Heading Up North with Steve Wozniak

One of the best parts of summer is spending time at our Lake Huron cabin, in the Northeastern part of Michigan.

We Michiganders refer to this as “Going Up North” and most weekends you’ll find me, the banjo, Ethel the dog, and any other family members who can spare the time heading North on I-75 to our little slice of heaven.

Most of those road trips are spent listening to an audio book, usually whatever one strikes my fancy at our local library. 

I’ve been on an autobiography kick the last year or so, and just finished listening to iWoz, Apple Founder Steve Wozniak’s engaging biography from 2006.

iWoz is an engaging look into the mind of a technical, naturally curious and enthusiastic mix of artist and engineer who played an integral role in one of the great revolutions of our time.

There’s a lot about the electronic engineering behind those early Apple Is and Apple IIs, entire sections devoted to schematics and documentation of chips, CPUs, microprocessors and command language. 

(I must admit, I skipped a few of these sections, especially while driving over the Zilwaukee Bridge.)

Key Takeways

Yet the book has a lot to offer in terms of key lessons learned in life and business. Here are a few of the main lessons:

1. If you’re not having fun in life or work, do something else.
2. Love what you do.
3. Be loyal, but be smart.
4. Don’t take others too seriously.
5. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

A quote from the book that illustrates some of these lessons - 

“I hope you're as lucky as I am. The world needs inventors--great ones. You can be one. If you love what you do and are willing to do what it really takes, it's within your reach. And it'll be worth every minute you spend alone at night, thinking and thinking about what it is you want to design or build. It'll be worth it, I promise.”
― Steve Wozniak, iWoz

Bigger Ideas

In all, the book offers more than a marketing or business “how I did it” perspective, and shares ideas that are bigger than engineering, Apple, personal computers, technology, and entrepreneurship…a good read, if you haven’t discovered it already. 

Targeted Messaging: An Important Reminder Thanks to LinkedIn Answers

Noodling around on LinkedIn Answers the other week served as a great reminder as to the power of targeted b-to-b messaging. 

That means shaping strategic messages to each relevant audience segment, then issuing those messages in a timely fashion. 

As you’ll see via the LinkedIn Answers thread, it’s a powerful approach when issuing press releases.

Quick Aside

Haven’t explored LinkedIn Answers?   It’s a great way to spend 10 minutes or so each week, checking out  current thoughts and concerns from those in your professional area – try it!  Chances are, topics address professional topics of interest to you…

Back to Targeted Messages

In the thread that inspired this post, a fellow marketer posted this question: “Our company recently announced several promotions. Would you issue one all-encompassing news release or several individual releases?”

As of today, 11 answers all provide great value and insight into this issue.  Yours truly provided this answer:

"Customize each separate announcement for the three geo regions for sure - but there is a role for an aggregated announcement targeted to the industry target. For example, if your client is in the financial services sector, the aggregated announcement signals growth and expansion in the sector, which would be of interest to trade publications/online outlets in financial services."

In other words, shape the press release to resonate with target audiences, then do the work to build out media targets in each relevant sector.

Some Great Insight

Another answer provided by Ellyn Caruso, Founder & Principal of Chicago-based Caruso Communications LLC, puts it this way:

“..integrating company promotions across multiple communication channels (lets you) reach a wider group of audiences - remembering of course to always keep the audience in mind when delivering such information. Often today many companies only post promotions on their website and/or deliver to local news ... Think about the social networks, industry groups and list serves as well as deep into trade and business media developing appropriate angles to provide as much depth and detail that can help increase overall visibility of the company in general.”

Great advice, Ellyn!  The key is to maximize visibility and awareness for our clients by spending the time to shape announcements to targeted audiences, then doing the leg work in discovering the social networks, industry communities and targeted outlets where they would be of value.

A To Do for Next Week

I’m taking this lesson to heart.  Next week, I’m distributing a press release for a Private Equity company that recently invested in three businesses in various sectors (real estate, technology, manufacturing).   

