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We love this description of outdated web-site content: “Archipelagos”.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?

We live in an era of screen extremes. Our TVs have never been so gargantuan while we’re consuming more content than ever on screens we hold in one hand.

“If I had more time I’d have written a shorter letter” is an apt description of the quandary in which many content generators find themselves today.  Smaller screens, smaller form factors and resistance to scrolling has made the creation of content that compels reader action a thornier challenge.  You have to grab attention faster, hold it tighter and compel action more irresistibly today in the at-a-glance state of mind that characterizes your busy, distracted target audience.

Making fewer words say more is the order of the day. This calls for instincts and aptitude long associated with creators of billboard copy and “transit ads” — what you see on (and in) buses and the roofs of some taxis.  This is where messages have always had the toughest job.  They had to say it all in a very few words, almost instantaneously.  The lesson here is to pay attention to the really great billboards out there.  The ones that convey so much in so little verbiage.  They’re useful models not only for informing your mobile web pages but inspiring all your marketing content.  No matter where it lives.  To get your content consumed, you have to hook the consumer.  And there’s never been so much bait in the water.  Exercise: go through your web site and try reducing it by half.

Were you able to do it? What did you delete?  Is it more readable, more informative, more compelling?  What can you do to stay short(er) and sweet(er) online today?

Patrick May’s take on techie-speak yesterday was yet another reminder of language getting in the way of clear speaking and thinking.  The concept of “TLA” the initials for three-letter acronyms, is a long-standing techie tradition.  TLAs are used in marketing techno-speak the way Howard Cosell used to throw around multisyllabic words and ornate phrases.

But there was method to Cosell’s legendary loquaciousness (go ahead, look it up).   He was trying, and succeeding, to differentiate his brand of sportscasting from the drab uniformity of jock-speak and coach-isms.

It’s just the opposite in Silicon Valley, where so many techno-marketeers want their palaver to be consistent with what they hear in the echo chambers of their cubicles and conference rooms.  Too often, what we end up with is incomprehensible, convoluted drivel that’s counterproductive to the key process of successful marketing, namely, communication.

We have two antidotes to the brain-suffocation caused by terminal TLA.

1. Speak and write your main thoughts in plain English, a language honed over the centuries to communicate with vivid expression.  If you must use three-letter acronyms be certain that the concepts behind the words can be understood by a reasonably intelligent 12-year-old.  Think we’re overstating it?  Peter Lynch, peerless investor in the Warren Buffett league, used to say he never bought a stock whose business he couldn’t explain to his seventh-grade son — an engaging and intelligent lad, but not a child prodigy.

2. Spend less time in your cubicle and more time out in the marketplace talking to the people who buy and use your products.  Get them to describe how your offerings are making their business lives simpler, more productive, more satisfying.  How do they express themselves?

In the words of Hal Gregersen, professor of leadership at INSEAD, the solution is to leave the cocoon of an office: “Observe the people using your products and services. Pay attention. Second, network with people who don’t look, think, act, or dress like you”.  The latter may not always be easy to do in the heterogeneous zone of the Valley.  But where there’s a will there’s a way. Or,”T.A.W.” as some might put it.

Follow customers, not trends

There’s an old saying that nobody’s as gullible as a salesman afraid of missing out on a trend. We would put some marketing people into this category today.

Consider two astute observations that came our way recently. One is that you shouldn’t believe all the hype about “in-bound” (as opposed to outbound) marketing; the other says quality content on a web site always trumps search-engine optimization (SEO). You’d think that both contentions would be self-evident truths.  In practice, too many marketers seem only too eager to err on the side of excess when it comes to perceived trends affecting their craft.

The dramatic rise of social marketing is the “trend” here that so many marketers seem afraid of missing out on.  Don’t get us wrong. We’re avid practitioners of all things digital but we’re in solid concurrence with Seattle-based PR exec Howie Barokas. To his way of thinking, the advent of social media has given too many marketing types, particularly when it comes to PR, a bad case of myopia about potential customers and the content aimed at them. While social media has changed the way people consume information and buy things, at the end of the day it’s just another channel. However important, it’s just another element in the mix of advertising, direct marketing, tradeshows, webinars and all the other means by which marketing content is made available.

