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?
February 26 th
Shape Your Customer's Future with Case Studies
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My daughter, a college senior, dropped me a text message the other day that said, “I don’t know what to do with my life. Why didn’t I major in business?”
Just so you know, she’s majoring in psychology but has always said she has no interest in becoming a psychologist. Of course, being the good parent, I supported and reassured her that she’d still be able to find a job.
Then today, while reading Stumbling on Happiness
In particular, chapter seven speaks to the impact of time on happiness. What struck me was what Gilbert said about how we predict our future feelings based on how we feel in the present.
The concept is that our predictions of the future are influenced by the present. Gilbert says, “Because time is such a slippery concept, we tend to imagine the future as the present with a twist, thus our imagined tomorrows inevitably look like slightly twisted versions of today.”
In its physical form, it’s the equivalent of going grocery shopping on an empty stomach. We’re hungry so in planning for future meals, everything sounds good! Conversely, if someone asks us what we want for dinner tomorrow, just after we’ve eaten a full meal, we can’t imagine being hungry anytime soon and are hard-pressed to come up with a suggestion.
He also makes the point that our future selves won’t see the world the way we see it now, in addition to our present selves not seeing the future accurately. So, in my daughter’s case, she can’t accurately imagine a career in business that would draw on her psychology knowledge because she only sees the world with what she knows today.
Now, think about this in a business setting. Your business customer is always looking and working toward the future. Guess what? They’re doing so within the framework of what they know today. You, as a marketer or vendor, have a different and likely broader image of what the future can be with your product, and it’s your job to shape your customer’s view.
One of the best ways to do that is with case studies, sometimes called success stories. Pay particular attention to the “story” part. Stories have a way of shaping what we think and case studies are especially helpful in this way. They remove the boundaries of our limited imagination and show us what is actually possible. They can replace preconceived notions about how your customer thinks the future may be, with what it really can be.
By the way, if you want a really good book on writing case studies, and really the ONLY book on writing case studies, get yourself a copy of Casey Hibbard’s Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset
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?
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