Content Marketing | Content for Biz Inc.

Fun Friday – Let the Games Begin

It’s Friday, and Opening Day in Chicago. Let the games and fun begin. Speaking of baseball, Paid Content recently published a list of top online earners and among them was Major League Baseball (Ranked No. 24).

Games are huge sellers online. Major League Baseball Advanced Media charges between $99.99 and $119.99 a year to watch live games online. According to Paid Content, more than 250 million live streams were served during the 2010 season alone. They also sell draft kits for $19.95, providing fans with a statistical tool to help them prepare and conduct fantasy drafts.

Why must all the fun be reserved for B-to-C? Why not a construction demolition game? A load and carry game? A food-focused game for restaurateurs? Can it be any crazier than the Angry Birds, the No. 1 App for smart phones?

For two industries that are having a hard time attracting young people to the profession, a game might be just what the doctor ordered to engage customers and prospects online.

B2B Video Advantage

Content is more than words on a screen. In a recent collaboration with MicroShare Intl., an Internet marketing firm, a copy writing project quickly transformed into a new video product describing the company’s offerings. The client’s initial page was text heavy. We replaced the text blocks with graphic links so the reader could select the text by topic. The newly formatted text is concise and client-focused.

The company president, Barry Schimmel, made a simple video series using the text as a script. In this way he personalized the message and delivered it directly to his potential clients. Such is the power of video. When three video testimonials were added to the bottom of the page, a new video sales letter product was born. They are using it as an entry product for their more extensive services. Here are some video tips Barry shared.

Don’t make it all about you.
Try to teach something related to your product or service.
Stay personal and project your passion for problem solving.
Talk directly to your potential clients. Be authentic.
Keep it simple. Try to keep the length of the video between one and three minutes.
Tell a story.

People love stories. Think of the fairy tales you liked as a kid. In the beginning something happens to a character, creating a need or desire. In the middle, while the character is pursuing his need he faces an obstacle which causes a struggle to ensue. In the end, the character is transformed. A resolution occurs.

Today, the best businesses engage and educate by integrating all sorts of content including text, video, graphics, photos, and sound. Don’t limit your choices. Use them wisely and selectively.

Fun Friday –Two Puffy Words You Want to Avoid

You know them. You see them all the time. They are puffy words used to describe a company, product or service that are typically unsubstantiated and overused.

When trying to establish trust with an audience, words such as “unique,” and “leading,” work against you. Try replacing these words with facts and supporting documentation.

1) Unique

To be unique is to be one of a kind. By definition, you can’t be very unique. You either are or you’re not.

Global Thermoelectric is the world’s largest supplier of thermoelectric generators and remote power systems and a very unique manufacturing operation.

The sentence below effectively uses “one-of-a-kind” rather than unique, and offers detail of interest to the reader.

Read Sharp’s history of making one-of-a-kind products based on founder Tokuji Hayakawa’s dream to “Make products that other companies want to imitate.”

2) Leading

To be leading you need to be ahead of the competition. In the sentence below, you are left to wonder what they lead in. There are no facts to back up the statement.

The leading manufacturer of revolving door technology, Crane’s passion for quality, precision and innovative design makes the company’s products a favorite among architects, specifiers, interior designers and others in the commercial building trades.

The following sentence establishes leadership with fact-based information.

For the fifth consecutive year, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE) announced that Pella Corporation has earned an ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year 2011 award for their commitment to manufacturing energy-efficient products and educating consumers about them.

What other “Puff” words would you like to see used less often?

Green Beer and WordPress Go Down Easy

I love this day. I love green beer, eating corned beef and cabbage, and celebrating my Irish heritage. It’s also the perfect day to showcase the new website I created for my friends at Chicago-based Shamrock Tuckpointing. I recently helped Owner John Gallagher overhaul the Shamrock Tuckpointing website using the WordPress theme WP Remix. I love the idea of WordPress for creating great websites, not just blogs. I hope we can finally say goodbye to stagnant, static websites. My Mom might not be able to update this site, but just about anyone else could do it.

When it comes to Internet marketing, Gallagher is like a lot of small contractors – he didn’t know where to begin. He understood that potential customers search the Internet and not the Yellow Pages. And he knew that a website lacking in style, substance and visibility was causing him to missing an opportunity. However, he was lacking a solution that fit his budget.

A few months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to help John beyond providing content. But after learning how WordPress can work as a website, I knew I could do more. Too often web designers complete the design, only to be held at a standstill because the client doesn’t have content. Waiting in the wings are search engine specialists who want to be paid handsomely for getting that page to the top of the Google rankings. It’s all too overwhelming and expensive for a small contractor who is busy estimating jobs, hiring workers, repairing chimneys and inspecting job sites.

With WordPress it’s easy for content to be the driving force for design, and the two can work together seamlessly. With elaborate paid themes available, an array of Plug-ins, SEO options and free analytic tools, you can have a very dynamic website up and running very quickly and economically. I’m not a webmaster by any stretch of the imagination, but I was able to get this site completed in a matter of weeks.

I wish I could show you the “before”… but you can see the “after” at www.shamrocktuckpointing.com.

Could WordPress be a solution for you?

Four Reasons Why No One Wants to Use Your 800 Number

Marketers spend countless hours coming up with strategies to engage customers and prospects through content marketing. Yet, too often, when customers are trying to engage with a company, such as when they have a question or problem, we make it difficult. We relegate the answers to an 800 number, when we could be providing the information online. Here’s why 800 numbers are a turn-off:

1) The automated voice mail. If there’s a better way to make your customers feel like they are not important, let me know. When is the last time you heard a message that was engaging on an 800 line. “Listen carefully, we have changed our selections” is typically followed by an endless array of options, not one of which involves a human being. Companies may as well just scream, “We don’t want to talk to you!”

2) The wait is too long. I recently spent 10 or 15 minutes waiting to ask a question of GoDaddy.com. Another interaction with Lenovo took more than 30 minutes to resolve. And while you wait, you have to listen to annoying music, or sales messages.

3) People who can’t solve their problems. When you finally do reach a human, it never seems to be the person who can solve your problem. By the time you have been transferred to the right person, you have explained the problem at least three different times to three different people.

4) There’s usually no record of your conversation. Unless you count the confirmation number you scribbled on a scrap of paper. After a phone transaction, I am often left wondering if anything really will be accomplished.

Is it any wonder that your customers would look online for the answers to their problems? Studies show an increasing preference for online interaction.

Does your website content address your customer’s questions? Do you have an area for frequently asked questions? Can a customer chat with an operator online? Can they access a customer portal to see their account information?

Many b-to-b marketers fail to answer common questions online because they want people to call them. But will they?

What’s your strategy?