Tell your readers what they want to know, and do it fast. Here’s how Motown did it. “Now, if you were hungry and had only one dollar, would you buy this record or a hot dog?” In the early days of Motown Records, Berry Gordy Jr. would pose this question to his employees in their [...]
A white paper without research is not much of a white paper. But how much research do you want in yours? What kind of research? Be sure your writer understands what you have in mind. If your task is to create a white paper that: puts your company and technology in a particular quadrant surveys [...]
Writing a contributed article, or byline: easy. Getting it to look in print the way you intended: not so easy. A few tips for marketing managers getting from A to Z. It’s like a bucket brigade, really – the path between the marketing communications writer and the finally posted content. The bucket starts out full, [...]
Embedding a “Retweet This” inside a PDF is a neat hack. Recent Twitter changes have affected it, though – yet again. If your Old Twitter retweet links aren’t working, here’s a solution. Have you embedded “Retweet This” in your PDFs? Perhaps you’d better go back and make sure that they’re still working. I’ve had to. [...]
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 [...]
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