Archive for Writing
May 21 st
Once upon a time in B2B marketing
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Is it just me or is most marketing content for B2B pretty dry? So much of our content says, “This is our software. It enables you to do this, so that you can do that.”
I’ve been thinking about the “dry and boring” problem for a long time. Longer than I’ve been a marcom writer and even going way back to the days when I was a marcom consumer, as an IT Director. I just keep thinking there has to be a better way.
The emergence of social media has helped changed the face of B2B marketing, an improvement in my opinion. It has a way of personalizing the relationship between vendor and customer. But something still seems to be missing. So, what if we could market using more storytelling?
Don’t you love a good story? Isn’t it more fun to listen to someone tell of an event and make the story come to life? Case studies are the closest we come to incorporating stories into our marketing content and I think even these could be improved. What I’m talking about is taking case studies and other marketing content to higher levels of storytelling. I’m talking more about creative non-fiction.
Creative non-fiction takes something that is true and writes it in a way that touches our senses. It creates a visual image and stirs up emotions using dramatic openings, realistic details, and expressive dialogue. These are just three ways to make a dry story compelling.
Dramatic openings – Capture your readers from the start. Use visual and exciting openings to compel them to read further.
Old: “Company ABC was spending 8 hours backing up their servers and when backups were running, everyone else had to be off the system.”
New: “The ringing phone interrupted the silence in the data room. On the other end was the CEO, hot that he was locked out of the system as he tried to get some last minute information for the board meeting in 30 minutes.”
Realistic details - Help the story come alive by providing details that touch the one or more of the five senses with detailed descriptions of the scene.
Old: “The vendor held a kickoff meeting to get everyone familiar with the project plan.”
New: “The blue dry marker squeaked across the white board as Joe, the project manager, highlighted the details of the project plan to the VP of Marketing, IT Director, and the project team.”
Expressive dialogue - I find customer quotes within case studies to be quite helpful. They offer a change in voice from the writer to the customer. However, most quotes end with the words “says” or states” such as “states Mr. Smith” which are really expressionless. What if we used more expressive dialogue tags?
Old: “We achieved a 50% improvement on our processing time,” says Mr. Smith, Operations Manager.
New: “We achieved a 50% improvement in our processing time,” the Operations Manager Mr. Smith boasted with a smile.
These are just a few tricks taken from the creative non-fiction world and I’m no fiction author. I’m sure every one of you could come up with even better examples.
It still may be a stretch to incorporate this style into our traditional marketing content and I’m probably treading on new ground here, but I throw it out there as a new, more personal direction for B2B marketing. What do you think?
November 20 th
Am I Making Myself Clear?
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Last Tuesday was the second week of my five week class on Writing White Papers at the local community college. These adult students are working toward a certification in Technical Communication and come from a variety of backgrounds.
After three hours of fully explaining what a white paper is, what purpose it serves, who’s the likely reader, and how it fits into the sales cycle, each student was to come to the second class with a product chosen as the basis for a white paper they are to write.
As we discussed the products they chose, it appears they didn’t quite grasp the message I was teaching and had chosen products for which it would be unlikely for a prospect to read a white paper about.
“I covered that well. Why did they not get it?” I thought. I spent the next day trying to understand how I my teaching message could have been more effective.
The conclusion I came to is all about adjusting the message to meet the person where they are at. These students did not have the business experience I have and didn’t understand B2B product marketing and sales—not even at a basic level.
That got me thinking about how much or how little time we spend understanding where our marcom readers (prospects and customers) are at. Have we done enough research to know the level of knowledge and experience our readers have? Are we imposing or assuming our own knowledge?
Everyone interprets what they see and hear through their own life filters – and though they may be similar, they are not the same as our own filters.
Do you create personas or profiles of your ideal reader? And then do you make sure you write appropriately?
November 18 th
Hire Me!
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I saw a blurb on the news this morning about a mortgage banker wearing a sandwich board sign that said, “Hire me!” He was standing on a NYC street corner wearing a suit and tie holding an envelope of resumes. Certainly proactive and I suppose it is more attention getting than sending out a blast mailing, but there’s one big problem.
ME!
As marketers we know but it’s all too easy to forget, it’s not about you (or the company you’re writing for)! It’s about your reader, your prospect, your customer, and in this case, the prospective employer.
Marcom writers produce a ton of content. It’s easy to fall back into our comfort zone and pump out piece after piece. We find ways to communicate messages that work. We promote products and services. And, if we’re hired by the company we’re promoting, it’s natural to want to promote the company too.
I’m not going to give you a lecture on the importance of benefits over features. You’ve all heard that before. What I will remind you to do is to watch your point of view. Stand back and step into your reader’s shoes. Ask yourself, “Why should I care?”
If you can’t answer that, go back and try again.
As for the guy on the NY street corner, he’d have better luck not only targeting his “campaign” but also addressing what he can do for you.
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