It also means this: you can’t create one marketing message that works in the early days and never change it (a mistake I see far too often). If you’ve had some success with the early markets (Innovators and Early Adopters), get ready to change your message. The market segment you’ll be aiming for next might bear very little resemblance to the one that came before it.

This goes against the grain of many high-tech marketers. But it’s absolutely necessary if you intend to “cross the chasm” into the high-dollar world of mainstream markets. A pragmatist from the Early Majority simply won’t respond to the same angle you used to get the Early Adopter’s attention – and vice-versa.

The Most Important Way to Get
the Right Message to the Right Market

Yes, your marketing message has to change as your product makes progress through the high-tech markets. That’s the downside. But here’s the upside. The TALC tells you exactly how to do that. Each one of these 5 segments has its own set of values, beliefs, and emotions. Once you know those, you’ve got what you need to craft the B2B advertising message each market needs to hear.

As a B2B copywriter who has been in the technology business nearly 12 years now, I’ve seen some companies capture each of these markets successfully. I’ve also seen them fail miserably. But more often than not, I’ve seen them capture the first two markets with ease, only to watch them stumble on their way to the big-dollar Early & Late Majority segments.

In order to avoid the same disastrous mistakes, it pays to become intimately familiar with each of these critical market segments…and how to write marketing copy that resonates with their needs and emotions. That’s where the rubber meets the road. The words that meet your prospects’ eyes will make or break your high-tech product. It doesn’t matter how good your technology really is. What matters is getting the right message to the right market at the right time.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, High Tech Copywriting, Lead Generation

Why We Don’t Market To Laggards

Laggards differ from the Late Majority conservatives in one significant way. Conservatives will accept the benefits your technology brings as long as they don’t have to lift a finger to get them. Laggards wouldn’t take your product’s benefits even if you paid them.

As Geoffrey Moore says in “Crossing the Chasm,” laggards are the quintessential skeptics. They don’t participate in high-tech product evaluations. The only effect they ever have in any purchasing decision is to block it.

That being the case, the best you can do with laggards in your B2B sales cycle is neutralize their influence. But that will have to be done in person by your outside sales force, not by your ad copy.

That’s why the title of this post is “learning from” the laggards instead of marketing to them. Because you can’t market to them. Nor will you ever write high-tech marketing copy aimed at them (I never have).

So if you can’t market to laggards, then what good are they?

The Valuable Service Laggards Provide High-Tech Marketers

As crazy as it sounds, you can learn a lot from laggards. Though they don’t like your technology, they always have a reason. And in an effort to make themselves appear indispensable to their company, they’ll be glad to tell you why. You and everybody within earshot.

As Moore says, the laggard’s objection usually revolves around the notion of the “whole product.” That means he may understand your product provides some features that provide benefits. But there may be holes - benefits the laggard needs that your product doesn’t deliver.

If there are holes in your offering, trust me, the laggard will find them. And he’ll have a jolly good time doing so. So here’s my advice regarding laggards: listen to them.

As a B2B copywriter, you want to present your product in such a way that no reasonable human could possibly say no to it. So if you’re looking for objections to overcome, what better place to look than to the laggards? They’ll give you nothing else.

Take the objections you hear from them and come up with effective counters. You can inject them into your copy in one of two ways. Either in the form of proof elements or testimonials from customers who had the same objection, but found your product to provide benefits that overcame it.

Not only that, but it’s possible that the laggard has a valid issue with your product. If so, get that objection to R & D. Perhaps you can get a fix into an upcoming feature list. It will make your product into a stronger, more complete offering in your market space.

Bottom line is this. Just because you can’t market to laggards doesn’t mean they can’t do you any good. The can provide you with some very important market intelligence. And as competitive as the technology market is becoming in the 21st century, we B2B copywriters need all the intelligence we can get.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, High Tech Copywriting, Software Copywriting

In previous messages, we’ve talked about marketing to the Innovators, the Early Adopters, and the Early Majority (also known as pragmatists). Today, I’ll tell you about the most profitable, yet most-ignored segment of high-tech B2B buyers: the Late Majority, otherwise known as Conservatives.

Why Most High-Tech Companies Ignore This Market Segment

According to Geoffrey Moore, most high-tech marketing isn’t targeted at conservatives because technology companies “have no sympathy for them.” Which stands to reason - high-tech marketing is all about innovation and new ways to do things better.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are willing to say ‘no’ to a new technology just because it’s new. For them, changing the way they do anything is excruciatingly painful. They may not be old. But they’re definitely set in their ways.

The conservative may eventually buy. But only eventually. He wants to see a product so mature it’s almost wrinkled. These are the same buyers who finally bought a pocket calculator…but only begrudgingly, from Wal-Mart, for no more than 5 bucks.

Though they’ll never admit it, conservatives fear technology somewhat. If they get on board with your product, it will only be in the very late stages (hence, the name “Late Majority”).

