greatwriting blog

Are Case Studies Credible?

2012-05-31T09:12:00.000-04:00

Case studies put your sales prospect in your customer’s shoes. That’s why consumer products companies frequently use them in paid advertising. But case studies are doubly effective as web content for technology companies trying to extend their reach beyond technical influencers to business decision makers.

If your products or services offer strong technical features, then you should definitely talk about them — and in a way that is credible for technical audiences. But connecting the dots between technical features and real-life business audiences is just as important. It can also be especially difficult for tech companies who may have a natural (and well-founded) abhorrence for “marketing speak.”

Case studies are an efficient and convincing way for technologists to speak the business customers’ language — because you are letting business customers do it for you.

One question I sometimes hear when the subject of a case study program comes up is: “Are case studies credible?” In other words, since no company is going to put a negative case study on its website, won’t audiences view case studies almost as paid endorsements and discount them? If that were true, then consumer products companies wouldn’t use them, never mind tech companies. There is always a built-in expectation that marketing content is self-serving, including blog articles and white papers. That’s also true, by the way, for contributed feature articles that appear in trade publications and that have the author’s bio and company name at the end of the article. The reasons why audiences value this self-serving content are the same — it entertains them, interests them, informs them, or enables them. And usually it does some combination of the four.

A Powerful Statement

So, yes, having a good number of case studies on your website has credible endorsement value. Getting customers to endorse you, even if you do amazing work, can be a challenge. Many companies have outright policies against endorsements. So the mere fact that your customer allowed you to put their name on your marketing materials is a powerful statement all by itself.

But case studies do more than just endorse. By speaking the customer’s language they convey business benefits in ways that let the target audience self-identify with your customer. (That’s why, by the way, you should include as many direct customer quotes as possible — as in this case study I wrote for an IT consulting company. Made-up quotes, even if the customer approves them, sound like placeholders.)

For more help with customer case studies, check out my free content review service:

How To Ramp Up a Web Content Writing Program

2012-05-30T08:25:00.002-04:00

Okay — so your competitors are burying you on page 5 of search results; web visitors are abandoning your homepage after 28 seconds; and your sales pipeline is shorter than the line at Ben and Jerry’s in January. Nothing focuses the mind like a near death experience and you’ve learned your lesson. You need something more on your website than a few images and some bold headlines and captions. You need a ton of rich, interesting technical content that will explain what you do, differentiate you from competitors, attract an audience and keep them coming back for more.

So you’ve hired a prolific writer who is skilled at coming up with eye-catching topics and writes engaging technical copy without all the handholding you always thought a writer would require. The individual was hard to find, but you did it. So, congratulations. He’s coming in on Thursday for your first face-to-face.

Now What?

First, don’t spend a lot of time explaining the basics — what your company does or its industry. If this person is who you think they are, they already know that. They’ve studied your website and the websites of your major competitors. They’ve read your competitors’ white papers and blogs, read relevant articles in online magazines and analyst reports. If there’s anything they didn’t understand, they looked it up in Wikipedia or other sources. In fact, they’ve probably already checked you out on LinkedIn and even spent some time studying the companies where you used to work.

The person will also come prepared with some suggested topics for white papers and blog articles already in hand.

Here’s what they probably won’t know yet, and what you can spend some time going over in that very important first meeting:

Sales prospects’ counter arguments to your sales pitches
Competitive counter arguments to your marketing claims
Your counter arguments against competitors’ marketing claims
The secret sauce that makes your product great
Latest key technical upgrades to your product and why you made them
Latest changes to your business (like an acquisition) and why you made them
Things about your product customers rave about
Your take on the writer’s suggested topics
Some topic ideas of your own
You target keywords (if you know what they are)
Why your product strategy is a winner based on how the market’s changing

Then, to get things rolling, define an initial project, which should probably be a white paper. A white paper is a big enough project to really let the writer get grounded in your company; and enough of a window into the writer’s style and abilities to see if this is really a relationship you wish to continue.

To start, decide on a topic and select a content person that the writer should follow-up with to ask more detailed questions. Then give the writer as much as you can in terms of background material (e.g., links to papers and articles, PowerPoint decks, product briefs, etc.). The writer should then email the content person a list of questions; schedule an interview, do the interview and follow-up with an outline and an abstract (a one page version of the white paper). Once the outline and abstract are approved, the first draft comes next. The outline and abstract should take about a week; the first draft, one to two weeks

Get Comfortable

One of the reasons to do this first white paper is to settle into a comfortable pattern of working with the writer — so great content is being produced on a regular schedule with a minimum impact on the organization’s overall workflow. At that point, you can consider your web content writing program ramped up.

Here is one more idea to facilitate ramp-up: Ask a prospective writer (before you meet) to review an existing white paper draft. See if the writer catches things that indicate how good a writer the person actually is and whether he or she really understands your business. If you'd like me to review one of your white papers, just click on this button:

Web Content Writers for Technology Companies Need Different Skills

2012-05-27T12:26:00.000-04:00

Just as permission-based inbound marketing calls for different skillsets than interruption-based outbound marketing, so too does a web content writer working for a technology company need different skills than would a writer working at either another type of B2B company or a consumer products company.

In their book, Inbound Marketing, the authors Brian Halligan and Darmesh Shah put forward four criteria on which to base your selection of inbound marketing talent — a skillset they call DARC, as in:

D = Hire Digital Citizens
A = Hire for Analytical Chops
R = Hire for Web Reach
C = Hire for Content Creators

Content creators are key because inbound marketing only works if you can create lots and lots of content as blog articles, white papers, eBooks, case studies and more. If written skillfully, all that content serves as a huge magnet for search engines and potential buyers — while they are looking for a solution. That’s much more effective than paying to advertise to people who may not be prospective buyers. And the content you post online, once it’s there, is there for good — unlike an ad, which only works for as long as you spend the money.

Why Technology Marketing Content Is Different

The same inbound marketing rules apply in technology. You still need to write volumes and you still need to rank on search engines and engage readers once they find you. What’s different is the ability of the technology content writer to:

Identify engaging topics in technical areas. In non-tech environments it’s the writer’s job to routinely suggest great topics to clients or employers. The same applies in technology, except that these writers must know how to apply their topic-making skills to complex subject matter.

Ask good questions of subject matter experts. Subject matter experts — scientists, engineers, developers, tech CEOs — often don’t know what are the good questions to ask either to engage an audience or to expose the company’s most valuable assets. No one outside the inner circle, for example, may care about the solution’s stunningly simple architecture — even if that’s what’s got everyone on the engineering team so excited. So if the web content writer doesn’t ask the right questions, no one will.

Have a passion to learn new subjects. No one can write about subjects they don’t understand. Nor must they have a Ph.D. level knowledge in a subject in order to understand its basic principles. The difference between a real tech web content writer and someone who’s faking it is their willingness and ability to drill down into the technical nitty-gritty. Not everyone can do this, or wants to. But there are those who thrive on learning about new technologies and can’t wait to see what’s coming next. You just need to find them.

Be a technology user. Writers today have a whole arsenal of tools for producing great content — including video, podcasts and the web. Yet, very few will actually do for themselves what they recommend for clients — such as publish a video or podcast for their own website or construct an effective landing page. Many marketing writers who have spent years in the profession only have a surface knowledge of Microsoft Word. Someone who genuinely cares about technology marketing will use technology in their own marketing.

Already know your company. Perhaps the best sign a technology web content writer can cut it is to ask him or her about your company and its technology premise when they first show up — what makes it great and different. Given the amount of material already available online, there’s no reason the writer can’t come to you already prepared to engage in a substantive discussion — as indicated by the topics they suggest and the questions they ask.

Technology companies can’t rely on generalist writers for their inbound marketing content. If they do then topics will be overlooked, content will be anemic, and a lot of other people will end up doing the writer’s job instead of the writer.

How To Attract an Audience with Technical Content

2012-05-26T11:51:00.000-04:00

Web content writers face the same challenge whether they write for a consumer products company, a commercial products company, a professional services company or a B2B technology company — how to attract an audience. Just because the content is “technical” doesn’t lower the bar in terms of the raw copywriting skill required. You’re still writing for human beings and you still have to know how to frame messages in ways that humans find compelling.

To say that technically smart people will like your content just because it’s technically accurate is like saying they will go to bad movies even if the special effects are superb and the historical details are spot on. Just like everyone else sitting in the theater, they still want a good storyline, characters they can identify with, and a fascinating premise. The pacing has to feel right and the plot resolution (the “key takeaway,” if you will) must be credible without being too predictable. It’s also good to keep them wanting more.

So how does good theater translate to good technical storytelling? Here are three suggestions for web pages, white papers and other technical web content:

Nail your storyline. Figure out in advance where you want to go — the key value the product delivers — and the conceptual milestones the audience should visit along the way to really get what’s going on. These milestones may be concepts the reader already knows but which you are linking together in a new way, or fresh concepts you are introducing. Whatever — just make sure that each of your points advances the story. And only include points that do advance the story. You don’t want your audience getting bored. You also don't want your audience getting lost.

Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Most moviegoers already know what the movie’s about before they show up. They’ve read movie reviews or watched trailers that included some of the best scenes. They may have even seen the movie before or read the book. For most viewers, probably the only thing they don’t know already is the surprise ending, if there is one. (And surprise endings don’t translate well to technical content, anyway.) So what’s the lesson here for technical web content? Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Knowing in advance what’s coming enriches the experience and deepens the relationship between the audience and the material. If it’s a white paper, for example, don’t wait to build to your conclusion 10 pages later. The reader may not last that long. Tell them in the headline, the deck (the two lines right underneath the headline) and the opening paragraph (or two, at most) what it is you want them to know. In fact, the first page should be an abstract of the rest of the paper — a sort of Cliff Notes for what the whole paper is about.

Don't neglect the subplots. A really great movie doesn’t just have a single thread. Subplots are what make the movie come alive. A great technology doesn’t just result from a single insight or support a single application. If there are some really cool aspects to what you’ve invented, don't hesitate to flesh these out — maybe in a sidebar or a use case. There is such a thing as being too brief — telling a story so fast and so tightly that reader doesn’t feel any connection at all.

The time that someone spends with your web content is like a financial investment — so when they do leave your site, you want them to feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth.

Find Qualified Marketing Writers with Inbound Marketing

2012-05-25T10:49:00.001-04:00

Great content is the big chokepoint of technology companies looking to attract technically smart buyers who find products by first reading about them online. If land, labor and capital are the classic factors of production, then content is the new “land” in today’s virtualized economy. A great solution to this chokepoint is something called a talent network — a virtual team of content developers who are a) technically qualified to write your marketing content; and b) enthusiastic about your company.

Such well-known brands like HubSpot, Apple, SAP, Proctor & Gamble, American Express and others use talent networks to solve talent bottlenecks in marketing, research and development, and production. There’s no reason that technology marketers could not use the same strategy to produce content in the quantity and quality needed.

Talent networks offer advantages that the classic employment and agency models don’t:

Writers in talent networks tend to be technically sharper simply by virtue of the fact that they are in networks

Because they voluntarily follow your company means they are probably more enthusiastic and more knowledgeable about it than if they had to be “recruited”

Like any virtualized resource, talent networks are elastic — they can expand or contract to meet your needs

They are infinitely adaptable — as technologies and markets change, so can the composition of your network

The key to creating and maintaining a successful talent network is the person at the interface between your company and the network. That individual obviously needs to be a very good writer, technically smart and also good at engaging other writers.

If you’re interested in this idea, you should download this white paper I wrote for HubSpot. Its focus is on solving manufacturing’s talent bottleneck (i.e., making things), but the same principles apply equally well to marketing’s bottleneck (making content). I recommend HubSpot wholeheartedly as the platform for your talent network and I am pretty sure I can find one or two great writers to seed your network.

Graphic by HubSpot

How To Fire Your Technical Copywriter

2012-05-24T15:21:00.000-04:00

If you are a CEO, marketing VP, or marketing communications manager in a technology company, then over the course of your career you are going to have to fire your copywriter. It’s inevitable given how much churn exists in the industry. So unless you are a sadist, here are just a few of the many scenarios that can lead you to have a very bad day at the office:

You take a new position and discover that the writing team currently in place produces content that is uneven in both quantity and quality

There’s been a dip in revenues and your supervisor has asked you to bring all writing in-house to save money

Due to an acquisition or other reason, there’s been a major shift in your company’s technology, marketing message and your current writer is not adjusting well

You’ve decided to shift to an Internet marketing approach that calls for much more content to be produced in much tighter timeframes and your current writer can’t keep up

You’ve got a new boss who just doesn’t like your current writer’s writing style

In most cases, the best way to fire your writer is to hire another writer first — and then give the first writer a choice of whether to work under the second writer’s supervision. Technology companies face a critical skills shortage. By having the under-performing writer work on easier content — while also being mentored — is a win-win for the company and the writer. It provides extra marketing bandwidth for the company, develops the writer’s skills so he or she becomes more marketable, and helps maintain continuity in your messaging (if that’s what you want).

No one is better at developing a writer than a more skilled, more experienced writer — the kind you want on your team anyway. Keeping the more junior writer (in the sense of skill, not age) lets you better leverage the senior writer’s expertise for greater marketing impact at lower overall cost.

Concerned about the quality of your marketing content? Then check out our free White Paper Grader.

Blogging Bliss at MIT Enterprise Forum Cambridge

2012-05-23T17:34:00.000-04:00

Now that the academic year is winding down, I’d like to thank my fellow bloggers: Barbara Ewen, Giuseppe Frustaci, Steve Gargone, Amy Goggins, and Cheryl Slowik, for a record eight months of blogging bliss — the most articles, the most podcasts, and the most videos EVAH!

Check 'em out:

Video interview with Ekaterina Walter, Social Media Strategist, Intel on how the company uses social media by Randall Cronk

Space with a Soul Is Not an Incubator (with video)

Stas Gayshan has an innovative idea about how to create an environment for fostering innovative organizations. “It’s not an incubator,” he said several times in our interview last week for the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge. “But we do contain an incubator.” by Randall Cronk

MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Launches NFC Cluster Boston

The MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge today announced the founding of NFC Cluster Boston, a cluster of Boston-area groups and individuals that support the development, adoption and commercial success of Near Field Communications. by Randall Cronk

Expect To Evolve

Where you end up may be different from where you start. MIT Enterprise Forum Startup Clinics give pre-funded companies a chance to fine-tune business plans, presentations, and pitches before talking to potential investors. by Cheryl Slowik

Tweet this Community Marketing Event (with video)

Our event on Wednesday November 7th showcased five marketing communities. Attendees saw how any startup can build a community and how community accelerates startups. Business entrepreneurs can learn a lot from nonprofits — like how to achieve a much bigger impact than they can with just social networking or Internet marketing alone. by Randall Cronk

NFC Kick-off Event: It's Not the Technology, Stupid! (with video and podcast)

“How many people here would create a website that is just putting on a screen what otherwise they would print on a brochure? Nobody! Nobody in their right mind would do that.” That’s a powerful point that technologists, marketers and communications professionals need to understand. In this case, the point was about NFC and the person making it was Patrick R. Gauthier, Head of Retail Services Product Marketing and Business Operations at PayPal. He was one of five speakers at the NFC Cluster Boston kickoff event last night, titled: “NFC Delivers Mobile Retail Marketing” — attended by almost 400 people. by Randall Cronk

Why Put RFID in Smart Buildings? (with podcast)

Monday night’s panel on “The Future of Building and Home Automaton” offered so many insights on the benefits and challenges of putting RFID in smart buildings that it’s hard to know where to cherry pick the best. by Randall Cronk

Blog Post with Video: Disrupting the Patient Survey

Not only are patient surveys widely inaccurate, they’re also poorly tolerated. People simply don’t like to take them and even when they do; they often don’t know the answers and often fudge the truth. That’s why graduates from the MIT Media Lab and the Sloan Business School started a company called ginger.io this year — to take patient information passively and perhaps save lives — by not making patients take surveys. by Randall Cronk

Blog Post on 11/9 Event: "Changing the World: How Innovators are Using the Web for Social Action"

I attended the Innovation Series event, “Changing the World: How Innovators are Using the Web for Social Action,” on November 9, 2011. During the program, representatives from three non-profits and one for-profit company discussed their social media strategies. by Sharon Patton

Startup Clinics Let Entrepreneurs Pitch their Business Plans

The Startup Clinic lets two startups pitch their business plans to a panel of VCs before a live audience, followed by small group discussions and 15 minutes of collective feedback to each presenter — all over a family style Chinese dinner with networking before, during and after. by Cheryl Slowik

Video: Hear from a Recent Start Smart Workshop Participant by Steve Gargone

RFID SIG Goes the Distance for Food (with podcast)

One of the great things about attending MIT Enterprise Forum events is that you get to hear from the experts . . . live . . . in person . . . even if the experts have to travel from such remote locations as Slovenia, Hawaii, California — and even Connecticut for a three-hour event. That was certainly the case Monday night, December 5th, when the Forum’s RFID Special Interest Group hosted a panel titled “RFID Protects the Food Chain.” Distance, it seems, was no barrier for this hearty group of all-star panelists. by Randall Cronk

Video: 3 Startups Rave about the Forum

Three entrepreneurs in the mobile application space tell how the MIT Enterprise Forum helped them: Jacqueline Thong (Ubiqi Health), Chuck Goldman (Apperian) and Karan Singh (ginger.io). Here is what they said. by Randall Cronk

Lessons Learned at Mass Challenge (with podcast)

Don’t waste time writing a business plan. That was just one of the lessons from last night’s Forum session at Mass Challenge titled “Startup Lessons Learned — Come Hear from the Pros.” by Randall Cronk

Software SIG Posts from Fall 2011 Events (with video) by Amy Goggins

Why I Chose Boston? (with video)

If you want to compare the investment climate for startups, East Coast versus West Coast, you might want to talk to Chuck Goldman. After helping Apple introduce the iPhone, Chuck moved east in 2009 to co-found Apperian, a company that helps companies develop, deploy and manage enterprise apps on iPhone and Android platforms. by Randall Cronk

