Content Remains King: 5 Tips to Reign Supreme

Many moons ago, the media mogul Sumner Redstone coined the phrase "content is king." 

Redstone uttered this now-famous phrase because with the proliferation of broadcasting, movies and other media outlets, he knew content was more important than distribution mechanisms. There would always exist channels of distribution (albeit in varied forms), but content was always going to be necessary.

Still True Today

Redstone's proclamation “Content is King”  was never more true than in today's online marketing world.

In business to business marketing, relevant content of value to prospects feeds Internet marketing, blog posts, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, direct marketing, public relations, and other online channels.

Proof Positive

Here’s proof that content remains king: According to Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report-SEO Edition, “content creation works the best, but takes the most work.”

Another data point:  A recent study by TechValidate shows content marketing is a central tactic in the modern B2B marketers’ toolkit for generating demand. 90% of respondents reported a significant slice of their marketing budget is devoted to producing content.

Tips to Reign Supreme

If effective content fuels business to business marketing, and helps with SEO, web traffic, lead generation and other key metrics, what’s the best way to consistently churn out compelling website copy, blog posts, guest blog posts, whitepapers, press releases and more?

Here are 5 tips to “reign supreme” with your marketing content:

1) Let the customer speak:    Develop marketing content that answers the question “what’s in it for the prospect?”   Avoid “we we” text, and content that talks only about the company. Keep front and center the needs, wants, and problems of prospects for content that offers specific value.  Take a close look at your products/services, discover what motivates the customer and prospect, and write about that.

Read further as to the importance of discovering what to write about, not dictating.

2) Match the content to the audience:   Folks who have just discovered your product or service likely do not want lengthy and detailed technical white papers.  They are simply looking for high-level information to orient themselves to your offering.  Be sure content addresses those folks early in the sales cycle.  Likewise, develop and offer more detailed content for those later in the cycle, who seek specifications and other details to see if your product or service is a good fit. 

It’s all about being strategic in content delivery, addressed in a previous post.

3) Recycle and repurpose:  My colleagues and I at Market Strategies and PR claim to be the “greenest marketers around” in that we recycle content in a myriad of ways. A customer case study or analyst research paper is transformed into a press release, a blog post, a Tweet, a direct marketing offer, and web copy.  Be resourceful, seek out nuggets of information and recycle it to fuel their content machine.

4) Be concise:  A recent blog post addressed this same issue. 

People don't read.  They scan. 

In the spirit of brevity, I'll keep this tip short. Remember that with marketing content, “less is more.”  And by all means, avoid buzzwords and marketing speak!

5) Tell a story:  Stories are easy to remember.  Instead of an assortment of facts, technical specs or other dry content, help your prospects gain value by telling a compelling story. A story provides a lesson. Business storytelling is no different. The trick is to take the time to create a meaningful story of value.   


(PRWeb post about generating compelling press releases puts it this way: "As content creators, we are storytellers." )


Go Forth - May Your Content Reigneth Supreme! 

Brevity: The Soul of Business Writing?

There is a compelling case for concise business writing.

Whether it’s Twitter (where one is forced to be succinct at 140 characters),  the annual composing and sending of trillions of cryptic text messages, or the advent of the “one sentence press release” -- folks are losing patience with  the blah blah blah...

Even email messages of over 50 words or so cause a recipient’s eyes to glaze over.

Blast from the Past

My fellow Liberal Arts majors might recall Strunk’s “Elements of Style"-- 

Dating from 1918, William Strunk puts it like this:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.—   William Strunk Jr.
 in Elements of Style

No Value in Verbosity

Even in the face of these wise words, and the exponential growth of Twitter, business writing is still as long-winded and verbose as ever.

Everybody loses with verbosity.  Messages are lost.  Readers lose meaning. Marketers lose audiences.  


Business communicators, and certainly marketers, must cultivate the art of being concise.

Going Mobile

It’s likely that patience with overly wordy text will continue to diminish.

A recent study by Norman/Nielsen group reveals that impatience with overly-long business messaging is growing with the rise in use of mobile devices and tablets.

“Mobile users are in a hurry and get visibly angry at verbose messages that waste their time. Also, it's twice as hard to understand content on small mobile devices as it is on bigger desktop screens, making wordy content even more despised.”

It is hard work to shape complex ideas and condense them down to clear insights. It’s much easier to ramble, relying on filler text and meaningless words.

I grapple with these same issues myself when developing marketing content for clients.

