Content That Sets a Standard

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

 

 

Absolute perfection!  (That was my first thought upon reading this Patek Phillippe ad in a special issue of Forbes:

 At Patek Phillipe, when we make a watch, however hard we work, we can only go at one  speed. One that ensures we adhere to the high standards for which we are respected. 

We understand that some people express frustration at this. They want to us to go  faster. But at our family-owned watch company, fast is the enemy.  Because to accelerate the time it takes to make a watch, we would have had to cut corners  and lower our quality.

 And then the watch might be a very good timepiece.  But it would not be a Patek Phillipe and would not merit the Patek Phillipe seal.

Thierry Stern, President

Notice how the president of Patek Phillipe never puts down competitors, in fact never even mentions other watchmakers. For that reason, he comes across as a leader, not a follower.

In content marketing, we teach, negatives against competitors are a basic no-no. Sure, in writing for business, we want to clarify the ways we stand out from the competition.  But, to get the point across that readers should want to choose your business or practice, or your products and services over those offered by the competition, it’s best to emphasize the positive.

An alternate approach to mentioning the competition in content marketing includes acknowledges that there may be alternative approaches to reader’s problem or need, then offering evidence backing up your own viewpoint.

A point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions is that you’ve got to have an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, content, to be effective, can’t be just compilations of other people’s stuff, making that be your entire blog presence. Yes, aggregation may make your site the “go-to” destination for information on  your subject. The bottom line, though, is that Thierry Stern understands the power of thought leadership, of staying true to the care values on which your business or practice was founded.

Sure, your competitors’ products and services may be very good products and services, but they wouldn’t be uniquely yours, and your content wouldn’t set a standard.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Effective Marketing Content Makes It Achievable

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

 

“To succeed with a decision-maker, the person proposing a change needs to demonstrate that the plan is achievable,” Garett Mintz writes in the Indianapolis Business Journal. If you’re in business development, you need to position yourself in a way that demonstrates you are the low-risk option, he explains – not necessarily in terms of costs, but in terms of the buyer’s time and reputation.  In “de-risking” the option you’re offering, Mintz suggests the following formula:

Proximity + Follow-through = Trust

Proximity through frequency

There’s a lot of wisdom here for online content marketers, I couldn’t help thinking. For example, in order to achieve “proximity”, Mintz says, the more time a business development professional can spend with a prospect, the more rapport and connection will be built. When it comes to online “pull marketing”, we know at Say It For You, proximity is achieved through frequency of posting new content.

The issue we find so often (and this has not changed in the seventeen years I’ve been the business of creating content) is that, even knowing that winning search and driving business to the website involves frequency of posting content, the majority of business and practice owners simply cannot spare the time – or maintain the discipline – of researching, creating and posting content frequently enough to make a substantial difference in their marketing results.

Proximity through recency

As we work with the owners of businesses or professional practices, we always stress how important it is to use the blog to provide information – especially new information – related to their field. Whatever the nature of their business or professional practice, we always advise using the blog to provide that kind of new information.

Couldn’t online searchers find more complete and authoritative sources of information, some ask?  Certainly, is my response. but readers need you to help them make sense of the information. And, the very fact that you’re posting new content frequently demonstrates that you’re maintaining “proximity” to what’s going on around you and in your profession or business area.

De-risking through content

Since, as Mintz so strongly emphasized, buyers are protective of their own time, content consisting of case studies, anecdotes, and testimonials (showing how your product or service saved valuable time) are important in building trust. In another sense, de-risking through content involves “de-bunking” of prospects’ unfounded fears and biases. By offering content in the form of “guiding principles”, you can allow prospects to move forward.

To succeed in our content marketing efforts, we need to demonstrate that the plan is achievable!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Are Errors Affecting the Effect of Your Content?

/0 Comments/in , /by

 

“Six seconds is all it takes to catch a customer’s attention upon opening up your internet portal. Imagine if in that first six seconds, the first thing she notices are the spelling errors!” the Coggno Training Company cautions. When more than a thousand London social media users were surveyed, 42% of them reported that they would not buy goods and services from a business with misspellings in their ads.

“First impressions make or break a business,” JMK MarComm stresses,” and your written content is often the first impression potential customer have of your brand.”  “Quality grammar leads to quality writing,” Bryn Greenlhalgh, states in the Marriott Student Review at Brigham Young University.