For maximum exposure, it’s a best practice to the release to each of the various sectors and distributes it to targets that way.

Thanks LinkedIn Answers! 

Beware Shovel Ware

It’s been a privilege to participate in several excellent “Writing for the Web” training programs as part of NielsenNorman Group’s Usability Week.  It was there that I first heard about the term “Shovel Ware” as applied to marketing communications content.

The term "Shovel Ware" is borrowed from software development geeks and explained well here.

In terms of marketing communications, the term “Shovel Ware” relates to marketing content and copy that is applied from one medium to another with little thought given to adapting it for use on the destination platform or medium, resulting in poor quality, and low usability – which translates to a low return on marketing investment.

Think of a printed brochure text that is cut and paste in its entirety and stuck on a web page.  Or website copy that makes it’s way into an eNewsletter or direct mail message.

Essentially one “shovels” the content from one platform to another.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

Shovel ware tactics are economical, but certainly not a best practice. In the example above, writing for the web comes with its own set of guidelines and strategies, as opposed to writing a press release or technical brochure.

From the content side, businesses often forget that web visitors are impatient and on their own “missions” – searching, snacking for info from a variety of sources…. they don’t want to wade through cutsie copy or scads of content better suited to other formats.

It makes no business sense to plug in long-form printed copy on a website, as research findings show: “On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.”

Much in the same vein, the researchers find the following in this NNGroup report Writing Style for Web vs. Print.

“Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission. In many cases, they’ve pulled up the page through search. Web users want actionable content; they don’t want to fritter away their time on (otherwise enjoyable) stories that are tangential to their current goals…”

Back to Shovel Ware

The NNG researchers are at it again, with a report that cuts across repurposing marketing content, design and user interface approaches.

Indisputable research shows that taking the time to rewrite (and redesign) for each platform improves better business outcomes for b-to-b organizations including:

• Usability increases.
• Users are more likely to accomplish their goals.
• Conversion rates increase.
• ROMI improves.

As in Your Career, as in Your Marketing Programs: Consistency is Key

Often in business to business marketing one will hear a discussion about a “Big Idea’ for a marketing program, and you would know (as a regular reader of this blog) that of course I would offer up an opinion.

Big ideas are great!  They are fast, fun, engaging, and potentially deliver a big return on marketing investment. 

While it is great to have a “Big Idea” that cuts above the b-to-b marketing clutter, what is even more important is a consistent (maybe some would say traditional) and “back to basics” marketing program made up of:

• compelling, “prospect oriented” marketing material
• a clear business brand
• a clear understanding of how your products/services solve your prospect’s pain
• a consistent business message that tells a story about the company, its products/services, and how they add value, what they stand for

Keyword = Consistency

Consistent efforts and elements must cut across all marketing and communications programs, otherwise a “Big Idea” isn’t going to be that big, or that valuable.

In other words, it’s boring but true:  b-to-b marketing programs must deliver consistency.  That means being consistent in all programs (website, direct marketing, social media (yes! Consistency in execution is KEY in social media) collateral, signs, etc) by focusing on the compelling business needs for target markets.

More on Consistency:

Funny enough, this article in Inc magazine about careers also hits on consistency, but more in the vein of “personal productivity” and career planning, but the lessons ring true in marketing.  

Check out point 1, if one is consistent in one’s career efforts (or in marketing efforts), we can measure effectiveness.  As the article asks, how can we measure effectiveness if what we are measuring isn't performed consistently?

A Fast Look at the Awesome Power of Google Analytics

There’s a lot to know about Google Analytics, a powerful website analytics package available for free from the Google team. 

I’m a big proponent of teaming with SEO and Web experts when it comes to managing a business to business website and setting up Google Analytics tracking.  They know the ins and outs of this powerful, ever changing web analytics technology tool. 

That said, there’s a lot of power in knowing the basics about Google Analytics.

Quick! What’s Your Average Time on Site!

