pleasure of working with NG Bailey’s IT Services team to create a piece of thought leadership around cybersecurity and smart buildings. Indi Sal, head of the division, is a font of knowledge when it comes to this topic and working closely with him helped us to understand the key points we needed to draw out.

As we were writing not only for an IT audience, but also engineering and services audiences, we avoided using too much jargon so that everyone could understand and engage with the piece.  The result was an informative piece, which received over 60 positive engagements on social. You can find the full article here if you’re interested to see the finished product.

Make sure you’ve done your reading

Having an awareness of what other companies and the media are discussing around a certain topic is a very useful exercise when tackling more technical pieces.

We take the time to read around our subject, which provides us with an understanding about the style, voice and approach others in the field take to similar pieces of writing. Some sector press may like content to be written in a particular tone, so it is important to be aware of these nuances from the start.

Research stats can also bring weight to a piece of writing. For instance, earlier in the year, we pulled together an article for our client CPP Group, which provided an overview of the main global technology trends influenced by the impact of Covid-19. This involved analysing how HealthTech adoption in the had boomed in the Asia Pacific region, while Turkey moved towards digital payments.

In order to create a well-rounded piece of writing which took into account different territories, trends and technologies, we evaluated a range of different research reports to bring our argument together in a cohesive and comprehensive manner. The final piece appeared on ITProPortal and clearly shows the breadth of research that went into it.

And finally…

We have one last step to take before commencing our writing, and that is fully understanding the subject matter. Never start writing without understanding, if you do, it will show through in the final piece!

The approach is simple: listen, read and understand. Don’t let the scale of the topic feel overwhelming and always make full use of the resources available to you.

If you’d like any copywriting or PR support for your business, get in touch.