Excuses, reasons, challenges, obstacles…call them what you will, they’re mosquitoes at your Content Buffet that hamper marketing efforts. Marketing managers: If you’re trying to understand content marketing, you need to follow these three sources: Marketing Charts – thought-provoking data and useful factoids served up daily Content Marketing Institute – most of what you need to [...]
Marketing managers use case studies to explain how their products are used. What kind of ideas do your case studies plant in your prospect’s mind? How does your organization use case studies? Do you realize how potent a tool they can be in your Content Buffet? [Quick factoid in case you want to be convinced: [...]
Breaking your white paper into these three parts can help you build a campaign around it. Start with your white paper outline. It was supposed to be a simple, short paper: We’re looking for 4-6 pages of copy. It’s for a lead generation campaign. It’s about our new line of wireless schmedlapps. That’s all they [...]
Good marketing communications writers nudge readers toward discomfort in the first sentence. It’s too important to waste on lousy copy. If you want people to read your content, you have to first open the door and shake them out of their e-torpor. Your opening sentences need to nudge them away from their sleepy existence, toward [...]
Give your marketing communications writers feedback they can use. The more useful your input, the shorter the turnaround. And the smoother the dance. Consider the dance of the review loop. Please. For you, the marketing manager, the review loop is usually just a speed bump on the road to getting the piece published. You build [...]
Embedding a “Retweet This” inside a PDF is a neat hack. Recent Twitter changes have affected it, though. If your Old Twitter retweet links aren’t working, here’s a solution. It’s rare that I post on the mechanics of content marketing, but I think this entry is overdue. Last year in Social Media Guide and Social [...]
What are you going to put into that white paper you’re planning? Don’t fill it with garbage or you’ll annoy your readers and lose their trust. It’s easy to confuse “we need to write a white paper” with “we need to tell more people about us.” Wise marketing managers are able to discriminate between these [...]
When it rains, it pours. Freelance writers have peaks and troughs in their workloads, just like you. There’s something about spring that prompts marketing managers in technology companies to generate as much content as possible in as little time as possible. The marcomm writer’s workload spikes wildly. It might have to do with abruptly awaking [...]
Good content should leave your readers wanting more. Really wanting more. What’s the best hook there is? Here’s a new challenge for your marketing communications writer: Come up with a teaser as good as “Did I ever tell you about the time we…” The ultimate hook… Last week I sent e-mail to an old friend, [...]
If the role of marketing is to start a conversation, then the role of the marketing manager is to come up with new answers to a handful of questions from prospects. Consider everything you have your marketing communications writers do for you in light of a few life-or-death questions that your prospects pose: 1. “Who [...]
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