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“Content” is a perishable.  Blame those pesky algorithms.

We live in content-marketing world. And at Write Angle we counsel clients to be wary. Why? Because marketers live in a part of this world characterized by the cat-and-mouse of search practitioners vs.search algorithms — and the creative tension it causes between SEO gurus and content writers. Just throwing “content” out there isn’t enough. It has to be be right stuff at the right time.  And it must stay fresh.

The surefire way to prosper in this world is to create and publish material that earns you a consistent place in search rankings. Today, this means the top three-to-five.  Easy to say, tough to do.  And this is where we come in because organic search is the baseline tactic for the written content of marketing campaigns.

New research from Chitika , according to Danny Flamberg of Booster Rocket, based on 300 million search impressions last May, “indicates that winning and losing at natural search is clear; you either win big or die quickly. If you don’t place among the top 3–5 positions on the search engine results page you get none of the benefits of your investment. It’s win big or go home”. (Download the complete report here.)

Boiling down the findings: you get 33% of the traffic if Google ranks you number one. Come in second and you get about half of that. Third place earns you about half again (11%). This, BTW, is the response rate of old-time direct mail!

In other words, if you don’t make page one (92% of all traffic) the maximum access you can hope to achieve is about 8% of  total search-driven traffic.

“For most marketers, rankings drive traffic; that’s the payoff,” Flamberg says. “There’s not much value in bragging rights to a position that doesn’t pay off in site traffic…it doesn’t pay to be number two.”

As content-driven rankings are key to brand awareness and lead generation, you need to put your brand’s best foot forward with refreshed content — the kind that’s regularly adjusted to changing algorithms.

Is your content driving the traffic you want? Do you keep it fresh?  Is it the right stuff at the right time?

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So when an authority like Marketo weighs in on why a steady stream of great content is key to driving B2B revenue today, we’ll pay attention.

Marketo is a leader in marketing automation (MA), the software that more and more companies use today to make their marketing teams more measurable and accountable, more engaged with customers and better enabled to scale time and resources. In other words, it makes the companies that use it better at marketing and selling. And it’s been good for Marketo, and for Eloqua, to name the two biggies in MA.  If the trend continues, according to Gartner, money spent on this type of software is projected to exceed corporate IT budgets by 2015. 

At Write Angle, we were struck by something Marketo had to say via a recent post by Heidi Bullock: “Technology is awesome, but it really is only as good as the people who implement it and manage it on a day-to-day basis. That’s why it is important to think about your team structure when putting software systems in place”.

So what was first on the team list they cited? It was the day-to-day manager of content.

No matter which member of your team is tapped for the job, the skill-set is the same: It must be someone who can conceive and create a steady stream of compelling content, from written web copy, case studies or white papers to engaging video that showcases your value proposition from all angles — and re-purposes this content across all media and platforms. Whether you have the talent on hand for this key task, or choose to outsource to a content writing service, the overarching need for marketing content in today’s content-marketing world is clear.  The question is: How clear is your content today and how do you know for sure?

And good riddance

It’s not often that you sit through a webinar and come away with some real insights.  Fortunately, today’s webinar conducted by Mintigo on improved lead generation through “Content Intelligence” delivered — and hit on some important truisms facing marketers.

As a company that espouses the “power of relevant marketing”, Mintigo struck a chord.  Zeroing in on the content marketing deluge – i.e. “crap” – that is drowning customers and prospects, the Mintigo folks got to the heart of the matter: effective content cannot just entertain and inform, it must contain material that “authentically matters to the people you’re trying to reach”.

So how do you make this determination? It boils down to segmenting your content based on your prospects’ identifiable traits and self-proclaimed areas of interest.   “Content Intelligence” uses more personalized and relevant communication to clusters of targeted prospects based on big data analysis of multiple sources (think websites visited, news preferences, blogs read, social postings and more).  By extracting the needs and interests of prospects, you can segment them into interest groups, clusters and personas.

Make no mistake, this is hard work.  And Mintigo is the first to say so despite the fact they offer up what they declare to be the world’s first Customer Search Engine that automates a lot of the heavy lifting involved.

One of the key challenges of content marketing boils down to producing enough fresh content – and figuring out what topics to communicate – to continually engage targeted prospects with information that is highly relevant in order to trigger more click-throughs.  And this means that engaging the right content development shop to help fulfill this need is becoming one of the most strategic decisions facing marketing departments today.  The days of “spray and pray” marketing are history.  Welcome to the era of content intelligence.

