Category Archives: Marketing

Tell me a story

Posted on December 29, 2014 | 2 comments

I was afraid. Standing at a lectern in downtown Manhattan before a room full of experts, I was easily the youngest person there. I was sure they could see me sweating. I prayed for the end before I said my first word. But then, I closed my eyes, took a breath, and began to talk about the future, a day in the automated office, when computers were connected. And when I was done, people came up to ask questions about our office automation architecture. The 20-something budding marketer from HP with the soaking wet collar had connected.

tell a storyCredit: Wikipedia

Is there anything more viscerally connecting than a story? It’s how humans have expressed themselves, convinced, controlled, enrolled, sold, and created value for millenia.

And yet, in marketing materials, we keep seeing, “The GM-X is an innovative solution for enterprise-ready network service stacks that ensures rapid deployment, cost savings, and the infinite connectivity of a cloud-based architecture.”

In the New York Times, “Storytelling Your Way to a Better Job or a Stronger Start-Up” reminds us that stories persuade. They also generate a happy hormone, oxytocin, in the brain. Researchers diagrammed Super Bowl commercials based on storytelling elements and successfully predicted their outcome. The key elements? It’s what we learned in high school:

It probably sounds familiar from middle-school English class: Act 1, scene setting; Act 2, rising action; Act 3, the turning point; Act 4, the falling action; and Act 5, the denouement or release. Variations of this include fewer or more stages, but they all follow the same pattern.

In business writing, especially in email and on the web, we don’t have much time to get the reader’s attention. But then, neither does a Super Bowl commercial. The Times article cites Hemingway’s six-word story: ““For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” So we really have no excuses.

How do we tell a story? We have to remember the basics, then practice the ancient art.

Most important, I think is to tell the story, rather than telling about the story. We tend to judge, categorize, summarize but a judgment ends the narrative and kills the tension.

We also shy away from feelings, when feelings are the best way to connect, establish trust, and build empathy.

It doesn’t come naturally, at least for me. I find I have to remind myself to connect. The way that young, sweaty kid from HP did in New York.

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Posted in Branding, Content marketing, Marketing

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On the design process

Posted on December 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

If you love design, check this out. Good job of capturing the process. 

The key takeaway, in my opinion, is that where most people think and think about the problem, Aaron Draplin sketches, rapid fire. The creatives I know (including myself) experiment, and err, 100 times as much as most people. Notice how he rapid-fires designs on paper first. Then he goes to the computer and he’s still experimenting rapidly. 

While not everyone can be a master, anyone can design. Few do because they don’t realize it’s not about innate talent, it’s a question of practice. People who say they can’t draw (or sing or throw a baseball…) are wrong. 

By the way, if you think you can’t draw, read the book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” by Betty Edwards. 

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Posted in Marketing

The benefit of benefits

Posted on December 11, 2014 | Leave a comment

features and benefits Copyright 2014 Moe Rubenzahl

Features and benefits: People tend to talk about that as if it’s easy. It’s not. But it’s super-important. When you really reach the benefits, you’re really reaching the customer and distinguishing yourself from all the poor marketing out there. 

Here are some tips to find the benefits, and a link to a really great — and free — book.

But the very first thing I want you to know is:

Writing benefits is hard!

Even with years of practice, I have to ask myself if what I just wrote is truly a customer benefit. Often, it’s a feature masquerading as a benefit.

A feature is what it does and how well it does it. A benefit is why the feature matters — how it solves the customer’s problem or delights the customer. Benefits are “what’s in it for me?”

quarter-inch-hole

The reason it’s hard is that we think we are logical and sensible, that we want features. But we don’t — features tell but invariably, benefits sell.

benefits-featuresCopyright 2014 Moe Rubenzahl

Features and benefits: Here's what our product can do; here's what YOU can do with our product.

How to find the benefits

A great way to find the benefit is to ask:

So what?

When you’re looking at a feature or benefit, ask, from the user’s perspective, “So what?” Why does the customer care? Then when you answer the “so what” question, ask it again. Continue until there is no answer. 

Example:

You have a portable medical gadget and the product manager tells you it uses less power than any other. Here’s the dialog:

Feature: Lower power

So what?

Uses less battery

So what?

You have to charge less often

So what?

Goes all day without recharging!

Another example

This time, you have a portable exercise monitor. Again, the product manager tells you it uses less power than any other. But the dialog goes differently:

Lower power

So what?

Uses less battery

So what?

Batteries are smaller

So what?

Lighter weight

So what?

Our exercise monitor fits in your shirt pocket — you will forget it’s there!

