WriteSpark Tech Marcom Insights

Decision Makers Like Details

I once participated in a focus group to evaluate the effectiveness of sales materials produced by an insurance company.

The group included people of diverse professions, ages, and life experience. Yet it was interesting to see how quickly they reached consensus on which document had the most appeal, especially for motivating a purchase decision.

The group's choice? The document with the greatest amount of product details, even though it was in a very text-heavy, table layout with a small font and footnotes.

Contrary to what some conventional marketing wisdom might indicate, the simpler piece was rated as much less effective and credible by the group because of the complexity of factors that must be considered when buying insurance.

The lesson for technology marketers from this group is that for technical products, like insurance, the "devil is truly in the details."  Especially when buyers are comparing products on their short list, the sometimes maligned "feeds and speeds" data and other specifications can be critical input for a purchase decision.   

A lot of discussion about content marketing is focused on the more glamorous documents such as white papers, case studies, web articles, and blog posts. 

But as a group of thoughtful consumers can tell you, don't forget the usefulness of detailed data sheets and technical product brochures for your sales collateral set.     

 

Maximizing the Content Value of an Interview Call

Good content is a shame to waste.

Especially when it's right in front of you, ready to be adapted for a document, video, or presentation.

So often when I'm working on a content marketing project, I see good stories and information go by the wayside simply because they don't fit the immediate need.

For example, when interviewing customers for their perspectives on a white paper topic, I often gather a substantial amount of information that would be useful for a case study. All it would take is a few more questions and a few more minutes of interview time to get information for two high-value marketing documents.

But because of the narrow focus on just the one project, the typically small amount of work to plan the extra project and gain the customer's agreement to participate simply isn't done. And so, a potentially very valuable marketing opportunity is wasted.

How can you make sure you're not missing an easy content win? Start with these ideas:

• Identify all of the potential content elements you may want to develop from a single interview with a subject expert or customer. Then work with the writer to make sure the interview questions will gather the needed input.
• During the call, be on the lookout for content ideas that come up by surprise. For example, the customer's creative use of your product may be good source material for an application note.
• When the primary project is in draft form, look for interesting anecdotes, project or configuration descriptions, and user stories that could be expanded into stand-alone content.

Of course, not all interviews will yield more than one piece of useful content. And in some cases, the customer story or input may not yet be ready or substantial enough for publication. A good writer can help you recognize the right opportunities when they come up, and alert you in those cases when a story won't be helpful for your marketing goals.

How do you handle unexpected content opportunities?

 

White Papers: Refresh or Write Fresh?

Your marketing team may produce dozens of new white papers each year, but how often do you refresh an existing one?

For many technology marketers, once a white paper is written and posted it's instantly forgotten. Yet many older white papers can deliver renewed value to your promotional efforts with less expense, time, and effort than producing a new one.

Use these criteria to determine whether a white paper is a good candidate for a refresh:

• Continues to attract a large number of sales leads or downloads. These papers offer proven performance that you'll want to sustain.
• Promotes a product or service that will continue to be sold by your company. Why reinvent the wheel with a new paper when you can revive an existing content asset?
• Was written more than a year ago. Readers know technology changes fast and they will likely ignore content that is more than 12-18 months old. For some products or marketing situations, the information renewal cycle may have an even shorter timeframe.
• Updated product details, new case studies etc. are readily available or can be quickly found or developed.

Of course, you may find that some white papers are so dated it's better to simply replace them with a new paper, e-book, or other content to meet your marketing goals. In this case, your evaluation effort won't be wasted because you will identify content that is actually hindering your marketing efforts and should be discarded.

How a Copywriter Can Help

When you have identified a white paper that's ready for renewal, a good copywriter can help you determine the specific changes and new information needed. If you go back to the writer who wrote the original document, the revisions will be easier and faster to complete than would be possible for a writer who is seeing this project for the first time.

In any case, refreshing a white paper--or any other marketing content--can be a cost-effective effort that expands the return on your original marketing investment and extends it well into the future.

What are your criteria for refreshing a white paper or other marketing content? Do you have tips about doing so successfully?

 

Case Studies: Does Your Team Know What Makes a Good Success Story?

One of your sales reps sends a breathless e-mail: "XYZ company just signed a contract. They'd make a great success story!" Or, you're preparing to launch a new product and you know that a strong customer case study would be very helpful for substantiating your marketing messages. So, you ask the product manager whether any of the customers involved in beta testing or early product release would be good candidates.

In both cases, what input do you receive? Most likely, just a customer name and contact details, with little if any information on the story itself. And so you must spend the time and effort pursuing these customers to determine whether their stories are a good fit for your needs. And in doing so, you may place your company in an awkward position if the customer is unwilling, is contacted too early, or doesn't have the hoped-for positive experience with your product.

You can avoid these unproductive situations by educating your team about the types of customers and stories that make a good case study. This education effort can be as easy as asking a few key questions in a phone call or e-mail:

1. Why are you recommending this customer? Example answers: It's a well-known company, the customer is in a target industry or market segment, or the customer has an interesting product application.
2. Has the customer agreed to participate in the case study? If so, can we name the company or must they remain anonymous?
3. Is the product deployment or testing complete and has the customer seen valid and significant results? In other words, is this customer story ready to tell now or will it be a better story later? 
4. What would our prospects find interesting in this customer's story?

The answers to these questions can be brief, just enough for you to determine whether this is a case study you want to pursue. For your colleagues, these questions will help them give you the suitable and contact-ready customer names that contribute to a successful case study program.

Your SMEs are tasked with more writing, but should they actually do it?

Whether they like it or not, whether they feel capable or not, many technical subject matter experts (SMEs) are expected to be a white paper writer, a web content writer, and a blog post writer.

However, in most cases, these writing assignments aren't getting done--which is frustrating to both the SMEs and the content marketing managers who oversee the projects.

The question becomes: Should SMEs write technical sales materials? Use the criteria below to guide the decision within your marketing environment.

Time and workload demands. The expectation that your SMEs should become prolific writers is added to their already full task list for their real jobs of managing product development, supporting customers, or designing new technologies.

It's no surprise that, in spite of an SME's interest or good intentions, a new writing assignment quickly falls to the bottom of the priority list. Besides, it's important to ask, is writing a blog post or white paper draft really the best use of time for a highly-paid technical employee?

Lack of writing skill and training. Most SMEs didn't expect to become marketing writers in their professional careers. They may lack the knowledge and skill necessary to be confident, efficient, and effective when writing marketing content.

Second-language writers and readers. Language factors are a concern given that much marketing content for technology products is written in English, but many readers have a different native language. Indeed, your subject experts may speak English as a second language themselves. Or, they may not understand how to write for readers who have a limited understanding of English, which means their content may cause reader confusion or image problems for your company.

Writing for search engines. SMEs probably don’t know how to write for search engine optimization (SEO), using the right keywords in appropriate ways to get good search rankings and attract more prospects to your content.

Limited understanding of restrictions and requirements for promotional text. Your SMEs may not know about the problems that can be created by certain language and claims in their content. Additionally, a SME may not know about marketing language requirements that help your company protect its brand.

Copywriting Help for SMEs

A cost-effective solution to these challenges is using an experienced technical copywriter to help your SMEs develop their blog posts, white papers, technical articles, and Web content.

The writer frees a significant amount of time and brain space for the SME, who only needs to provide useful, clear input and later, clear comments when reviewing the writer's draft.

You can also help SMEs by sharing the tips in this guide: The SME's Guide to Working with Writers

 

Of particular concern, there is the danger that someone may include problematic language and claims in their content. This is text that wouldn’t pass legal review and would automatically  be excluded by a marketing writer, but may not be obvious to someone who doesn’t know about legal and liability constraints on marketing language

When the Draft has "Problems"

Perhaps the most exasperating feedback you can get from a subject expert who reviews the draft of a technical marketing document? "It has problems, let’s talk."

Your stomach sinks as you imagine having to listen to a complete destruction of text into which you (or your technology writer) put so much time, effort, and creative thought.

But knowing several strategies for handling feedback can make this situation both positive and constructive for moving the project forward.

Strategy #1. What is the problem, really?

Go ahead and have that conversation with the subject expert to identify what is really "wrong" with the document. Perhaps it truly is a large problem -- a wrong focus, inaccurate interpretation of input, or a change of direction that requires a rewrite. Or perhaps the reviewer has just minor comments, but feels more comfortable explaining them in a conversation instead of marking the text. You won't know how big the "problem" is until you ask.

Then you can apply the next strategies.

Strategy #2. Is it a matter of taste?

As the author H.G. Wells dryly noted, "No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft." Especially if the comments are vague and directed more to the text's presentation than content, ask the reviewer, "Is this actually an error or your preference?"

Strategy #3: Has something changed?

Maybe the only problem with the draft is that it just doesn't reflect the latest product information or changes in marketing strategy. In this case, it's easy to identify how the draft can be revised to reflect the new information.

Caution: Some technical experts use drafts of white papers or press releases as the way to work through their fuzzy thinking about messages, target marketing, competitive positioning, or other factors. This behavior becomes evident when the reviewer insists on completing the revisions directly, then misses deadlines because the new draft "isn't quite ready yet." Or, the reviewer burns through the writer's time as if it was an endless resource, producing multiple new drafts that never seem to get closer to approvable text.