5 Keys to Being Concise

In the spirit of the New Year, here’s a simple check-list for more pithy and concise communication:

1) Write. Rest. Return.  Write your text.  Let it rest overnight. Review with a fresh eye and start cutting .  And I mean chop! Someone once said (it might have been me) that a final draft should lose 40% of content from the first draft.  (I try to take this approach with client work as much as possible.  Will resolve to do better in 2012!)

2) A picture is worth 1000 words. Let images, charts and graphics tell the story in business writing as much as possible. 

3) Stay active. Avoid passive voice when writing.  Stick to active voice for a more immediate impact.

4) Keep it simple. Strive for simplicity and clarity. Make every word count. 

5) Forget the fluff.  Avoid over-used and cliché ridden terms. Marketing-speak buzzwords do not help with meaning. 

I’m tempted to say more, but won’t since after all, this post isn't that concise, is it?! 

Let us go forth and be brief!

LinkedIn 101: Three Tips to Get You Started

For such a Twitter fanatic, it’s interesting to consider that I’ve been active in LinkedIn longer than other social media platforms. 

But it has only been in the last few months that I’ve witnessed the awesome power one can garner from into this business-oriented social networking site.

LinkedIn Usage

A recent report by www.btobonline.com found that 93% of business-to-business marketers are engaged in social media marketing. Twenty-six percent of the survey’s respondents cited LinkedIn as their most important social channel  See research here.  

LinkedIn usage facts of note: 

•                LinkedIn has more than 60 million members

•                A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second

•                Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members

Given this growing enthusiasm,  how does one get started with LinkedIn? Here are three easy steps to begin, and make the most out of LinkedIn.

1) Build a Profile with Punch.   Join LinkedIn for free and start with your professional profile.  Be as complete as you can with professional history, education, a professional headshot and references. Remember, for those in the LinkedIn community, or even those who are not in LinkedIn and view your public profile, the profile page is the main content they will see. Make it count with relevant URLs, keywords, and by all means, keep it current over time.

2) Build Your Network of Connections.  Reach out to past colleagues, clients, industry associates by searching for them under “people” in the search box.  Chances are, they already use LinkedIn.  Ask to “connect” with them to build a relevant LinkedIn network. Ask those who truly know you, your company and its products or services, to write recommendations for you. These references, once you approved them, will appear in your profile.  As you attend conferences, remember to ask for LinkedIn connections to keep building your network.

3) Tread Carefully with Status Updates. Actively updating your LinkedIn status signals that you stay current and active in your field.  Yet beware! Status updates should offer relevant, professional content or link to industry-related content. LinkedIn isn’t a personal blogging platform.  It is a professional social network. Appropriate updates might include links to your professional blog, your website, industry events, articles by other thought leaders in your industry. Remember, don’t post too often.  In my mind, it’s a big no-no to post every Tweet as a LinkedIn update.  Don’t do it!  Multiple Tweets posted throughout the day look like spam on a LinkedIn page.   You will quickly lose you favor with your connections when you clog up their status update page.  (This is a rant, but hear me out: Tweets belong on Twitter.  Professional updates belong on LinkedIn.) 

Ramp Up Existing Activity

Have you been a member of LinkedIn for a few years now?  Why not try the following in 2012?

• Make time to join groups, follow companies of interest, post in discussion forums, and other activity.
• Keep track of third-party applications to help monitor activity, create content, engage with relevant connections, and build your network.  Box.net, Slideshare, and TripIt are only a few to consider.
• Monitor LinkedIn new features. As an example, LinkedIn Events now provides users with event recommendations of interest based on profile information such as location, industry, and those in a network.

Parting Thoughts

LinkedIn offers tremendous power to those in marketing, or any business. 

Ignore at your own peril!

5 Reasons Business-to-Business Organizations Should Blog

I am not an early adopter of blogging.

There, I said it. In fact, a few years back, I was fairly hostile about the idea.  Who cares what somebody says in his or her blog?  It amounts to a lot of blah-blah-blah-ging, I would snidely guffaw at any opportunity.  This t-shirt posted to the left made its way to a few colleagues as a way to illustrate the point.

I stand corrected.

In business-to-business marketing,  blogging has emerged as a powerful tool.

Yet many businesses don’t fully comprehend the critical importance of a blog. 

Key Considerations

Should YOU start a blog for your business, Mr. or Ms. Business Owner?  You should if you answer “yes” to the following questions:

---  Do you sell a product or a service?   

---  Are you an expert in your field?  Do you possess insight, tips, and knowledge about your field you wish to showcase to prospects and the larger community?