Their only real goal in buying technology is not to get stung. Ironically, because they know so little about high-tech products, they usually do get stung - which only adds to their disdain for anything carrying the words “state of the art.”

The Conservatives’ Knee-Jerk Response
And How To Sell Around It

In any technology buying decision, doing nothing is always an option. For conservatives, this is almost always their first and favorite option. They are the consummate “wait-and-see” voice in the company. Their favorite saying is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

So it’s up to the B2B copywriter to tell the conservative something he doesn’t want to hear: his way IS broke. And needs to be fixed. This means you’ll have to share with him the implications of doing nothing.

One of the best ways to do this is to create FUD - fear, uncertainly, and doubt. One of my favorite ways to implement this in copy is to convince the conservative prospect that his normal routine is costing him money without his even realizing it.

Like this…

New DMA study shows…

Your Direct Mail Company May Be Losing Up To 27.76% On Every Mailing.
Here’s How To Get It Back

If your company relies on accurate information from a very large data warehouse, this could be one of the most important letters you’ve read in a long time. Because a new study from The Direct Marketing Association proves that companies just like yours are leaving a lot of money on the table with each mailing - money that should be going into your company’s sales, but isn’t.

This recent DMA study shows why. Most direct mail companies have to wait an average of 3 days to get viable reports from their data warehouse. 3 Days! No wonder companies like yours are losing so much revenue. It takes too long to get accurate data to base a decision on.

Granted, 3 days might have meant a quick decision 30 years ago. But on internet time, it’s an eternity. As fast as the direct response business moves today, you need to know today what campaign you’re going to run tomorrow. Otherwise, you’re going to continue to lose 3 days worth of sales with every mailing you run.

The XYZ Corporation knew they couldn’t afford that. That’s why they bought the [product name withheld] from [company name withheld]. It gives them accurate, timely sales data from their Oracle 10g Data Warehouse in as little as 30 minutes!

How To Gently Rock A Conservative’s World

The technological conservative buyer sees himself as someone who has “arrived,” even if he’s not in the corner office. He doesn’t come to work to set the world on fire anymore. He wants to coast to retirement without any more bumps in the road.

Now, please don’t think a conservative won’t buy into any new technology (that’s what laggards do). He will buy, as long as he doesn’t have to change the way he does anything. That presents the B2B copywriter with this chilling challenge…

You have to show the conservative….

• He’ll coast more smoothly with your product than without it - paint him word pictures of him and his staff accomplishing the same work today no disruptions to how they do it today. So easy to use, he won’t even know it’s there.
• His notion of smooth sailing is an illusion- through fear, uncertainly, and doubt, convince him that what looks like smooth sailing is really a runaway bobsled to hell in disguise. And if he doesn’t change something now, he’s doomed to pay a big, disruptive price later.

Whenever I’m called upon to write high-tech advertising promos to this group, those are the two angles I’ve found to work with decent regularity.

Of these two options, the first almost always pulls better because it focuses on the positive, which conservatives generally like. The reason they resist change so much is because they like the way things work today. So if you’ve got a product that comes pre-assembled and requires very few steps to get a big benefit, that’s a good card to play.

Failing that, the conservative has also been known to respond to the second approach. He likes his old way of doing things, but he likes his paycheck and his career path even more. If you can get him to see that doing nothing might jeopardize these things he holds dear, there’s a better-than-average chance he’ll listen.

And if he listens, you’re on the road to getting your most wanted response - lead generation, a white paper download, or even a direct marketing sale.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, High Tech Copywriting, Lead Generation

So let’s continue, shall we?…

All Pragmatists Are From Missouri

Pragmatists aren’t very trusting souls. So you’ve got to show them beyond a shadow of a doubt they’re making the smart, wise, and safe decision. That’s why the proof elements in your B2B marketing copy had better be air-tight.

They want you to prove that other decision makers in other companies of their same size and structure have already experienced the benefits your product brings.

The last thing they want to feel is that they are debugging your product for you. They want someone else to do that. So when you attack this mainstream market, make sure the current release of your product is something other than “1.0.”

Pragmatists reference each other heavily. These guys (and gals) know each other and talk to each other, even across company boundries. They keep tabs on what’s working and what isn’t, and why.

They definitely value other peoples’ opinions (except those of Early Adopters). So if you’ve got any big name success stories to tell, reference them to the hilt in your testimonials.

Here’s an example of a testimonial I wrote in a white paper after interviewing a satisfied customer of Together, a product from Borland Software (the Open ALM company)…

MDA consultant [name withheld] of [company withheld] uses Together exclusively to help his clients to do more with less, and to do so faster:

“With Borland Together, I’m able to build models in a way that I can generate code from them. Models are more of a first-class citizen instead of just pretty pictures. I can utilize the MDA features of Together to make use of the models themselves to produce executable artifacts that are reusable.”

[name withheld] particularly likes the way Together makes creating transformation patterns easy and intuitive:

“I can run my transformation rules directly from my business model. If the result of the transformation isn’t quite what I want, all I have to do is tweak the transformation rules until they produce precisely what I need. So in the future, the enterprise benefits from reuse and repeatability. Borland Together makes the whole process very simple.”