As for the plight of the SEO-obsessed, we commend the sentiments of our colleague Efi Rodik: “People are sifting through the garbage online to find the good stuff—information that is informative, engaging, and above all, relevant. If your site is so keyword-optimized that it barely passes as English, then you’ve got a problem.”

Having responsibility for marketing content, you can never lose your focus on your end-user. We share Rodik’s view that customers looking for information or resources on the web will always want content that’s easy to read and understand. “If you’re pounding your keyword,” he says, “rather than focusing on providing useful, compelling information, then you’ll lose a conversion, your bounce rate will go up, and your ranking on your search-engine results page will suffer”.

It’s been almost ten years since our partner organization, Chasm Group, crafted the message (content) handbook for Citrix.

As a so-called living document the handbook has been through a number of revisions during this time, most often during  launches of major strategic initiatives. But its form and purpose remain the same: to help everyone associated with the brand clearly understand and consistently articulate who the company is, what it is they do and the value this delivers to customers.

Structure of the Citrix messaging bible is classic. It’s a useful model for many brands. It begins with a simple overview and setting of the context in a crisp executive-summary format.  In two pages, it describes what’s happening to the company message, including a very brief recapitulation of what’s gone before, and what’s taking place now–and why this is important.  Two sections that follow explain the basic messaging principles and the brand values, or promises implied by the product offerings.  The remainder of the handbook amounts to a detailed guide within the guide: it explains how to put to the message to work in live situations with customers and prospects, including real case examples and specific use-case benefits.  These tools include everything from the elevator pitch for each product through the detailed product benefits right up to what must be eliminated from current messaging and customer conversations.

In the same vein, our client McAfee carefully fortifies its messaging guides with a style-guide plus a yearly writers workshop that presents “how-to” guidelines and reminders about the form and spirit of McAfee content.  Here, content creators from one end of the company to the other are reminded that over-promising or breaking faith with the brand is a slippery slope. Protection of the brand, what it is and is not, should always be the primary mission of the content creator.

While a messaging handbook should not be confused with a style guide, the objectives of these workhorse documents share much in common.  They encourage and promote consistency of the brand.  They are key tools in amplifying and strengthening all company messages and marketing content.  They enable creation of the fingerprint or ID of the company.  No mystery why you rarely hear the complaint that “our message is too confused” or “We’re just not getting our message across” from organizations that make the effort to formalize such guidelines and insist on adherence to them.

How do you ensure content efficacy and consistency? How does your team work to encourage fidelity to your brand?  What else can you be doing?

On the heels of Walter Isaacson’s officially approved bio of Steve Jobs comes Adam Lashinsky’s unauthorized take on Apple — including the unsettling extremes to which the company goes to keep a lid product announcements.

While Apple has always been a great role model for product marketers, the lessons proffered here should have come with a disclaimer. Something to the effect that “Your results may vary because Steve doesn’t run your outfit”.

Still, the way we see it, the spirit of these lessons is practical to creation of marketing content. No disclaimers necessary.  You can apply them immediately.

Apple is, and always has been, all about the way it dramatizes and communicates its brand. Specifically, the engaging craftsmanship of the content it presents to the marketplace in everything from its TV commercials to its product packaging. We can all take lessons:

1. Great content comes first. Long before the lines form outside its stores and well after, Apple floods the zone with its message. And study after study shows conclusive evidence that in today’s Web 2.0 world, where the buying process begins with search, those brands with superior content published most frequently are the first found and the most followed. Content drives interest, conversions, leads and financial success.

2. Publish and promote. The fact that you don’t have the budget for TV on Oscar night or the NCAA Tournament should not prevent you from creating content tailored to the interests and aspirations of your buyer.  Content that you make easily accessible and widely visible. Toward this end, make it standard procedure to re-purpose everything you generate: turn customer stories into press releases, competitive analyses into guest-articles (or blog posts) that describe industry trends, application notes into case studies.  Make all of it social on the sites where they share professional tips with peers and learn about best practices. Understand how you can make your solutions more relevant to what’s trending in your buyer’s communities.