Actions you can take in this case:

• Put the project on hold until the reviewer can provide clear, firm input.

• Realize that the subject expert really wants to be the writer and accept whatever he or she produces, making only minor copy changes if needed.
• Appeal to a higher power: Ask the person's manager or a company executive to move the project back to your control.

Strategy #4: Is the right writer assigned to the project?

Sometimes it's not the subject expert, it's the writer. Even when the writer is you (sorry about that) it is important to recognize that a given writer may not always be the best match for every project. Lack of technical knowledge about the subject matter, a writing style that doesn't fit the message, or just a personality mismatch between the copywriter and the subject expert may indicate it's best to assign the project to someone else.

Strategy #5: Do you need to take a stand or be a referee?

Especially when a draft goes through multiple rounds of review, with the comments getting more confusing and frustrating, it may be time to stop trying to make everyone happy. Instead, assert your authority as the content marketing expert and make the changes that you think best for the document. Or, if multiple reviewers are providing conflicting comments, decide whose comments to accept or ask them to reach agreement and provide a single, clear set of changes.

Which strategies have you used to handle problem drafts and cranky reviewers?

 

 

Are You Abandoning Your Leads after a Webinar?

What do you do for viewers after they've watched your live webinar? What do you do with those who (gasp!) have left the session early, before they see the slide with your call to action and web link for more information?

Based on my Webinar experiences lately, you may be abandoning valuable leads right at the point when you have their attention.

See if this experience is familiar. Last month I was registered for two webinars during the same hour, so I left one early and joined the other late. I assumed the companies would send a link to the webinar recording and the slides or other material so I could see what I had missed.

After the second webinar ended, I watched my email and waited, and waited...Until the next day when the recording link message came from one company. As for the other company, its message wasn't sent until two days later. How much of my attention do you think they got then?

The lesson from this story? Have an email scheduled to send right after the webinar ends. Don't worry if you can't provide the recording link at that point. Instead, link to the webinar slide deck on Slideshare or send a white paper or case study that is related to the webinar topic. And be sure to link to a landing page on your site where participants can take the next step in connecting with your company.

Then, when the webinar recording is ready, you have another reason to contact those prospects again and encourage them to move from passive information gatherers to active leads for your salespeople.

After all, it's much easier to capitalize on the prospect's attention once you have it than to try recapturing that attention after they've forgotten you.

 

WriteSpark: Best Posts about Case Study Interviews

Do you have the interviewing skills that can help you get a great case study...and strengthen your relationship with the customer at the same time?

Or, do you just "wing it," relying on the right information to magically emerge during the interview call, as long as you can keep the customer talking?

Anytime you interview a customer, you have a golden opportunity to elicit powerful, effective content for a case study. But only if you know how to guide the interview with the right questions that are asked in the right way.

I've led hundreds of case study interviews and have seen which bad habits derail the process and which practices improve it.

Learn how you can improve the quality of your case study interviews in these posts:

• Case Studies: Ask Short, Clear Questions
• Interviews Part 1: Are you interviewing or just chatting?
• Interviews Part 2: Are your questions leading or asking?

Are there other best practices for case study interviews that you would recommend?

 

Why You Still Need PDFs for Content Marketing

Last month I was on the website of a major technology company, looking for basic information about a product. I entered the product name into the search field and the first page of links to come up were all related to developer's notes. Not exactly what I was looking for.

Going through the product menu was no help either, because the overview page I found there was so full of photos and fancy formatting and there was no option to get a simple print version.

Is this company trying to push prospects away (unlikely) or is it simply caught up in the trend-du-jour of web interfaces and content presentation that view a downloadable PDF document as belonging in the dark ages?

Especially for many technical decision-makers, an early question about a product is "what are the specs?" They want to see the technical information in all of its detailed glory in the form of a PDF catalog page, data sheet, or brochure that can be printed, email, or viewed side-by-side with information about a competing product.

They want a document they can markup, pass around in a meeting, keep in a paper file of project information for future reference.

But most of all, they want to document they can read in-depth and understand, something that's much harder to do on an electronic screen than on paper.

Moving marketing content to the web shouldn't mean leaving traditional print documents behind. You may not actually be printing them anymore, but in PDF form data sheets, brochures, application notes, white papers, case studies, and more all deliver value for your prospect's decision-making.

Good Content Marketing Resources You May Have Missed

The quiet that comes when work slows for the the holidays is a good time to catch up on the best marketing resources of the past year. Here are three that I recommend:

101 Examples of Effective Calls to Action from Hubspot. Full of useful examples for presenting an eye-catching, action-motivating call to action on a webpage. Although largely focused on the visual presentation of call to action buttons and links, copywriters who work with a designer on web content can also learn new techniques from this guide.

Blueprint of a Modern Marketing Campaign from Kapost. The concept of "content pillars" presented in this book is a particularly useful way to look at content planning and production activity. Also provides ideas on how to organize content teams and worksheets to begin your planning.

Mind of the Engineer study from UBM. If your marketing targets technical decision-makers, you'll want to read these insights about how engineers use information sources when looking for new products and vendors.

 

When You Can't Find a Writer Who Knows Your Technology

You've searched on LinkedIn and Google.

You've called every trade magazine reporter you've ever met to see if they accept freelance gigs.

You've asked every colleague, ad agency person, friend, relative, neighbor, and dog you know.

And still you haven't been able to find a freelance copywriter who has that magic combination of good writing skills and strong knowledge of your technology.

Yet you know that your sales materials need the polish and clarity brought by a professional writer. What can you do?

You'll likely need to consider working with a technical copywriter who has good skills and relevant experience, but who will need training in your particular subject matter.

Of course, when you search for the profile keyword "technical copywriter" on LinkedIn, the result is a long list of potential candidates. Here's how to winnow that list to the writers who may be a good match.

1. Look for the writer's experience with other clients in your industry or, if helpful, in your customers' industry. The more deep and gnarly your technology, the more you want a writer who has some idea what you're talking about.
2. Check whether the writer indicates experience in writing for technical decision makers (sometimes listed as TDMs) in business-to-business sales. These marketing environments involve the most complex and difficult content, so this is a writer who likely won't be overwhelmed by taking on a big, new writing challenge.
3. Does the writer list his or her areas of technical knowledge or hold any certifications? Do those subjects have a level of difficulty comparable to that of yours?

When you have found a promising freelancer, start with an easy project that will help both of you determine whether the match is truly right. Editing and polishing a draft written by one of your technical experts is a good start, because the writer can learn while working.

But also be ready to pay for some amount of the writer's time for guided learning about your technology. Sending links to relevant websites, providing your own published materials, and holding training calls where the writer can hear explanations and ask questions about key concepts are all helpful activities.

Very soon, you'll see this investment pay off in a writer who develops better drafts and needs less time for basic information on interview calls. And when you have reached that point, plan on assigning new projects regularly so the writer's knowledge stays fresh and you benefit from quality, targeted, insightful marketing content.

Can Your Copywriter Do the Math?

What's wrong with this statement?

30% of users who rely mostly on voice calls + 40% of users who rely mostly on texting = 70% of users are ready to adopt video calls

It seems pretty simple: The numbers 30+40 add up to 70, so the statement must be correct, right?

Well, maybe. The statement isn't clear about the causality of the final result, in two ways:

1. About the relationship of choices: The fact that some users rely on voice and some on texting does not inherently mean they are ready to adopt video calls.

1. About the complete data set: There may be other users besides voice call users and texting users, and their readiness for video may change the number for total users.

Would your copywriter catch this error or have the knowledge to avoid it?

Technical content often involves citing statistics, survey results, and other types of numeric data. A writer should check all numbers in a document to assure accurate presentation and context.

Yet many writers haven't taken a statistics class and haven't had training or experience in fact-checking skills. Some writers even have an aversion to math and believe that verifying data is someone else's problem. Indeed, it becomes your problem when an error of fact or interpretation appears in your content.

What level of numeric and statistics literacy should you expect from a technical copywriter? The points below will give you a start; add or modify them based on the needs of your content and readers.

• Ability to recognize when the right data is being used as input for a calculation or interpretation.
• Basic math: Accurate addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division and correct use of mathematic symbols.
• Basic statistics: Knows the difference between average (mean) and median and when to use each; knows how to calculate percentages and change rates.
• Financial measures: Understands the difference between return on investment (ROI) and payback as well as accounting data such as gross versus net, revenues versus profits.
• High or low? Although high, positive numbers are usually of most interest, sometimes low numbers can make a valuable point. A good writer will look through all of the available data to find the most potent numbers to convey your message, which may not be the most obvious ones.

In addition to choosing the right data sets and understanding causality, a numbers-literate copywriter knows how to handle several related issues.

Context. Presenting data without accurate context can confuse readers, perhaps even mislead them. This confusion can happen even when the statistic or data point is presented as a direct quote from the source material. A good copywriter will help the reader gain the right understanding of the data.

Source and fact checking. Data presented in marketing content doesn't always include a source citation, so it is easy to ignore the important step of source checking. Taking a few minutes for this step helps to avoid introducing errors such as typos, misinterpretations, inadequate context, and failure to comply with laws about comparisons and promotional claims.

