With all the writing we do as marketers, you'd expect we would be better at writing. In this post we'll talk about frame works for writing a couple of critical docs we in Marketing Operations will need at one point or another.
Have an idea or project
You have a ground breaking idea that will change the way your company does business (ok maybe that a little over the top but it's still are really great idea) and you need to communicate it to leadership succinctly. Too little details and you will get shot down because they don't adequately understand how important it is and too much detail and you risk losing their attention. Use the SCQA writing method (Situation, Complication, Question, and Answer) in the form of a slide deck or doc or email (depending on the size of the idea keeping in mind you want to stay within the norms of your organization).
Situation - sets the background to help the reader understand the situation and current state
Complication - represents a change in the situation and is the reason why business writing is needed
Question - where we state the problem statement and hypothesis (what we are hoping to solve)
Answer - the process of fixing the problem/situation
These can each be a slide, paragraph or statement depending on the scope of the idea... use the norms of you organization to guide you on the level of detail expected.
Breaking down the project into tasks
You did a great job explaining your project to leadership and it got approved. Now you need to explain it to the team that's going to help you build it. Using the format of a "story" from Agile methodology is an excellent way to explain the many requirements and share context with a team. Often requestors only provide requirement without context and the team can't make leaps of understanding when they encounter some ambiguity.
Here is a sample format for a story (task/requirement)
“As a [persona], I [want to], [so that].”
[persona] - the user/beneficiary of the new feature/capability
[want to] - describes the feature and it's capabilities
[so that] - explains the desired benefit of the capability
You project will have many of these describing all of the requirements.
Testing the work product
The team has completed the build of the project based on the well crafted stories in the project and is ready for testing. This is often the achilleas heel of the marketer... we typically don't do enough testing let alone document it properly. It's important to write test cases before you start testing. This help you think through not just how things should work but also what might go wrong. You should document the expected outcome before you test them to validate it is working as you expected.
Test Case ID | Test Case Description | Test Steps | Test Data | Expected Results | Actual Results | Pass/Fail |
TS01 | User login with correct data |
| UserID = jsmith Password = 12345 | User should be granted access and see start page | As expected | Pass |
| | | | | | |
As you write the test cases, it will often help you think through edge cases to test. Crowd source this as you share what you have documented it will jog memories and thoughts and generate additional test cases.
Something went wrong
No matter how much testing you do at some point in your career you will have something go wrong. Hopefully because of your well though out test cases the problems are limited in scope. You Root Cause Analysis should include these elements:
What happened
Why it happened
How it happened
Actions to fix the issue
Recommendation for prevention
Bonus: Work Email
While we all still use email as the primary mechanism of work communication, most of us are terrible at it. How many times have you gotten an email where you get through a couple of paragraphs and still don't know if you have a work request or if it was just and FYI. Or worse the email that is just a forward of a long thread with no summary or context. We should be respectful of each other's time and help the recipient know why they are getting the email.
The BLUF writing method is a good place to start. "Bottom Line Up Front". Be concise, organized, and to the point. Put the main point at the beginning of the email (bottom line up front) and using the active voice. Stating the key significance up front sets up the purpose, ensures the message is clear, and highlights why the reader should care.
Use the To: line for those that need to take action and the cc: for those that only need to be informed and bcc: for those that only need limited awareness.
What type of writing do you struggle with or spend alot of your time doing? Share your tips and struggles.