Win Over The Pragmatists, And The Money Starts Rolling In

Here’s the good news about Pragmatists: they are very committment-oriented. They tend to stay at their companies a long time.

Whatever technology buying choice they make, they’re prepared to live with for a long time. That means they’re looking for a company like yours to standardize on. And they’ll be fiercely loyal to you once your product is in place.

So when they finally adopt your product, you can pat yourself on the back. They’ll recommend it to their colleagues both inside and outside their own firm. That drives your selling costs down and your profit margins way up.

But getting across the chasm from early adopters to these pragmatic early majority buyers isn’t easy. That’s why a B2B copywriter who has also been a technology buyer is such a valuable asset to a high-tech marketing firm…and a marketing manager’s career.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, High Tech Copywriting, White Papers

Good work. You’ve laid the foundation for a huge landmark B2B marketing success story. There’s just one problem. Money. True, these first two market segments must be conquered before you can move forward. But you can’t make a living selling only to them. The real money lies in the next segment of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle: The Early Majority. And getting there will be no picnic. Here’s why…

The Early Majority: Pragmatists

The Early Majority like to refer to themselves as the pragmatists. Which is one reason it’s so hard to sell to them: they quietly and consistently get their work done. In so doing, they shun the lime light and try not to draw attention to themselves.

Even after meeting challenging milestones, they’d just as soon not be recognized at the year-end company functions, lest they become a “target” for politically-motivated corporate climbers who might have the power to sabotage their careers.

What Pragmatists Value Determines How You Should Write To Them

Whereas the Early Adopters want a change agent for the purpose of taking a calculated risk, the Pragmatists don’t want to take any risk. They don’t want to hear the words “leading edge“. They want to hear “industry standard.” They don’t want to “change the world.” They want a reliable, measurable “percentage improvement.”

They’ll often gather all the information they can find, put it into an Excel spreadsheet, and create their own feature matrix to compare your offerings with those of your competitors.

Since you know they’re going to do this anyway, why not do it for them? If you know your product can win a feature war, put it in tabular form in your body copy as eye candy for the pragmatists. Like this…

Another interesting psychographic of pragmatists is how the view pricing. Because they’re so safety conscious, they’re willing to pay a premium for top quality. But if your product isn’t materially different from your competitors’, they demand the best deal.

Pragmatists are also very safety conscious regarding their technology buying decisions. They want to hear that you there’s a support system available 24 x 7 ready to help them with any problem should things go wrong. Therefore, you need to reassure them in your copy that you absolutely will not let them fail.

That’s why they like buying the industry standard - They know the “big player” in any technology space is usually accompanied by a network of companies offering training, support, and professional services. This adds to their feeling of safety and security.

That brings up an opportunity for the B2B copywriter who targets the early majority pragmatists. I’ll share that opportunity with you in tomorrow’s post. So keep your feed reader pointed right here at ericlynchcopywriter.com.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, High Tech Copywriting

The Difference Between Innovators and Early Adopters

While Innovators care about your technology for technology’s sake, Early Adopters go one step further. They care about your technology because they envision using it to give them a strategic business advantage. An advantage that they hope will propel their company (and their own careers) into a position of market leadership in their space.

They also don’t mind taking a few risks to get that advantage. As a matter of fact, they’re looking for a few calculated risks they believe will pay off for them. That’s a key point when writing lead generation copy to early adopters. These guys are looking for a change agent. A fundamental breakthrough that will help them realize the ideal of market leadership.

Early Adopters aren’t technologists. They’re entrepreneurs. They know what superior technology could mean to their businesses, but they don’t fully understand the bits and bytes themselves.

As a result, they look to the Innovators (the first group in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle), for the thumbs up. That’s why you have to get the Innovators on your side before you have any hope of winning over the Early Adopters.

But if you’re successful, you’ll see a significant jump in revenue that will give your technology product a real financial boost. Not to mention your own career.

How a B2B Copywriter Aims At Early Adopters

There’s one big key point to remember when writing copy to visionaries. And it plays directly into your hands as a B2B copywriter. Here it is: visionaries are always in a hurry.

They see their dreams as materializing only within a small window of opportunity. If they miss that window, they can hang it up. Most entrepreneurs are this way. That’s why you see so many biz-opp direct mail packages that emphasize taking action right now. These guys absolutely lust over that one big time-sensitive score.

Your copy needs to prove to them that all the conditions are right. All the planets are aligned. And everyone is primed and ready to jump on the breakthrough your product represents. And they can have it all if they just give you your most-wanted-response.

One thing that can help you here is if you’ve got some major ground-breaking event going on in your industry. If you can somehow tie that event in with the notion that your product fulfills their dream, you’ve got a very convincing argument in your favor.