Charts and infographics. Although these visuals may be produced by a designer, the writer should be able to provide quality input and review them for accuracy.

Best Books About Numbers for Copywriters

I recommend these books as useful references to keep at hand on your desk or computer:

The Fact Checker's Bible

The Chicago Guide to Writing About Numbers

The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics

 

Do You Need a Long-Form or Short-Form Copywriter?

A typical job ad for a copywriter includes a statement like this: "Must be able to write all types of content, from white papers to webpages to tweets."

Sounds good, right? Indeed, some freelance writers promote themselves as the one person who can take care of all your copywriting needs.

But that single-source approach may not in fact be the best way to serve your content marketing projects. Different project types simply have differing needs for a writer's knowledge, skill, and focus.

For example, consider the demands of writing a long-form project, such as a white paper, compared to the short forms of email messages and Facebook updates. It's easy to understand that writing white papers requires much more skill and experience than writing social media updates. Indeed, it may be better to hire a social media manager who has the necessary, basic writing skills than to hire a highly experienced writer who does social media as a sideline. Alternatively, social media updates and other short content pieces can be handled by a junior writer who adapts the long-form content developed by a more experienced copywriter.

What should you expect of a long-form copywriter? The factors below will help you evaluate the skills and experience of job candidates and freelance writers.

• Well structured, coherent presentation of all content in the document
• Appropriate use of multiple document elements to attract and retain reader attention
• Ability to tell a lengthy, multi-themed story without losing the reader's interest or understanding
• Content is tailored to address multiple audiences
• Clear explanations of in-depth, very technical subject matter

Another benefit offered by long-form copywriters: They are able to translate these skills across multiple content types, including technical white papers, product brochures, web articles, e-books, and customer case studies.

So instead of looking for one "do everything" writer, consider building a list of freelance writers who can best meet your needs for specific project types. You'll see the results in better content that is also better matched to its audience and purpose.

Read these related posts:

Justifying the Cost of an Experienced Freelance Writer

Do You Need a Specialty Copywriter?

 

Do You Need a Specialty Copywriter?

Justifying the Cost of an Experienced Freelance Writer - See more at: http://writinghightech.typepad.com/writespark/2012/08/the-value-of-an-experienced-freelance-writer.html#sthash.vL9HrllE.dpuf

Justifying the Cost of an Experienced Freelance Writer - See more at: http://writinghightech.typepad.com/writespark/2012/08/the-value-of-an-experienced-freelance-writer.html#sthash.vL9HrllE.dpuf

Better Targeting of IT Buyers with New Content Marketing Insights

A recent series of TechTarget reports offers many helpful insights for content marketing that targets IT buyers. Four insights in particular caught my attention.

Serial IT Specialists. TechTarget correctly notes that many IT professionals now move from one area to another as new technologies emerge and are adopted by their employers. These buyers seek content that will help them progress from basic to advanced topics in their new technology focus. White papers, video tech talks, FAQs, case studies, and buying or application guides are content ideas to consider.

Globally Relevant Content. The TechTarget survey found that for IT buyers in most countries, localized content is less important than finding the best practices, product information, and research resources they need, even if those resources are available only in English. Although you want to evaluate the expectations of your specific target markets, it may be possible to shift some budget from localization to creating English-language content that appeals to prospects around the world.

Comparison Content. A typical part of any purchase decision is defining the right buying criteria and making an "apples-to-apples" comparison among products. TechTarget notes that IT buyers would welcome help from vendors in making those comparisons. This help can be provided directly through charts or evaluation reports that compare your products to competitors (although it's important to comply with local advertising laws about this type of marketing material).

An indirect method is to give prospects an evaluation worksheet or guide that lists only recommended criteria for making their own comparisons. Of course, you could define the criteria in a way that will present your product in its best light.

"Deep Dive" Technical Content. As TechTarget points out, technical decision-makers may already be familiar with your solution and how it generally compares with alternatives. What they don't know, but are eager to find out, is more in-depth information about product capabilities, architecture and design choices, implementation scenarios, etc. White papers, blog posts from your engineers, implementation and design guides, and recommended best practices are marketing content types that can deliver the deep technical information that IT buyers seek.

I recommend that you take a look at the insights and data in this report to help in planning your technical marketing campaigns. Read the TechTarget series: "Understanding and Influencing the International IT Buyer"

 

Packaging Case Studies to Increase Their Promotional Value

Go to the website of many technology companies and find the link for case studies. The page that appears is likely a long, undifferentiated list of all the case studies the company has ever produced.

What a lost promotional opportunity!

Instead of taking time to look through the list, most customers will click on just the first one or two links. Or, they'll look for a company name they recognize, even if that case study isn't necessarily relevant to their interests or situation.

Two quick and easy projects can make your case studies much more appealing to customers and increase their marketing value for your company.

First, on the web page that lists your case studies, organize the title links by the categories most relevant to your customers, e.g. by industry, product, world region, etc. Simple subheads can be enough to segment the list, as shown by this example of a categorized case study list, used by my client MegaPath.

Another idea for this organizing project is to create a table that shows how the individual case studies fit into multiple categories.

The second project is to collect related case studies into a downloadable book. Again, the book can be organized by relevant categories in order to improve SEO and attract the attention of prospects as they browse through your site. A case study book can justify registration from prospects before the download and can serve as a "leave behind" printed document for your salespeople when they meet customers in person. One example, with case studies in summarized form, is provided by this customer reference booklet from SunGard UK.

Are there other ways that you have packaged case studies to increase their usage and impact?

 

How Services Firms Grow with Online Marketing (Guest Post)

A note from Janice:

Professional services for activities such as infrastructure assessments, deployment planning, and outsourced IT operations are a significant revenue stream for many technology companies. However, these services aren't often the focus of guidance for effective marketing.

In this guest post, Hinge Marketing, which specializes in professional services firms, presents interesting data about online marketing strategies that can benefit any company offering technology services.

How Services Firms Grow with Online Marketing

by Sylvia Montgomery

Our research team, Hinge Research Institute, reviewed findings from our survey on 500 CEOs, executives and marketers from professional services firms for the book Online Marketing for Professional Services.

We wondered how three groups of professionals use 15 common online marketing tools in order to discover what tools work best when marketing professional service firms. The three groups of professionals we surveyed included average growth firms, high growth firms, and a panel of experts. We were interested in answering a few key questions:

• How do average firms use these tools differently than high growth firms?
• How do average and high growth firms judge the tools’ effectiveness?
• How does a panel of experts evaluate the tools’ effectiveness?

Focus on Online Tools

We asked both average growth and high growth firms to rate the relative focus they placed on each online tool. A rating of 0 meant they didn’t use the tool at all, while 10 meant it was used significantly.

We found a significant difference in the focus between high growth and average growth firms. For example, high growth firms focus more on blogging (with a rating over 7), where average growth firms focus on blogging about half as much (with a rating about a 3). High growth firms also use email marketing and web analytics more often in their marketing.

Figure 1 – Focus Rating: High Growth vs. Average Growth Firms

Overall, high growth firms seem to use online marketing tools more aggressively. There is one exception, however: both average and high growth firms focus equally on sending company newsletters, a popular tool that has been around for quite some time. It’s interesting to note how social media platforms, such as LinkedIn and Twitter, account for some of the most used tools by average growth firms. However, that does not necessarily mean these tools are being used effectively.

Effectiveness of Online Tools

This brings us to the next section we looked at: effectiveness rating. We asked firms to rate how effective these online tools were at helping them meet their business objectives. For almost all the tools, high growth firms found them to be more effective than average firms did. Only newsletters and webinars were rated similarly. Social media tools, although used widely, did not seem to be as effective and generally tend to be overused.

Figure 2 – Effectiveness Rating: High Growth vs. Average Growth Firms

Opinions from Experts

The third step in our research was gaining insight from a panel of experts on the 15 online marketing tools. How do experts rate their effectiveness? What tools should firms be focusing on even more? We wanted to uncover any untapped potential in using these tools, beyond what high growth firms already experienced.

Figure 3 – Effectiveness Ratings: Experts vs. High Growth vs. Average Growth Firms

In most cases, the experts found the set of online marketing tools to be even more effective than high growth firms. SEO and web analytics were among the techniques experts use most and rated the most effective, with blogging and usability testing not far behind. Surprisingly, the experts found Facebook and banner ads to be less effective than the high growth firms did.

For the most part, we found that professional services firms are not realizing online marketing tools’ full potential, particularly in regards to the effectiveness of SEO, blogging, and web analytics. If firms start to determine which online marketing tools are right for them and begin to focus more on these tools, firms will begin to reap the benefits. This means increasing web traffic, building web authority, and gaining more inbound leads – goals every professional services firm should strive to achieve.

To learn more ways online marketing can help your firm, download the Hinge Marketing report Online Marketing for Professional Services.

About the Author: Sylvia Montgomery, CPSM, Senior Partner & Account Director at Hinge, brings 20 years of experience and perspective to the Hinge team. Other recent leadership positions include Director of Marketing at one of the Mid-Atlantic’s fastest-growing engineering firms, Bowman Consulting and Director of Marketing Communications at Rubbermaid Commercial Products.  Sylvia holds a BA from Trinity College, an MFA from George Washington University, and an MBA from University of Maryland, University College.

