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It’s 2012.  Do you know where your web-site visitors are?

More to the point, is your web site — and all the content on it — readable to visitors using handhelds and tablets?  Couple of years ago, Morgan Stanley wowed the marketing world with some predictions about the way people would be consuming information in the year 2012.  They projected this year as the tipping point when sales of handheld devices would exceed desktops and laptops combined.  The year when your marketing content, to accomplish its mission, would have to accommodate “the small screen”.

Admittedly, not many long-form whitepapers and case studies are going to be read on an iPhone. But think about it.  Chance are you, or someone you know, is reading the latest best-seller on an e-reader, right?  Message: if your web site demands that your visitors plunk themselves down at a desk, it’s a site that’s just not working as smart or as hard as your visitors are working today.  And sometimes this means working on a tablet, or a smart phone, for a large chunk of the day.  Indeed, we described this requirement last year for EndPlay, a web content management (WCM) developer. Sophisticated
consumers demand entirely new levels of site interactivity and customized content.  And this demand far outstrips the capabilities of today’s fast-aging and decentralized tools and technology.

So how does this impact your online marketing materials? Generally speaking, to borrow from our colleague Newt Barrett, your customers want to:

• connect and communicate wherever they are, whenever they want
• consume information via the Internet, including e-mail, news, web-based content
• get their social media fix
• consume locally based information from word processing documents, spreadsheets, PDF files, etc.
• write a short e-mail or text messages
• listen to music, watch videos, watch TV or movies
• play a game now and then

With this in mind, to cite Barrett, here’s how to exploit this mobile tipping point:

• Make your website readable on the most important mobile devices: iPhones, Androids, and iPads. Lose Flash. Any flash on your website must assume a secondary role on your home and landing pages today.
• Create an iPhone or an iPad app that leverages these these devices.  Think about how the touchscreen might improve visitor interaction with your content.
• Get social with Facebook, Twitter or other applications where your customers will likely be when they’re in a research (or buying) mood.  Most people today actively pursue social media opportunities on their handheld devices.
• Don’t make people print something out if they can simply show it on their mobile device.

Your customers are on the move today. Right his minute. Make it easy to connect with them, for them to connect with you. Of course, all of this assumes that you have great content for them to consume. You do, don’t you?

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?

Creating great content on your web site and keeping it fresh — and specific to your customer offerings — is key to higher, more effective market visibility.  Why?  Because fresh, compelling, customer-relevant content creates the links that elevate your ranking by the search engines.  The more relevant links you attract, the more you increase the traffic you want. This, in turn, generates more click-throughs, more trials, more orders.

So how to do this with so much else on your plate today? At Write Angle, we suggest doing as our colleagues over at HubSpot ceaselessly recommend: hire a creator of remarkable content, not some self-styled SEO ninja.  Start by identifying the most compelling storytellers in your domain. The ones who know your business and can write for the readers you want to attract.

SEO Scientist Dan Zarella , who is quick to distinguish himself from a “ninja”, unwrapped a new set of datapoints the other day. They underscore the notion that the online results we all crave come our way organically to the extent that we produce and publish more content more often.  And this means more blog posts that contain remarkable content.  “Re-markable” is defined as irresistibly share-able, re-Tweetable and forward-able links, all of which combine to enhance your search rankings.  Exactly what content creators are supposed to do.

Here are the key take-aways from the data:

1.   Blog posts are the simplest way to refresh your online content on the most frequent basis.

2.   Fresh content drives visits and traffic.

3.   You cannot post too frequently.

4.   Post the most topical material specific to your offerings that appeal to the current interest of your customers and prospects.  Avoid industry jargon and focus on words conveying timeliness and immediacy to your reader.

5.   The more targeted you make your content re #4 above, the greater your chance of being found.

6.   You are as much in the publishing business today as the business of your category.

Question: what’s happening right now in your customers’ world on which you have a provocative observation or thoughts worth sharing with them?  If you were a customer, what would you want to know? What would compel you to share it with your associates? What can you do to accelerate the sharing of these observations? When was the last time you published something that was conceived from the vantage of the visitors you want to attract to your site?

For many years we’ve flogged the notion of the outside-in perspective and its importance to successful marketing. Essentially, putting yourself in the shoes of your customer, or the people you want as customers.  This “customer advocate” point of view is nothing new. It’s been around for as long as people have been buying and selling.

When it comes to creating the kind of content that gets people to do the things you want them to do, the point is this:  you have to talk to those people–not at them. To do this, you have to look at your subject matter through their eyes. From their POV.  Then you have to speak their language in their terminology — and sound like one of them.

This is where so much internally-produced marketing material falls short and how it devolves into fluff, assuming that people will resonate to what you think they should. It inevitably slips into company advocacy when it should be advocating on behalf of the reader.

You have to make a conscious, continuous effort to remain in their shoes.  From the inception of your concept right through final editing and delivery.  This requires fortitude and attitude.