Here is an excerpt from some high-tech advertising copy I wrote back in 2002 when the CORBA technology was fading in favor of XML Web Services…

If Both Microsoft And IBM Agree On Something, We’d All Better Listen

It’s no secret. Microsoft and IBM hate each other. Both of these 800-lb gorillas in the distributed computing spaced have been trying to bury the other one for a long time now. But they’ve finally agreed on something. Something BIG. And it will mean a big competitive advantage for those few companies with the vision to see where it’s going.

Both of these behemoths have just put the industry on notice to what will surely be a new standard in distributed systems: XML Web Services via UDDI - a directory of available web services that can be executed by any technology. Java. .Net. You name it.

By opening up their respective UDDI portals (uddi.microsoft.com & uddi.ibm.com), they have paved the way for web service publishers to sell their strategic proprietary algorithms quickly and easily.

Not only does this represent a technological breakthrough. It also means the last nail is about to be driven into the CORBA coffin. CORBA is much slower and more expensive to deliver (and it also doesn’t help that only 5 people on the planet have the skills necessary to wire it up).

That’s why [company name withheld]’s [product name withheld] represents an opportunity for a few astute IT firms to take advantage of this trend before it starts up the exponential profit curve. For those who get in on it now, the results will be staggeringly profitable. Here’s how…

Now, granted, UDDI never really amounted to a whole lot for a number of reasons (I’ll talk more about this in future posts). But XML Web Services are definitely here to stay. And those early adopters (along with their entrepreneurial spirits) who saw it coming in the early days are glad they did.

But that’s the point: you’ve got to share the vision with the early adopter if you want to get his attention. Paint a picture of him succeeding with you product at a time when few others will, and you’ve got a strong b2b marketing piece. And if you’ve got a cataclysmic event going on in your industry that supports your argument, take advantage of it like I did with the promo above.

Some Early Adopter Caveats

When you write to early adopters, you have to keep in mind what drives them: the dream. That “dream” is a double-edged sword. Even though early adopters “get it,” they’re hard to please once your product is in place. That’s because their dream is unique to them. So the chances that your product matches up perfectly with every facet of their happy-day solution is pretty slim.

So don’t feel badly if  you can’t get closure with Early Adopters. You probably won’t.

But you have to get the Early Adopters on board before you can “Cross the Chasm” to get to the first big profitable segment of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle - The Early Majority.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, High Tech Copywriting

Technology Adoption Life Cycle

Innovators: The Earliest Market

Innovators are the first market you’re likely to encounter when marketing high technology products and services. These are the people highlighted in the far left-hand side of the curve you see above. They love to be the first ones to jump on a new technology. And for good reason: they’re technologists, themselves.

These technology enthusiasts sometimes go by other names. Things like “techie,” “computer-nerd,” or “propeller-head.” They’ll appreciate your technology product simply because it’s cool. Oh, and if it happens to have an advantage over what they’re using now, so much the better.

As Geoffrey Moore says in “Crossing The Chasm,”…

“They [Innovators] will forgive your ghastly documentation, horrendously slow performance, ludicrous omissions in functionality, and bizzarely obtuse methods of invoking some needed function - all in the name of moving technology forward.”

You have to market to innovators before you can get the attention of the early adopters. And it’s a good thing: these guys are technology savvy enough to give the early adopters the thumbs-up.

So by all rights, this group should be a pretty easy one to market to. Yet I see high-tech companies miss the boat all the time when marketing to them.

B2B Copywriting: Getting Innovators’ Attention

Innovators care about technology issues first. If they care about business issues at all (admittedly, few do) they weigh in at a very distant second. So business benefits won’t get an innovator’s attention.

What will get his attention is new technology - “new” is the operative word. They want to be the first to get a new widget that accomplishes something cool that has never been done before. They’re happy to sign your non-disclosure agreement, as long as they can be among the first to get their hands on your widget.

Innovators have the most advanced brains in the company (really, they do), and they know it. So tell them so in your copy. Paint them a word picture of themselves being part of an exclusive group of advanced engineers who truly appreciate what your breakthrough technology means to the unsuspecting world.

One other thing about innovators: they know they have to live within the confines of corporate America. But that doesn’t mean they have to like it. Though they may not admit it outright, they have a sharp disdain for the “suits” who limit their creativity by demanding something so mundane as a return on investment.

So when I write lead generation copy addressed to innovators, I might start out with something like this…

Dear Fellow Engineer,

This invitation isn’t for managers, CFOs, or tie-wearing meeting-moths who are afraid to get their hands dirty by actually writing code that runs.

No, it’s for the rest of us.

It’s for those of us who develop the apps that keep the lights on. Day after day. It’s for us guys who can uncork the hairiest Java integration problem to keep the company running - because we’re the only ones who can.

For you and I who fit that description, XYZ Company has a new Service-Oriented Architecture wizard using Ajax-Interop that will change the way everyone in the company uses web applications. We’re talking everyone from the receptionist to the guy in the corner office (you know, the one who thinks he understands technology).