 

 

Murphy's Laws of High Tech Copywriting

Although April Fool's Day was last week, its mischievous spirit is active year-round in technology marketing projects. And this mischief often reflects the proverbial Murphy's Law, that "whatever can go wrong, will."

So, with tongue firmly in cheek, here are my top 12 ways that Murphy's Law applies to technical copywriting projects.

1. The product feature for which you have written the cleverest messages won't be ready when the product ships.
2. If you come up with a new buzzword, readers will think it means the exact opposite of your definition.
3. Spell-check will not point out a misspelled acronym, and this misspelling will have an embarrassing meaning or pronunciation.
4. Your technical guru will reject as "too salesy" a headline that your marketing VP loves. Corollary: Your marketing people will automatically dismiss anything written by your engineers.
5. Your company president will suddenly become an expert copywriter, but only when the brochure is already at the printer or posted on the website.
6. A blogger will trip you up with questions about capabilities in a product that you never even knew existed.
7. A document that you think will appeal only to a very limited audience will turn out to be the most requested material ever produced by your company.
8. The subject matter expert who rejects a first draft secretly wants to write the document. Corollary: Anything written by this expert will be entirely incomprehensible to anyone else.
9. Many of the keywords that a product manager insists must be used to describe a product will in fact turn out to be irrelevant for customer searches.
10. Just as you're planning a new content campaign, you will see a competitor's microsite with the same concept.
11. A customer will give you a great case study, but then never get back to you with approval to publish it. Corollary: The customer who eagerly wants to be in a case study has a boring story to tell.
12. The product manager who wants an "objective" white paper will also want to see the most mentions possible of his or her product.

What are the Murphy's laws that you have encountered in your technical marketing projects?

Copyright(c) 2013, Janice King. Source: http://writinghightech.typepad.com/writespark/2013/02/murphys-laws-of-high-tech-copywriting.html

Do You Want a Case Study or Just Feedback?

A prime customer has just agreed to participate in a case study for your product--great news!

But it can be tempting to turn what should be a focused case study interview call into an extended grilling of the customer for every bit of product feedback you can get.

That's a mistake for two reasons:

1. The customer may lose patience with the process and back-out of the case study. The result: you lose the much higher marketing value of a full case study for just a few more data points that could be better collected in an online survey or a separate customer satisfaction call.
2. It may be harder for the writer to get the big-picture, business-focused story during the interview if the questions continually prompt a customer to discuss details of the product implementation or your company's support activity.

I know it can be very hard to get a customer on the phone for an interview, so you want to maximize the information you get during that call.

The best way to do this is to work from a predefined list of questions and let the writer guide the interview. A good case study writer will keep one ear to the conversation and one eye on the clock to make sure all of the information needed to write a complete case study is gathered during the allotted interview time.

Yet a good writer will also probe for the examples, data points, decision factors, implementation plans, etc. that add depth and interest to the case study. And it's likely this information will give you the useful customer insights and product feedback that you seek.

If time is still available after the writer has gone through the standard question list, then you can ask the customer for any other details or if they would be willing to participate in a separate feedback call or online survey.

By remembering what delivers the highest value for your company, a case study interview call can produce both effective marketing content and useful information for improving your product.

 

Four Tips to Guarantee Freelancer Websites Deliver Great Results (Guest Post)

A note from Janice:

I know that not every technology company has the budget to hire a freelance technical copywriter with my depth of subject knowledge, writing skill, and marketing savvy. For these companies, the freelance marketplace sites can be a good way to find writers for less-demanding content projects. But using these sites can be overwhelming and nonproductive if not approached carefully.

In this helpful guest post, marcom manager Christine Farrier offers practical advice on finding the right freelance writer on the marketplace sites. Her tips also apply to finding writers through a LinkedIn or Google search. 

Four Tips to Guarantee Freelancer Websites Deliver Great Results
By Christine Farrier 

The current stable of freelancing and crowdsourcing sites offer a compelling solution for the staff-poor and most likely budget-poor marketing leaders who are increasingly called on to do more with less, while still attempting to uphold their personal and corporate standards of professionalism and effectiveness. The challenge is to make certain that the job or projects you identify as suitable for virtual outsourcing won’t bounce back to your mile-long checklist as an item you end up doing yourself. That would sort of defeat the point.

In the beginning, there was the creative brief . . .

Just as in the offline world, preparation is key. Taking the necessary time to organize your thoughts and to clearly identify the outcome that you want to achieve will save you hours of frustration—hours that could be better spent on those tasks that truly make the best use of your time and talents. One of my first posts on a freelancing site yielded so many proposals that I yanked the listing in a panic, realizing that I would never be able to weed through the hundreds of vendor responses in the one hour that I had optimistically allotted to the task.

A few posts later, both the websites and I had become a lot smarter. All the established sites (e.g., Elance) now require much more complete project descriptions to make the selection process more efficient for everyone involved. [Editor's note: an experienced, independent freelancer will also ask for complete project information before giving you a cost estimate for accepting the project.] And while the design marketplace 99designs is the only site that actually calls their task description a creative brief, in preparing your project requirements, this is the perfect approach to take. Be ultraclear. Be superspecific. Be ridiculously concise. Pretend you are talking to your 17-year-old nephew, because for coding or SEO jobs, you very well might be.

Key Elements

1. Who are you? This is not the time to cut and paste your three-page mission statement, value proposition, brand DNA, or Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Think more along the lines of your firm’s elevator pitch or press release boilerplate. If you are masking your company’s identity (no sense in alerting the competition that you lack in-house AdWords expertise), you might mention that you are a company “similar to” the biggest player in your space. The 600-pound gorillas are likely to be more easily recognized to a wider audience of freelancers and provide the appropriate context, tone, and connotation for your project.

2. Who are you looking for? Aim high—it can’t hurt, and it will certainly help. If your ideal provider is a Hedge Fund SME (subject matter expert) and Chicago Manual of Style-freak who dabbles in social media, works in your time zone, and can turn around edits within two hours of receiving your draft comments, say so. Someone (or a team) in Istanbul, Rio de Janiero, or Brooklyn has the skills that you require at the ready.

3. What EXACTLY do you need done? If you don’t know the answer to this question, you aren’t ready to outsource, and you especially aren’t ready to crowdsource. Work through breakfast, lunch, and dinner (again), and do it yourself. You might get a headache, but you will save yourself a migraine. Imagine every question that a clamoring throng of freelancers might ask and answer it in advance.

For example, do you need a thought leadership piece, a case study, or an advertorial? How many words does it need to be? Is it a part of a larger campaign? What goals do you hope the piece will achieve? Where will the document be published? Your website, a trade pub? Who is the target audience? Are complementary components required like a client email announcing the availability of the material or a concurrent social media push? Do you have a sample of something similar that you love? Something you hate? How long will you use it for? How long have projects like this taken in the past? What’s the normal review process? You get the idea. I have found that the clearer your job description, the higher the quality of the response you will receive and typically an end product that is achieved faster and closer (or even better) to what you originally had in mind.

4. Use a trap door to help with vetting. The best freelancers are conscientious and pay attention to the details. It is what truly separates them from the crowd. Plant a booby trap in your task description that will help you quickly identify providers who have actually read the brief that you have put valuable time and effort into versus the trigger fingers who apply for every job that appears in their highlighted category. Mention that you can only consider freelancers who provide a link to their latest project or send you a private message with a knock-knock joke. Not only will this help you select resources that are going to give you exactly what you need, but you also might actually smile during the process.

About the Author: Christine Farrier is a Marketing Communications Manager at a financial services firm that specializes in cloud-based risk and portfolio management solutions for the alternative investment industry. She can be reached though her LinkedIn profile.

Refresh Your Best Marketing Content

At the beginning of the year, your content marketing plans are likely focused on new, new, new: New white papers, sales brochures, Web articles, and customer case studies. But equally valuable marketing opportunities may await you in the old--through a relatively simple, fast, and inexpensive refresh of your best existing materials.

For example, look at white papers and ebooks where the core content is still relevant, but information such as market statistics, application examples, and messaging about your products needs updating.

Some years ago, I wrote a tutorial guide which my client used as the primary piece for attracting sales leads. This 36-page booklet became a perennial favorite among prospects and sales reps, prompting the client to make annual revisions for eight editions.

The yearly cost of my services for researching and writing the updates was negligible compared to the revenue attributable to this one promotional piece, especially over time. Has any piece of marketing content in your library had the same ROI?

If no, it's time to go looking for current materials that could continue to deliver value if only given the chance. And it's time to add "content refresh" as an essential task in your regular marcom planning.

What factors are you considering in your marcom plans for 2013?

2012 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends [Research Report]

WriteSpark: Best Blog Posts about Content Marketing

This month's list focuses on my best posts and recommended resources for content marketing as it applies to technology products, services, and companies.

If you are involved in producing any type of technical sales or promotional materials, you'll find these posts helpful:

• What does the content tell you? How to look beyond the standard collateral list to create fresh ideas for marketing content.

• Decision makers like details. When product specifications and other technical details can be critical for encouraging a favorable buying decision.

• Content tips for e-books. Ideas you may not have considered for writing long-form e-books or print books.

