Target your needs! |
The process of developing technical publications that cut costs and build sales starts with assessing needs. What goals do you want to accomplish and what audience must you reach to accomplish those goals? The needs assessment is critical: it drives all decisions throughout the project. Companies sometimes assume that they know the goals of technical publications, and they skip the needs assessment. This is a great way to decrease the value and increase the cost of technical publications. What are your goals? Do you want to reduce training and support costs? Do you want to generate revenue from add-on products? Maybe you need to obtain venture capital. After you have identified your goals, the next step is to identify the audience you must reach to accomplish your goals. The users of the product are most likely part of your audience. Prospective customers may be an important part of your audience. Maybe venture capitalists are in your audience. Now that you know the members of your audience, analyze them. The audience analysis drives major content decisions such as what information to include, how to organize the information, and how technical to make concepts and tasks. What education, training, experience, and skills do audience members have? What media are they most likely to use? Do they have any technical publication phobias? After you have identified your goals and analyzed your audience, the next step is to develop strategies to achieve your goals with your audience. Pay particular attention to audience problems such as difficulties understanding the subject matter, reluctance to consult technical publications, and so on. Think of strategies that will help you overcome those problems. For example, a quick start guide or job aid may provide basic information to audience members who are reluctant to consult help systems and comprehensive user guides. Until you have identified goals, audience, and strategies to achieve goals, you won't have the information you need to make cost-effective decisions about the best way to deliver knowledge about the product. Knowing your goals, audience, and strategies, you can make maximum use of your resources. Go to Establish metrics. Return to Cut Costs & Build Sales! page. |