Want Smarter Buildings? Ask Smarter Questions. (with podcast)

Are energy ratings for buildings a good idea? Yes, but only if the ratings are based on solid, accurate and scientifically relevant information. What’s been missing is not so much a good rating system, but good information to feed a rating system. by Randall Cronk

Event Review: Intelligent Green Building Panel with the MIT Enterprise Forum

Fun Facts I Learned During the Panel: – Boston was rated the 7th most sustainable city by Sustain Lane – 75% of GHG emissions in Boston come from buildings – Boston was the first city to incorporate LEED standards into city zoning laws/regulations. – The average “green home” is expensive – $235 per sq. ft. by Amy Goggins

How Startups Teach Us (with video)

Startups present at Forum events for many reasons, such as to gain recognition, to network with talent and investors, and to get feedback on business models. But listening to startups is also a great opportunity for the audience, especially if you want to duplicate their success. by Randall Cronk

Why Support NFC Cluster Boston? (with video)

In this video interview done at the NFC Cluster Boston Launch event, Trish Fleming, Executive Director of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambrdige talks about why the Forum launched the cluster and why companies should get involved. by Randall Cronk

Stimulating Discussion and Sold Out Evening at MITEF

CHEN PR and Scratch Marketing and Media brought together a world-class panel matched with a very hot and timely topic to deliver a lively MIT Enterprise Forum Innovation Series event last night. The evening was sold out and the discussion among Kevin Davies, Dr. George Church, Jamie Heywood, Colin Hill and Dr. Mike Pellini was fascinating and at times very funny. by Barbara Ewen

What I learned at NFC Transforms Healthcare

I’m Brad Power, a consultant and researcher on process innovation, helping organizations improve the way they do their work to better serve customers. Thanks to the MIT Enterprise Forum for inviting me to the NFC in Healthcare event last Monday at MIT. There was a lot of good content. edited by Randall Cronk

Entrepreneurs Receive Constructive Feedback at Forum Clinics

Startup Clinics were designed to give entrepreneurs a chance to practice their pitch and gain valuable feedback on their already-formed business model from a board-of-directors level of experts and thoughtful audience members. The audience benefits by hearing the in-depth evaluation of the expert panel and learning how to improve their own business plans. by Cheryl Slowik

What Does a $1000 Genome Mean to Healthcare? (with podcast)

The cost of sequencing a human genome has rapidly become more affordable—down from a million dollars in 2007 to roughly $1,000 (in the very near future). As a result, the concept of personalized medicine — being able to tie data collected from sequencing a genome to targeted treatment—may be a reality sooner than we think. by Cheryl Slovik

Molecular Analysis of Tumors Driving Cancer Treatments

Variations in molecular subtypes of cancer cells call for different treatment plans. By studying those molecular subtypes, physicians can make the most informed medical treatment recommendations. But how do physicians create a treatment plan based on the information they gather about their patients’ cancer? by Giuseppe Frustaci

Concept Clinics Give Startups Ideas

I recently caught up with Bernard Huang, CEO of mobile app company Mosec (short for Mobile Secretary), following his presentation at February’s Concept Clinic. “The Clinic led to connections and helped us settle on our name and make decisions about features and market strategy," Huang said. by Cheryl Slowik

Will Augmented Reality Sell More Tires? (with video)

It’s no secret that cool apps have opened a new door into consumers’ heads. Used effectively, they introduce the consumer to a richer brand experience than can ads or social media alone. The technology behind these apps is evolving rapidly — with some of the most exciting innovations happening in the area of augmented reality. Where virtual reality is about creating an artificial world, AR is about making the real world more interesting or more useful. by Randall Cronk

Is Appguppy the Coolest Company EVAH? You Decide, April 26th

Join the MIT Enterprise Forum’s In-NOW-vation Showcase and Celebration 2012 on April 26th to meet the founders of Appguppy and other cool startups and vote on which ones will win coveted prizes in categories like “Coolest. Company. EVAH.” by Cheryl Slowik

From WilmeerHale: Congress Passes New Capital Formation Legislation

Important new legislation intended to spur job creation and economic growth by improving access to the capital markets for start-up and emerging growth companies has cleared Congress. The “Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act” (JOBS Act) won final approval on March 27, 2012, and now goes to the President. The President is expected to sign the JOBS Act into law in the near future.A summary of the JOBS Act’s most significant provisions is set forth below. by Erika L. Robinson, Rosemary G. Reilly, Knute J. Salhus, David A. Westenberg, Thomas W. White

Photos (and Video and Audio) from Auto-ID & Sensing Solutions Expo (with videos and podcasts)

Over 400 people attended this year’s event (our 3rd) that featured 50+ technology exhibits and two distinguished panels: “NFC Meets the Internet of Things,” that looked at the synergy between RFID and NFC in applications ranging from retail to healthcare, and “The Internet of Things,” a look at where RFID is headed with two of the MIT Auto-ID Lab co-founders and the leader of a key RFID industry group: VICS (Voluntary Inter-Industry Commerce Solutions) Association. by Randall Cronk

How Great Innovations Happen (with video)

In this video Dr. David Brock (right) and Dr. Sanjay Sarma discuss the original genesis of The Internet of Things and the MIT Auto-ID Lab, which they co-founded with Kevin Ashton a little more than 10 years ago. Recorded at the Auto-ID & Sensing Solutions Expo at MIT on March 28th, 2012, the recording begins as Dr. Brock describes how he was working on a robotic vision system when the idea of a wireless sensing approach occurred to him. by Randall Cronk

What's Wrong with ROI?

Questions about a technology’s ROI are one of the biggest challenges to innovation and economic growth, according to two MIT professors and the CEO of the industry association leading the charge to bring RFID into retail. That was a key takeaway from a panel discussion at the Auto-ID & Sensing Solutions Expo, sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, on March 28th. by Randall Cronk

Visions of Robots in Healthcare (with video)

It’s clear there’s a demonstrated need for robotics solutions in healthcare. It’s 2012. We’ve had computers for an awfully long time. We’ve had sensors for an awfully long time. How come commercial deployment in healthcare and medicine seems to have been so slow? That was the question posed by moderator Richard Smith, a partner at Edwards Wilman, to a distinguished panel of healthcare technology experts at the recent Innovation Series event, Robotics in Healthcare: Solutions for the Hospital and the Home. Watch this video to see how the panel members responded. by Randall Cronk

CNET - The robodoctor will see you now

In the years ahead, robots could operate in homes to care for elderly people, helping with tasks such as dispensing meds or running virtual doctor’s visits. Already, other forms of robots, such as droid-like machines in hospitals or prosthetics, are starting to make a mark in health care. by Martin LaMonica (via CNET)

What's New at In-NOW-vation 2012? (with podcast)

In this podcast, MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Executive Director, Trish Fleming, previews some of what attendees and exhibitors can expect at this year’s edition of the organization’s biggest annual event. by Randall Cronk

What's the Coolest Company EVAH? (with podcast)

Maybe it’s ThumbsUp. We’ll find out this Thursday, April 26th, when attendees at this year’s In-NOW-vation Showcase and Celebration voice their choice among the dozens of companies representing a broad spectrum of Boston area entrepreneurs.ThumbsUp is definitely a contender. It’s an app that automatically recognizes that you’re watching a show and lets you like a moment on TV. by Giuseppe Frustaci

Get to Know Mobile Marketing (with podcast)

Mobile technology is coming on strong, and quickly. Those companies that jump in now will have a significant head start — both in learning the tools and in establishing leadership positions in users’ minds. The same goes for everyone else with a stake in staying at the cutting edge of marketing technology (or technology marketing). by Randall Cronk

Super Connector Jeff Solomon (with podcast)

Connectors have networking in their DNA. In an entrepreneurial ecosystem they play a critical role by bringing together the people who form successful partnerships. Great teams don’t just happen. They’re the right mix of talent, personalities and complementary skillsets — and connectors have a unique ability to create that mix. In this podcast, Jeff Solomon, Managing Shareholder of Katz Nannis + Solomon, PC, an accounting firm focused on early stage companies, discusses his role as a connector. by Randall Cronk

Podcast from "How to Start an RFID Company" (with podcast)

Just in case you missed Monday night’s panel discussion on how to start an RFID company, highlights from the event have been repackaged and published online in this special iTunes podcast — available for download. If you have ever thought about starting a high-tech company or if you work with start-ups, you may want to listen — as the lessons go well beyond RFID and apply to many other technology areas as well. by Randall Cronk

Use White Paper Grader To Unblock Technical Content Bottlenecks

2012-05-22T14:54:00.000-04:00

Small and mid-sized technology companies face a particular bottleneck that prevents them from publishing the online content they need to engage audiences and customers effectively. That bottleneck is finding sufficient copywriting capacity with both the high technical quality and high language skills required. Larger companies have the resources to nurture writers who start out much stronger on either the technical side or on the writing side. It may take years for skilled writers to become fluent in technology or technically smart writers to develop stronger language skills — but larger companies have a deep bench and can afford to wait.