Same feature, different context means different benefits

Notice how the same feature might be a completely different benefit. In all cases, benefits are what connect with customers. 

Learn more

Writing with benefits is not easy and for most of us, not automatic. It’s a discipline. Want to master it? Here’s a quick read:

http://www.enchantingmarketing.com/features-and-benefits/

and download the free book, “Write Benefits to Seduce Buyers” offered there.

henneke-write-benefits-book

It’s an easy read, just a dozen pages, and it will make you a better marketing writer. Your writing reach customers better and need less editing. That will make you and your team more productive. (See what I did there?)

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Top 50 content marketers

Posted on December 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

Kapost's top 50 content marketers

Content marketing solution Kapost has announced their list of the top 50 content marketers. They look like excellent choices, based on the dozen or so whose work I know. These are great ones to study for wise practices.

Many of these are brands I follow, even if I am not a customer, because of the quality and usefulness of their content. You can bet they will be considered when I, or a client, needs what they provide. A good example is HubSpot, which produces a steady and amazingly prolific drumbeat of marketing articles, mostly lightweight enough to absorb in less than 15 minutes. Likewise, MOZ.com is a favorite of mine — highly prolific and highly valuable articles in a range of media. Check out their whiteboard Friday videos.

The list seems to favor marketers, perhaps because the folks at Kapost have a tendency to follow material from marketers. That makes this a good list of companies we marketers should be following!

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Posted in Content marketing, Marketing, Search marketing

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Content marketing can’t succeed if everyone looks to the “content guy”: Culture of Content

Posted on December 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

A Culture of Content, Altimeter Group, Rebecca Lieb

I was pleased to see that one of my favorite marketing analysts, Rebecca Lieb of Altimeter Group, has a new research report on how to build an organizational Culture of Content (with co-author Jessica Groopman and contributions from others). 

It’s a topic I find deeply interesting because in my experience, the biggest difference between success and failure in content marketing is whether the whole organization embraces it. Excerpt: “As communications shift from interruptive and obtrusive forms of push messaging (advertising) to softer pull strategies that are more marketing- oriented (owned and earned media), brands will require appropriate, relevant, authoritative, and timely content. Such a need can no longer be the purview of marketing alone; it requires participation across the enterprise and an evolution toward a culture of content.”

In any technically-driven company, content requires time from very technical, very precious technical resources. Unless the organization is committed, writing an article is seldom anyone’s highest priority. A technical article won’t happen unless everyone in the organization understands that content is valuable and the company acknowledges and rewards contributors.

At Maxim Integrated, the $2.5B B2B where I was Executive Director of Internet Marketing, we built the site to over a quarter million pages, with 2500 technical articles and thousands of other technical items. The biggest driver: Early on, the CEO gave goals to each business unit and made it clear that this matters. Over time, many hundreds of people wrote for the website. As Rebecca’s report says, content initiatives succeed when ownership is distributed: “To motivate these groups, avoid asking them to work for marketing. Instead, tie content to individual or departmental objectives and develop metrics that enable them to track their progress toward these goals.”

That’s what we did at Maxim and the results were fabulous, with quality material that measurably drove excellent search marketing results and customer satisfaction.

I gave a content marketing workshop to a client in September and have been thrilled to see how they are embracing it. They assigned someone as content lead. That’s good but what worked is that she’s not alone in the corner, pleading for content (which is what often happens); everyone is eagerly producing ideas and content. It is easy to predict they will succeed.

At another client, it’s much more difficult. No one’s on board, no one’s committed, and writing is not a priority.

Commitment is one element. Another is the content machine. “Think like a publisher” means not just producing content, but doing it with a plan, the way a magazine does. And once something is published, procedures and automation push out a stream of links, tweets, additional items, and additional media (see: Many Pieces of Content From One).

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Posted in Business strategy, Content marketing, Marketing, Search marketing

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Nobody Cares About You

Posted on November 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

“The hard truth is that nobody is interested in you, your company, or your products. Because people are only interested in themselves.”

— Henneke Duistermaat

henneke-customers-want-benefits

When talking or writing about products and services, one of the hardest challenges is to focus on benefits rather than features, on solving the customer’s problems. It seems to be especially difficult for technical people. But it is critically important because it is how we matter to customers and prospects.

henneke-write-benefits-book

I found an excellent, free article on this topic — and you can read it in about 10 minutes. It talks about customer focus and a great way to get from features to benefits every time, using the “so what” method.

Even if you already understand features and benefits, we all need to remind ourselves, over and over. Because every day, we’re focused on us: our company, what we do, what we sell. We tend to describe products and services, talk about features, tell everyone how great it all is. Customers don’t care about all that! They don’t care about us, they care about themselves. They want to know that we can solve their problems.

