This is how thepublic® writes technical articles
In our daily PR work, we create a wide variety of text types: there are social media posts and newsletter texts, press releases, and corporate texts such as annual reports. And then there are specialist articles. Technical articles explore specific topics for a specialist audience in a particular industry. They are intended to provide readers with useful knowledge and practical application tips. As they help to demonstrate a company’s specialist knowledge and expertise, they are a relevant component of PR work. By authoring technical articles, a company can position itself as an opinion leader in its industry.
How long should a good technical article be?
For some, specialist articles are a kind of dinosaur of press relations, on the verge of extinction, while for others they are the pinnacle of content creation. But above all, they are always quite long. At least here at thepublic®, specialist articles start at around 3,000 characters, but on average these texts are around 5,000 characters long.
The first specialist article that our chief copywriter Christina Dongowski was asked to write for a client was 12,000 characters long (as requested) and dealt with tools that enable the legally compliant archiving and retrieval of emails. It was also Christina’s longest single text for a client to date.
How do you write a compelling technical article?
In principle, the old copywriter’s rule also applies to specialist articles: short texts are much more difficult to write than long texts. But with a minimum character count of 3,000 characters, another question arises: where can I get enough material to be able to write that much? And that’s why the following applies to specialist articles in particular: without a good briefing from the customer, it will be difficult.
We prefer to receive these briefings verbally, from the person within the company who has the most expertise on the desired topic. Plus any existing material: brochures, presentations, videos, graphics, drawings, etc.
The other major challenge: journalistic standards apply much more strictly to specialist articles than to press releases. They are not advertising broadcasts converted into continuous text.
In practical terms, this means developing a story around the customer or their product that can fill a double-page spread. This is the biggest challenge when developing and writing a specialist article – and this is where the expertise of an agency like thepublic is most in demand. Our customers know their products and solutions very well, as well as the market in which they operate. We know what is currently being discussed in the respective focus media of the industry and how it is being discussed. When both come together, the trade article can only be good.
