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In journalism and police work the five Ws — who, what, when, where and why — amount to the framework of investigation and the building blocks of a story or case. This also applies to just about any content-creation initiative you can name. The order of the questions may be different but the same regimen applies.

For example, a product launch or a major re-branding campaign might call for support materials, a web site makeover, an update to existing content and a variety of other deliverables.  Each piece will have its own objective but still be seen as part of a larger effort that should be greater than the sum of its pieces.

Making the whole exceed the sum of the parts requires a plan. Specifically, it requires asking these questions up front:

1. Why are we engaged in this effort in the first place? A product launch typically doesn’t necessitate a new web site but a re-branding would.  A major acquisition might call for something else entirely.  You may want to consider how to re-purpose existing material consistent with new messages along with creating something entirely new.

2. What is the objective or mission we want to accomplish? Giving reassurances to existing customers is not the same as acquiring new ones.  New versions of established products require descriptive material that is subtly different from the content created for an entry into a new market or an altogether new product.

3. Who is the target of this effort? An purchase influencer might respond to a very different appeal than the outreach you make to the actual buyer or the key decision maker. Once identified, “who” you are pursuing will tell you what it will take to get this target to act.

4. Where is the source material on which the content will be based?  Content creation is not the same thing as as creation of the underlying product or marketing strategy.  The content articulates the product’s benefits.  But those benefits were the outcome of rigorous efforts made earlier in a far different process.

5. When is the trigger event for delivery of the content? You may want to use the content creation process as an ingredient in preparation of the strategy – as a way to prompt ideas and new thinking. All assumptions should be challenged as a way to ensure validity and consistency with the current environment.  Best of all, it’s a good measure of how well prepared you are to embark on your initiative.  Better to know this in advance, than to find out “in real time”.

Success is based on asking the right questions at the right time. Ask the wrong questions, get the wrong answers. Get the wrong answers and you mobilize the wrong effort and waste a lot of resources.

What’s your process for content creation?  How do you create and prepare source material to generate compelling marketing content?

1. Trying to sell instead of tell.
The focus on Steve Jobs this past week reminded us of how fanatical the guy is about good, clean, corporate writing, the kind that never “sells” technology.  Instead, he insists on the kind that tells how the product would help the reader reach a goal.  Emphasis on the reader. And the reader’s goal or problem.

2. Complicating the message.
Jobs has a one-sentence description — or vision — for every product he has ever introduced.  Incredibly, every single piece of written content, in all marketing material, revolves around this simple sentence.  Study after study shows that people think in “chunks” and remember no more than three or four characteristics of anything.  That’s why the best content contains no more than three, core leave-behinds.  Your reader is busier and more easily distracted than ever. Make it easy on them.  Think about the most effective content you’ve read.  Chances are, the writer kept it pretty simple.  It’s why you remember it.  After all, no less a mind than DaVinci said that simplicity was the ultimate sophistication.

3. Failing to stay on message.
Begin with a clear expression — the single sentence — of what your content must convey.  Then think of it in three parts and sketch an outline of the “sum” of the parts: What? So what? And now what?  In other words, consistent with the core sentence, describe the problem being experienced by the customer/reader, (2) all the dimensions of why this is a significant issue at this moment and (3) what needs to happen for resolution of the issue (solution to the problem).

4.  Ignoring (boring) the reader.
If you’re not energized to the point of passion about your subject matter, don’t expect your reader to take up the slack.   Look at what you’re writing through the reader’s eyes. To what would you favorably respond?  Studies show that readers favor a graphic presentation of complex data, thus the popularity and more frequent use of infographics. What would make you keep reading? In your experience, which styles of content convey the most information most forcefully and memorably? Most important, what would make you want to know more about what the vendor has to say about this issue and what they have in the way of solutions?