Young tech companies can’t. They need to develop premium content quickly in volumes disproportionate to their size so they can grab their share of attention and influence. When it comes to online marketing, the web doesn’t give smaller companies a pass — or bigger companies either, for that matter. The web is an equal opportunity platform. Whoever publishes the most high quality content usually wins.

So where can smaller companies find the resources? The answer almost always is contractors. There simply isn’t enough paid staff onboard to do everything that needs to be done — without asking them to write blogs, white papers, case studies and other content in addition to everything else already on their plates. Agencies have their own capacity issues when it comes to finding good technical copywriters. These skills are rare, and most accounts do not call for them on a day-to-day basis — so agencies often turn to contractors as well (and then typically mark up the contractor’s work).

Select a Writer’s Writer

One solution is to use social networking to develop a scalable repository of freelance resources. Start with a core team of one or two experts in technology marketing writing, and then ask them to bring onboard — through their own professional networks — other competent technology marketing writers as needed. Not only does this spread out the workload; high-quality writers are also usually the ones who have the best idea of who the other really good writers are — and also the writers that are not so good but who will be successful when supported with proper mentoring. Let the more senior writers provide — and make them be accountable for — the mentoring and quality control that would normally occur in-house at a larger tech company.

The best way to know if the writer you hired is both technically qualified and a skilled writer is to ask another writer you trust to look at their work. In fact, I created the White Paper Grader for just that purpose. If you’re interested please click on this button for details.

Use Cases Shine!

2012-05-21T11:10:00.000-04:00

How do you write a case study that’s all about you, and not about a customer? Write a use case. What’s a use case? A use case — a.k.a. application note or application brief — is essentially a case study of how to use your product or service to solve a significant challenge that’s important to your customers. Like a case study it is written in a problem-solution-result format in which you describe the issues the customer faces, talk about how your solution applies, and then discuss the benefits of using your solution rather than alternatives. The reason you write a use case and the reason you write a case study are also very similar — to show clearly how your solution solves a key problem for customers in a particular industry or who face a common set of challenges.

Unlike a case study, however, a use case doesn’t discuss an actual customer experience. Instead it discusses the general application and the benefits of using your product. In my experience, there is actually very little to lose making your next writing project a use case rather than a case study. Whether you have published zero case studies addressing a particular target industry or application — or you’ve published dozens — you should have at least one strong use case in your marketing toolkit targeted at that specific audience.

Benefits of a well-written use case include:

A clear focus on your product’s benefits to the user. A case study spends several paragraphs setting up the customer’s story — who they are, products they make, the trials and tribulations they went through before you came to the rescue. Time spent reading this content is not time spent reading about how great your solution is. A use case, on the other hand, quickly gets to the heart of why should someone use your product.

No approvals required. Customer testimonials are great (and actually quite necessary for effective marketing) but only if you can get them. Even when you can get them, they take time — usually because they have to go through layers of approval — and in the meantime you can pump out a use case.

You control the content. Customers often say things about your product or service you didn’t expect them to say. With a use case, you get to say exactly what you want, the way you want, without the customer filtering you.

You look like an insider. As with a case study, a use case is you speaking the language of your customer, identifying with your customer. It’s a shift in perspective that makes both case studies and use cases very persuasive; and it’s hard to duplicate in other marketing content that’s intended to convey what your solution is all about.

How Do You Write a Great Use Case?

Here are some of the best practices I would recommend when writing a use case:

A strong headline that captures the benefit of using your product in the application

A “key takeaways” section that highlights key benefits

An introductory section (1-2 paragraphs) that succinctly: 1) summarizes the application, 2) why specific solution benefits would be important, and 3) how your solution delivers those benefits

A main body that expands on the introduction’s three key points

A short “why you” conclusion that states why your company is a great source for this type of solution given your special expertise, years of experience, product depth and other reasons

At least one infograph that illustrates how the application works or, better yet, presents a strong logical case for using your solution

By the way, there’s nothing that says you can’t include customer quotes in your use case. Having a boxed quote or two on each page of a two-page PDF is very effective. It gets the point across that you’ve done this for real, without having to tell the customer’s whole story or spend a long time on approvals.

Also, if you’d like some help coming up with topics — for use cases, white papers, eBooks, blog articles — or other content, here’s another idea:

Write Like a Technical Marketer

2012-05-18T11:09:00.000-04:00

Technical marketing content is different from regular marketing content in ways that can impact the performance of your online marketing programs. It’s also different from just plain old technical content — the stuff that “technical writers” write, as in user documentation, technical manuals, help pages and the like.

It’s not enough just to explain how stuff works. It’s also not enough just to make claims that a product is better, faster, cheaper — without backing it up with actual details about how the product actually does work. That’s one reason why technical marketing copy tends to use the word “solution” rather than “product.” Outside technology, it’s often okay (and frequently necessary) to bring in the great-looking model or the Hollywood special effects to “paint” some differentiation on the product after the fact. In technology marketing, the differentiation must be real and intrinsic, and the marketer’s job is usually to bring it to the surface and then to connect the dots between that differentiation and the buyer’s need. Hence the term, solution selling.

Here are five ways to make sure you’re doing that effectively:

Sell the mouse trapping strategy, not the mousetrap. Technical buyers are more interested in the technology or methodology behind the product claims than they are in the particular product itself. Leverage that interest deliberately.
Make the link between strategy and product inescapable. Just because it’s you who is writing about a particular approach to solving a problem, that doesn’t mean the buyer will automatically associate your approach with your product. There are various ways (subtle and less so) to do that — appropriate for whether this is a blog article, white paper, web page or contributed article in a trade magazine. A good approach is to use the product features as proof points, and actual customer examples to illustrate use cases.
Write top down. Even with highly technical products you always want to write to the (usually less technical) decision maker first — even if that person never actually reads your text. Start with your business argument for adoption before drilling down into the technical nitty-gritty.
Use sidebars for the really heavy technical stuff. I actually prefer to include theory of operation in the marketing materials I write (sometimes with client resistance). The fact is, technical readers have a lot of decision-making power and you don’t want to discount them. On the other hand, theory of operation can really slow the main thread — which is why I often put ToO in a sidebar.
Aggregate points of innovation into larger contexts. Every once in while a breakthrough product comes along that owes its breakthrough status to one clear stroke of brilliance. Usually, however, there are multiple smaller innovations at work — maybe in different domains, like software, hardware design, manufacturing process or whatever. Try to group these under overarching bullets that demonstrate a clear insight into how to build a better mousetrap.

If you’d like specific help with your technical marketing copy, take advantage of my free marketing copy edit service.

Best Practices for Entrepreneurs

2012-05-15T17:18:00.000-04:00

Just in case you missed Monday night's panel discussion at MIT on how to start an RFID company, highlights from the event have been repackaged and published online in this special iTunes podcast. If you have ever thought about starting a high-tech company or if you work with start-ups, you may want to listen -- as the lessons go well beyond RFID and apply to many other technology areas as well.

Listen as Diana Hage, CEO, RFID Global Solutions describes her experience in very personal terms of going from a big company like IBM to a start-up. Hear Bernd Schoner, Co-founder, Thing Magic, explain why being an inventor may not be the ideal background for a tech entrepreneur. Learn from serial entrepreneur Tim Butler, CEO, Tego, Inc., as he lists some of his "best practices" for launching a start-up. And find out which option Sean Cotter, President, Asset Vue, thinks is better -- to launch with a product or your first customer in hand.

I moderated the event.

Click here to listen.

Speakers:

Sean Cotter, President, Asset VUE, who started his first company, a successful regional outsourcing firm, while still in college. Selling the firm 10 years later, he became Director of IT, then CIO, at the DVL Group, one of the most respected management teams in the technology field. In his current role as president of Asset Vue, he runs a company whose RFID-enable solution automatically monitors data center environments and tracts the variety of devices contained within them.

Diana Hage, CEO, RFID Global Solutions, who is building the RFID industry's leading real-time enterprise asset management company, delivering turnkey solutions that drive measurable ROI and business value on a global scale. Since 2002, she has led the development of RFID industry solutions and global sales and services teams for IBM, ODIN Technologies, and RFID Global Solutions.

Timothy Butler, Founder, President and CEO, Tego, Inc., a pioneer of RFID solutions that expand the technology beyond basic identification and tracking applications. An experienced entrepreneur who has successfully founded and led three previous technology startups in the past 15 years, Timothy Butler is also the co-inventor of the first issued patent for Tego.

Bernd Schoner, Co-founder, ThingMagic, a leading provider of UHF RFID reader engines, development platforms and design services for a wide range of applications. In 2010, Trimble Navigation acquired ThinkMagic, Today, as VP Business Development of the ThingMagic Division, Bernd Schoner is focused on defining the role of RFID within the Trimble verticals, such as mobile resource management, building construction and heavy construction.

Post by Randall Cronk @ greatwriting.

