Trade shows attract quality audiences with one in every two attendees planning to buy during the next year. Marketers can reach these ready-to-be-influenced prospects with content.
http://storify.com/maryklest/trade-show-content-marketing-lessons
Is Your Content Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?
Some companies value their content as much as the products they sell. As a service content can explain the benefits of big data or sell soda. It works as a trade: You give me your contact information and I will let you download my content. But like a chameleon content takes on different textures and tones. At Content For Biz we provide content writing services for B2B companies. Part of our mission is to help clients think differently about content. So, rather than describe content as a commodity using the product, service, trade triad, let’s use animal, vegetable or mineral to classify it. Know what your content is before content writing begins.
Mineral Content
This is foundation content. It is the closest thing to being “written in stone” at least for the time being. It is inert, nonreactive, yet identifying. Mineral content can be a statement of fact, approach or philosophy. A mission statement, a description of your blog’s purpose, even a white paper can be considered mineral content because it is mined with a beginning and end. Each year companies should establish 3 high-impact ideas to create their content around. These are the gems – the sparkle that makes you different, effective and efficient.
Vegetable Content
This is outgrowth content. It is created to grow an audience, nurture leads, and offer a harvest of how-to’s or what ifs. Like a garden it is cyclical, changing by the season. Vegetable content may consist of blog posts, email marketing campaigns, press releases and website copywriting. This kind of content supports the marketing effort throughout the sales cycle. It is picked and easily digested by the customer. Vegetable content can make its consumer smarter, more aware and decisive.
Animal Content
This is active content. It is instinctive, perceptive and needs to be fed often. Social media is its arena, but also events, newsletters, apps or webinars. The creator of animal content knows which way the wind is blowing. A strong business sense is required to move in the right direction, on the right path. Animal content appears as a peer, not a pest. A friendly approach creates a climate where conditions favor both buyer and seller.
The identifying, outgrowth and instinctual nature of content makes it more like a river chiseling its way through a canyon than a faucet filling a glass of water. If you want to think differently about the content you publish, give us a call.
Does Your Content Travel Well Across Channels?
Think of a well-packed suitcase. The size limits its capability, but not its function. Constraints can be good especially if you need to carry your bag from place to place or when you need your content to travel well in all conditions and across channels. By that I mean gaining attention amidst the flurry of headlines, tweets, posts and images that fly past us each day. We are all confined by time and space. So my thought is to use it wisely. Like the suitcase, you need to pack your content well.
Many people won’t believe that you can pack for a weeks-long trip in a carry-on bag. But this video shows you how to do just that – pack light and right. The same holds true for your content. You can say a lot with few words in a quick channel (think twitter) when the words are chosen for a particular audience or experience.
You may find that at first the pant legs and shirt sleeves are hanging outside the bag. But with the proper fold and sequence of garments the secret to the process becomes apparent. Writers are your content packers. They know how to structure and edit content.
The next time you need to inform, educate, entice or engage an audience, hire a qualified content writer to create and spread the word. In the digital world your content can travel fast from network to network, blog post to website, or image to email. Whatever route it takes, pack it right.
Writing Content for a Startup Business
Every week we hear from people wanting content for a startup business. As an established content writing company we also work with many established companies. Often times the folks at the startups cannot answer the questions we need to ask as content writers. Here’s a heads up for those planning to use content writing services for a startup business: broad, unfocused answers are your enemy. In the scenario below I include how an established company (pro) might answer the same questions to draw a contrast. Do-it-yourselfers may benefit from this exercise as well. Here is how my line of questioning starts.
Question 1. Please tell me about your business.
STARTUP: “We want to sell new super duper peeler widgets to food services companies.”
PRO: “We are introducing a new widget that makes peeling more efficient, saving time and money for midsize foodservice companies in the USA.”
The pro knows what they sell, to whom and why someone would buy it.
Question 2: Who is your target audience, your target market?
STARTUP: “Everyone looking for peeler widgets. We don’t want to miss anyone.”
PRO: “Executive chefs in the hospitality industry with a staff of at least six people.”