Self-advocacy is an easy trap to fall into.  No matter how astute your marketing team may be, and we work for some of the best, when you’ve spent so much time and energy focused on your product, technology, competitors and company issues, it’s natural for your perspective to become distorted and biased towards what you’re selling. Unfortunately, this bias shows up in the way you describe it: in your terms, not the buyer’s.

Just remember: people have no intrinsic interest in what you sell. No knock on them, but the fact is that they are self-absorbed and self-interested when they’re in the discovery phase of the purchasing decision. As they should be.  So, your appeal will resonate with them only to the extent they instantly recognize–and feel–your awareness of whatever it is that interests them at that moment. This means their problem, their fears, ambitions, numbers, performance review and competitors.

If this sounds like it should be the template of your next piece of content and the platform of your message strategy, it’s because it should.  Take it from longstanding customer advocates.

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…

To the extent your customers are readers today, you are a publisher.

“Marketing content” and “riveting quality” are rarely spoken in the same conversation.   Indeed the latter is typically invoked disparagingly, as in “The content isn’t exactly riveting”.  At Write Angle we’ve been at war with flat, yawn-inspiring content for years.  But this isn’t about us, it’s about you and your mission to deliver content that attracts, engages and retains visitors to your site and converts them into users and customers.  Marketing content can be more than good, it can be downright engaging, which is what you should be striving for at all times.

But there’s another quality right up there with engagement.  More is better today when it comes to getting found online and upping your rank on search engines.  And speedy delivery goes hand in hand with volume.  While “good” is good, when it comes to content good and fast is even better.  Says Kyle Monson, a former editor at PCMagazine now at JWT, “a company’s ability to speak honestly and quickly to its customers, fans, and detractors is a huge competitive advantage”.

Step one: recognize and embrace the publishing mandate of your enterprise which is the imperative of Web 2.0.  Back in late ’80s and early ’90s as technology pulled companies into the age of networks it meant that many of them were suddenly in the telecommunications business as much as the business of their category. Today, in the real-time world of Web 2.0, you’re in the publishing business.  Your customers and prospects are your audience.  How are you building, engaging and growing this audience?  How are your “ratings” right now and what can you do to improve them?

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?

What do customers want to know when they’re looking for solutions to problems that you purport to solve?

Whenever we’re assigned to write clients’ Web pages we follow best practices as we do for all content.  What ‘best practices’ call for in Web content is not so different from other forms but the Web does force the writer and editor to become a little more brutal.  Actually, it’s the audience that’s the force at work.

We like to say that customers aren’t interested in your product (or service), they’re interested in their problem. Specifically, visitors to your site aren’t interested in you so much as the need they’re trying to fill or the hard facts they’re trying to gather as the basis of filling that need.  And this tells you two things:

1.  To the extent that your product or service is too much in the face of the site visitor, you increase your chances of a quicker “bounce”, or departure of this visitor.

2.  Ditto above if your content is jargon-heavy with with acronyms or industry-speak.

Except for those pages or links that are specifically tailored for existing customers, or prospects who are well down the path to a decision, you want your Web content to widen the top of the funnel.  So, you’re going to score points to the degree you show an interest and expertise in the problems they have, not the fixes you offer.  Not yet, anyway.  With this in mind, product-focused content should be avoided.  Your ‘welcoming lobby’ should be a pressure-free zone to introduce the visitor to your business, same as your social-media strategy should be at all times.  It’s where you start to build trust.

As for the language you use, choose your words carefully.  Use only those words and expressions that you are certain your prospects use.   Search engines use signals throughout social media for ranking search  results.  This means that your Web site is only incidental to the wider territory your prospects cover every day and in which they interact with other prospects online.  Be sure to use the words and phrases they are looking for, not the flavor-of-the-month terminology you think is cool.

Start-up companies are not alone in making the missteps we continually see from folks who run marketing and sales today. Too often, established brands fall into the same avoidable traps. The caveats as we see them:

1. Most conspicuous is the knee-jerk tendency to putting the 20-somethings in charge of social-media marketing strategy and tactics. “Hey, they’re the digital natives, they eat and breathe Facebook and Foursquare, let THEM drive this!” sounds like an epitaph on a departmental gravestone. Rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t put total greenhorns (read: an intern) in charge of sales support or customer service, do not anoint them keepers of in-bound marketing. It’s far too elemental to the revenue line and becoming more central all the time. Make the youngsters part of the team, not the captain.

2. Obsessing on competitors to the point of aping their every move. This isn’t competitive analysis it’s competitor envy. If every time someone sends you an “FYI” describing a piece of content created by a competitor you stop what you’re doing to automatically follow suit, your company is being led by that competitor’s tactics, not your own content strategy. Monitor competitive material closely, of course, but appraise it through the prism of your own objectives and customer requirements. What are the current needs and expectations of your own users? Where do you believe your market is headed? What is most central to your content strategy? The answers to these questions will best advance your mission.

3. Asking “how high?” every time an investor screams “Jump!” Satisfied customers make satisfied shareholders. Resist the temptation to force-fit every idea or suggestion put on the table by board members and investors. Acknowledge their interest with a customer-driven response but never forget that they are advisors, not cue cards.