White Paper Examples Explained

2012-05-11T09:28:00.000-04:00

Sourcing quality technical content for your marketing programs is one of the biggest challenges high-tech startups face. The resources to hire writers are limited; company founders are too busy building a company and designing products to write; and the same innovations that make a new value proposition compelling also make it hard to explain to marketing service providers — like PR agencies, marcom outsourcing vendors and web designers.

You don’t need someone to just explain how your stuff works. You need someone who can sell it — putting your solution into words that ignite the same enthusiasm in the mind of the customer that you have.

Inevitably the challenge comes down to looking at people’s writing samples — especially white paper examples. White papers are the tool of choice for busy founders looking to capture their message once in a convenient package they can then use to educate basically everyone who needs to “get” what the company does: investors, the media, potential customers, business partners and professional services firms (including marketing firms).

If I were looking over several writers’ white paper examples, here are the top five things I would look for:

Years of experience. No, that’s not something that jumps off the page; but it’s a big reason why a good white paper is effective. Writers who have spent years (decades even!) in the business has gone through multiple technology and business cycles — which means they probably have a talent for self-expression, for working with startups and for picking up new concepts quickly.

Breadth of content. Years of experience in your particular technology niche may not be as important as you think. White paper examples from several different domains show that the writer is a quick study and can probably “parachute in” to work on a short timeline without much hand holding. Of course, if the examples do reveal knowledge depth in your specific area — in addition to breadth — that is a big plus.

Structure. Read the first page of several example white papers to see whether you consistently get a clear picture the subject’s value proposition. Some writers simply don’t know how to boil the substance of the paper down to a single page (about 400 words). Instead they have to use the first page as a buildup for what comes later. Yes, the first page should be a buildup to make the audience want to keep reading. But it should also give a succinct self-contained version of the entire paper — in case the reader doesn’t have time to read the whole thing.

Headlines that count. Some writers like to use generic, or what I call “functional” headlines as opposed to benefit headlines. An example of a functional headline would be “introduction” or “conclusion.” An example of a benefit headline would be “Lower Cost of Sales” or “Don’t Program, Configure!”

A strategic premise. Many white papers try to sell the reader on the virtues of a particular brand of mousetrap. That role is better served by ads, brochures, direct mail and other overtly promotional pieces. A white paper is most effective when selling the virtues of a particular mousetrap strategy. Every good piece of writing — movie script, novel, case study, white paper, whatever — needs a premise. The premise expresses a causality or connection between two things — like a character and a situation — that moves the action forward. A strategic premise in a white paper is the connection between a strategy (a technical innovation, let’s say) and a result (more efficient supply chain, fewer software bugs, whatever). By including a strategic premise the white paper educates, engages and sells all at the same time. And it does so much more effectively than if it were to just brag about how great the product is.

Ok — but what can you do if you already have a white paper you are thinking of publishing? Your problem isn’t how to select a writer; but making sure the white paper (in which you have already invested considerable time and money) is great. In that case, here is another idea for unblocking your technical content bottleneck: a free marketing copy edit.

Super Connector Jeff Solomon

2012-05-07T14:55:00.000-04:00

In this podcast, Jeff Solomon, Managing Shareholder of Katz Nannis + Solomon, an accounting firm focused on early stage companies, discusses his role as a connector. Jeff’s made hundreds of introductions over the years, resulting in some great partnerships and some highly successful companies. It’s fascinating to hear one of Boston’s truly legendary connectors talk about how he does it.

Post by Randall Cronk @ greatwriting.
For more podcasts like this one, visit the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge iTunes page.

Get To Know Mobile Marketing

2012-04-30T15:39:00.000-04:00

Mobile marketing will probably go down as yet another of those trends that, when people look back on its early days (like now), most will wish they had gotten in much earlier. Engaging people with your brand whenever and wherever they happen to be is a powerful concept — especially since more people in the world own a cell phone (4 billion) than own a toothbrush (3.5 billion). 81% of smartphone owners use their phones to surf the Internet. And 70% of them would rather give up beer than their phones.

One of the challenges, of course, in getting into any new trend early is that there isn’t a lot of good information available. But here are a couple sources you should check out. The first is an event that’s happening tomorrow night at MIT. It’s a panel called “In-Store Shopping Goes Mobile” and features experts from Yankee Group, Unbound Commerce (a leader in location-based marketing), AisleBuyer (an in-store mobile commerce provider), and Raging Mobile (an early stage mobile commerce company).

If you’re looking for a comprehensive book on mobile marketing, here is one of the few good ones currently available. It’s titled Go Mobile and is co-authored by Jeanne Hopkins, Vice President of Marketing at HubSpot, and Jamie Turner, Founder and Chief Content Officer at BKV’s 60 Second Marketer. It’s an extremely well researched and insightful book with lots of great statistics (including those cited earlier in this article).

Here is an interview I recently did with Jeanne in which she covers some of the many opportunities available to marketers looking to “go mobile,” and how they can (and should) get started now.

Post by Randall Cronk @ greatwriting

A Call to Action Marketing Agency Audit

2012-04-28T13:11:00.000-04:00

HubSpot blogger Pamela Vaughn yesterday wrote a great article saying how much landing pages are “indispensable” to marketers. She also cites Marketing Sherpa research that says 44% of clicks for B2B companies are directed to the business’s homepage, not a special landing page. In other words, most companies don’t use landing pages, or else underuse them.

Landing pages are where you go when you click on a call to action (CTA) — like, say, an offer for a free white paper, a product demo or a free 30-day trial. You click on the offer, go to the landing page, fill out a form (an act that now makes you officially a “lead”) and in exchange for your information receive a link to the free item. So CTAs and landing pages go together. If most companies aren’t doing landing pages, they’re probably not doing CTAs either.

That finding is very surprising considering that CTAs are a core principle of marketing. A good example is a wine tasting. If you don’t give someone a taste, they’re probably not going to buy the bottle. It’s pretty simple.

How Often Do Marketing Agencies Use a Call To Action?

So, I wondered what a similar survey of marketing agencies would reveal — in other words, how much do marketing agencies practice what they preach? To research this topic credibly, I needed a good representative list of leading agencies — companies that had been vetted by someone other than me. Such a list is available on the Services Marketplace page on the HubSpot website. I selected the “website copywriting” category for obvious reasons, and looked at the top 20 providers as HubSpot ranks them by performance and number of customers. Then, on all the homepages only, I looked to see how many use the following types of CTAs (the numbers in parentheses below):

Subscribe to our newsletter (5, 20%)
Receive a free white paper or other “how to” content to help you market better (13, 65%)
Receive free help, such as a free consultation or a free copy analysis (3,15%)

The total number that publish any CTA on the homepage was 16 (80%) — which means that one-fifth do not. Furthermore, only five (25%) use more than one type of CTA, and none use all three types.

You can judge for yourself whether this is a significantly better showing than for companies in general, considering that marketing agencies are specialists.

You can download a summary of the results, including the list of agencies, here. Feel free to check out the results yourself. If you find an error, please feel free to comment.

I was especially interested in what types of CTAs were offered other than free “self help” type content. The Internet is awash in such content, which makes it less differentiating (for marketing writers, especially) than would an actual free test of the agency’s ability. A test also involves actual engagement with a live person (a writer), which arguably is a bigger part of the sale than the content the person will write.

Only one of the 20 agencies surveyed offered this type of CTA — a free custom keyword research report. HubSpot, of course, sets the gold standard for the “test us for free” type of CTA with a free 30-day trial, including free consulting. It also offers a free marketing grader, among other free tools — you just need to fill in a short form. Interestingly, none of the agencies surveyed offered this free trial on its homepage as a “pass through.”

Check out this example of a writer's “test us for free” CTA — a free greatwriting copy edit.

Post by Randall Cronk @ greatwriting.

Money Talks. Really?

2012-04-25T08:08:00.001-04:00

Having a coherent campaign is important when selling and sustaining a business idea. The most successful companies don’t just sell a product — they show consumers a problem and then describe how their product or service can fix that problem. This method makes it more likely that the customer will recommend the company’s product to his or her friends and eventually buy from the company again because of the spectacular service — in other words, there is a relationship between the company and the customers based on trust, which is based on what the company actually does.

Focus on what marketers do

I recently sifted through websites of marketing agencies and freelance writers, and I discovered something very surprising: many of the selling points summed up to one phrase: this writer or marketing agency will make your company money.

Well — yeah

Isn’t making money the whole point of marketing? Why would a company hire any freelancer or marketing agency if it didn’t believe it would profit the company in some way? What sets a successful company apart is its ability to provide the world with a service — something that a good campaign does. Freelance writers and marketing agencies have no exception — they need to sell the value of their service. Making money is important, but how they make the client money is what sets writing freelancers or marketing agencies apart from the rest.

An example of a successful campaign

I recently watched a JC Penny commercial featuring Ellen Degeneres where she is standing in line at a return counter, but she can’t return her skort because her Standard poodle ate the receipt. She asks, “Was it always like this?” and then she is transported back to ancient Rome where she encounters the same problem. The commercial ends with her yelling to the citizens: “This is ridiculous!” The message JC Penny is sending is that in their store, you won’t ever be faced with this problem. This is a humorous campaign to win customer loyalty — and for anyone who’s ever waited in line with a return, it’s golden.