The pro knows that a target market is defined and exclusive. This is what makes the potential customer identify with the brand. Anyone. Everyone. Is no one. Customer focused content makes them aware of the product and how it will benefit them.
Question 3: Why would they buy it from you? Core strengths of your company?
STARTUP: “It’s a great product and we can serve them well by getting it there on time.“
PRO: “We’ve been serving the foodservice industry for 10 years and understand our customers need durable, reasonably priced, time saving tools that make food preparation more efficient.”
Has the startup identified urgent delivery as a major problem/solution for foodservice companies interested in peeler widgets? I don’t think so.
Question 4: Who is your competition?
STARTUP: “It’s a new product so we don’t have any competition”.
PRO: “XYZ has a similar product on the market, but ours is sharper and quicker. ABC dominates overall in commercial kitchen supplies. Yet, the biggest challenge is in getting chefs to change the way they are currently doing things. We have a video demo so they can see for themselves how efficient the tool is.”
Question 5: What do you want the content to do for you?
STARTUP: “We hope it will generate leads, affirm our existence in the market, get us ranked high in Google search, and more.”
PRO: “Website content is a base for our overall content marketing strategy. It supports our brand, offers relevant information to existing and potential customers, and gives us a means to measure customer engagement.”
Content is a dilemma for the unfocused startup. They are strongly in need of content writing services to hone their message and compete. To be successful startups should know what advantageous they offer, their target audience/market, their strengths, competition, and what they want their content to do so we can write meaningful, compelling copy that meets the needs and interests of their audience.
How To Avoid “Catch Up” Content
Playing “catch up” with your content usually results in content that lacks focus, repeats what’s already been said, and engages no one. Content planning requires scheduling by time and topic. Here are some ways to avoid catch up content and produce something truly worthy of your company.
Do Your Research
Read through industry association newsletters, news sites, competitor sites, forums and blog posts. Focus on the questions being asked. In a post published on Fast Company’s Co.Exist page these questions appeared: “What happened?” “Time to pop the champagne corks, right?” “Does this mean we should just throw in the towel?” What could you do with these questions relative to your business?
Turn a statement into a question. Here is a statement from Conversation Agent: “Context is where online and offline blend.” This could springboard you into questioning, “How can context close the gap between online and offline marketing?” Answer it the way only you know how. Use your experience, product knowledge or data. Solicit answers from your subject matter experts, sales people or one of your customers. This approach is a breath of fresh air.
Time Your Content Schedule
Content follows cycles so get your wheels spinning. You are a publisher and need to schedule by time. A time example might include: daily (social media), weekly (blog posts, website copy), monthly (newsletters) or quarterly (articles, press releases).
Social media scientists Dan Zarrella discovered that timing could make a difference in response rates. On Twitter, Friday at 4pm ET is the most retweetable time. Weekends get the most attention on Facebook. Blog posts published between 9 and 10am get more comments. Emails sent early in the morning get the highest click through rate. He reminds his followers, “Talk as yourself, not about yourself.”
Organize by Topic
Content should also be organized by topic. With a list of topics or a brief outline of ideas you can avoid catch up content. I used these topics for the weeks of each month for a year.
- Content Strategy
- Social Media
- Search Engine Optimization
- Public Relations & Email Marketing
For each post I would define a strategy, answer why it was being featured, where it could be used, and how to apply it effectively.
Bruno Coelho shared with John Jantsch how he organizes his daily blog topics:
- A question worth answering
- An action worth doing
- A lesson worth learning
- An online Dreampreneur worth following
- A week worth remembering
Stay on Message & Be Original
Organizing and scheduling your topics keeps you on message and avoids that last minute rush to produce something from nothing. Harvard Business School creativity researcher Teresa Amabile found that people are less creative when under pressure. Ideas are flighty, so write them down when they come. I use the Evernote app to record ideas on the spot in a folder titled Content Ideas. This way you always have a list of ideas to work from.
When content is planned in advance, the catch up mentality doesn’t pervade causing you to produce less than what you are capable of. You are free to be original, informative and thought provoking.