---- Do your prospects use the Internet?   (According to experts, 80% of b-to-b prospects’ questions are answered before interacting with sales.  That means prospects are hungry for online content about you, your brand, your product or service.  They are LOOKING for content to learn more about what you offer, before they even connect with you!)  

So Why Blog?

After one full year and over 40 posts for my own B2B blog post, and dozens of blog posts created on behalf of clients, here are five reasons business-to-business orgs should blog.

1)    Reinforces Thought Leadership.  A blog illustrate your expertise and leadership in your field.  Short, concise content providing tips, lessons learned and other insight  serves as an excellent way to build your brand.

2)     Communicates Value Proposition.   By sharing your expertise in your blog about timely issues related to your business, those related to your industry gain true value.  You’re essentially “giving away” your expertise. This works to build trust and good will.  A blog entices folks to seek your service/product, or engage with you to further the dialogue.

3)    Fuels Social Media Programs. A blog fuels social media like Twitter and LinkedIn, since content from a blog post makes a great Tweet or update on LinkedIn.  Your followers and connections will perceive you as an active expert, engaging in dialogue about relevant issues.

4)     Enables Engagement.   A blog lets you connect with clients, prospects, industry thought leaders, colleagues, media, partners and others in your community.  It has been an educational process for me – I’m always surprised when a colleague or associate mentions a B2B Blog post they’ve read.  This same experience has taken place with my clients. While posts might receive a lot of comments, Google Analytics data shows that web and blog traffic increases any time new content is posted.

5)    Expands Business Development. A blog helps expand business development efforts. As an example, from an SEO perspective alone, blogging is a smart way to go. You want people to find you up high on a search result. Google puts a priority on finding new and updated content. Sites with more frequent updates get more priority. Blogging with a regular cadence means there is fresh content on your site. If a blog post has a call to action (download a paper, sign up for a webinar), this fuels business develop and lead nurturing even more.

Can’t get enough B2B Blog posts about blogging?  See related post: 5 Lessons Learned from Blogging)    --- And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for Tweets about Tweeting!  

Reminder: Discover, Don’t Dictate

A tip of the B-to-B Blog hat to the folks at www.marketingexperiments.com.

Those wise folks recently published a blog post which reminded marketers to “Discover, Don’t Dictate” and it struck a chord.

The post is entitled "Customer Value: 4 Tips for Crafting Segmented Value Propositions". In a nutshell, the author reminds the b-to-b marketer to take the time to research and examine what exactly are the top appeals (or value propositions) each market segment has for a product or service. This discovery process helps fuel all marketing messaging.

What Motivates the Prospect?

It’s critical when developing marketing communications, or any business-to-business communications, to take a market-centric approach to what’s relevant, appealing to each prospect segment, and finding their pain-points.  

Before a website is written, before a direct email is created, before a product brochure is printed, it is critical to take the time to discover and truly ascertain what a product or service truly means to prospects.

All About You - or All About Your Customer?

Instead of stressing all about the product, via all that “we we” text, as described in a previous B-to-B Blog post, the focus should instead be on the tried and true “What’s in it for me” approach to marketing content. 

Those key messages, value propositions, will then have a better chance of motivating the prospect.

The “Discover, Don’t Dictate” blog post makes some great points:

•    Multiple groups/audience segments care about different aspects of a product or service – does the marketing message take this into account?
• It is of tremendous value to be consistent in conducting detective work to uncover what aspects are truly relevant and appealing.  Don’t just conduct a market research project once, then make the assumption the findings stay the same over the years.
• One of the most powerful way to discover the market perception is to survey current customers.  It’s powerful stuff to figure out what features/benefits resonate with current customers, what makes them convinced to stay with you, sign up with you, buy from you, etc.
• Another high-impact way to “discover” the market need is to survey non-customers.  Go to relevant trade shows, networking events and other appropriate gatherings to conduct an informal survey.  Have attendees heard of your product or service? How do they react to your offerings and general industry offerings?

A Powerful Reminder

As mentioned above, this topic has been covered in this blog and other places, but these reminders are always quite helpful.  

It is easy to dictate what we as marketers might assume/think motivates a prospect.  It is more compelling and effective to discover that information directly from prospects, and use that knowledge to create high-impact marketing communications.  

Buzzwords and the Bull***t Generator

The buzzwords are getting to me.  Previous B-to-B Blog posts have addressed this same topic, but lately I’ve got buzzword fatigue.

In meetings, I’m hearing phrases like: “Dial it back”, “Let's get on the same page”,  “Let’s table this”, “Circle back”, “leverage”, “disconnect”, “synergize”. Are these words supposed to streamline communication and boost work camaraderie?