As a content marketer at Say It For You, my favorite recommendation to both business owners and the content writers they hire to bring their message to customers is this: Marketing content in social media posts and blogs can be less formal  than website content, but they should never be sloppy. Unlike your sixth grade teacher, internet searchers won’t “correct your paper”. They may very well navigate away from your blog and find somewhere else to go!

In both romance and  content,, trouble often arises in “pairs”, such as the words “affect” and effect” which I used in the title of this post  Two other pairs I find are often confused  are  “who” and “that” (“Who” always refers to a person; “that”refers to a thing.) and “between” and “among” (“between” refers to the space or difference between two things or people, while: “among” refers to the difference among three or more things or people).

Sure, there’s always spell check software and now AI-generated content, but sometimes, the best remedy for bloopers is a “day away” from creating the content, so you can “see it with a fresh eye”. 

Don’t allow errors in  your content to affect the effect it has in winning over readers!

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Aiming Content at Aspirational Appeal

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

 

“Leaders must foster empathy – a deep understanding f the customers’ needs, emotions, and aspirations,” Ali Safaraz, CEO of Pathway Group advises in Britain’s The Business Influencer  Magazine. Knowledge of those aspirations must drive your approach, he explains.

Joel Swenson, writing in the July/August issue of Success Magazine, echoes that advice when it comes to making decisions about incorporating AI. In “Choose Wisely”, Swanson says that not only is it important to decide what data will be used in the decision-making process and how results will be tested, but also to understand the “aspiration”. In other words, what will “success” look like?

“An aspirational goal imagines what could be possible for your organization if there were no limits,” hypergrowthmarketer.com explains. “Even if unmet, aspirational goals can result in incredible achievements.”

To reify is to make something abstract more concrete or real, and, as authors Chevette Alston and Lesley Chapel explain in study.com, reification can turn language abstractions into tangible understanding. One of the challenges we face as content marketers is explaining abstract concepts in the right way. In fact, doing just that makes the difference between business success and business failure.

Over the years of creating content for Say It For You clients, I’ve come to realize, while we’re writing about very real products and services, describing those, not in the abstract, but in a very real sense, we can go “further and deeper”, aiming for the aspirational, introducing possibilities for utility and wellness readers hadn’t ever considered.

What I believe content writing is really about, I explain to business and practice owners, is providing those who find your site with a taste of what it would be like to have you working alongside them to help with their challenges and issues. You want to broaden their field of vision for what can be accomplished, given the right tools and the right advice.

Content marketing can be more, much more, when content is aimed at aspirational appeal.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

“What-Just-Happened?” Content Marketing

/0 Comments/in , , /by

“Write a short story in which a person wakes up to find the world outside the front door has changed dramatically. What can they figure out in the first hour of this new situation?” Writer’s Digest contributor Amy Jones suggests to authors looking for fresh ideas.

Problem solution selling is a sales approach that aims to solve customer problems rather than just focusing on selling a product or service, Breakcold explains. “It requires a deep understanding of the customer’s pain points and challenges, and the ability to present a tailored solution that addresses those specific needs.”

While, in this Say It For You blog, we’ve often stressed how very important it is for content creators to understand the needs and concerns of the target audience, I think Amy Jones’ “What-just-happened?” approach goes a step further. When marketing a product or service that those prospects might very well have a need to use in the event of a future catastrophe or scarcity, the content marketing goal is to spur preventative action now.

Certainly, “disaster preparedness “ a set of actions before an event, can “avoid or at least lessen negative outcomes”,  but the challenge in marketing preventative tools – from back-up generators to regular HVAC checkups to long term care insurance — lies in evoking that “what-just-happened?” short story in readers’ minds.

“Agents must get customers to focus on the risks they face and the appropriate coverages, not on the price, Insurance Thought Leadership cautions.” .Without getting prospects to visualize “expensive emergency repairs and premature failures” , the advice given by an HVAC company to its prospects packs minimum power.

As content writers, we cannot position ourselves (or our clients) within the marketplace without studying the surroundings for our target audience. And, for content pieces to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements to let readers know who’s asking for the action. That “action”, however, is unlikely to take place until and unless prospects are able to visualize that “what-just-happened?” scenario.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail