Technical Marketing for better market differentiation and enhanced customer experience at moderate cost

TWB provides technical marketing back-office support to Lenovo, Microsoft, McAfee, Citrix and others. We produce complex management thought papers, white papers, customer success stories, datasheets and other content that complement their IP and help them acquire customers. A large part of the technical marketing collaterals distributed worldwide by these companies is produced by TWB, in Bangalore.
See how we help differentiate technology in the market, achieve better customer satisfaction and manage this at much better cost.

Introduction
This paper presents the value and the importance of technical marketing communication to position and differentiate products of a company in a highly hypercompetitive market. Technical Marketing Communication documents include a wide variety of marketing collaterals such as Technology White Papers, Case Studies, Datasheets, Cheat Sheets, Solution Briefs/Solution Brochures, Presentations Products/Corporate Profile, Web Content, Flash Demos, Press Releases and Newsletters.

Why Technical Marketing?

In todays highly competitive world, the need for and importance of technical marketing is uncompromisable for any organization that wants to stay ahead of competition. There are slews of new products that reach the market each day with unthinkable and unimaginable quickness. An interesting point to note in this hyper production and hyper competitive market is that multiple companies come up with products that cater to similar needs of a customer (products that are otherwise not easy for the customer to differentiate). This, in turn, makes the decision making of consumers more difficult since they have to choose from a host of products that satisfy the same needs. Together with a number of products reaching the market everyday, consumers are constantly bombarded with too many marketing messages and documents. This adds to the woes of consumers. Moreover, today there is a paradigm shift in the way customers behave. In a world characterized by networked communications and competition, todays customer behavior can be summed up in the following way:

Technical marketing documents serve a dual purpose. They highlight the technical capabilities of a companys product or service as well as support selling. Unfortunately, documents produced by many organizations do not hold the attention of their audiences and lack intelligent marketing techniques. They also fail to deliver the right message to the audience with crispness, quality, and impact. An effective, customer-focused technical marketing communication can sell your products better and faster. By effectively communicating products features and benefits, technical marketing communication can aid the customer in making a purchasing decision. Apart from providing technical information and support selling, technical marketing documents also enhance your image in the eyes of your customer. Technical marketing documents provide you the following advantages:

Customers define brands Customers consume more customized products Customers control when to consume information and in which formats

Increase your selling opportunities Reduce marketing costs Reach out to potential customers Achieve consistent, branded information across all materials Streamline and deliver critical information to prospective clients Customize communication to provide impact Achieve an appropriate and effective marketing presence

Hence, effective differentiation of a companys product from that of its competitor has become extensively difficult today. All companies, especially technology companies, require effective, well-written technical marketing communication for two main reasons:

Indispensable need for differentiation of products from those of competitors Need to reduce the costs of acquiring new customers and retaining the existing customer base

However, creation of technical marketing documents is an uphill task as it requires sufficient expertise, technical and marketing knowledge of the product/service concerned, as well as excellent writing skills. This paper explores the importance of technical marketing communication and TWBs role and expertise in the field.

In short, how effectively a company communicates the attributes of its products/services will determine its position in the marketplace. Delivering right messages about products in an appropriate manner through carefully chosen means of communication will help:

Establish strong relationships with customers Build strong customer base Produce results

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Outsourcing and Solutions

Why Outsource? TWB Solutions: Being Different to Help Differentiate
TWB is a leader in providing technical documentation and technical marketing communication services. TWBs team of highly skilled technical writers can set new trends, break the barriers and raise the bar for any product through their unquestionable ability in technical marketing communication. TWB understands quality documentation can be the differentiator to a companys product.

There are various reasons why a company should outsource its technical marketing communication requirements.