These two books capture the best industry thinking about content marketing:

• eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale by Ardath Albee. Great insights for copywriters about how readers view and respond to any type of marketing content.

• The Content Rules by Ann Handley & CC Chapman. A good overview of current thought about content marketing.

On the Web, the Content Marketing Institute blog is my daily reading and go-to source for valuable marketing insights and helpful writing and promotional techniques.

Read more best tips:

• Best blog posts about case studies
• Best blog posts about white papers

WriteSpark: Best Blog Posts about White Papers

This month's list focuses on my best posts and recommended resources for white papers.

If you are a white paper writer or you manage white paper writing projects, you'll want to read these posts:

• Is your topic worthy of a white paper? Guidance for choosing which topics are really worth the expense and effort of a white paper.

• Top 10 ways to be a good SME. Tips to pass along to your engineers and product managers for providing helpful input for a white paper project.

• Set the purchasing agenda with white papers. Techniques for structuring white paper content to frame a buyer's evaluation factors in your favor.

I consider these two books to be essential if you want to learn or improve your white paper writing skills:

Writing White Papers by Michael Stelzner. A complete and in-depth guide to writing white papers.

Crafting White Paper 2.0 by Jonathan Kantor. This book presents a good overview of  writing and design techniques to use in white papers and other promotional documents to attract and engage readers.

On the Web, I read Jonathan Kantor's White Paper Pundit blog; the Content Marketing Institute blog occasionally includes articles on writing and promoting white papers.

Read more best tips:

• Best blog posts about case studies
• Best blog posts about content marketing (coming in December 2012)

WriteSpark: Best Blog Posts about Case Studies

In this blog, I frequently write about case studies, white papers, and content marketing for technical products and technology companies. Over the next few months, I'll list what I consider to be my very best posts on these topics, along with a few "must have" books and other resources to further your knowledge.

If you are involved in writing or managing customer case studies for high-tech marketing, you'll find useful ideas in these posts:

• Does your team know what makes a good case study? Tips for saving time and identifying the best candidates when searching for case study prospects.

• What to do with a "not quite ready" case study. How to find and use whatever positive information you get in a case study interview.

• Case study or testimonial? Guidance for determing whether you have enough content to justify a full case study.

And, you'll want to read these excellent books and share them with your team:

Bill Lee's The Hidden Wealth of Customers, a thoughtful guide for justifying a full-fledged customer reference program to your company executives.

Casey Hibbard's Stories That Sell, a thorough and practical guide for writing case studies and managing a case study program.

On the Web, I find the most useful discussions in this Linkedin group:

Customer Reference Knowledge Sharing Network

What resources do you find useful for writing and marketing case studies?

 

 

Justifying the Cost of an Experienced Freelance Writer

"How long have you been freelancing?" is a question I rarely hear when I am discussing my copywriting services with a potential client.

But it's a question you will want to ask any freelance copywriter you hire. The reason? A writer who is experienced in running a business and managing projects as a freelancer can save you time, money, and headaches through more effective project activity and relationships.

The factors below show the often-overlooked value to be gained by working with a long-established freelance writer.

Value Area	Experienced Freelance Copywriters …
Project Management	Know how to productively manage a very dynamic workload and help keep your project on target, on schedule, and on budget.
Project Focus	Deliver high quality for your materials by focusing only on project types where they can produce their best work.
Fresh Insights	Offer ideas and perspectives, gained from working with multiple clients, that can improve your materials.
Communication Mastery	Know how to powerfully convey a story or marketing message.
Customer and SME Relationships	Interact with customers and subject experts, including high-level executives, in a way that maintains a positive perception of your company and the marcom department.
Project Politics	Keep an appropriate objectivity during project discussions and alert you about issues that need your intervention.
Work Quality	Deliver complete, well-written drafts with strong attention to detail, reducing the time and amount of edits in the review process.

By considering these value factors when you evaluate potential freelance copywriters, you can find one who offers the project savvy and business commitment to be the long-term resource for your marcom needs.

White Papers: Too Much Fat, Not Enough Meat

It's easy to overload technology white papers with content that is irrelevant and poorly structured for the reader's interest. These bloated documents can mean not only diminished marketing results, but also a missed opportunity for delivering the information prospects seek.

According to an Eccolo Media survey of IT buyers, "... white papers that don't contain enough technical information are more likely to disappoint than those that possess too much."

The ideas below will help you avoid this problem by trimming the "fat"--unnecessary or excessive content--from your technical white papers.

Avoid throat-clearing text. Many documents begin with a history review, basic definitions, personal reflections, or company positioning statements. This content may seem like necessary stage-setting or a way to ease into the main text. But unless it's essential for understanding the document's topic, throat-clearing text can quickly lose the reader's interest in the rest of the material.

A good white paper writer will look at the introductory text with the questions: How can we get to the point faster? If I was a reader, would this white paper capture my interest right away and would I be willing to read further?

Tailor the corporate boilerplate text. Basic information about your company isn't the place to drone on about your company's mission, historical achievements, information about individual products, commitment to providing outstanding customer support, blah, blah, blah. Instead, create one short paragraph with a link to an About Us page on your website that contains more detail.

Segment lengthy content. Are you trying to cram too much content into one white paper? Instead, segment and sequence that content into multiple papers, including cross-reference links where appropriate.

Narrative text. Instead of complete sentences and full paragraphs, some types of information can be presented more clearly and concisely in bullet lists, tables, infographics, and links to other content.

Now, with the "fat" out of the document, you can look at adding more "meat"--the substantive content that is directly related to the white paper's topic.

Remember: "The writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time." Charles Caleb Colton

Do you have other techniques for making content more relevant readers interests?

Missing Technical Details May Turn Away Buyers

What can a catalog about sewing threads teach a technology marketer about writing effective sales content? A lot about missed opportunities for engaging prospects and motivating them to make a purchase.

I create art quilts as a hobby and at a recent trade show I eagerly picked up a catalog from a well-regarded specialty thread manufacturer. With hundreds of threads on the market, I was looking for detailed guidance about the qualities of each thread, its best application in terms of projects and fabrics, and which needle size to use for best results.

What I got was a lot of pictures of thread colors, but an inconsistent mish-mash of specifications for each thread family. Although a product selection guide was somewhat helpful in narrowing the list of threads that might suit my needs, I put down the catalog feeling more overwhelmed and confused than when I started.

Could this scenario described your printed sales literature and web content? Can prospects easily find the technical information they need to even consider your product as a candidate for purchase?

Two tips will help you present technical details in a useful way:

• Identify the types of technical details buyers want to know for your products. For example, buyers typically seek information about specifications such as size, capacity, and speed as well as target applications. If you sell products (like threads) that have common characteristics, present a consistent set of details. For a diverse product set, define relevant details for each product or family.

• Create a standard structure for presenting product details. A table of specifications is a common element in data sheets and product web pages. A consistent format for this table helps readers find information quickly, especially when they are comparing details for multiple products.

For more ideas on structuring content and describing technical specifications, see my book Copywriting That Sells High-Tech.

Do You Need a Specialty Copywriter?

It's easy to understand that not every freelance writer is a good match for every marketing project. Yet, how can you recognize when you need a specialty writer and identify what kind of writer to seek? These ideas can help your search.

You need a writer with specific technical or subject knowledge. Teaching a generalist writer about your products, customers, and applications probably isn't a good use of time--for yourself or your subject experts. A specialty writer, such as a technical copywriter, brings strong knowledge to your projects. And this experience makes a difference in producing on-target content quickly and with minimal guidance or management throughout the writing and review processes.

Your project requires a specific writing style. Advertising, direct mail, and speeches are project types I routinely decline because I don't have the talents for those specialized writing styles. Instead, I recommend that clients find a writer whose focuses on this kind of work.

Your company has a particular market focus. A writer with experience primarily in B2B marketing may not be able to write effective copy for a B2C promotional effort and vice versa. Additionally, your content may need a writer with knowledge of the trends and issues in a particular vertical market, such as green energy or healthcare.

You have a mix of short-form and long-form projects. Writing and managing short-form social media content has become a specialty for some writers. Other freelance copywriters focus on long-form projects such as white papers, case studies, and sales materials. Additionally, some writers may know how to work with producers on video and podcast scripts, while others may not have the visual and auditory thinking skills required by these projects. Ask your writers to indicate which projects are truly their strengths, then consider whether you need specialty freelance writers to handle certain project types.

It may seem that you'll add to your workload if you start managing a stable of writers. But if you choose the right writers--and use them for projects where they can work most effectively--you'll likely ease your project burden and receive better content as well.

 

White Papers: Does Your Writer Have an Eye for Detail?

An obvious typo. A usage that shows a clear misunderstanding of the word's meaning or proper use. A statement of quantitative results where the math doesn't add up. A missing or incorrect source citation.

These errors seem small on their own, but when they appear multiple times within your materials, they diminish your credibility in a reader's mind. Worse yet, even a simple spelling error can result in a large loss of online sales.

Given that a white paper is usually a showcase marketing piece for your product and company, you have every right to expect that the writer has done the detail work to create a quality draft. But what are the details the writer (and you, when reviewing) should be looking for? Adapt the following list for your projects:

• All words are spelled and punctuated correctly and are used in a form that is correct for the context. Look out especially for homonyms that have different meanings (e.g., their, there, they're). Common words also may have specific meanings when used in technology marketing (see one frequent mistake in this post about the word premises).