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Biggest Content Marketing Issue: You’re Not Doing It!

Posted on October 21, 2014 | 1 comment

tractor-471836_640

You know content marketing is hot. You’ve known it forever.

Even before it was everywhere, before it was in the Wall Street Journal, before it even had a name, you already knew content marketing was a good idea. And you probably already know it will produce results for you. You’re probably doing some — you have some web articles here, a Twitter post there, some PDFs tucked in the corner. But you have no strategy, no procedures, no one with performance goals for producing content, no metrics. Is that you?

b2b-content-Documented-StrategyIt’s most of us. Despite being convinced it works, less than half of marketers have a documented strategy1. 93 percent of marketers use content marketing, but just 42 percent of B2B marketers consider themselves effective at it2. Another source claims 77% Of B2C marketers use content marketing, but 21% fail to track its ROI3.

93-pct-B2B-use-CMIt’s not because a proper content marketing program is hard work — it is, but difficulty doesn’t stop us, does it? I think that most enterprises aren’t there yet because content marketing requires the whole enterprise. You can’t do it on your own by convincing the CEO to write a check, by bringing in a consultant, or by buying something from Oracle.

Why don’t we just do it?

You need the whole company. You need sales and marketing to develop messages, personas, taglines and elevator pitches, unique value propositions, and buyers’ journeys. You need material, which means stealing time from some of the best technical people in the company. You need high-level editing, which probably means hiring. You need databases and infrastructure from the web team and from IT. You need the search marketing team and analytics support.

So, how do you get started?

Strategy first: If you can afford the time and think you can sell it, start with a strategy. Then sell it and execute. As you begin, come up with the measures that will prove the program, and measure a baseline. That may make it easier to resell the strategy when resources are pulled back (and since you’re tapping resources in many departments, pull-back is inevitable).

Tactics first: Strategy-first is a wonderful plan but many organizations lack the discipline. So pick up the ball and run! Begin with what you have and can do now. But as with the strategy-first plan, establish metrics first and take a baseline. Eventually, someone will notice what you are doing and if you can’t show results, you’re content marketing program will be instant toast.

See: Content marketing: Getting started.

The good news is that you will find allies everywhere because we all know that in the 21st century, content serves customers and supports business goals. So it’s a question of finding a way to do something we all agree is a good idea.

———

144 percent of B2B marketers and 39 percent of B2C have a documented strategy.

2http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/10/2014-b2b-content-marketing-research/

3http://marketingland.com/survey-77-b2c-marketers-use-content-marketing-21-tracking-roi-104099

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Posted in Branding, Business strategy, Content marketing, Marketing, Persona, Search marketing

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Content Marketing: Getting Started

Posted on September 8, 2014 | 1 comment

Some years ago, I was working for a company that made video editing gear. We noticed pretty quickly that customers and prospects had some common questions: How to shoot great videos, how to add audio, how to tell a story. So we began to write articles and posted them on discussion groups and forums. The articles didn’t talk much about us or our products. In fact, one article, “How to choose a video editor,” listed all our competitors.

Not only were they wildly popular, they produced buyers — and fiercely loyal evangelists.

This was in 1995.

We later posted those articles on our nascent website and I was able to show traffic from search engines (before Google) and buyer conversions!

Now, it’s called “content marketing” and it remains one of the most important marketing strategies of all.

The idea is simple: Rather than write about your company and your solution, the best content addresses the needs of the user, independent of your products. Your goal is to be authentic, authoritative, and helpful. You earn trust and a reputation. You become a go-to resource for quality information — and that makes you a search engine magnet. The Content Council says that 61 percent of customers are more likely to buy from companies that produce useful content.

Here are some tips to get started.

When

The answer is: now! It takes time to build both content and reputation in the eyes of search engines (and consumers), so it’s wise to begin building content even before you have a detailed strategy.

In the early phases, you will have a lot of low-hanging fruit such as tutorial-level articles, overviews, and materials you have probably already written in one form or another. Post these on your website now. Don’t worry about perfection or completeness or even navigation. Just get materials up and let search run its course. Later, you’ll use analytics and customer feedback to see what’s working and beginning tuning content.

Do worry about quality and especially, worry about customer focus. Is your content about you and your products? Or is it a full-on focus on customers, prospects whether they do business with you or not? If people send you email saying, “hey, thanks,” then you’re on the right track. If other people link to your articles, then you’re gold.

I suggest you set monthly or quarterly goals for everyone to develop articles. If some of the team does not write well, I can help you locate reasonably inexpensive editing resources.