Lack of product knowledge and documentation skills: More often an organizations sales / marketing team involved in the promotion of its products does not have the required documentation expertise and the personnel involved in documentation lack product knowledge. Resultant overheads and time wastage: Not outsourcing can result in unnecessary overheads and time wastage. Outsourcing the technical marketing communication requirements to an established documentation organization can prove to be advantageous. It can be cost effective and produce results with quicker turnaround times, allowing an organizations marketing team to focus on their actual work. Full-spectrum activity: Technical marketing documentation is a full-spectrum activity. It requires thorough research skills, understanding of market behavior, analytical abilities, good writing skills and dedication. In many organizations, promotion teams multitask without completely dedicating their time and effort to creating technical marketing documents. This can result in inaccurate and poor quality documents, which in turn will affect the performance of a product in the marketplace. A birds-eye view by an outsourcing partner: An outsourcing company can view the marketing needs of a company dispassionately and without being influenced by established processes and practices. This will enable the outsourcing partner to provide innovative solutions, suggestions and strategies for marketing a companys product.

Various domain experts and highly skilled documentation experts: Our team of documentation experts with industry-leading experience and domain expertise will take the burden off the marketing team. TWB is equipped with the latest documentation tools and processes that can meet any marketing challenge, by providing accurate, well-written, high quality marketing collaterals. Project management and Estimation: Through our established project management system, TWB ensures that the marketing documents are produced with quicker turnaround times, without compromising quality. Full-spectrum activity: TWB can take your marketing collaterals to a new level because TWB has a full spectrum documentation process that involves researching, documenting, designing the layout and publishing the marketing collaterals with quality. Value-added Service: Our long track record in documentation and expertise in marketing has earned us a unique position that enables us to analyze and suggest solutions that are innovative and effective.

Benefits
Through their association with TWB, a company can produce quality, accurate, well-designed technical marketing documents that will help:

Influence and inspire customers to make purchasing decisions Sell products faster Achieve quicker turnaround time Cut costs Focus on high-value work within the organization

Case Studies
Case Study 1: Largest Microprocessor Manufacturer

The worlds largest semiconductor chip and microprocessor maker launches a Community PC for Indias rural population. For this product launch, the company requires marketing collaterals and user manuals to support their product. Documentation needs to be simple, easily translatable, and user-friendly for the target audience. This task is particularly challenging as the company needs the documentation within a span of 10 days. The company requires 10 simple, technically accurate documents, specifically designed for the target audience. TWB works out a plan which ensures that documentation is provided in the required format and timeframe, without quality compromise. TWBs team of documentation experts, monitored by an excellent project management team, reviews customer requirements and initiates project plans that ensure high quality & delivery within set deadlines. These resources, possessing an in-depth understanding of rural populations, work onsite and offsite towards the completion of the project, with flexible timings to suit a customers every convenience. They create marketing documents that are on par with international standards - simple, accurate, and masterful. The TWB resources are able to deliver the project within the stipulated timeframe, with high quality and accuracy. TWB helps companies: Market and launch product lines in time, reach out to wider rural populations with the simplicity of documentation, achieve quality and accuracy in technical marketing communications, obtain documents that are easily translatable, and to cut costs and save time.

Case Study 2: Largest PC Manufacturer

A leading manufacturer of award-winning PCs, spanning operations across continents, requires to launch their products with supporting marketing collaterals. With a vision to capture the world market, this computer manufacturer starts developing products. With their global teams working on the technical aspects, the in-house documentation team busy with pre-launch marketing activities, and launch deadlines drawing closer, it becomes difficult for them to concentrate on marketing collaterals. Time constraints further add to the companys woes. With end-users of the PCs ranging from individuals to large enterprises across the globe, it becomes imperative to have simple, crisp, and accurate documentation in place, to aid easy translations for a cross section of populace. As the company is engaged in aggressively introducing new products every two months, the need for high-quality marketing documentation with quicker turnaround times becomes a great challenge. The company approaches TWB for documentation solutions. TWB, reputed for its documentation expertise, formulates a team of documentation experts, marketing experts, and quality auditors to create marketing collaterals that satisfy the specifications and exacting demands of the customer. The entire documentation procedure goes through a process of research, comparison, analysis (competitor products, target audience and market), documentation, and quality audition. This results in documents that are factual and simple, with a customer-friendly marketing tone. The greatest achievement is being able to produce these marketing collaterals in a quicker turnaround time, helping the customer meet product-launch deadlines. The customer draws a number of benefits from TWBs services. They are able to meet their goals in terms of product launch and product marketing with reduced costs and effort. Sales of their products shoot up and the customer is able to launch a range of 25 products in one year and market it with great success.