To get — and keep — a customer’s attention, a business can develop their campaign to showcase the product solving a problem. In JC Penny’s case, they’re selling the ease of returning items.

Selling a strategic premise

The message of a campaign could be centered on a strategic premise — the phrase that sells a company’s product without sounding overly self-promotional. A strategic premise provides value, and it signals to the customer that the company is interested in his or her purchasing experience, not just the money coming out of his or her pocket. A strategic premise builds a trusting relationship between a company and the customer, and trust is what sells products, creating more revenue for a business.

In JC Penny’s case, the strategic premise is “Return any item, any time” (hence, the trip back to ancient Rome.)

When marketing companies only sell the promise of greater revenue — they’re not selling the actual solutions will drive sales. A company needs to promote how it’s going to earn its clients revenue without using the revenue as a bargaining chip. Confidence in the value one’s company provides will sell more than money — it will sell a trusting relationship with clients, and that is something that lasts. Lasting customer relationships will provide your company with more clientele (when loyal customers refer the company to others) and the reputation of a company that cares about its customers, which consumers look for when purchasing new products.

Interested in developing your own strategic premise? Let's start with something you've already written. We will review, edit and even rewrite your marketing copy for free! Details here.

Post by Amanda Rogers @ greatwriting

How To Start a Company

2012-04-23T17:00:00.000-04:00

Being a successful entrepreneur is a lot like being a successful novelist. You either got it or you don’t.

Yes, I’m sure every successful company founder can point to past failures, just like every successful author can point to a pile of rejection slips. But once you’re in the zone, then more often than not you pretty much keep turning out success (or successful) stories. It just seems that in certain fields — high-tech startups, fiction, acting, singing, professional athletics among them — there’s no such thing as a little success. You’re either a star or you get a real job. Yes?

This is one of the questions I am going to bring up to a panel of successful entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial wannabes Monday night, May 14th when I’m hosting a panel at MIT called “How To Start an RFID Company.” RFID stands for radio frequency identification — it’s the technology in EZ Pass. Another application is tracking inventory with a radio so you don’t have to physically count every item on the shelf. RFID is one of those perpetually up-and-coming technologies (telehealth is another) where every year the experts say, “This year is going to be the year the market really takes off.” And it never really does. So RFID seems like an especially good candidate for a discussion about how do you become a founder who doesn’t founder. (That, plus the fact that I’m on the program committee for planning RFID-related events.)

What got me thinking about this was a question raised at another recent conference by an entrepreneur who definitely is successful. This is what he said:

“So a lot of good things have happened [in RFID] over the last 10 to 15 years. But I can also say that the RFID industry has at times been a real bloodbath. A lot of people are not here because they got laid off or they lost patience with this industry over the years. These [sitting in the audience] are the survivors. For students, let’s say, what should they do after graduation? Do you recommend they go into the RFID industry? Seek jobs? Found startups? Like you did 10 years ago when we were starting?”

I’m sure a lot of really good people employed at high-tech companies today are wondering if they have the right stuff — or indeed, if there is any “right stuff” — for starting a company. Having written for over 250 high-tech companies, I can tell you that the success stories come in all shapes, sizes, skill sets and personalities. So it will be interesting to see if we can boil it all down in a couple of hours.

If you’re interested in attending, you can register and find more information here.

By the way, if you're interested in more great content about entrepreneurship, check out the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge podcast on iTunes.

Post by Randall Cronk @ greatwriting.

A Marketing Writer’s Test

2012-04-18T15:58:00.000-04:00

Do you need better marketing copy, or just a better marketing writer? Take this marketing writing test to find out. Simply check off the statements you agree with. If you check off more than 18 (90%), you’re probably all set.

Our writer captures our elevator pitches clearly, crisply and consistently.

I have recommended our marketing writer enthusiastically to colleagues or on LinkedIn. (As here, for example.)

Writing projects routinely result in compliments from others in our organization.

Our writer’s articles consistently generate the most page views and downloads.

I personally look forward to reviewing our writer’s work.

I’m not afraid to let our writer get into a business or technical discussion with our CEO or CTO.

I routinely ask the writer to review drafts others have written because I know this adds value.

I am constantly impressed with how fast this writer can turn complex technical material into clear English that sells.

The writer’s questions show a clear understanding of our business.

I can relax knowing that our marketing content is in responsible, competent hands.

I can rely on this writer’s advice in areas of marketing beyond writing, such as a branding, messaging and strategy.

Deadlines have never been a problem with this writer.

Reviews of drafts are fast and easy.

Our writer is easy to critique and does not get defensive.

If our writer doesn’t agree with me I will get an honest opinion, not simply yeses.

Our writer independently comes up with solid, creative topics that we use.

The writer works well with other creative team members, such as web designers.

The writer always returns our calls or emails the same day.

Pricing and terms are clear and fair, with no surprises.

The writer handles a wide variety of projects equally well – including web, print collateral, case studies, articles, and white papers.

Experience the greatwriting difference yourself. Let's start with some marketing writing that's already "done." We will review, edit and even rewrite it for free. Details here.

Post by Randall Cronk @ greatwriting

Humor Is the Best Marketing

2012-04-14T16:10:00.003-04:00

It’s also the hardest to pull off effectively -- which is probably why humor is so rare in marketing content. Humor is risky. It’s easy to offend. What’s funny to one person may not be so funny to someone else. Business writers, especially, are often afraid they won’t be taken seriously if they do try to be humorous. And not many are very good at it.

Which is why a lot of marketing content is just so much white noise — it blends into the background and you don’t notice it.

Well, here’s something you will notice. It’s a rap video my interns, Carly (right) and Amanda, wrote, performed and produced. (Their idea, by the way.) I think it's seriously good. And I hope you do too. In fact, I like it so much I’m not only using it here on my blog to make a point about humor in marketing content, I’m also putting it on my main website on the endorsements page. Appropriate, don’t you think? Enjoy!

Post by Randall Cronk @ greatwriting

Find Your Voice: Mark Anthony Neal, Ph.D.

2012-04-09T14:38:00.000-04:00

A strong voice is as important in social networking as it is rare. That’s why a lot of marketing writing has no impact — because it all sort of just blends in together. So when my intern, Amanda Rogers, asked if she could interview an established writer with both a strong literary voice and a large social network, I was delighted. This is the fourth article in our English Works series profiling successful English majors and how they prepared for their careers.

Dr. Mark Anthony Neal is an excellent communicator. Don’t just take my word for it -- ask any of the 11,615 followers (as of today) of his twitter page. Dr. Neal is living proof that social networking works to communicate to a vast audience and to ultimately make your voice heard.

I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Neal over the phone, where we spoke about great writing, the power of good communication, and how important it is as a writer to find a voice.

Dr. Neal is the author of four books: Whaat the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), Songs in the Keys of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003) and New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity (2005). Dr. Neal is also the author of the popular blog New Black Man, which explores different issues developed through cultural studies. On top of that, he hosts the weekly webcast Left of Black produced by Duke University. He has been featured in many other venues, such as NPR articles and Democracy Now! A 1987 graduate of SUNY Fredonia, Dr. Neal returned to his Alma mater in October 2011 to participate on a panel about Mahalia Jackson, a legendary gospel great.

To Attract an Audience — Mix Content Well

Dr. Neal and I got to chatting about the significance of writing well. An audience is attracted by different kinds of media — video and audio work—but ultimately the content is what holds their attention. Good writing is writing that clearly gets your message across. To reach an audience, Dr. Neal says, the important thing is to mix up content. It is Dr. Neal’s goal to integrate forms of popular culture in his work, which is illustrated on all sorts of forms—from novels to podcasts, from post-colonialism to popular culture—and that mix may be one of the reasons he is so successful. However, Dr. Neal says, “There are some things I can only communicate through writing. It is important to find the right kind of balance.”

Like a lot of successful English majors, Dr. Neal started college headed in an entirely different direction — in his case, as an engineering student. But after taking his first creative writing class, he knew that he was meant to study English. During his time at Fredonia, Dr. Neal hosted a Sunday morning radio show, wrote columns for The Leader — SUNY Fredonia’s student-run newspaper, and was president of the Black Student Union. These experiences allowed him to hone his skills as a public speaker in order to get his voice out in the world. He said he was really pushed at SUNY Fredonia: one of his teachers told him that he already had the makings of a public voice. I asked him what SUNY Fredonia taught him, and he replied, “SUNY Fredonia taught me that good writers read—all the time-- and they read a wide variety of things.”

After graduating, Dr. Neal sold computer software, which he admitted wasn’t a very good fit for him. He began teaching classes in New York City, and then decided to continue his education at SUNY Buffalo. He graduated with a Ph.D. in American studies in 1993. He then worked briefly in New Orleans and then six years at SUNY Albany before moving to North Carolina to work at Duke University. (Just think—he went from being a Blue Devil to being a Blue Devil—the mascot of both SUNY Fredonia and Duke University.) At Duke, Dr. Neal is a professor of African and African American Studies, where he won the 2010 Robert B. Cox Award for teaching. Dr. Neal really enjoys what he is doing, and he was excited to talk to me about the opportunities he has been afforded by his position at Duke. He proclaimed, “There’s no place like Duke. I’m really fortunate to be here.”