Why are they doing this? Because they need your advice. They need some truly brilliant engineering minds to have a go at their new wizard and make give their honest opinion - while it’s still in the early stages of R & D. Your feedback will be used to drive the direction of this breakthrough technology.

And because you’re one of the few who ‘get it,’ you can be among the first to get your personal download - along with the UML diagram and Open API to get you started quickly and easily. Once you see it the first time, the possibilities will just overwhelm you…

This copy works because it gives the innovator something every human wants but nobody gets enough of: recognition. The reason I know this is because I am one, myself. When I was writing code for a living, I never felt like I got the recognition I deserved. I knew darn well I single-handedly saved the company on two different occasions. But nobody else knew - or appreciated it.

And there’s no better way to tell an engineer you appreciate him than by asking his opinion. Trust me, he’s got one. And he’ll gladly give it to you if you’re willing to acknowledge his superior intellect (trust me - he’s got one of those too).

Now, please don’t think I’m pandering. I’m not trying to give any tips on how to “fool” highly intelligent software engineers into doing something they wouldn’t otherwise do. I just want to make sure you don’t target the innovator market segment by touting business benefits. Innovators don’t care about those. That’s the mistake I want all my clients to know to avoid whenever I take on a new B2B copywriting assignment.

Innovators represent the first market segment your high-tech product must penetrate. Remember, they love technology for it’s own sake. So keep your message focuses squarely on them and the pride they take in a pure technology advance. And make sure they know they’ll be recognized as having the genius to forsee a breakthrough before anybody else did.

We’ll talk more about other segments of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle…and how to target them. So keep your feed reader pointed here at ericlynchcopywriter.com.

Tags: High Tech Copywriting, Lead Generation

And if I’m promoting a high-tech product, it pays big dividends for my customers to know the Technology Adoption Life Cycle…and what it means to them.

Goeffery Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” should be required reading for all marketing managers and campaign leaders who promote high-tech products. It’s every bit as relevant and on-target today as it was back in 1991 when he wrote the first edition. I’m certain Moore’s Technology Adoption Life Cycle will be taught in all MBA marketing classes in the coming decades.

Here is his Technology Adoption Life Cycle…

The TALC plots all technology buyers (whether they’re individuals or organizations) on a normal distribution - the famous bell-shaped curve. These buyers can be placed into any 1 of 5 different categories…

• Innovators - technologists who buy technology for the sake of technology
• Early Adopters - those who see the potential and are willing to jump on a new technology
• Early Majority - those willing to accept a new technology only if it provides a bona fide benefit. If they’re convinced it does, they’re willing to change the way they operate to enjoy the business benefits
• Late Majority - very similar to the early majority, except they aren’t willing to change the way they do anything. If it doesn’t work out-of-the-box, they won’t buy.
• Laggards - won’t buy new technology for any reason. If they’ve got a low-tech way to accomplish something, they’ll stick to it…regardless of how much benefit a new technology could bring them.

Each of these categories implies a different marketing strategy. And different ways to reach them in in copy. I think every B2B copywriter needs to be aware of this model, as well as the different copy approaches to reach them. I’ll address each of these in future posts, along with examples of B2B copywriting I have used to connect with each of them.

So keep your RSS feed reader pointed here at ericlynchcopywriter.com

Eric

Tags: High Tech Copywriting, Software Copywriting

That being the case, there’s only one place in your paper for a call to action…

The only effective place in your white paper for a call to action is at the end. Everything that came before your call to action was for the purpose of setting the stage and channeling your prospect’s thoughts.

Your executive summary tells your prospect what you plan to share with her. Your recap of market factors frames the background for your solution. Your problem discussion warns your prospect of the implications of doing nothing. Then you share a picture of what the ideal solution looks like…a solution that looks a lot like the product or service you happen to be promoting in your white paper.

Only after you have accomplished all these things, should you give your call to action. You must specifically ask your prospect to give you the action you want, along with the appropriate methods for the prospect give you your most-wanted response. If you can get your prospect to follow this thought pattern, there’s no reason she shouldn’t when she finally arrives at your call to action.

However, many customers I write for ask me to violate this rule. Some have an entire suite of products (or product lines) in addition to the one they’ve asked me to promote in a white paper. As a result, they ask for revisions in the form of calls to action - for their other products salt-and-peppered throughout the paper.

Bad idea.

Your white paper should take your reader’s thoughts down the path you want them to go. It should act as a ‘greased slide’ from start to finish with no sidings or detours along the way to confuse them. This is the only way to maximize the number of leads your white paper will generate.

If your customer gives you such a comment in a revision request, gently share with them the implications of making such a mistake: lost leads, resulting in a lower response.

It takes a strong white paper writer to channel the reader’s thoughts down this path. Such writers are rare. That’s why most B2B copywriters stay so busy with the same customers. And the best white paper writers keep their calls to action in the one place where they can do the most good: at the end.