3. Telling trumps selling. Too much marketing content screams “You gotta get this!” when it should inspire “This, I must have.” Just as the most successful B2B salespeople are seen as problem-solvers, make your content resonate with the kinds of issues and questions that beset your customers — real users.  People want to be informed, educated and engaged, not sold to. There is a fine line here but it’s distinct.  Assuming a third-party POV and advocating on your buyer’s behalf puts you in the right frame of mind. Avoid implying that you have all the answers, just the eagerness to look for them.

4.  One company, one voice. Everything you create should look and sound like it came from no other brand but yours.  In a me-too, look-alike online world of generic templates and “replicants”, strive to stand out by being out-standing.  You might fall short of “insanely great” but you can and should establish a tone that’s yours, based on the problem you solve and the way only you can solve it.  Apple mastered this technique early on and elevated it to a high art form in recent years. The “whole” of great marketing content always exceeds the sum of its parts.

5. People don’t read white papers and case studies. They read what interests them.  Strive to create the kind of content you want to see from your own vendors.  You’re writing to someone, not at them.  Just as a personal letter (remember those?) will always be opened first, so too is content that’s made more personal through examples of real-world applications.

6. Sometimes, less is more. Apple’s reputation for rejecting proposals for new products is a good model for all marketing initiatives, including new product material, literature and collateral.  The first question to ask is if this new idea can be integrated into an existing document or web page to make them more compelling and valuable.

7. Value expertise. Apple hires the best in their fields then laser-focuses them on their assigned tasks.  Third-party writing services create content for a living.  They have to do a better job.

8. Own your message. Crafting, controlling and repeating the message is “classic Apple”, Lashinsky says.  There’s a B2B PR lesson here.

9. Calculate the worth of the first impression you want to make. While we won’t pretend that Apple’s “spending whatever it takes” is consistent with your marketing budget realities, don’t lose sight of another reality: that your content is the first impression you make on prospective customers.  Apple hasn’t always had its Fort Knox-like resources. Each of its very first computers contained, at great cost to the company, added weight to make them seem more substantial. Whatever it is, if it bears your logo it becomes who you are. How important is it to your shareholders for their company to make a good impression on an important prospect?

10. Be known for “remarkable” content. Jobs’ boast of “insanely great” was, of course, aspirational but so is a lot of Web 2.0 parlance.  The lesson here: if you want more leads of higher quality you must attract more visitors who fit a target profile that will remain dynamic.  In other words: a moving target.  This target is attracted by content created to be compelling, engaging and always relevant.

New study on web sites reveals what engages and retains the visitors you want

Results of a study on web sites made recently by an independent group on behalf of Facebook are now in — and they re-confirm what we preach repeatedly here: that sites having content which visitors can most easily identify with, and relate to on a personal level, are the most effective in engaging those visitors, holding their attention, achieving their recall and motivating them to return.

In other words, the mission we all want our sites to accomplish.

We’re delighted that these findings are so consistent with our own religious belief that marketing content of all kinds, online or off, must speak clearly and directly to the real-world issues of customer problems, ambitions and aspirations.  And it must be carefully framed in customer terminology–their vernacular, not yours–spotlighting the problems and challenges that real customers grapple with in their world every day.  This means taking your content a step beyond product descriptions, case studies, whitepapers and technical briefs that dissect the problems besetting the kind of customers you’re pursuing — and letting buyers describe exactly how your offering delivered real, measurable solutions in the circumstances your visitors (readers) can easily identify with.  The more personal and identifiable your content is, the more engaging and harder working your site can be.

In an era of incredible info overload, AKA “big data”, it’s encouraging to see research findings confirm that some content really does find its way into human memory.  The caveat: to know all you must about whom you’re targeting to the point that the topics you select and the way you present them are memorable. Another word for personal.

Are you satisfied with your site analytics and metrics today?  Your conversion rate?  How do you keep your content consistent with customer preferences and interest?  How can you make it more personal?

Marketing people in early-stage companies have daily to-do lists that would, per head, choke many of their counterpart departments in larger enterprises.  Still, as we continually preach, the need for ever-fresh content on web sites is a primary to-do for companies of any size.  The fact that business blogs are typically the fastest, simplest means of keep content topical and fresh is the biggest reason why they’re so prevalent.