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Value of Technical Publications

Technical Communication for Transferring Product Knowledge
The purpose of technical communication is to transfer product knowledge to end users in a comprehensible manner. The strategies of communication and levels of information vary depending on the type of product and audience. Providing end users with information about a products operation and maintenance is critical to the market performance of the product. Hence, the need for quality documentation is imperative. In todays business scenario, technical publications are often developed as an afterthought. This usually results in inaccurate and incomprehensible documentation, which, in turn, renders the users incapable of using the products. Accurate, readily understandable, and quality documents determine how a product sells in the market and result in increased customer satisfaction.

Communication for Different Levels of Technical and Product Knowledge

In technical publications, audience is the focal point. Hence, the style, language, and content must vary depending on the type of audience being addressed. Every user has a specific role in the implementation and usage of the technology. Therefore, it is important that documents be created keeping in mind the role of the person who will use the document. For example, when you document a software application designed for highly technical users, it is sufficient to provide the users with quick reference information to use the application. For users who start without technical or product knowledge, it is important to provide detailed product information along with instructions on how to use the product.

Attractive Publications as Useful Marketing Tools

Besides transferring knowledge, technical publications are also used for marketing a product. Before a product is released in the market, information about the product needs to be effectively communicated to the customers. Well-designed, accurately presented, and attractive marketing collaterals increase the market prospects of a product and reduce support costs.

Faulty Assumptions that Result in Problems in Documentation

The faulty assumptions listed below result in incomprehensible documents:

Developers know their products better than anyone else due to time constraints and limited resources, many companies assign their documentation tasks to the programmers. This more often results in the creation of technologycentered information, while end users require task-oriented information.

Documentation of complex applications requires a longer learning curve for the writer - learning the product will not be a major obstacle for writers with the right technical background.

TWB Services
TWB is Indias leader in technical communication outsourcing and education. TWB offers a complete suite of services that allows our customers to effectively publish their technical knowledge with their people and processes. TWBs customers range from Global 500 including Cisco, Accenture, McAfee, LG, Samsung, Citrix, SAP, Siemens, AOL, Intel; Indian technology majors including Infosys, Wipro; Global defense majors - Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, DRDO, HAL; and exciting technology startups. TWB's expertise in technical communication ranges from IT Products and Outsourcing, ITES, Banking, Financial, Aerospace, Defense, Ship Building to Hi-tech Manufacturing, and Discrete and Process Manufacturing. TWBs services include:

Technical Marketing Solutions

Datasheets Cheat sheets Solution Briefs/Solution Brochures Presentations Products/Corporate Profile Brochures and marketing collateral Web content Audio and video scripts Press releases Direct mail Newsletter design copy Sales catalogues Sales sheets

Technical Product Documentation

Datasheets Administrators Guide API Document Configuration Guide Functional Specifications Document Installation Manual Interface Document Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM) Maintenance Manual Online Help Operation Manual Product Demo Product Specifications Document Product Overview Document Quick Reference Guide Release Notes Requirement Analysis Document SDK Document Troubleshooting Manual User Manual Open Source Documentation Programmers Guides Functional Specifications Document

Documentation Quality Management

Copy Editing and Proof Reading Managing Writing Editing Services Layout and Design Creating SLAs

Business Documentation
Business Proposals Legal Disclaimers Policy Manuals Style Guide Design Template Design

Business Communication
Short Reports Proposals Case Studies Lab Reports Memos Progress/Interim Reports Writing for Electronic Media

