Before I was a copywriter, I worked in sales and marketing for a high-tech company that developed equipment for satellite systems. 

We had the standard product brochures that gave specifications and pointed out the benefits, but we also had information brochures that discussed the applications our products were used for. 

I focused on the diagrams and flow charts and always found someone else to write the copy. I didn’t know anything about writing marketing content back then and felt everything I wrote sounded bland and dry. After all, it was all pretty technical. 

That’s why I liked using pictures and diagrams to tell most of the stories. Especially those that show how our products can be used in different satellite applications. It helped us stand out from the competition but also made it much easier to read and understand. 

But the company CEO gave me a great piece of advice that I have always used when creating any kind of content. I used that advice to not only help with the content but also the type of marketing material to create. 

Most brochures were designed with the engineer in mind. They were the ones who would order our products. Our CEO told me that we weren’t writing this content for the engineers or even the buyers. We were writing it for their bosses. 

Once an engineer decided they wanted our product, they sent the request to their boss for approval. It was very important that the boss understood why it made more sense to buy our product versus a competitor or why our product was important in the macro scheme of things. The approvals boss had to consider the big picture of the entire system, whereas the engineer was in a cubicle, designing his small section of a complete system. 

When creating your promotional material, you might be targeting your direct customers, but always consider the decision maker and make sure their concerns are being addressed as well.