• Source citations are complete and appropriate and all Web links lead to the correct page.

• Statistics and other quantitative information are presented correctly and in a way that fairly represents the meaning conveyed in the source. Relationships and dependencies in the data are presented clearly and in a way that allows the reader to verify calculations if appropriate.

• Product names are stated correctly, especially if a particular form is needed for trademark protection. The relevant trademark symbols are noted with the first appearance of a trademarked name or phrase in the document.

• The text complies with all other standards specified in your corporate style guide or writing guidelines. (A good resource for creating these guidelines is the Yahoo Style Guide.)

• Diagrams and infographics contain the correct text labels and captions.

• Product specifications have been checked against a datasheet or other authoritative document.

Whew! This list can seem like a lot of nit-picky busywork, but it's not. A professional writer will understand that checking for these details can avoid the negative impression left by a sloppy white paper-- and perhaps the bigger problem of a legal issue or lost sale.

Case Studies: Ask Short, Clear Questions

When you ask questions during a case study interview, do you talk too much?

If you're getting answers that are lackluster, confusing, or less complete or enthusiastic than you expect, the problem may be how you asked the questions.

Common symptoms:

• Using more than two sentences for a question.
• Asking for too much information in a single question.
• Feeling the temptation to explain a topic or share a story of your experience after you state the question, but before you allow the customer to answer. This explanation or story may guide the customer's response in a different  direction because they misunderstand what you're really asking  or assume you want a certain answer.

Talking too much as an interviewer may come from a lack of awareness about your own habits or a misplaced belief that direct questions are intimidating or impolite. You can alleviate concerns by sending the question list and setting the customer's expectation for the process before the scheduled interview time.

Consider that asking short, to-the-point questions in a case study interview:

• Makes it easier for the customer to understand the question. This is especially true for customers who are not fluent in your language.
• Forces you to focus on one topic at a time. This alone helps the customer give you relevant answers.
• Keeps the interview on track so you can get all the information you need. If you're talking too much when you ask the early questions, you may run out of time before you get to the later (and perhaps most important) questions on your list.
• Allows you to conduct interviews by e-mail for customers who prefer to work that way or when their spoken language skills may make a telephone interview a difficult experience.

For your next case study interview, write down questions with the exact wording you'll use on the call. Then, stick to it and see if you notice a difference in the quality of the customer's replies.

After all, in a case study interview, the customer should do most of the talking, not you.

Great Ideas and Resources for Technology Content Marketing

As the new year begins, you likely have plans for a long list of content marketing projects. Or maybe you're not sure about the best types and formats for content that will best fit your marketing challenges, budgets, and needs.

Whatever your situation, you'll find great ideas and resources for B2B and technical content marketing in the Content Marketing Institute site.

The site is full of useful information, templates, and tips--all written and presented clearly and professionally by a broad range of contributors.

Highly recommended; this is one of the very few sites on my regular reading list.

 

http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/

Content Tips for E-Books

E-books have become a popular form of collateral for technology marketing because they can present complex, dry technical topics in an appealing format.

If you haven't considered adding e-books to your sales materials, then learn more about e-book advantages and drawbacks.

But if you're ready to develop an e-book, the following tips will help you create more engaging and effective content.

Plan for longevity. An e-book will likely have a longer useful life than other marketing collateral, so plan for refresh cycles from the start of the project. For example, I wrote a primer on wide-area networking for a client that was so popular, we revised it annually for six editions until the topic became too large to handle in just one document. Depending on the topic of your e-book, a review and update of the content every 6-12 months will likely be appropriate.

Create an information design. Choose a page layout and graphical elements that are suitable for your audience and topic, and that comply with corporate branding standards. To increase the visual appeal of an e-book, the temptation is to be too clever with illustrations, color schemes, fonts, and other design elements. But an overly-cute design can distract from your information and perhaps even cause readers to overlook your book because it doesn't appear to be serious or credible.

Avoid the kitchen sink syndrome. Just because an e-book can be longer than a white paper doesn't mean it should contain every bit of information or every possible topic on the subject matter. Solution: Link to content such as other e-books or white papers that are targeted by topic, audience (e.g., business decision maker vs. technical decision maker), or vertical market.

Find the right writer. Not every writer can create the right type of content, with the right style, for an e-book. An e-book writer needs to understand  how a more visual presentation affects the reader's attention and understanding, particularly for technical content. A technical e-book writer with information design skills can help you create engaging e-book content.

Outline with storyboards. An e-book page usually covers just one topic because the reader's attention shifts when they load the next page. This also means you need to watch for transitions and continuity of ideas from one page to another, which is easier to see in storyboards than traditional written outlines.

Highlight key content on each page. Use formatting and visual elements such as callouts and sidebar boxes to serve skimmers. The e-book format encourages reading online, so you need to make sure the key messages and content on each page will catch the reader's attention.

Add interactivity. Within the e-book, embed or link to multimedia content such as a customer testimonial video, webinar recording, or an interactive product demo. These elements will encourage the reader to explore more of your information, and to look through the entire e-book for other opportunities to interact.

Create a "real" book. Consider using a print-on-demand service to offer a bound, printed book as an option for site visitors to request or for use as a leave-behind piece on sales calls. Of course, this choice should be in addition to allowing the customer to print the e-book as a PDF file downloaded from your site.

What types of content, information design, or copywriting techniques have you used in e-books?

 

Is Your Topic Worthy of a White Paper?

Because white papers have such high levels of proven marketing value, it's tempting to consider every potential topic about a product to be worthy of a white paper. But of course, not every topic is suitable...or even best presented in a white paper format.

How do you choose which topics should be covered in a technical white paper? The following criteria can help you decide; consider a white paper for a topic that:

• Explains the design, implementation, or application concepts built into the product or technology.

• Discusses market or industry factors that impact a customer's need for the product.

• Presents in-depth analysis of factors for the business decision, such as how to calculate the potential ROI and payback period for a typical implementation, or how to evaluate qualitative value points.

• Recommends evaluation factors for a technical decision-maker. For example, a common white paper topic for many technical products is a discussion of the product architecture. This topic is of keen interest to technical decision makers, who want to know how the product works and how it will integrate within their technical environments before they will seriously consider it as a candidate for purchase.

For topics that don't meet these criteria, other types of marketing materials may be a good choice:

• An article on the company website or submitted to online or print publications that covers the relevant technology, industry, or customer base.

• A technical note or application note is an especially good choice for topics that would be of interest only to very specific groups of customers. The 1-2 page typical length for a note can present individual topics when the amount of information or discussion isn't enough to fill a typical 6-8 page white paper.

• A blog post for even shorter topics. 

A good white paper writer can help you choose which document type is best for a topic and can identify effective ways to present the topic in your other content marketing efforts.

How do you decide which topics are worth the expense and effort of a white paper?

What's Wrong with Saying You're the Best?

You know you've got a good product, one that is much better than the offerings of your competitors.

You know that your company has hired very skilled and knowledgeable employees who will do their best to support your customers and make your product fulfill their needs.

You know that your product and company is truly the best choice for customers ... so why can't you say so in your sales materials?

If your marketing content goes through a legal review before it's published, you have probably learned that lawyers really don't like two types of words:

• Superlatives: Adjectives like "best," "leading," and "unrivaled" can cause problems because they may be in breach of advertising laws about creating a false impression in the mind of a potential buyer. In addition, new actions by competitors could quickly invalidate these claims.

• Absolutes: Words and phrases such as "only," "always," "in any situation" are problems because they create an implied warranty that likely can't be fulfilled by the product or company.

Have you noticed that the largest technology companies rarely (if ever) use superlatives and absolutes in their marketing language? They understand the potential legal ramifications and as a result, have established writing rules about acceptable words and phrases.

But if you can't use superlatives and absolutes, how will you stand out from the competition and attract the interest of prospects? It can be done, but it means being careful about the copywriting in your promotional content.

The following tips and techniques can help your copywriters develop marketing copy that captures a prospect's attention and may help you avoid potential legal concerns:

• Use strong adjectives, but not superlatives. Look at the book Words That Sell to find many compelling (and more believable) alternatives to "best."

• Substitute terms such as "many" and "most" for "every "and "all." Look for words that will convey a sense of broad coverage or applicability, without using a word that conveys a sense of "complete."

• Avoid "ensure" and "assure" because these words convey an absolute meaning. A slight adjustment in wording -- "help to ensure" -- conveys the strength of your product capability or commitment, without creating an implied warranty that your company won't be able to meet.

You might also want to read the in-depth discussion of legal issues that affect copywriting presented in my book, Copywriting That Sells High-Tech.

Are your sales materials subject to other legal concerns or restrictions?

 

 

 

PRSA T3PR Conference at a Discounted Rate

The Public Relations Society of America sent this special offer for the PRSA Technology Section’s upcoming annual T3PR Technology Section conference, which will be held in New York on September 16. 

Attendees can use the registration code TECHSEPT11 to get a discounted member rate. This represents a $160.00 savings for non-members, as well as complimentary membership in PRSA’s Technology Section for the balance of this year, representing an additional savings of $60.