To Write Well — Write Often

I asked Dr. Neal what kind of advice he would give to English majors making the transition into their post-college lives and careers. He offered: “Keep writing. Write every day, work on your craft, and find your voice. Put in the time to make quality work, and you’ll get to the position you really want to have.”

Dr. Mark Anthony Neal did. And he did it by finding his own voice. It is a strong voice, in touch with the way communication works and how communication works in the world.

Post by Amanda Rogers @ greatwriting

What's Wrong with ROI

2012-04-06T08:59:00.000-04:00

The two professors were co-founders of the MIT Auto-ID lab, Sanja Sarma and David Brock, and the CEO was Joe Andraski of the Voluntary Inter-industry Commerce Solutions (VICS) Association.

There are two problems with asking innovators to justify themselves based on ROI. First, it’s expensive and, second, ROI doesn’t answer the question of how much the organization would benefit by adopting the innovation.

As panel moderator and event organizer, Tom Coyle, said, “The companies that made all the money early at the [MIT] Auto-ID Center were the Price Waterhouse Coopers, the Accentures, the IBMs — who were doing ROI studies rather than getting their hands dirty in trying out the technology.”

ROI Silos

And what do these ROI studies tell you?

Not enough, says Dr. Sarma. In fact, the bigger an innovation’s economic potential, the less ROI is likely to tell you. He blames what he calls “siloed ROI.” That’s when a technology “gets handed off” to a particular department; the department is asked to project ROI; and inevitably “back comes a number” that doesn’t justify the investment. Really big innovations, like networking or RFID infuse the entire organization, Dr. Sarma says, so their impact is impossible to gauge by just looking at any one department, which is usually what happens.

“I’ve become a little bit disheartened or cynical about these ROI calculations,” he says. “Because in the end all the decisions are gut-based. The person who really knows the business will make a gut call — and ROI is supporting evidence — but often it is used as a way to justify inaction. And I assure you my comments aren’t limited to RFID. I see it in a number of other areas.”

Give Me a Case Study

Does this mean ROI could be going out of fashion? Yes, states VICS CEO Andraski: “I don’t see … today that companies are getting hung up on what the ROI calculator is saying. They’re more interested in understanding what the experience of the industry has been. Give me a case study. Give me someone to talk to. Let me have someone who’s objective who can tell me how do I put this into my organization.”

For help with case studies please see this post.

For free help with a case study you have already started, check out this offer.

Post by Randall Cronk@ greatwriting.

Don Draper Lives!

2012-04-01T15:04:00.000-04:00

Don Draper lived in an era of outbound marketing. However, his underlying marketing strategies were very inbound.

It’s early-1960s New York City and Don Draper is working as Creative Director at the advertising firm Sterling Cooper. His strategy, at face value, is an amalgamation of various outbound marketing techniques: billboards, magazine ads, TV and radio commercials, etc.

However, where the methodologies employed by Don Draper and inbound marketing agencies differ, the underlying strategies are the same: draw the customer in with content that he cares about; pique his interest by engaging him on a personal level; and leave him feeling empowered to make his own purchasing decisions.

Content You Care About

In the episode “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” Don Draper is asked to create an ad campaign for Lucky Strikes cigarettes. This campaign just so happens to coincide with the publication of recent findings that cigarettes are, in fact, quite toxic. What Don Draper does in response to this “twist” in the market is a perfect example of redefining market boundaries.

Don Draper: This is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal. We have six identical companies making six identical products. We can say anything we want. How do you make your cigarettes?
Lee Garner, Sr.: … We breed insect repellent tobacco seeds, plant them in North Carolina sunshine, grow it, cut it, cure it, toast it…
Don Draper: There you go. There you go. [Writes on chalkboard and underlines “IT’S TOASTED.”]
Lee Garner, Jr.: But everyone else’s tobacco is toasted.
Don Draper: No. everybody else’s tobacco is toxic. Lucky Strikes’… is toasted.

To most people, a cigarette is a cigarette is a cigarette. But to Don Draper, and to any inbound marketing expert, there is always some way to make product content different. Here, Don redefines the market boundaries by introducing and attribute that, although it really did exist, was otherwise pretty insignificant. Don created a whole new type of itch that only “toasted” tobacco would be able to scratch.

Empower the Customer

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is?... It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is okay. You are okay” (“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” Episode 1, Season 1).

When it comes to customer empowerment, it is no longer about selling just the product itself — it’s also about selling the experience of being reassured. Don Draper’s billboard is a crude, more primitive way of accomplishing the very same goal of modern social media campaigns: instilling in the customer the feeling that he is capable of making intelligent, informed decisions.

Even Draper’s initial encounter with a potential client was always in the form of a face-to-face interview, wherein he could begin to establish a personal relationship with them. After that interview, he would back off, confident that ultimately that client would choose to do business with him. Inbound marketing techniques operate under the same principle: the consumer is not subjected to a needless barrage of pestering advertisements. Rather, the successful online marketing campaign seeks to first establish the same personal relationship with consumers that Draper sought to establish in his initial interview, and then leave the consumer feeling empowered to make his own purchasing decision.

In the Digital Era, businesses can focus peer validation through social media campaigns as a way to make people feel good. But Don only had a television ad here, or a billboard there, leaving him just seconds to make the customer feel empowered with images of happy people using a company’s product. He presented an absence of fear with a message that, in a matter of seconds, could target consumers in all stages of the purchase decision-making process.

Today’s marketers empower consumers in a different way: they provide the necessary tools and information for making informed purchasing decision, with different elements targeting people in different stages of the buying process. Obviously, we all cannot possibly be experts on everything. Since the dawn of the Internet, more and more consumers have been turning to online reviews, company websites, and social media sites to help them make purchasing decisions — to find the modern equivalent of the reassurance experience provided by Don’s billboards. What was once a one-sided conversation dominated by businesses has evolved into a two-way discussion between buyers and sellers.

Make It Personal

“There is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash if they have a sentimental bond with a product” (“The Wheel,” Episode 13, Season 1).

In the first season finale of Mad Men, Don devises a marketing campaign for Kodak’s latest product, a wheel-like slide projector. Although entirely outbound in nature, the campaign was created to appeal to customers on an aesthetic and sentimental level. For his pitch, Don puts together a beautiful slideshow of old family photographs. As he flips through the pictures, he describes the way that Kodak’s product allows its users to repeatedly travel back to moments of nostalgia; to “a place where we know we are loved.”

Social media sites allow your business to interact on a more personal level with customers. But the difference now is this: Don Draper could only rely on pretty images to “woo” clients and make his campaigns resonate with them on a personal level. Modern-day marketers can go a lot further to achieve the same resonance: they can focus on factual information about their product and industry, which consumers may find useful as they weigh their purchasing options and start to move toward a final decision. This type of content attracts consumers on a practical level while also maintaining the same aesthetic and/or personal appeal present in Don’s ad campaigns.

The final, and perhaps most important, parallel between Don Draper and today’s inbound marketer is the passion that comes through their work. Don Draper’s passion is a major reason viewers tune in today — and why his ad clients bought in 1962. As Guy Kawasaki insists, don’t resign yourself to selling just a single product, or getting people to buy into a vaguely-worded mission statement. Instead, when you’re selling your product, “sell your dream,” too. Or, as Don Draper might say, “Sell the customer’s dream."

Does your marketing copy convey your passion for your product? Let us review, edit and revise it for free to make sure that it does! Details here.

Post by Carly Morgan @ greatwriting.

Is Online Marketing Too Hard for the 99%?

2012-03-27T16:47:00.001-04:00

Pick up almost any tutorial from HubSpot, Brick Marketing The Content Marketing Institute or other online marketing authority and you’ll read about how online tools are great for small companies because they level of playing field with large companies. As HubSpot cofounder, Brian Halligan likes to say, What matters is the size of your brain, not the size of your wallet.

But even in inbound marketing, big budgets get you farther than small budgets for the same size brain. For one thing, they get you more people to do the work. And there is a lot of work — a fact acknowledged by HubSpot blogger Pamela Seiple last year when she wrote, “In order for you to be successful as an inbound marketer, you need to work like a dog.”

Or as Matt Fates, a partner with Ascent Venture Partners said last week at a “Pitch Showdown” sponsored by Ultra Light Startups, “The vast majority of business out there are lost when it comes to online marketing.” He was speaking in response to a pitch by Phil Rogers, founder of Revenizer.com, whose value proposition is that they help people at small companies be effective online marketers who only have “an hour a day” to do it. The site integrates with HubSpot, Google Analytics and other Revenizer partners so that when you use one of those partner tools and don’t know what a particular marketing metric means on your dashboard, you can click to get a short help message. The message also comes with links to more in-depth help from Revenizer’s library of curated material (sourced from HubSpot, Google and other experts).

As Phil states, the product is aimed at the 99% who are too busy to do online marketing or find online marketing too hard.