Tags: Lead Generation, White Papers

Personally, I think most white papers would be more effective without an executive summary. I’ll tell you why in a moment. But if your customer insists on your writing one, here’s one mistake you want to make sure to avoid…

Don’t Give Too Much Away Too Early

An executive summary lets the reader know in advance what the paper is about. Executive summaries got their name because they were originally designed for executives who were too busy to read an entire white paper. So the white paper author would write a paragraph or two giving busy people the gist of the paper without their having to read the whole thing.

Quite often, this is counter-productive.

The goal of your white paper is to generate qualified sales leads. You want to intrigue the reader so much that she is compelled to give you your MWR in exchange for more information about your product. But you have to remember that the pulling power of your paper is the paper itself, not the executive summary.

So if you give away your solution in the executive summary, you’ve just given your reader a reason to put your paper down and read no further. If she does this, you will NOT have your most wanted response. Give your prospect a reason to stop reading your paper and she’ll do it every time. She’s just too busy not to.

What Your Executive Summary Should Do Instead

So instead of giving away the store in the executive summary, what should you do instead? B2C Copywriting legend, Gene Schwartz gives us the answer in his landmark book, Breakthrough Advertising.

Gene says that the headline of your promotional piece should have one goal: to get the reader to read the first sentence. The first sentence, should compel your reader to read the second. And then the third, and so on.

If we translate this into the B2B world, we can say that the executive summary of a white paper should have one goal: to compel the reader to read the first paragraph. Then the second. And the third.

In short, your entire white paper should be one big greased slide, taking your reader swiftly through the body of your white paper to your call to action at the end. That’s where you want to make it easy for them to give you your most-wanted response.

You can’t do this if you give away the solution your prospect is looking for in the executive summary.

This being the case, should advertorial white papers forgo an executive summary? In my opinion, probably so. The temptation to say too much too soon is too great, I think. However, if a client insists on having one, just make sure you don’t give away the store.

A wise B2B copywriter knows it’s ok to allude to the notion that there is a solution. Just don’t come out and say what it is until the end of the paper. Only there will your prospect give you the response you’re looking for.

Tags: Lead Generation, White Papers

As a technical resource, it can share functionality of a piece of software. It can also deliver highly technical information to architects and developers in a deep meaningful way. Or it can inform B2B buyers about the features of a big-ticket piece of industrial equipment, running into the millions of dollars.

But whatever piece of high-tech equipment it discusses, a technical white paper shares features and links them to real business benefits. Benefits the reader will enjoy once he owns your product or service.

On the other hand, as a business resource, a white paper shares vision of a critical business issue and what the solution may hold for the future. It delivers your company’s unique value proposition to C-level executives at a high level, so they can see the big picture of how your product or service meets the long term needs of their company. Not only today, but also well into the future.

Both business and technical audiences benefit from reading a well-written white paper. And both mindsets base their purchasing decisions on white papers to a large degree.

That’s because white papers influence. They gently promote your products and services in a very non-threatening way. They aren’t designed to sell your product outright (although I’ve written some that have). Instead, they serve as an advertorial - a piece that shares your products benefits and builds belief level without appearing to be a sales letter. That’s what makes them such a powerful marketing weapon in the belt of those who market highly technical products and services.

Based on this, it behooves all such marketers to hire a white paper writer who can address both audiences with equal skill and dexterity. Such B2B copywriters a difficult to find. And when word of their skill gets out, they tend to stay very, very busy.

For more information on how a white paper writer can help you and your marketing efforts, drop me a line from my contact page.

Regardless of what hat your white paper wears, it needs to be a part of your lead generation strategy and marketing mix. The benefit to you will be a greater number of highly qualified leads that convert to big-dollar sales.

Tags: Lead Generation, White Papers

But if you market your product in a very mature market that has seen a lot of near-outlandish claims over the years, you may have to resort to a little stronger headline technique. One that rises above the noise level, stops the B2B prospect in his tracks, and compels him to read your ad.

Aggravating Your Prospect For Fun & Profit

If the prospects who will be reading your ad have “heard it all before,” your benefit may not resonate with your prospect.

For instance, take UML and software design tools. Those products have been around for nearly 10 years - the equivalent of a century on internet time. The fact that you can draw UML and have the tool produce Java code for you in real time was a great benefit back in 2001. Today, it’s a ho-hummer. Every UML tool in that space can do the same thing, so a benefit headline would probably fall on deaf ears.

So if you market one of these tools, should you declare “game over” and fold your tents? Not at all.

Instead of leading with your benefit, lead with the biggest pain the prospect is feeling at the time. A pain that causes your prospect a lot of inconvenience or job dissatisfaction. Find the biggest pain and you’ll often find the dominant buying emotion you need to lead with in your B2B sales letters.

Once you’ve honed in on the prospect’s dominant buying emotion, you have to put it into words. This is where it pays to have empathy. As a B2B copywriter, you may have never held the same job title as the people you’re writing to, but you still need be able to feel the pain they feel. And use the words they would use to communicate their business problems and frustrations.