They seem to be having the absolute opposite affect.

Much of marketing-speak is the same way. Why make it difficult for prospects?  Why put a high falutin name to a product to make it so much more complicated then it is, which only serves to confuse?

Example:  why call something a “manual scribing implement” when it is simply just a “pen”? 

Please Hold the Fluff

A fast look at high-tech marketing materials reveal a plethora of meaningless marketing words including:

• Leverage
• Empower
• Best-of-breed
• Functionalities
• Integration
• Mindshare
• Synergistic (ergh!)

The Bullshit Generator

Today’s exercise of wading through volumes of buzzword-laden documents reminded me of a funny website I recently stumbled upon called “The Bullshit Generator”

The online calculator randomly generates phrases like:

• streamline innovative methodologies
• enable dynamic communities
• reintermediate user-centric networks

Just hit “enter” and you’ll get gems like: “Seize mission-critical convergence” Wow!  What fun!

Less is More

Corpspeak, buzzwords, lingo and marketing-speak can drive me crazy.  It drives readers crazy, too.  Fluff adds no value.

And I’m guilty of generating these terms myself.

The trick is to make copy concise, clear, and actionable.

Keyword: Usability

I’ve been lucky enough to participate in several “Writing for the Web” workshops as part of Nielsen Norman Group Usability Week Conferences.  

When writing for the web, or in any marketing communications,  experts  remind us: that “people read very little on Web pages. They tell us “marketing communications folks not to waste word count on generic, feel-good material. It's not going to make prospects feel good anyway. They care only about getting their problems solved as quickly as possible so they can leave your site.”

Amen to that!

Enough Said

I just visited the Bullshit Generator again and it randomly spewed this phrase: deliver cross-media schemas.  There are a few clients I know who would love that phrase, but what the heck does it mean?

Please, hold the fluff!  

The Art & Science of Business Story Telling

I recently attended the 2011 International Association of Business Communicators Detroit Chapter Renaissance awards. 

Two projects for Rogier Communications clients, Leader Dogs for the Blind Media Relations and IntegriTime Hospitality Case study, received Awards of Honor and Merit.  

Two Market Strategies &PR team awards received recognition -- a business-to-business web redesign and a b-to-b marketing communications program.

A Story of Welcome

One of the joys of the evening was hearing the opening remarks from my former employer, Gerry Turgeon, founder and principal of a fantastic agency known as Turgeon Group Marketing Communications.

It struck me during Gerry’s welcome remarks the power of good story telling. 

Instead of reading from a PowerPoint slide or script, Gerry relayed from memory a moving story about the power of connections and community, whether in a personal or  work setting.  

Gerry recalled a story about a time-tested experiment from middle school science, where folks relay static electricity when joining hands.  His engaging story was an analogy reminding us that working together, connecting for a common cause, is more effective than when working alone. It was an artful and meaningful presentation from the heart.

Gerry’s remarks are memorable several weeks later because of the story.  If Gerry just read bullet points from a series of projected slides, this level of recall would not be possible.

Association of Story Tellers

All who were gathered at the IABC Detroit event are in fact story tellers, weaving their tales in the business-to-business realm.  The stories tell of the value organizations provide, whether in multi-media, website content, printed annual reports, online communications, direct marketing, advertising or other mediums.

The professional communicators gathered that evening realize, whether they work for non-profits, health care institutions, Universities, professional service firms, manufacturing companies, hi tech or other sectors, purposeful and strategic use of narrative achieves a practical outcome with an individual, a community, or an organization.

 Stories help communicate complex information. A good story helps the receiver connect, learn, participate and remember.

That’s why in software marketing, testimonials, or articles written by the customer’s point of view, carry more impact then if the vendor provides a laundry list of features and functions.

Tweet Me a Story

In b-to-b social media, it’s more effective to Tweet a story or link to a larger story, then simply push out promotional content. 

As an example, which is the more memorable and interesting Tweet?  If you were another manufacturing supplier, which 140 character Tweet entices you to click for further information?

“Finally, no more cabinets full of paper!” Supplier avoids hassle of printing 20,000 quality documents each month.

vs

Software automates documentation processes to avoid costs of printing.  

Learn more here.

The first Tweet lets prospects relate to the pains and troubles another manufacturer had with the hassles of quality control documentation.   

So What’s the Story?

It appears there is a resurgence of interest among today's business and organizations in the art of storytelling.

This is a powerful concept at a time of boundless electronic communications – online videos, social media postings, mobile messages, location-based applications, etc.

As my MSU English professor used to remind me so long ago in a writing class, show, don’t tell.