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You’ll notice that there’s no shortage of “best practices” tips online today. And the guidelines for how to write/create content for websites that real people (as opposed to web-crawlers) actually read is no exception: today on Google there were nearly 78 million results. So, why are we weighing-in?  To briefly enunciate our philosophy: when it comes to what should go up your site, there is a deceptively simple tried-and-true golden rule. Less is More.

“Deceptively simple” because anyone charged with web content knows the burden on the gatekeepers who do the vetting.

The point is, whatever makes your cut must be better than ever. More compelling, more readable, more useful and stickier. Because your visitors insist. The most recent studies reveal a sharp decrease in the amount of time spent by website visitors.  It’s now less than half a minute. Not a lot of time to drone on about your product-as-hero. Or wax eloquent about your leadership and heritage. With this kind of attention deficit, everything a visiting skim-reader sees must be ultra high-return. It must instantly attract, impress and hook.

With this in mind and with so much recycled stuff out there, here is our condensed list of must-do’s as commonly practiced by the best-seller vendors:

1.  Know your reader. Exactly the same as the ancient marketing tenet of “knowing your customer” to the greatest extent possible. What do your buyers want to know about your value proposition? What were they really buying when they cut a check? Why do they turn away from one thing and lean toward another? What are those things? We are constantly amazed at how many marketers are still in the dark when it comes to reader familiarity.  It all begins right here.

2.  Put yourself where they are. See #1 above. Chances are you lean toward video and everything visual when it comes to learning and gathering information. Ditto your prospects. The national and regional news sites figured this out long ago.  Try to find one today worth its pixels that has no video or streaming on their home page, or every section  That intriguing screen capture with the arrow inviting the click is irresistible.  Use video to showcase brief product descriptions, short clips of your people sharing insights, and/or a customer or two (or five) endorsing you with a brief problem/solution testimonial. Caveat:  ALL video has the shortest shelf life of anything on your site. You have to be committed to this. Which reminds us to tell you to…

3.  Think like a baker. It’s all about freshness.  You don’t see the same, stale stuff in the pastry case while your barrista is putting the cap on your low-fat mocha every morning.  Maybe not exactly the same thing but the underlying principle is, absolutely. You make your site a destination for a larger audience when you respect the value those folks put on fresh (AKA new) information, tidbits, tips, and news they can use: precisely what people are looking for and the best way for you to rise through the rankings. Last but not least: give something away, like a free sample at a bakery.

4.  Write in chunks.  There’s a bit of controversy today about “linear” writing styles vs. the “chunky” approaches.  Linear = feature stories, magazine articles, novels.  Chunky = headline news, wire-service dispatches and police blotters.  Which category do you think a stressed-out, short-attention span customer falls into?  Chunking does three things to improve your site content: more efficient conveyance of information, helps readers speed things up to find what they’re looking for, and it presents page-to-page information more consistently which makes your site easier to navigate

5.  Ask for the order.  More honored in the breach than in the observance. What do you want your reader to do, think, say to peers, or act upon? Your call to action is right up there with your contact page as the key element(s) of your site.  Make it clear, compelling and memorable.  Above all, make it brief.

We love this description of outdated web-site content: “Archipelagos”. This should resonate with a lot of B2B marketing people.  Islands disconnected from larger land masses. If you’re like everybody else, you probably have some of your own. Call them orphans, legacies, or whatever, they amount to low-return assets begging to be re-purposed, updated, and/or overhauled. Or just trashed. They are not working as hard as they should — certainly not as hard as you. They need tending.

The operative phrase here is “low-return”. Content, after all, is an asset of value.  You want your visitors exposed to valuable, useful, high-return stuff on your web site. Everything should scream out to customers that you’re a hot company worthy of their attention and interest.  And nothing says “ordinary” faster than dated material. Or, worse, irrelevant content.  Ironically, very often a lot of these vintage pieces — case studies, podcasts, videos, white papers, et. al, — lend themselves quite well to spiffing up. The bones of a once-hot case study may well inspire a whole new generation of them. Same for videos or white papers. The key here is to stay current.  And to remember the three categories of B2B visitors: those who are in basic research mode, those who are narrowing the vendor selection and those who are on the verge of awarding a contract. Have relevant content at the ready for each stage and each state of mind.  And never forget that by the time people call you for a meeting, they’re probably 80% down the selection road already.  Something to think about.

How often do you clear the cobwebs on your site? What’s your process for ensuring your stuff is relevant to what your visitors are search for right now?

Jerry Della Femina, legendary ad executive from the “Mad Men” era, insisted his copywriters gather seven times the amount of source information needed on any subject prior to penning one word of marketing material.  A half-century later, we can’t argue.

The time-honored approach paid off again this week in the splashy debut of our client Sumo Logic, a next-generation log management and analytics service competing in the red hot Big Data revolution.  What we generated on their behalf, starting from scratch, amounted to a full menu of short- and long-form content, from web copy to FAQs, datasheets, use cases, case studies and whitepapers.

Sumo Logic made its directive crystal clear: develop compelling content that drives web traffic and craft a story that positions the company as highly differentiated, innovative and above all else, relevant and believable.   To the client’s credit, they demanded high-value content that stands up to the pushing, shoving and “prove it” probes from devil’s advocates: customers, media and analysts alike.

So what’s the key lesson learned? It begins with gathering as much relevant secondary and background material as possible.  Then comes a layer of deep sourcing sessions or interviews with all the key people. Kudos to our client for their enthusiastic collaboration providing direct and extensive access to the CEO, CTO, co-founder and director of biz dev, and the executive sales liaison. It’s here where we extract the primary material.  In these sessions we want to come away with the “ore” that can be processed into high-grade ingots:  the specific, real-world examples of customer struggles and challenges.  We probe for as many viable use-cases as possible.

What we’ve learned over the years is that the stronger the reader identification with these use cases, the deeper the impression and the more compelling the read. Only when we’ve extracted all relevant details do we prepare a tight outline as the storyboard or blueprint of the final product. Each piece — web pages, case studies, whitepapers and more — is a specific chapter in the company story.

The Sumo Logic intro reminded us, again, how perspiration trumps inspiration when it comes to crafting really great marketing content. Content drives marketing and sales today as in no other time.  And somewhere, Jerry D. is smiling.

What’s your content-development process?  How do your mobilize for intros and product launches?

We were recently invited by one of our security software clients to come in and help craft a pivotal presentation for one of their blue-chip customers.  We ended the day with a high-horsepower pitch– and a reminder of what an effective presentation is…and isn’t.

Fortunately, the client appreciates Guy Kawasaki’s principles of the 10-20-30 rule: no more than 10 slides that support a 20-minute stand-up and utilize 30-point type from the Arial font (which studies repeatedly show is easiest on the eyes).

The secret to turning slideware into a weapon of mass persuasion? Here’s what we advise:

1. Internalize the psychographics or temperament of the audience. And let this inform your pitch. This is absolutely step one. Who are you addressing and why are they interested in this topic?  What are their foremost concerns?  What kinds of appeals would be most compelling to them?  What data or evidence substantiates your position? Why would this resonate? What kinds of points can you make that would cause them to mentally applaud you and be persuaded that you have their interests and issues in mind?  Only when all this is clear and comprehensible are you ready to create content.

2. Clarify the purpose of the pitch and its objective. Given the audience, what do you want from them? What idea do you need to convey? Hint: you want to arouse a discussion in which you can elaborate and clarify your leave-behind message. This is the real purpose of any presentation. You want to extend the wrap-up section of the formal pitch, in which you told them what you told them, so you can launch into a useful conversation or Q&A where you can continue telling them. And presumably encourage their buy-in or support, while getting the skeptics to further consider.

3. Storyboard the pitch. In no more than three or four general sections outlined on a whiteboard, in sequential blocks, outline the content that tells the story: an introduction that describes what they’re going to hear, a main section or two that lays out your points and presents substantiating facts and figures, and a concluding section that re-states and summarizes the salient points and substantiation.

4. Transcribe key takeaways of each storyboarded section or “chapter” onto the slides, but in very brief, concise points that highlight the story you are telling.  When you present, do not merely recite the content on the slide.  Let the slide underscore your narrative. Use body language and tone of voice to emphasize key points (not animation).

5. Rehearse, dry-run, and rehearse again. And again. Screen the pitch to a preview audience of devil’s advocates.  Insist on ruthlessness. Tweak your content and delivery. You will be rewarded by the end-result.  Everyone knows about Steve Jobs’ copious hours of rehearsal. This is how and why he sounded like he was speaking contemporaneously, coolly off-the-cuff. It was also mission-critical to his success as a communicator. Jobs was prepared. And when it comes to stagecraft, he’s a pretty good role model.

How do you prepare for your presentations?  Do you approach them as opportunities?  How do you engage your audience and inspire a lively discussion?

1.  What’s the best way to get outside writers up to speed on our market and technology?

Seek domain experts as well as reliable referrals from people whose content you admire.  Domain specialists should already be up to speed on technological and market issues.  Then, provide them with as much source material as you can, especially with good examples of the kind of content you’re looking for in terms of voice and style.  If you have a style guide or a template to share with them, so much the better.  If possible, get writers who have real “news” credentials: people who’ve worked in business and technology journalism, or writers who can show a rich portfolio of the type of content you want.  Journalist instincts enable storytelling of your value proposition in the way customers and users will find most credible. You want writers who naturally share the reader’s POV.