But a recent Inc 500 survey revealed a sharp decline in corporate blogging last year compared to 2010 (37% vs. 50%). In the same survey, however, 56% of the non-blogging companies said they planned to start or re-start a blog in 2012.  We suspect the reasons for the drop-off may have to do with the realities of blogging and the resulting disillusionment of bloggers who failed to recognize benefits.

To those companies intending to blog for the first time and to those willing to jump back in the game we send best wishes —  and a caveat.  We counsel a variation on the advice proferred recently by Reputation Capitalization’s Mary Slayter.  We have our own checklist we offer our clients.

You know you’re ready to publish a blog if:

1. You are not a control freak. You trust the employees tapped for content generation to represent your brand without an onerous review process that takes a half-dozen people and untold hours of deliberation.

2. Your goal is to establish a reputation as a trusted source of industry information as a means of eventual revenue.  The operative word here is “eventual”.  You’re OK with the long-term-prospect nature of actual revenue coming directly from leads your blog will create.  Of course, results will vary company to company, industry to industry. Quality leads generated by effective keywords on the rest of your site is a different matter. The payoff is swifter than publishing a blog, but the time and effort to maintain efficacy is more labor intensive.

3. You have no problems linking your content to a competitor’s site. We especially like Slayter’s counsel here: “A robust industry blog will require you to have civilized, public conversation with your competitors. A generous spirit in this regard  is what will make you a thought leader in your industry; it also has some powerful SEO advantages”. Hey, your customers know they have choices. Earn their confidence by showing confidence in yourself.

4. You understand the utility and the value of any content having nothing to with pitching your wares.  You write the blog to gain and keep readers.  Period.  You understand them well enough to know instinctively what compels their interest and what they find interesting enough to warrant their time.  Your whitepapers and case studies reflect this exact same insight.

5. You know there is no free lunch. And no free blog. For this reason, you’ve set aside the sufficient resources for design, content and promotion.  Why? Because to measure content marketing’s contribution against the other elements in your mix (traditional advertising, PR, etc.) you need to examine actual  costs.

So, did you or a company you know discontinue blogging recently?  Why?  How did you respond to the checklist items above?

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 talking to a friend of ours at a mid-size tech firm the other day and the conversation turned to the  subject of web sites, content generation and writing.

“The stuff on our site is really stale,” he said. “We need a complete makeover, but there’s so much else going on right now we keep putting it off”.

I suggested he bring in an outside writer. “We’ve tried that”, he said. “It’s a pain. And not cheap.  Learning curve’s too steep.  Besides, we have the resources inside.  We’ll get it done.”

“So what’s the problem?” I asked.

“Procrastination, probably. And I hate to write. And we’re interrupt-driven to some extent”.

And there you have it. Vicious circle of allowing busy-ness to interfere with the business of generating fresh content. Combine this with a natural aversion to the keyboard, and procrastination prevails. Anecdotal evidence around the Valley suggests that many managers not only don’t like to write, they don’t like to even initiate writing projects that call for (gasp) coming face-to-face with new content that must be set in stone. Or, at least, put up on the web site.  Which is problematic in today’s in-bound marketing world where “content is king”.

Fact: writing is hard work but most everything we do everyday isn’t easy.  That’s why they call it “work”.
Fact: there are domain experts out there in all tech sectors for whom your learning curve should not be an issue. We won’t say they’re a dime a dozen, but they are available.
Fact: you know that marketing today is in-bound.  This means that the people you want coming to your site and lingering long enough to fill out a form can’t be pushed in anymore. They find out on their own who’s hot by talking to peers and searching online. In that order.
Fact: this means that the buzz you build is the gift that keeps on giving.
Fact: fresh and frequently re-freshed content draws search engines which propel your rank upwards which increases the chances that you’ll be found.
Fact: if your content is compelling it will be shared and the buzz machine will kick in.

Is getting that writing project off your back a New Year’s resolution for you?

There’s a small difference between the companies who really get it when it comes to in-bound, content marketing and the ones who muddle along with low-traffic web sites and so-called leads that are merely a collection of fast-aging business cards. Which one are you?