What does your team do to optimize the readability and simplicity of your written content — including those white papers?  BTW, for an animated video of Jobs’ career, check this out: /08/26/ste…

 

Is the white paper dead?  Recent studies suggest they’re not, but there’s no denying that too many of them have fallen into a zombie-like state.  Fact is too many fall short of their sales mission.  But the findings such as those by Sirius Decisions last year reveal that white papers remain primary tools for building influence.

One out of every two B2B customers in the Sirius survey considered white papers the most important source of content when it came to making purchase decisions.  Even more important than analyst reports (54% vs. 39%).  A separate study by Eccolo Media showed that 47% of purchase decision-makers considered them “extremely important” in the buying process. The unmistakable take-away:  the venerable white paper is very much alive.  Now you just need to keep yours kicking.

So what’s the difference between white papers that make customers want to know more about you and the ones that make readers quickly turn to something else?  Turns out that the principles of producing a successful paper today are no different than what it takes to create any successful initiative across all marketing and sales.  It must be carefully targeted, well crafted, optimized for social media and oriented towards a specific result.  Last year, a study by Ziff-Davis revealed that the primary purpose of white papers in the buying process was to provide information during the customer’s research-and-discovery phase.  Message: Those customers will be looking specifically at what you know and have to say about their interests, not yours.

One out of three B2B customers utilize white papers to look for new ideas and solutions. Message: keep your content fact-rich but easily digestible.  Know when and how to use infographics to make a key point, for example.

Nearly one in four readers will narrow their vendor selections with the content found in white papers. Message: spotlight what makes your solution competitively superior. To the greatest extent you can, make your comparisons measurable, quantifiable and, if at all possible, graphic so as to be very quickly understood.  Remember that your reader is at least as busy as you are.

One out of ten readers will make the vendor selection based on white paper content. Message: readers will be influenced to the extent they are convinced your solution is a rifle-shot at their problem.  So you must be intimately familiar with what this problem is. Tailor the content to the customer’s need in the terminology they use and the issues they grapple with.  Know your customer.  Understand their anxieties. If this sounds like the age-old best practices of selling and marketing, it’s because that’s exactly what it is.

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.

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?

Tom Pisello’s thoughts on content marketing and the “buyer’s journey” reminds us, again, that great customer knowledge is the cornerstone of great content for customers. Great content marketing, in other words.

There’s a specific category of content for suspects and prospects that call for careful sorting of the content to present to each at various points along their decision path.  It may not necessarily accelerate the buyer’s journey from kicking the tires to writing the check, but it ensures a better ROI for each individual piece of content. What you make available to each group can effectively nudge them along their way.

In a world where skepticism and frugality reign supreme, knowing which stage your prospect is in will determine whether your carefully crafted content is useful or irrelevant. It can make the difference between material the prospect considers valuable or useless.  As with most things in life, timing is everything.  Note that there is always overlap in groups such as those described below, but Pisello’s rule-of-thumb still applies:

1. Think of the first stage of the journey as the discovery period.  Here, buyers are in fact-gathering mode.  They may have made the decision to purchase something, but not necessarily your thing.  This is the group to which white papers, webcasts, events and diagnostic assessment tools are most useful.

2. In the consideration stage, the buyer is looking to justify the purchase.  This is the decision-making time when specific vendors are put on a short list and their offerings more closely scrutinized and screened.  In this phase the prospect (no longer a “suspect”) may be particularly influenced by your solution case studies, video testimonials and white papers that are less theoretical and more solution-minded.

3. Finally, it’s decision time when the buyer will be most influenced by content that demonstrates the rightness of your value proposition.  They want a compelling answer to the question, “Why is this the right decision for me?”  Any content that reveals ROI will be most appropriate at this stage: interactive business-case tools, feature-function comparisons, value-oriented white papers and total-cost-of-ownership comparison tools.

There are horses for courses.  And there is specific content for specific mindsets.  Do you have compelling marketing content that fits each phase of the buyer’s decision process?  How are you measuring its ROI?