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Archive for July, 2011

The secret to engaging a business reader is to tell a good story

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Nobody’s ever been bored into reading something.

People love good stories.  After all, it’s part of what makes us human.  And no matter if it’s a technology white paper, a product brief, a speech or a Op-Ed submission to technical journal, readers are people first. They want to be engaged on their terms, not the author’s or the vendor’s.

It’s incumbent upon the content creator to engage the consumer/reader.  No matter how compelling you believe your material is, don’t assume you have a reflexively engaged audience.  It’s not up to the reader to find a way to stay interested.  So, how to do this in an age of short time and shorter attention?

Right from the start, at the concept-stage of your project, it’s fundamental to get inside the head of the individual you envision on the receiving end.  Think about yourself as a reader or a member of an audience. What is it that grasps and holds your attention?  Of course, the subject matter has to be relevant to an issue or problem you might be dealing with at the moment but if what you read is fluff that evaporates before the end of each sentence, or so opaque and dense with jargon that you have to re-read each paragraph, chances are you’ll put it aside.  Even if it’s clearly worded, a tract that reads more like a textbook is unlikely to inspire the calls-to-action envisioned by the author.

By storytelling, we don’t mean anything touchy-feely or non-analytical.  The watchword here is “anecdotal”.  Incorporating real-life vignettes or business anecdotes gives authenticity, immediacy and texture to your content.  The reader can identify with it. We won’t argue that the objectivity of numbers and statistics don’t inject strength into any argument but the objectivity of the numbers weakens them as a communication device.  And make no mistake, you’re trying to communicate — images and ideas and opinions. You need to motivate a prospect.  Reassure a customer or partner. Capture their interest and, ideally, their imagination.  Get them to think in a new ways about familiar things.  And get them to want to read your content when you have something else to tell them.  Your objective is not just to get your content approved for publishing.  It’s to get read.

Blogs top the list of most valuable marketing content

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This just in from the research folks at HubSpot: the most valuable form of marketing content today is, in the opinion of marketers (who are measured by the quality of their content as never before), their blog.

And it’s true for B2B and B2C marketing.  Respondents in B2B marketing who were asked to rank various forms of content for value to their marketing objectives named blogs number one (39%), followed closely by webinars and virtual events (38%), white papers (31%), videos (23%), data-driven research reports (20%), user-created content (17%), white papers sponsored by vendors (10%) and podcasts (6%).

This should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to the in-bound marketing world of Web 2.0.  Publishing a business blog offers the chance for marketers to keep content fresh, topical, personal and relevant the way no other form of content can.  And more is better, the way no other form can be.  The fresher and more frequent your online content, the greater your chances of being found online.

What form of content is most valuable to achieving your marketing objectives?  Is your blog as active as you suspect it should be? How do you stack up competitively in terms of posting?  What do your customers tell you?

White papers: Knowing when fewer is better

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One of our clients was in a collateral quandary recently. One to which, we’re proud to say we called attention.  In the crush to create killer content about their technology, they had assigned us to generate a relatively generous number of technology white papers.   As we drew closer to preparation, we grew concerned about quality vs. quantity.

Now we are the first to cite the utility (read: value) of white papers, despite some claims that fewer of them are being downloaded these days.  In the I.T. world, the workhorse white paper remains a standby of marketing. Customers expect them and read them (the good ones).  And, admittedly, we welcome the opportunity to show off our chops. In this instance, however, there simply was not enough there to justify and support the volume documents originally called for.  Upon closer scrutiny at our invitation, the functional VP agreed that as impressive and elegant as his products are, a smaller number of more comprehensive documents would suffice.

How does your team decide when and if a white paper is justified?  Are you publishing more of them today or fewer?  Is the volume of downloads greater, smaller or about the same as a year or two ago?  How does this compare to competitors?  What’s the process you use to determine white-paper ROI?

How to Get the Most Out of Your Writing Consultants

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A hallmark of successful clients is an insistence on getting candid advice from consultants who speak “straight talk”.  Telling a client what they need to know rather what they want to hear is simply smart business.

At first blush, this may seem like a given.  After all, clients hire a writing service for domain expertise, proven methodologies and a track record, right?  In theory, perhaps, but in practical reality it’s always more complicated.

Constructive criticism isn’t for the thin-skinned on either side of the table.  Especially when you think you’re dead right about what the words should say.   But time and again, the clients who encourage writers to candidly engage in the work are more likely to benefit.  This is especially true at key junctures in a project when course corrections can determine success or failure. A writer’s willingness to play a vigorous devil’s advocate is indispensible. And even more so if a company finds itself mired in a stale or failing campaign, losing market share or suffering from being elbowed out of leadership.