Content Management
Single Sourcing File Version Control Document Naming Conventions Consistent Document Formatting Data Transformation

Web site Development

Web 2.0 development Web content Web applications

Illustrations
Graphic Designing Info graphics 2D & 3D animation Line drawings and illustrations

Use Cases Analytics for Qualitative Online Help /Context Sensitive Help Decision Support Troubleshooting Guides Economic Business Research Industry Analysis Market Opportunity Analysis Competitive Business Analysis Company & Prospect Profiling Reporting Solutions Assessment of Unmet Market Needs Status and Potential of Technologies Benchmarking of Strategies Vs Competition Forecasting Sales Force Effectiveness Market Assessments Competitive Intelligence Opinion Leadership Emerging Markets - evaluation and research

Translation and Localization Services

Software Translation Services Document Translation Services Localization (L10N) Testing Internationalization (I18N) Testing

Process Documentation
Workflows Standard Operating Procedures ISO Documentation CMM Documentation

Records Management
Document Management Solutions Record Management Storage and Retrieval

Deployment and Support

Installation and Configuration Guides Operations Manual

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TWB Software Tools Expertise

Our technical proficiency in software and authoring tools includes:

Unstructured Content Development

Microsoft Word Adobe FrameMaker Adobe InDesign QuarkXPress Adobe PageMaker

XML Structured Editors

Epic FrameMaker+SGML X-Metal

Multimedia/Authoring
Adobe Flash Adobe Dreamweaver Microsoft FrontPage Adobe Captivate

Macromedia Captivate Graphics/Animations

Adobe Flash Adobe Photoshop Adobe Fireworks

Illustrations
Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Adobe Illustrator CS3 CorelDRAW Microsoft-Expression Graphic Designer Xara Xtreme (Windows & Linux) CuteDraw Publisher3D(for animation) Sketsa SVG Editor (for vector graphics) Techsmith Camtasia Arbortext IsoDraw (technical illustrations for 2D and 3D)

Multimedia/Authoring/ Supporting tools

Adobe Flash Adobe Flex Adobe AIR Adobe Dreamweaver Adobe Acrobat Microsoft Silverlight Adobe Authorware Adobe Director Adobe Captivate Trivantis Lectora ASP.NET JSP JAVA

Online Help
JavaHelp Adobe RoboHelp 7.0 HelpScribble WebWorks Publisher PowerCHM Doc-To-Help WinCHM HelpSmith 2.1.1(Windows) Fast-Help MadCap Flare Help-Server NVU Help

Standards
SCORM 1.2 / 2004 AICC W3C Section 508 QTI XML

Graphics/Animation
Adobe Flash Adobe Photoshop Adobe Illustrator Adobe Fireworks Microsoft Silverlight

XML

XMetal Microsoft Word 2003, Microsoft Word 2007

Databases
Microsoft Access Microsoft SQL Server

CMS/ LMS
Sharepoint Moodle Joomla, WordPress Media Wiki CMS Builder Author-it (formerly AuthorIT) Alfresco

Development and Publishing tools

XSLT/XSL EDD

Flowcharting
Microsoft Visio iGrafx EDraw RFFlow Flowbreeze Smart Draw

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Industries Served
TWB services a wide range of technology and knowledge-driven industries, helping them meet their markets better. These include:
Banking, Insurance and Financial Services Consulting and Business Services Defense, Aerospace and Hi-Tech Manufacturing Education and Learning IT, ITES ITES/ KPO/ BPO Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology Process Manufacturing and Allied Industries Steel, Ship Building, Construction and Aviation Telecom and Digital Communications

TWB has been the preferred technical documentation outsourcing company for:

The TWB Building

No: 4062, 19th Main Road, HAL 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560008 India. Landmark: Behind Carlton Towers Telephone: +91.80.40741400 / +91.80.41256367 Corporate Enquiries: corp@twb.in

US Office: TWB
11701 Norwegian Wood Drive Austin, TX 78758

Telephone: +1.512.586.8357

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