Any company’s web marketing team should know right off the bat these key metrics, tracked by Google Analytics:

• most popular pages visited by your web visitors (top pages) by visitor type
• how people get to the site (referring sources)
• the number of pages visitors look at before leaving (page views)
• how long visitors stay on the site (average time on site)
• how many visitors fill out a form or download a report (conversion rate)
• percentage of visitors who land on site and jump right off (bounce rate)

This is marketing-mission critical data to monitor weekly, monthly and quarterly, to see how successful the website is in achieving marketing goals. 

The data also provides a fairly accurate picture of your visitors and helps reveal where the site performs optimally, and where there’s a breakdown that needs improvement.

A Word About Social

A big advantage of setting up Google Analytics is measuring the impact on social marketing programs.

When set up appropriately (by somebody smarter than me!), Google Analytics Advanced Segments reveal:

• which social media websites referred visitors (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc)j
• how those visitors behaved once they got to your site (in terms of number of pages viewed, time on site, whether they “converted” or filled out a form, etc.
• how social media visitors behave when compared against visitors who discovered your site through other  means (like paid search)

 There’s even the ability to measure which articles on your site are most commonly shared and which social buttons are being clicked to share them (for example, a Facebook Like).

Looking Deeper

We’re just skimming the surface here.

For a recent Google Analytics “primer” see this post from some well-respected folks I follow on Twitter.

While not as comprehensive, check out this previous BtoB Blog post showing how Google Analytics can be used to measure web effectiveness and ROI.

The Best Strategy is the One You Don't Understand.

My 16 year old son shared this humorous video with me, because he knows what I do in my work life.

Years ago when our boys asked me what I did for my job, I told them "Mom slings baloney for a living" which isn't really true, but sometimes the content one develops for high tech clients (press releases, brochures, ads, web copy, direct mail) sounds a lot like the gibberish these folks spew out in this hilarious "College Humor" video.

It's worth a view!

We've covered this topic before over here at the BtoB Blog. Reminds me of the Bulls***t generator described in this post…


Watch for a particularly inspired section when these five-hour energy drink infused hipsters talk about fostering "alpha-based b-to=b consumers, radical transparencies, multi-staged engagement with absolutely NO brand-cuffs.”

(Wouldn't you want to get hired over at Elephant Dungeon Enterprises!!! It wouldn't be a long engagement, though. Each start-up mentioned in this video didn’t last for more than 10 minutes. Hee hee.)

Enter (Again) the Case Study

After a few decades in the marketing communications racket, a person can learn a thing or two.

What’s amazing about the experience is no matter the sector – whether technology, professional services, financial services, manufacturing, or nonprofits – the issues many b-to-b marketing programs face are the same.

One commonality is the challenge of developing sales and marketing content that speaks a prospect’s language.  This topic has been addressed numerous times in this blog.  

Many businesses need to spend time assessing what their customers or prospects want out of their service or products.

That way, a company’s web content, social media content, sales collateral and other materials can address head on how their product or service solves their unique problems.

Look at it this way:  a prospect doesn’t want to suffer through an executive's view of “strategic content” that showcases service or product features. They want to know how a firm’s products or services deliver value to help solve real business problems. 

The Case for Case Studies

Marketing studies show that B2B marketing and sales professionals rank case studies as top marketing content in lead generation and lead nurturing effectiveness.

Case studies are powerful because they put a laser focus on the business benefit achieved by the user of a product or service.

More than any other type of marketing collateral, real case studies showcasing a real customer and real business benefits deliver value to any prospect. The “user perspective” content (think “testimonials”) fuels all marketing programs including:

• Direct mail offers
• Social media content
• Blog posts
• Website copy
• Webcasts
• Speaking presentations, industry trade associations
• Award nominations

Nothing New, Just Forgotten

I started out my career in marketing communications many moons ago simply writing “user case studies” for tech clients, so this is nothing new. It takes time and effort, for sure. 

What’s new to me is how so many b-to-b brands get off track and forget this simple truth: folks want to hear about “what’s in it for me” and a case study is a fast way to get them to listen.