Not all companies possess the DNA for thick skin.   Here are the warning signs and the antidotes:

1.  “We’ve re-invented our segment and don’t have any direct competitors.”  Really?  If so, chances are you don’t have much of a market, either. Better revisit the business plan.  Or do some market research right way.

Rx: Make your content reflect a rigorous understanding of your prospects and users. Choose writers who know the territory and express your competitive differentiation in the language users actually use.

2.  “Our value proposition is time-tested and we haven’t had to update our web site in more than a year.”  Ouch.  Keeping content fresh, provocative and current is a given in the Web 2.0 world of social marketing.  Not to mention that competitive environments in this mercurial world have a way of changing suddenly, regularly and disruptively.  Overnight.

Rx:  Do regular site checkups.  Get customers to give you feedback on your content and compare you to your competitors.  Engage your writing service to do a content audit and make recommendations.

3.  “We have more customers than we can service.” You might think of this as the lulled-into-complacency syndrome.  Getting comfortable is an open invitation to competitors looking to feast on your early gains.  Never forget the sage words of Intel’s Andy Grove: only the paranoid survive.

Rx: Lively, engaging content that spotlights the way users apply your technology can form the basis of much more than garden-variety application stories.  Dive deeply into unconventional applications as a way to showcase more features and benefits.

4.  “We’ve got a three year technology lead on our closest competitor.”  No you don’t.  Cling to this misguided notion and you’ll spend more time playing defense than you will on offense successfully marketing your differentiation and advantages that address your customers’ needs.

Rx: Concentrate on practical market education tools that explain your distinction in the market from a rational, pragmatic and credible point-of view.  No reader wants to be told how great your technology is.  They want to know how your technology is best suited to their requirements to determine if you’re worthy of making the short list.

5.  “Our carbon sequestering technology advances make us a lock for a feature article in The New Yorker.” Right.  The editors there are aching for a tutorial on multi-pollutant removal strategies because the readership is chock full of energy czars, sustainability directors and energy policy wonks.  Not.

Rx: Ask your writers to weigh-in on if and how your written pieces can be best placed or re-purposed.  Don’t ‘spray and pray’ your content.

Bringing new ideas to the table is the engine room of business.  But before adopting those great ideas as gospel, put them through a messaging stress test.   Unless, of course, you subscribe to the irony of David Brinkley’s collection of closing commentaries entitled, “Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion.”

What other signs of “thin skin” can you think of?  What does your team do to encourage outsourced content creators to “push back” on directives they believe are misguided?

 

Six questions to ask before writing anything

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Although it’s been said many times many ways (apologies to Mel Torme), most marketing content-related projects call for answers to at least a half-dozen questions.  And all members of the team should weigh-in.  As simplistic as they may appear, questions not unlike the ones below can reveal information that makes the difference between a worthwhile end product and an endless cycle of revisions and finger-pointing:

1.  Objective: What is the purpose of the proposed document and/or web content?

2.  Target: Who is the reader?

3.  Message(s): What are the key take-aways or leave-behind messages you want to create in the reader’s mind about your company and/or its offerings?

4.  Differentiation: What are the core, competitive differentiators of your offering(s) that you want this  particular content to convey?  How do they differ from competitive offerings and what is significant about this difference?

5.  Features/Benefits: Relative to the differentiation you describe above, specify the features that make it superior and explain the corresponding benefit(s) of each.  How to they “benefit” a buyer?

6. Substantion/proof points: What evidence or field results illustrate the validity of your claims (e.g., customer testimony, metrics, competitive superiority, etc.) ?

Is this exercise part of your own preparation today? What other questions would you ask?  What did we miss?

How marketers can make their words SELL.

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If you can’t get excited about what you’re selling, you cannot sell it

There’s nothing mysterious or magical about good writing for marketing and sales.  The bad news is that it’s hard work.  The good news is that just about anyone who is literate (and has the time) can do it — providing that what they write contains three essential ingredients:

1.  Above all, a product or service that delivers measurable value.

2. A passionate and palpable belief in the benefits your product or service delivers.

3. A no-less passionate belief in what you’re saying.

If this sounds like the secrets of successful selling, it’s because it is.  Writing for marketing and sales is nothing more or less than marketing and salesmanship in print. Or in pixels.  A sales professional who is less than excited about the product will never cut it.  Ditto for marketing people assigned to a product  in which they have no belief.  If you are genuinely excited about your offer and what it represents to customers, the excitement will shine through. It cannot help but breathe life into your words and inspire the interest of the people reading them.  And you can hold the exclamation points.

 

 

 

 

 

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