In today’s fast-changing world, information onslaught often bounces off people’s short focus spans. As a reader, you probably feel overwhelmed with a constant influx of data bombarding you daily, causing you to feel bored and fatigued.
For companies, this pattern presents a challenge in their quest to drive meaningful engagement with their customers. The pursuit of converting prospects into loyal customers is laborious on its own, but it it’s even more daunting considering that many organizations don’t leverage all the content available at their disposal.
This is especially true of user guides, which usually aren’t treated as valuable assets but as mere afterthoughts.
Instead of bringing user guides into the spotlight as the knowledge vaults that they are, these documents seem destined for neglect, like moth-eaten coats hanging in the attic.
User guides are the company’s forgotten treasure maps
Why do user guides remain shadows in the background when they could be transformed into client-facing assets that drive marketing success?
The answer is multilayered. User guides are sidelined due to several factors – mismanagement, inconsistent standards, inadequate feedback and a lack of recognition in their significance, to name a few. Workforce churn and aversion to change hinder documentation efforts further. Moreover, developers often view guide maintenance as monotonous, which doesn’t help matters either.
The most significant factor in many companies, however, is their hyper focus on product development at the detriment of documentation. As a result, internal documentation is packed with outdated, inaccurate information, resulting in underinvestment and untapped potential.
Unearthing marketing potential: Extracting key insights from user guides
Tech companies and their marketing teams need to shift their perspective on user guides. Rather than think about them as instruments that prioritize clarity and precision over creative flair, they should treat them as an extension of their brand and a tool for engaging customers.
User guides can be effectively repurposed to drive conversations by adding user-centric language and compelling storytelling techniques, while emphasizing customer benefits.
The following documents offer a fantastic chance to showcase:
- Key attributes and capabilities
- Use cases specific to your industry
- Case studies
- Solution-oriented content
- Thought leadership
- Tailored marketing
- Visual walkthroughs
- Compatibility and integration
What kind of documents can be repurposed into dynamic marketing assets?
To maximize the value of user guides, tech organizations need to restructure their internal operations by integrating documentation workflows into their development cycles. This involves setting clear standards, highlighting collaboration and adjusting their marketing budgets. Aside from user guides, companies can repurpose various internal documents that provide guidance to users, employees or customers on product use, services or systems. These may encompass:
- Tutorials and how-to-content.
- API Documentation.
- Technical reports.
- Release notes and updates.
- Knowledge bases and community forums.
- Video guides and webinars.
Companies leading the way: User guide conversion case studies
If you think that the guidelines outlined in this handbook seem intriguing but potentially too ambitious, don’t lose heart. I wrote the handbook From documentation to conversion: Harnessing user guides for high-impact marketing to underscore the untapped potential of user guides in the marketing landscape for countless tech firms. I’m not painting an overly optimistic picture; rather, I aim to shed light on the practicality and success of this approach.
Numerous progressive companies recognize the inherent worth of user guides and they have effectively repurposed them into assets that drive engagement growth and profitability. Salesforce, MailChimp, HubSpot and Shopify are just a few examples.
Why do many companies fail to transform user guides into marketing gold?
Too many companies grapple with disorganized procedures and poorly aligned strategies between technical and marketing teams. If developers are informally assigned with repurposing user guides in joined effort with the writers, it can lead to role confusion and inefficiencies. It can also contribute to existing disorganization and cause friction in relationships. Does this ring a bell?
This is actually a common issue in tech firms where developers and writers struggle to bring technical and marketing objectives into alignment. As a result, many organizations miss out on leveraging user guide effectively, strengthening their brand and boosting revenue through effective marketing.
Overcoming obstacles in establishing formal documentation procedures
Changing internal processes can be a tough nut to crack. Employees, even those in leadership roles, often resist change out of habit and comfort with existing routine. Cultural barriers and a fear of change also impede progress, especially in departments where the culture is rooted in improvisation and informality.
Although informal practices can work well for some short-term tasks, they lack the strategic foresight and institutional support to tackle larger issues and challenges, such as:
- Scalability
- Consistency
- Documentation in general
- Long-term strategy
- Risk management
- Resource allocation
How to obtain leadership approval for improving documentation
In a perfect scenario, all company leaders would naturally recognize the importance of meticulously planned documentation processes. Since this isn’t a universal reality, managers and directors often require persuasion to see the potential in reframing user guides for marketing purposes. Leaders are often focused on short-term goals, tight budgets but they also may be unaware of documentation challenges plaguing their firm.
To convince them, consider drafting a proposal that:
- Aligns benefits with organizational objectives.
- Highlights how improved documentation processes boost efficiency, customer satisfaction and lead to better financial outcomes.
- Includes data and competitor case studies.
- Emphasizes success stories and metrics showing increased conversion rates.
- Displays the negative impact of disjointed content on productivity and brand.
Change management for revamping the documentation process: The foundation of building successful marketing copy
Supposing you’ve obtained approval to rework user guides into engaging marketing materials, don’t forget to:
- Outline your conversion objectives.
- Choose segments for adaptation.
- Define roles and responsibilities for developer and writer teams.
- Set up a conversion schedule with specific milestones.
- Determine the target audience and preferred marketing avenues.
Content adaptation: Incorporating documentation into the company’s fold
To ensure your internal documents become valuable marketing assets, it’s essential to consider your writers as valuable team members. This entails adding credibility to the writing process, and five proven methods can help you achieve this:
- Incorporate writers into meetings, increasing their visibility and offering a unique perspective to team leaders and developers.
- Schedule regular meetings between developers and writers to facilitate in-depth discussions, leading to accurate and user-friendly documentation.
- Create a distraction-free setting for interviews between developers and writers, ensuring clarity.
- Allow writers to use recording tools, enhancing accuracy and saving time.
- Monitor marketing copy performance by regularly assessing click-through rates and conversion ratios.
Main takeways
- User guides remain an underutilized opportunity in the realm of marketing, yet forward-thinking organizations have leveraged their potential by turning them into powerful marketing resources.
- The malpractice of user guides is the result of inconsistent standards, insufficient feedback, and an undue focus on development to the disadvantage of documentation.
- Tech firms should consider documentation as a collaborator in their efforts to boost brand exposure and power customer engagement.
- API documentation, release notes and webinars, among other documents, are an excellent source of information for demonstrating industry expertise.
- The principles of transforming user guides into marketing assets are attainable and realistic, although it may seem challenging on first glance.
- The lack of organization in tech firms often contributes to the disjointed teamwork between developers and writers, which makes it hard to turn user guides into valuable marketing collateral.
- For companies to achieve consistency, efficient resource allocation, scalability and alignment with long-term strategy, they must formalize their documentation processes.
- Superiors frequently fall short of seeing the potential in user guides and have to be persuaded with an in-depth proposal backed by data and real-life examples.
- To maximize the potential of your internal documents, encourage bringing writers into a tighter company fold. This involves integrating them into meetings, setting up routine conferences with the developers and consistently evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing content.
