Marketing content writing is more different to other types of writing than many people realise. I’ve written before about how we can learn from story writing (e.g. three-act structures) and from journalism (e.g. inverted pyramidal structures). But marketing content is neither of those things, and one way in which it distinguishes itself is in the level of understanding it can assume from its audience.
Both storytelling and journalism have to be accessible to a wide audience. Technical marketing content needs to narrowly target knowledgeable customers, who will quite probably know as much – or more – about the technology behind the subject as the author. The main ‘hows’ the audience wants to know are: “how is this better, and how does it achieve that?” They don’t want to read general how-does-it-work background that they can read on Wikipedia and which they probably learned at college.
Storytelling is essentially entertainment. Marketing content writing is the opposite. Journalism should set out the facts. Marketing content writing, while factual, needs to go further and explain why. It’s a specific skill which should not be under-rated.