2. How can the contractor ensure high quality content that stays within budget when deadlines are really tight?

Again, a good rule of thumb is to seek out writers who have a background as a reporter or editor. The best ones will have a reputation for “eating deadlines for lunch”.

3. We have a variety of writing projects that range from web copy to case studies, application notes, FAQs and white papers. Is it possible that all these skills exist in the same writer(s)?

The best writing services cover these specialties and work in collaborative teams under one roof, so to speak.  This ensures integrated content and project management efficiencies.  Seek out a reputable service with accomplishments on both sides of the desk — consulting to and in-house executive management at start-ups, mid-size enterprises and global brands. They should have experience in all flavors of content from web-based product publicity to corporate PR and issues management to advertising.  Such a service should understand the all-important context in which in each message must be presented, based on how it will be received and consumed.

4. What’s the most productive process for creating content and delivering successful outcomes?

As trite as it may sound, it’s critical to be prepared. On the client side, it’s useful to have a messaging “scaffold” prepared for your writing team that can succinctly answer the following:  1) What’s the target customer profile for this content? 2) What are the key market dynamics/requirements influencing the audience you’re targeting? 3) What are your compelling reasons-to-buy propositions? 4) What core benefits do you deliver? 5) What are your key differentiators? 6) How do you summarize your strategic advantages?

Your writing team should have a methodology for streamlining the content creation process.  This should include: 1) A clear scope of work and budgetary guidelines; (2) firm grasp of the project initiatives and associated deadlines; 3) a game plan for working with key client stakeholders; 5) recognition of the readership-per-project; 6) knowledge of audience concerns and needs; 7) compilation of proof points to substantiate claims and confirmation of the tone/voice for each project;  8) ability to storyboard findings; 9) development of tight outlines, first drafts and final revisions that always meet deadlines.

Customer-relevant content, kept fresh on your site, is currency in today’s marketplace.  It’s the primary way to get found in an increasingly in-bound world of B2B marketing.

2.  Make it simple: suggest the subject matter or request that they come up with something they already care about and give them a clear deadline.  Get a firm commitment.  And make your editorial guidelines simple — no more than one page.  Spell out the most important things they need to know and point to your blog-post examples as models to emulate. Create an easy process based on editorial flow happening on your intranet, via email, or through your blog software.  Include this in your guidelines and make sure its understandable.

What is it about content, either online or off, that makes it great? More readable? Sometimes even viral? More specifically, how do you define these things in the B2B world?  We asked a number of associates who are rarely at a loss for words or opinions.  They were hard pressed to come up with a simple answer.  Generally, their responses were variations of “I know it when I see it”.  You know it when something grabs and keeps your attention.  Maybe even inspires you to pass it along and share it with like-minded colleagues.

Here are the must-haves as we see them:

First and foremost, it has to be reader-friendly. Which means more like USA Today and less like package inserts of medical prescriptions. It also helps to use lively, vivid and engaging language. No business subject is boring by definition.  It’s up to the content creator to find and articulate the hooks and angle(s) that make the ideas come alive and speak to readers on their terms. Hint: B2B subject matter inevitably deals with dollars-and-cents matters that matter to business practitioners at any level.  And the use of real-world examples is indispensable.  Readers want to read about people just like them enduring the same challenges, frustrations and triumphs.

It’s tailored to appeal to the hottest interests of people you want to reach. In other words, the interests that are trending from the standpoint of your customers.  This is where much B2B content falls short due to a natural urge to tout your offerings and ideas from your perspective rather than the audience’s. Resist this temptation because the reader’s POV is all that matters here.  Doff your ego and don the mantle of empathy with your audience. What’s your readers’ most current persona?  What are their aspirations, concerns, fears of the moment?  How do these values vary by customer segment?  What is customer service saying about the latest trends based on the most recent inquiries and issues — and how can you cast the idea you want to convey in the light that best addresses them?

It advocates on the reader’s behalf. Great content reads the way the reader would have it written.  It presents tips, guidelines, examples of do’s and don’t’s, and generally enlarges the understanding of all issues and subject matter useful to the readers’ ability to do their jobs. Ideally, it answers important questions before they even arise.  But always from the standpoint of the reader.

What is your team doing to create content that grabs and holds attention? How are you reconciling your marketing content with the current “temperature” of your readership?  Is it in or out of phase with the hot issues of the moment?   What are your plans in the new year for making your case studies, white papers and overall web site content more compelling and consistent with sales objectives?