T3PR Technology Section Conference
Date: Friday, September 16, 2011
Time: 8:30 a.m. Eastern – 5 pm
Location: Microsoft Corporation, New York City Offices
1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor
New York, NY 10104
Registration: http://www.prsa.org/learning/seminars/view/760/t3pr

Topics include the impact of cloud computing on high-tech public relations practices, PR and marketing techniques for promoting the world’s first electric passenger automobile, best practices for developing and implementing multinational communications programs, and hi-tech crisis communications strategies and practices.

The Value of Qualitative Results in a Case Study

There are times when you have what seems to be an ideal case study: a happy, willing, and talkative customer; a prestigious company name; a story for an application or industry that you want to target.

All is well until you get into the interview and discover one significant shortcoming: The customer hasn't measured quantitative results, isn't willing to disclose them, or the results are weak.

What to do? Instead of turning down a willing customer, you can focus the case study on qualitative results and value. Indeed, you may find that a qualitative success story may be a more interesting read and prompt more interesting dialogue between your sales reps and prospects than a case study that focuses more on the numbers.

For example, the case study can show your understanding of special implementation, management, and support factors that are specific to that type of customer or industry. If you tell the story well, prospects will recognize the implications for their own circumstances.

A good case study writer will know how to elicit both quantitative results and interesting, qualitative value points from the customer during the interview. Then, a good writer will apply both storytelling skill and knowledge of which information and messages will resonate with your prospects to create a case study that delivers value for your product sales activity.

How do you handle case studies that present only (or mostly) qualitative results?

How a Freelance Writer Can Help Solve Marcom Project Issues

As a marketing communications manager, you probably spend much of your workday trying to resolve common issues that arise in your projects such as:

• Endless debates over the project plan or document outline.
• Project delays or dissatisfaction with the drafts that have been developed so far.
• A review process that only seems to sidetrack the project instead of moving it forward.
• Text that seems stale and ineffective for reaching your target audiences.

Have you considered how a freelance writer can help resolve some of these issues? For example, the writer can:

• Bring a fresh set of eyes and insights from working with other companies to project plans and outlines.

• Help with certain project activities, such as following up with slow reviewers or those who have made conflicting or confusing commentson the draft.

• Identify when a project is not ready for a writer, which saves both your budget and everyone's frustration.

• Get away from corporate and internal verbiage to help you create messages that will be understandable and appealing to your customers.

Of course, some issues involve confidential or politically sensitive discussions that shouldn't be conducted by an outsider. But by looking for ways to leverage a freelance copywriter's perspective and experience, you may find your marcom project issues easier to resolve.

How has a writer or other external creative resource helped you in managing project issues?

Get More Value from Your Content

"Whew, I'm glad that content project is finally done!"

Now, how do you get the most value from all the time, money, and effort you've invested in it?

Check the good ideas for promoting content on pages 40 & 41 in "The B2B Content Marketing Workbook" from Velocity Partners, a UK marketing agency. You'll need to register to download this PDF, but the information is worth it.

Then, how do you keep all of these content promotion ideas from becoming another burden on your to-do list? By planning for them as you begin the project, and including the repurposing tasks in the writer's assignment.

When you want to create, say, a series of blog posts from a white paper, a writer can watch for suitable information during the interviewing and writing stages. Writing the posts then becomes a relatively small amount of work, because the writer has gathered the input and knows which text in the white paper to adapt.

Compare this ease and speed to what you would need to do if you simply started with the white paper text and tried to write the posts yourself.

For your next content project, consider how you can expand a freelance writer's assignment a little -- and get a lot more value in return.

 

Good Writers: You Can Never Know Too Many

You may be perfectly happy with your current in-house and freelance resources for writing. If so, great!

But not all writers can write everything well, in spite of their optimistic willingness to try. And it's always good to know another copy writer is available, just for those times when:

• Your current writers are too busy
• A new product launch needs several writers working in parallel
• A project needs a copywriter with highly technical knowledge
• You need a writer with experience in certain project types, vertical industries, or writing styles
• You want fresh ideas or a new approach for your materials

How can you find those writers? And how can you easily keep a writers list so you can quickly find contact information when you need it?

For ideas on finding and evaluating potential writers, follow the tips in these articles:

• How to Find a Technical Copywriter

• How to Find a Good Freelance Writer on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is also a good tool for maintaining your resource lists of freelance writers and other creative professionals such as graphic designers and web developers. Just follow these steps:

• If the copywriter you have in mind isn't already part of your LinkedIn network, send an invitation to connect.

• On your connections list, use the tags function to classify your contacts into a writers list.

• When you need to find a resource, just click on the appropriate tag in the box to the left of the connection list display.

• The person's contact information is usually displayed as part of the mini profile in this view, or click on the name to look at the complete profile.

Almost every week I receive an e-mail or call from a prospective client who is desperately trying to find a good writer for their sales materials or web site. You can avoid this last-minute scramble by building your resource list now.

Do you use other techniques or resources for finding freelance writing and creative professionals?

What To Do With a "Not Quite Ready" Technology Case Study

One of your company's sales reps e-mails you in breathless excitement: "We just signed a contract with XYZ company and they are willing to say great things about us. Can we get the writer to do a case study?"

Of course, it's not everyday that a customer actually volunteers to give a positive testimonial about your product or company.

Yet this situation presents a dilemma: you know a technical case study now won't be as strong as it will be in a few months, after the technology solution has been fully implemented.

Or maybe the product implementation has just been completed, but the customer hasn't yet seen specific, measurable results.

In either case, you don't want to risk losing the customer's willingness to participate by postponing the case study for too long.

So how do you proceed in a way that handles customer's interest gracefully and gives you useful promotional content?

Consider these ideas for developing and using a technical case study that's not quite ready to be told:

• Ask for a testimonial statement, not a full case study. A few sentences or 1-2 paragraphs may be enough to convey the customer's satisfaction for now. But be sure to reach agreement with the customer about working on a full case study in the future, when the outcome of the complete implementation and results achieved are known.

• Write a "deployment-in-progress" case study that describes the implementation and results to date, as well as expected benefits and planned next steps.
  

• Write a press release to announce the new customer and include the customer's testimonial statement.

• Write a technical application note based on the customer's planned deployment.  

Of course, other promotional avenues may be appropriate, depending on the customer and the marketing opportunity. An experienced case study writer can help you make the best use of whatever customer story is ready to tell, now or later.

Have you encountered this situation? How did you handle it?

 

 

Content Marketing Insights for Technology Companies

A study conducted by the Content Marketing Institute about content marketing efforts in the computing and software industry presents interesting data on how technology marketers use different promotional techniques and their perceptions of the effectiveness for each.

Yet the report shows that marketers give middling ratings for the effectiveness of much of this content. As a possible reason for this rating, the report concludes that the content produced by tech companies is not matched to the different information needs of buyers at different stages of their decision cycle.

That's a good point, however, the report doesn't offer any ideas or resources for how to make that match. For those ideas, look to the following surveys of buyers for a broad range of IT products:

• Eccolo Media 2010 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report: Includes clear and helpful data on the use of different types of print and multimedia collateral during the buying process.

• Tech Target Global IT Buyer Media Consumption Report: Focuses on the differences in information access and preferences in different parts of of the world; valuable insights for reaching prospects in key technology markets outside of North America.

Additionally, my book Copywriting That Sells High-Tech describes a typical buying cycle for technology products and suggests materials for each stage.

Has your company made this analysis? If so, how has it influenced your decisions about which types of marketing content you produce, and how you promote and distribute it?

Great Tips for White Paper Writers

Connect the Docs is a terrific blog on content marketing, with a special focus on effective strategies and techniques for white papers. I've contributed ideas as a guest expert for two posts:

• Killer questions to ask before starting a white paper project (selected as one of the top 5 posts on this blog for 2010)

• Know thy audience: business and technical white papers (should you write separate white papers for each?)

Thanks to blogger Ambal Balakrishnan for the invitation to contribute and for developing such a thoughtful and useful resource.

Justifying the Cost of a Professional Copy Writer

A new year typically means a long list of new marketing communications and public relations projects.

You know you'll need the services of a professional copywriter for some of these projects, yet how can you justify the expense?

The answer can often be found in a combination of project, time, and revenue factors.

Project Factors

A professional freelance writer can be a cost-effective resource for project and workload challenges such as:

• Writing powerful content for high-value documents e.g., a technology white paper that is intended to generate leads and advance the sales cycle.
• A project that started as a simple idea ("let's post a Web page about this topic"), but turns out to not to be as small and easy as it seems.
• A long list of materials to prepare, such as for product launch, user conference, or promotional campaign.
• A draft may have been written for a document, but you feel it could benefit from the fresh, objective perspective of an outside writer.

Schedule Factors

Time is often overlooked as a cost factor for marcom projects. Consider the cost savings that can be realized by engaging a freelance writer in these scenarios:

• The project has a short deadlines. Bringing in a freelance writer who can focus on just this project may make more sense than trying to adjust the workload of an in-house writer.
• In-house and agency writers are already fully booked on other, equally important projects.
• The project keeps getting postponed because you don't have time to manage it. Especially if you have developed a good working relationship with a copywriter over multiple projects, consider asking him or her to take on appropriate project management tasks.
• Availability and costs of other employees (e.g., subject matter experts) who might be tapped to work on this project. Most likely, writing a document isn't the highest value use of their time.