The Secret of the Dominant Buying Emotion

But there is a secret that in B2B copywriting that most writers overlook. In addition to writing a headline & lead based on a dominant emotion, you have to communicate the implications of that problem going unsolved. In the B2B copywriting world, we call this a Critical Business Issue or CBI.

Going back to our software design tool example: software development managers are under constant pressure to meet deadlines they feel are unreasonable. But nowadays, their companies are giving them more development work while allowing them fewer programmers to help get it done.

If this problem goes unresolved, the architect will have a backlog of work so big that he’ll stress himself beyond his capacity. His boss will start wondering if he’s doing his job because he’s just not getting the work done fast enough.

Since I feel their pain, I might write a promo with a headline & lead like this…

Attention Development Managers: Ever heard your boss say…

“You Have To Do More With Less. And Do It Faster!

If you’re under the gun to write more internal apps with fewer programmers to do it with, you’re not alone. CFOs are slashing IT budgets down to the bone these days. Yet they continue to shovel more and more work on your plate…so much that you barely have time to take a full lunch hour.

That’s why the busiest software development managers are turning to XYZ Corporation’s Object Modeling Gizmo Tool. It makes short work out of the hairiest Java integration problems your boss can throw at you.

Use the dominant emotion headline properly and you’ll propel your response rate through the roof. But you have to do it in a proper way. Remember, you’re writing B2B marketing copy. You can’t write a sensationalist headline like those you’d write for a biz-opp or an alternative health supplement.

But if you craft your marketing piece in a way that triggers the dominant buying emotion in a proper way, the dividends will be great. And remember the section: the critical business issues. They resonate well with B2B buyers who have problems your product can solve.

So go ahead. Be sadistic! Once you have a good feel for the implications of that problem going unsolved, inflame it to the point where your prospects can’t help but give you the response you want.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, Software Copywriting

B2B Buyers Have Conflicting Emotions

True, the B2B buyer has emotions just like the average consumer. Only when you get her over the edge from “I need it” to “I want it” will she make a buying decision.

However, she is sitll an employee of her company. She must take into account her company’s needs when making a decision to purchase your B2B product or service. And her company’s needs don’t always jibe with her own. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

Let’s say Sarah is a software development manager with a medium-sized consulting firm. The programmers that report to Sarah make changes to the underlying software architecture without informing their supervisors. This causes broken builds and missed deadlines. Sarah’s boss has told her she needs to buy a change management system for her company.

Sarah knows she these probelms have to stop and a change management system will help. She has investigated her options and is leaning toward the market leader in the change management space. It’s got all the features her company needs and long track record of past success stories.

There’s just one problem…

You Cannot Neglect a Business Buyer’s Personal Needs

While this solution is very feature-rich, it requires about 3-4 hours a day for maintenance and administration. Sarah knows her company cannot afford to hire a full time change management person, so the administrative burden will undoubtedly fall on her.

Sarah just had a baby earlier this year and already doesn’t get to see much of her family. Her job is too demanding and overtime-intensive. This causes her to seek other options that might not require such an extra duty, but she just doesn’t see any other products that meet her company’s change management needs.

Are you beginning to see why the B2B sale becomes so complex?

Selling to a prospect’s emotions is very important. But B2B sales prospects have two sets of buying needs that don’t always dovetail with one another. You must address both if you are to maximize your chances to sell big-ticket B2B products and services.

That’s why it’s important that you hire a B2B copywriter to understand this dichotomy and can address both sets of needs. Business, as well as personal. Very few copywriters can do both in the same promotion with an equal degree of skill. So when you find one who can, hang on to him: he’s worth his weight in gold.

We’ll talk more about meeting the B2B buyer’s business needs while addressing his personal concerns and emotions in a future post, so keep your feedreader pointed right here at ericlynchcopywriter.com.

Tags: B2B Copywriting

Why Technical White Papers “Lead” To More Sales

Because B2B software is very complex, it requires more explanation and clarification than most other B2B products or services. Often times, it’s so technical that the average software salesperson isn’t able to explain the benefits in a way that that truly resonates with your prospect.

This is why it’s nearly impossible to sell software via direct mail. Your product is too expensive and too complicated to expect a business buyer to make a purchase from one printed sales letter, regardless of how well written it is.

How do successful software companies overcome this? They take a more sophisticated approach. Instead of selling their software in print, they promote a free technical white paper as a way of generating warm leads for their salespeople.

A Warm Lead is More Effective Than a Cold Call

If your printed sales promotion does its job, your prospect will want to get ahold of your white paper to get more information about your software. That’s why you’ll be happy to give him your white paper…in exchange for his contact information.

Once your prospect has had time to read and digest your white paper, she’ll have an idea about the unique value proposition your software brings to the table. This improves your salesforce’s odds of success in a big way. It’s a lot easier to get an appointment with a prospect that knows something about your product and your company than one who has never heard of either one.

The more white papers you can get into the hands of interested prospects, the bigger your sales pipeline will be. And the more prospects you have in the pipeline, the more money you’ll make for yourself and your company.