What was interesting about the pitch session was the reaction from the VCs present that there was indeed a need for something like this. You’d think, listening to both Phil and the panel, that small businesses might want to think twice before committing to an online marketing program — unless, of course, they have the budget to pay someone else to do it for them — which, of course, means “size of wallet” still matters.

What do you think? Here’s a recording of the entire 11 minute plus session. Speaking as moderator is Cris De Luca, of Ultra Light Startups. In addition to Matt, the other speakers on the panel are David Beisel, NextView Ventures; Dayna Grayson, North Bridge Ventures; and Brett Garrett, Bain Capital Ventures.

Post by Randall Cronk @ greatwriting.

Write to Learn

2012-03-23T15:07:00.000-04:00

One of the questions successful freelance marketing writers get asked all the time is how they know so much about all the subjects they write about. Clearly, knowing how to learn is key, almost as much as writing itself. Furthermore, as this interview with a veteran Upstate New York freelancer shows, the two skills feed off each other. This is the third in our English Works series in which my interns interview successful English majors about their careers.

Over 20 successful years, Cindy Mantai has worked to establish herself as one of the top freelance writers and editors in Buffalo, NY. Her dedication and passion to writing has given her many opportunities, showing that the door is always open for new experiences

Learning How to Learn

Originally from Fredonia, NY, Cindy went to Fredonia High School, where she participated in a program called 3-1-3. This program allowed Cindy to jumpstart her college career by attending classes during her senior year of high school.

When Cindy began classes at SUNY Fredonia, she admits that she had no idea what she wanted to pursue. But, she adds, “Going to college, for me, was learning how to learn. I learned to weed out the things that were not so important from the things that were important. My philosophy was that anything I learned would eventually help me.” Every opportunity Cindy took gave her skills that she would come back to down the road — showing that being open to learning always pays.

Cindy toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist. She took a news writing and editing class, where she learned the important lesson of objectivity — something she thinks the news today is lacking. During this time, she also participated in an independent study, which focused on the grape industry in the region. These experiences taught Cindy how to structure an article — which has, in turn, allowed Cindy to successfully write for many venues and different companies. “If you can write well, you can do virtually anything,” Cindy says. “It’s something that I feel you have to have as a foundation for any career.” A writer, Cindy points out, has opportunities wherever he or she goes in life.

When I asked her if there was anything she would’ve liked to do at SUNY Fredonia, she replied that she wished she had taken more classes: she never wants to stop learning. Cindy graduated with a B.A. in English, specializing in professional writing, in 1984.

Her First Writing Job

After college, Cindy moved from Fredonia to Rochester, NY. After working at her first job involving catalog production, advertising, trade shows and project management, Cindy found an ad in the newspaper for a copywriting position with WARD’s Natural Science, a company that sells biology products to schools. Writing about fetal pigs and giant cockroaches really struck a chord with Cindy, as her father is a retired biology professor of SUNY Fredonia.

Although Cindy loved the job, she couldn’t continue working there after she became a mother — but Cindy also couldn’t leave her intellectual side behind. And so began her freelancing business: Cindy Mantai Writing & Editing.

To get her business up and running, Cindy started asking people she knew if they had any projects for her to work on. She wrote brief articles for a school district newsletter, and she began building her writing portfolio. Cindy wrote op/ed pieces for newspapers, and one thing led to the next. In 2000, she made the move from Rochester to Buffalo. When asked how her business was so successful, Cindy said that she was very particular about keeping her website updated. She also said that social media was a key component. She wanted to make sure that whenever anyone searched for “writers in Buffalo, NY” her name would come up.

Starting up wasn’t easy, Cindy says. It was five years before she got lucrative assignments. But it was more than worth it, she says. “I’m so grateful that I had that kind of career — I’m so happy and fulfilled. I made a good hourly wage; I could support myself and my kids, and I didn’t have to work 40 to 60 hours a week.”

A Wide Variety of Writing

Cindy made sure that she wrote a wide variety of articles — she never wanted to feel pigeon-holed into a certain style of writing. In that regard, Cindy has achieved a lot. Besides writing for her business, Cindy has published poetry. She started her own newsletter entitled “Choices,” which targets stay-at-home mothers who still wish to do things that are intellectually stimulating. Cindy started a writing group called The Buffalo Writers Meetup Group. She is also currently working on her memoir.

Writing Today

I asked Cindy what advice she would give to English students making the transition from college to career, and she responded: “I think you have to be confident and humble at the same time. You have to be willing to do things that don’t necessarily seem related. You can find a job that is fun and rewarding, but you have to be open to it.” Cindy has recently started a new full-time position writing for a company in Buffalo. She is applying to this new job many of the things that she has learned previously, showing that you never stop applying what you have learned — and successful writers keep learning.

Post by Amanda Rogers @ greatwriting

Stop Paying Lip Service to Social Networking

2012-03-21T15:21:00.003-04:00

It’s no surprise that more and more consumers are turning to the Internet — to online reviews, company websites, and social networking sites — to help them make purchasing decisions. But what may be surprising (at least to some companies apparently) is that consumers also want to hear from marketers.

Consumers look to social networking sites for advice and guidance — including those sponsored by companies. Social networking sites afford your business the opportunity to actively engage in a two-way conversation with customers, instead of accosting them with a one-sided sales pitch at every possible point of contact.

Yet despite the changes in consumer habits, and the popularity of social networking as a business topic, a recent McKinsey study indicates that a majority of companies still aren’t using social networking in marketing. And, of those that do try social networking, most don’t try it long enough to see results.

For some, the reason for this may be lack of commitment; for others lack of resources; and for others still, the fear of putting too much information out there for everyone to see. But whatever the reason, it’s probably not a good enough one, considering all that a company stands to gain from engaging customers via social networking.

Lack of Commitment

The long-term commitment necessary to establish and maintain a social networking campaign should really be a nonfactor for any savvy businessperson. Running a business is all about long-term commitments. Did your business start up overnight? Did you start turning a profit overnight? Did you build and foster customer relationships over night?

Did anything about your business happen overnight?

So why should your company’s social networking endeavor work any differently? According to research reported in McKinsey Quarterly (“How social technologies are extending the organization”, registration required), around half of the companies that had an online presence did not maintain their use of social technologies. Consequently, they were not able to reap all of the potential benefits. It’s not just having the technology that gets the results; it’s being willing to put in the necessary amount of work and effort. Just like running a business requires sustained effort — it takes hard work and effort over a long period to establish a social media presence.

Lack of Resources

When integrating social networking into your marketing strategy, you may find that you need to up the manpower and funding in your marketing department. But try not to think of this as “funneling” money into yet another area of your business. Think of it instead as a temporary allocation of resources.

The key is to have a unifying strategy for the implementation of your social networking services. Throwing resources at a digital marketing campaign and simply watching to see if it sinks or swims will not yield the desired results. You want to push your company to work just as smart as it does hard.

In another McKinsey article, “Four ways to get more value from digital marketing,” David C. Edelman suggests prioritizing what to measure (e.g., analyzing customer behavior; “mining” online discussions), assigning a “cross-functional team to organize the data,” and devising clear, concrete methods for how to act upon these new insights. Equally as important is the continued maintenance of a clear channel of communication between your technology and marketing departments.

What this will lead to, Edelman says, is the syndication of relevant, engaging content that will “[empower] the consumer… to serve as brand ambassadors.” Your customers will end up doing much of your advertising for you as they sift through your content and spread it by digitized “word of mouth”— i.e., Facebook “likes” and “shares,” re-tweets, and forwards to other online communities. Marketing expenses will go lower as sales go up, and the money spent on social networking now will mean (even more) money saved on advertising in the future.

Fear of Too Much Exposure

Your company is not run by robots. It’s run by humans, all with distinct, individual personalities. In the HubSpot article, "Be Intimate With Your Bloggers," author Chris Haddad shows how your company can bond — as humans — with customers. He describes different ways your content can go beyond mere “plugs” for your product and show an “intimate and personal side to [your] company.”

Have a funny story about something that happened in the office? Tell it. Quirky co-worker with an interesting background? Post an interview with him. Any “behind-the-scenes” happenings at your company? Show them to your online audience. Show them how your products are made, or maybe just give them a brief video overview of what a day in the office is like.

If you have a great product and an excellent staff, there’s no such thing as too much exposure. Customers like transparency, and they like to know that they’re dealing with real people when purchasing from your company. The more you put the “personal side” of your business out there, the more likely you will be to develop strong relationships — and brand loyalty — with your customers.

Become Part of the Conversation

As the marketing world evolves into something more digital, your marketing campaign needs to change too. Once a one-sided conversation, wherein companies bombarded consumers with advertisements at different stages of the decision making process and simply hoped for the best, marketing is now becoming a two-way discussion between buyers and sellers.

Incorporating online social media into your marketing gets you in on that two-way conversation that consumers are already having with your competitors — the ones who don’t pay lip service to social media, or to them.

Looking for more online marketing help? Let's start with some marketing copy you have already written or started to write. We will review, edit and even rewrite for free! Details here.

Post by Carly Morgan @ greatwriting