Who

If you have done persona development, you know who your customers are and what their problems are. You therefore know exactly what to write!

If you don’t have personas developed, another good clue is to look at what your company has already written. Ask your customer-facing employees. Ask me about how to do a customer-facing employee survey.

What

While detailed, technical articles are great, don’t overlook the low-hanging fruit, the kinds of things your staff can write from their own knowledge. It can be produced quickly and is likely what prospects want to know. Look at competitors’ and partners’ sites and at trade sites for inspiration (no, don’t steal). Glossaries of terms, tutorials, and tips and tricks are a great way to get started. “Top ten…” articles are a consistent winner. For instance, “Top 5 features to look for in a tent.”

Strategy

It’s fine to post an article every week or two for now, but very soon, you would be wise to build a strategy. Some key elements:

1. Think like a publisher: Every magazine schedules content and you need to do that, too. You will want a schedule with names, dates, and topics. You’ll want to synchronize with industry seasons, tradeshows, new product releases, etc. In particular, you want your staff to be a publishing machine — everyone knows they owe you an article per quarter, an article per month, etc. It needs to be a machine.

2. Reuse: Every idea should be reused for your blog, email campaigns, newsletter, technical articles, Facebook and LinkedIn postings, etc. One company I know has a practice which produces 19 uses for every article.

3. Promotion: Having an article on your website is interesting. Having links to it from others’ sites, from trade magazine sites, from trade association sites, blogs, social sites, and your users, and discussion groups — that’s gold. When a visitor sees your expertise touted by an authoritative source — that’s platinum. Social media is a great way to achieve this.

4. Search: Nothing feeds a search strategy better than a great content marketing strategy. You will want to develop a solid search strategy to stand alongside your brilliant content!

5. Show results: While many in the organization believe in the value of content, production resources are the most fragile of commitments. Content never seems urgent enough to permanently get the focus and commitment needed to sustain a publishing model. That means you need to constantly keep the company on board. Think about the metrics that prove the value and beat, beat, beat the drum. Measure before, during, and after. ROI is a stinky way to run a business but content marketing is one of the few strategies that can show return.

Resources:

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Posted in Content marketing, Marketing, Search marketing

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Web Analytics: ABC

Posted on August 11, 2014 | Leave a comment

I frequently see web analytics misapplied two ways. Either it’s overly simplistic (“how many hits do we have on these pages”) or it’s a flood of data without insight or action.

e-Nor (a Google Analytics expert agency) released a great infographic and a simple approach to focus analytics on what matters.

(They address this for Google Analytics but it applies equally well to any analytics package.)

e-nor-ABC-web-analytics

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Posted in Business strategy, Marketing, Search marketing

Many Pieces of Content from One

Posted on May 7, 2014 | 2 comments

Repurposing is in the air! And no wonder: who doesn’t want to multiply a piece of content into a dozen or more?

19 Ways and a Process

Readytalk’s Bo Bandy started the ball rolling with a process for building 19 pieces of content from one. An infographic diagrams the process (below).

Because ReadyTalk is in the webinar business, their procedure starts with a webinar. The most important takeway is not so much where they republish, it’s the way they built it into a machine. Each quarter, they produce an event and their procedures and people take it from there. As the best minds in content marketing keep saying, “think like a publisher.”

Screen Shot 2014-05-07 at 11.03.42 AM

21 Ways

Want a more comprehensive list of ways to republish? BufferSocial’s article (thank you, Boots Wang for sharing this find) details 21 ways to repurpose content.

republish-21-ways

Buffer: Republish your content 21 ways

Republishing is not just a cut and paste job; some finesse is required. Customize the content to take advantage of the medium and drive traffic. For instance, I might do a blog post that refers to an article I posted. The blog post would be highlights, with a link to the article. Think about the intent: do you want to tell the whole story, or lead readers to the article?

And replicating the article without editing would look like duplicate content to the search engines.

I’ll See Your 21 and Raise You…

Finally, my friend Erin Mannas sent me the beast of republishing, claiming 100 pieces from one! From Oracle, comes How to Turn ONE Piece of Content Into 100.

Post Everywhere

There are limits to what you can do but here are some more ideas from Bill Widmer for how to post, repost, and post again.

Reaching Customers

The point is not just massive cloning and productivity — it’s about reaching customers and prospects with material that appeals to their needs. What do your targets want, where do they hang out, what would they read and pass along?

If done well, you can not only multiply your content, you can spread the impact over time. Do that for all your content and you have achieved a drumbeat of marketing that your desired audiences cannot fail to notice.

That’s how you “think like a publisher.”

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Posted in Business strategy, Content marketing, Marketing, Search marketing

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