Revenue Factors

Perhaps the easiest justification for engaging an external copywriter is to view the expense as an appropriate investment for generating revenue. Examples of these factors include:

• The project is directly tied to revenue generation, e.g., an email campaign designed to attract prospects or a Web page for making a direct product sale.
• Documents that serve a multi-stage sales cycle, e.g., a product selection guide. Especially for technology products, a skilled technical copywriter can help you create the best content for addressing both business and technology buyers throughout their complex purchasing decisions.
• High-visibility projects that position your company, such as case studies that showcase your success to prospects and support loyalty from current customers.

Do you use other factors when justifying a budget allocation for outside copywriting services?

Learn More

For information that may support your arguments for hiring a freelance copywriter, see the articles under the heading How to Find A ... listed in the righthand column of this blog. 

The Value of LTRs with Freelance Copywriters

One thing that makes me the most proud about my business as a freelance technology writer is the long-term relationships or LTRs I have developed with many clients.

Month after month, year after year, they come back to me with new assignments. And over time, they have come to trust me with the most highly visible and sensitive marketing communications.

I’m certainly grateful for this trust and these long-time client connections. And I believe that similar LTRs with freelance writers can bring many benefits to you:

• Knowledge of your corporate vocabulary and writing style means no dissonance among your marketing materials.
• Insights into your company’s culture helps the writer work appropriately and effectively with your subject experts and customers.
• Ideas from the writer’s broad experience can improve your sales materials and marketing messages.
• An understanding of your preferences simplifies work tools and processes, frequency of contact, how to handle issues that come up in the project, etc.

Once you have found the right freelance writer, here are some of the ways you can cultivate a sustained relationship.

• Consider your favorite writer not only for new projects, but also recurring projects such as case studies, blog posts, and email newsletters that always seem to be “lost in the shuffle” of more immediate tasks and deadlines.
• Develop the writer’s subject focus—such as technologies, issues, audiences—and leverage that focus over multiple projects.
• Give the writer new types of projects as a way to maximize your investment. For example, a technical copywriter who has not previously written a video script, but who knows your products and company, may be a better choice than an experienced but generalist scriptwriter who lacks the technology knowledge.

And perhaps the greatest benefits of a LTR: Cost-effective projects, faster schedules, and easier reviews as the writer needs to spend less time in developing your content and can apply knowledge across multiple documents and media.

Like any relationship, working with a freelance copywriter takes time, open communication, and a receptiveness to new ideas. But the reward of this effort will be great marcom and PR materials and a productive, reliable copywriter you can work with on many projects, for many years to come.

What do you think makes for a successful long-term relationship between a freelance writer and a client?

Is It "Use It or Lose It" Time For Your Marketing Budget?

The end of a calendar year is often the time to review marketing budgets. And for many marcom managers, it may be time to use any remaining funds so they aren't taking away during the next budgeting cycle.

Whenever you have "use it or lose it" funds to commit, here are a few ideas for spending them effectively:

• Invest in marketing documents with long-term value, such as an e-book, product selection guide, or product architecture white paper.
• Identify small, quick-return marcom projects, for example, a series of blog posts or Web articles with the bylines of your company's topic experts. 
• Refresh existing documents. Brochures, white papers, and case studies can often be updated more quickly and economically than producing a new document to address the same marketing need. 
• Look at the projects in your marketing communications plan that haven't yet been started. Could one or two of them turn your unused budget funds into a value-producing investment?

Don't let short-notice, small, or refresh projects give you any concern about finding freelance copywriters or agencies who will accept that work. Most will be happy to help, and will give the document the same level of care and creativity as higher-profile material. 

How a Freelance Copywriter Can Help You Manage Marketing Projects

“When is the submission deadline for that new web content?”

“Did the team leader send back comments on the new draft?”

“Did I remember to send the final text to the designer for layout?”

As a marketing communications manager, you know that sales collateral projects involve dozens of details, multiple players, and often rapidly changing information and deadlines.

It’s part of your job to keep on top of everything, but have you ever called in reinforcements? Probably not.

After all, won’t tasks be forgotten, wires crossed, deadlines slip if you’re not managing every project detail? Maybe not.

An experienced freelance writer can likely help you with certain project management tasks, making the work simpler for you and others involved in the project.

Consider how you can use your writers to lighten more of your load:

• Following up with reviewers who haven’t yet provided comments on drafts
• Coordinating with graphic designers on document layouts and changes
• Publishing project schedules and updating project tracking systems

How else have you used writers and other freelancers to help with managing your marketing and PR projects?

What Does the Content Tell You?

Many marketing communications departments have a list of standard documents and other content they produce for a new product launch, new version release, and other common marketing activities.

These standards are useful for ensuring that essential product information is always created, in a consistent and familiar form.

But such a list can mean you overlook opportunities for creating other powerful forms of content. These content opportunities are easy to discover, if you simply ask the right questions and go looking for them.

As you are reading source materials and getting input from subject experts, ask questions such as:

• In simple language, what is the product, really, and what does it actually do?
• Who will really care about this product and why? What difference will it make to them in their work or lives?
• What additional stories, applications, benefits, and elements of interests are in this product or the way it is sold or used?

The answers to these questions will likely spark new ideas for creating additional valuable marketing content such as application notes, blog posts, Web articles, or market-specific brochures.

Have you given your content a look with fresh eyes today?

Insist on the Right Copywriter

If your primary source of outside help for marketing communications and public relations projects is a marketing or advertising agency, you have probably worked with whichever copywriter the agency assigns to your account.

But is that writer really the best choice for your projects?

You may be better served by bringing in your own freelance writer to work with the agency, especially for certain situations and projects.

The project needs a writer with specialized subject knowledge or writing skills. Don't automatically accept the agency's assurances of "Oh, we can handle that." Ask for samples and interview the staff writer the agency wants to assign to the project.

You prefer to work with a writer who has more experience and business savvy than the junior-level staffers that often receive all writing assignments at some agencies.

The agency's writer and account manager is one and the same. This combination may work if it is a small agency and you are assigning only a few, small, easily managed projects. But in a large agency that is handling many complex projects for your company, combining these roles simply will not produce the best work.

Enabling a Constructive Relationship Between Freelance Writers and Agencies

Because I am a freelance copywriter, it may seem that I don't like agencies and am trying to elbow them out of the way. Not at all.

I have worked happily in a cooperative relationship with agencies because we kept our joint focus on meeting the client's needs.

But some agencies may be reluctant to work with your preferred freelancer, so set the groundwork that will make everyone's working relationships easier. Then respect the boundaries of the relationship and the agency's authority in working with the writer, especially if the agency is managing the writer's contract.

It is your prerogative as the client to insist that the agency work with the best writer for your project, whether that writer is already on the agency's staff or freelancers list, or an independent freelance writer of your own choosing. And by encouraging positive communications and collaboration, you can help this relationship be successful for everyone. 

Who Are Your Thought Leaders, Really?

Standard corporate line: "We are the thought leaders in (fill in topic/technology/industry)."

Reader reaction: "Oh yeah? Who is doing the thinking and what makes them so smart?"

You can create more credibility for thought leader positioning by showcasing the people behind your content and messages. 

A few techniques:

• Give a byline for key content to your technical experts, even if they receive writing help from a copywriter.
• Include an author's profile, with information about the person's job role, industry experience, education, awards, and other credentials.
• Link to blog posts and social media accounts to allow readers to easily see each expert's other discussion and insights.

Do you use other techniques for showcasing the people behind your thought leadership content? 

Are you still selling after the customer has been sold?

I was in a committee meeting where a consultant came to help our group with a strategic planning exercise. Of the 90 minutes allocated to this activity, the consultant used the first 30 minutes to talk about all the great work she had done for other clients, the next 30 to show her expertise by expounding upon general trends in our market, and the final 30 minutes leading the group in the actual exercise ... the work she had already been hired to do.

Consider another scenario. You order a product and when the package arrives, you eagerly open the box, looking for the instruction sheet or manual so you can begin assembly or use. But this valuable information is buried under flyers, a cover letter, another copy of the product brochure, perhaps even sales materials for other products or companies. If it's a software product, starting the installation procedure may display even more lists of features and benefits, testimonials from happy users, and other promotional text. 

"Enough already," you grumble. "Just let me get on with it!"   

As these examples show, there is a time for selling and a time for delivering and supporting.  And the same flow from selling to delivering should be represented in your marketing materials.

Yes, it is fine to use part of a white paper to showcase the expertise of your company or the credentials of the paper's author. It's fine for a letter or screen display to present a thank you message and to reinforce the customer's purchase decision. It's also fine to promote service programs, user communities, accessory products, and other resources for customer support and loyalty.

But once a customer has purchased your technology product or technical service, they no longer need to be sold. You just need to get out of their way and let them discover the positive experience you have promised.

Write a White Paper for Business or Technical Readers?

I was invited recently to contribute a guest post on the question of writing for business decision-makers versus technical buyers.

My conclusion: the answer to this question is shifting, in a way that is important for technology marketers to know.

Read my advice for writing technical white papers today.

This post appears on the excellent Connect the Docs blog, developed by marketing expert Ambal Balakrishnan.