Because technical white papers are so important to your success in B2B software marketing, it’s important that you hire an experienced B2B copywriter. They aren’t always easy to find. You want one that has a unique ability to communicate not only with business manager, but also technical decision makers as well.

And when you find one, hang on to him. He is worth his weight in gold for your career success in marketing high-end B2B computer software.

Tags: Lead Generation, Software Copywriting, White Papers

So theoretically, all you have to do is present your benefits, offer a proof element, show how the benefits overwhelm the price, and you’re in the clear. Right? Not even close. Here’s why.

Even if your product doesn’t carry a 6-figure price tag, your prospect is still going to be reluctant to even request more information. The reason: fear.

the B2B buyer is afraid of making a mistake. If she doesn’t know your company and has never heard of your product, your offer represents a risk to her career. Perhaps she has made a few similar mistakes in the past which have cost her. So you have to get her over this fear if you even want her to give you your most-wanted-response: become a warm lead.

One of the best ways to do this is through the use of testimonials. That’s right, use testimonials to overcome objections.

Most copywriters are taught that testimonials are merely the proof element of a marketing promotion. And while testimonials back up what you say in your B2B marketing message, you can use them for so much more. An effective testimonial can overcome just enough of a prospect’s objections to make the difference between totally ignoring you and requesting more information about your product.

Here’s an example. Suppose your company sells walk-in refrigeration units to restaurants. The goal of your promotion is lead genearation. You know you have a good product to sell, you know your prospects will be concerned about mold growth inside your units. You don’t have a lot of space in your ad to devote to the technical reasons why your product deals eliminates mold growth, so use a testimonial to handle the concern. Like this…

“Since our restaurants are in the Southeast where it’s humid, I was concnerned about mold contamination of our food inventory. But our XYZ Model 123 has been working round the clock all summer long with no mold growth whatsoever. Thanks, XYZ. You really took the worry away.” –Joe Snuffy, Snuffy Restaurants of Florida, Inc.

The benefit to this method of overcoming objections is twofold. First, it gives you a satisfied third-party who is happy with your products and doesn’t mind your telling others. Second, it overcomes an objection that you know other prospects have without having to devote large amounts of copy to overcome it.

Testimonials can help you out in a big way in B2B lead generation. And while they are great to backing up your product performance claims, don’t forget to overcome objections with them as well. The benefit to you will be greater response when generating B2B leads for your product or service.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, Lead Generation

Let Your Prospect Be Your Guide

The short answer to this question is this: give your prospect just enough technical information to pique her interest, but no more. That means highlighting the strongest benefits of your B2B software product in your promotion.

It also means knowing your prospect well enough to know how much technical jargon it will take to generate the response you want. And that depends on the prospect.

If your target audience is high level decision makers like IT managers and CTOs, you probably won’t want to spend a lot of space talking about granular technical issues. True, CTOs probably started their careers as programmers or support engineers. But if they’ve been in their C-level executive jobs for very long, they probably won’t be able to relate to UML diagrams or engineering charts.

On the other hand, if your product targets development managers or other technical stakeholders, these types of technical artifacts might be just about perfect. Especially if those are the types of things they deal with every day.

I wrote some promo copy a few years back targetted directly at enterprise software architects. I used some UML-specific terminology along with Java code snippets. The reason it worked so well is because I knew the prospects. They live, eat, and breathe that stuff. When they saw the same things in my promo article, they could immediately relate.

It All Goes Back To Your Target Audience

In B2B software marketing, the audience you’re writing to is king. You have to keep in mind at all times who your prospect is and what their problems are. What do they spend most of their 8+ hour days thinking about? What do they worry about? What keeps them up at night?

Find out what that big concern of their is. Then position your software as the answer they’ve been looking for. And give them just enough high-tech marketing content to pique their interest.

Software copywriting isn’t easy. You need to find just the right mix of promotional language mixed with technical terminology. But if you’ve done your job right, they’ll have enough interest to give you the response you want: to indentify themselves as an interested prospect who wants more information about your product.

Tags: B2B Copywriting, High Tech Copywriting, Software Copywriting

If your product or service is…

• Highly Technical
• Relatively New
• Relatively Expensive
• Any or All of the Above

…then you need Eric Lynch to write your promotional materials and marketing communications.

Eric has the unique ability to connect your message both to business managers as well as technical prospects in a way that gets your most-wanted-response.

Meet Eric Lynch

Finding a copywriter that can connect well with corporate decision makers is a challenge.

Finding one that can talk the language of technology is even harder. But finding one who can do both?

Darn near impossible.

Until now.

Eric has marketed everything from computer software to complex nutraceuticals to financial technical analysis books. But that’s not all. He also holds some of the most sought-after technical certifications in the high-tech field.

That’s why his copywriting pays huge dividends for you. He knows how to tap into the core buying emotions of both the business and the technical buyer…because he’s been one!

To find out more about Eric and his background, check out his bio page. Or if you’d like to see if he’s available for your next project, contact him now.

Tags: B2B Copywriting