“I’d like to cite some figures in this paper about adoption rates for this technology,” said the marketing communications writer. “Can we find data on how sales are rising from year to year?”

Seemed like a natural question to pose. If readers see that 15% of the market used turbo-synchronized schmedlapps last year and 20% used it this year, a smart manager would see a trend and make a note of it as something to follow.

“Actually, we don’t have much data on this,” replied the client. “I prefer to keep our copy around this figurative and stay away from specific numbers.”

Huh?

“As a company, we try not to get tied to individual figures or sets of data.”

HUH? This time, the writer capitalized it.

“Our preference is to point to trends loosely, as in ‘The trend for asynchronous schmedlapps is down and the trend for turbo-synchronized schmedlapps is up.’”

HUH? Capitalized and italicized it.

Then the client uttered the clincher:

Customers are happy to drag sales conversations down statistical ratholes.

Let’s think about that for a moment.

Marketing believes that statistics enrich a white paper

It’s hard to argue against using data to back up the claims you make in your white paper or marketing communications content. After all, most people base their buying decisions on one of three things:

1. Recommendations from trusted sources
2. Facts and figures
3. Brilliant rhetoric that intimidates or inspires them

The writer has little control over #1, and makes a living crafting copy around #2, but really shouldn’t be relied upon to make #3 work (at least not in B2B).

Research and reports are the mainstay of marcomm content, so when a customer says, in effect, “We don’t use those,” it leaves the writer at a disadvantage to produce good copy.

On the other hand…

Sales believes that statistics cripple the white paper

This is a salesperson’s perspective, and salespeople spend lots of time talking to and hearing from customers.

If you as a salesperson know that, upon reading the persuasive content your marketing manager has created, a prospect is simply going to pick it apart, impugn the data source and turn it into a speed bump on the road to a purchase order, you might argue to keep the statistics out, thankyouverymuch.

Some prospects may look at your set of data as a challenge to cite an opposing set, or search for an opposing set if they have that kind of time to kill.

So, as desperately as Sales wants collateral and content from Marketing, they may at times prefer that it be, shall we say

content unencumbered by research

Since Marketing is in business to help start conversations, and not to gum them up, some content may need to go this way.

So marketing managers, grit your teeth and endure the HUH?s from your marketing communications writer (and prepare to utter a few of your own). There will be plenty of other opportunities for you to quote all those analyst reports you’ve subscribed to.

John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”

photo credit: Editor B

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1. Marketers: Beware the Ides of…August?

Industry colleague Renato Beninatto was improvising the answer to a question posed to him at a live presentation when he uttered the most memorable factoid I’ve ever heard:

Keep in mind that 72.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

I’ve repeated this “statistic” dozens of times since then, and audiences always take 3-4 seconds to digest it.

But, I know that they remember it.

Making statistics memorable

Michele Linn at the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) pointed me to a solid block of statistics on their site the other day. I liked the way in which CMI had summarized and swept these all together in one place, and I plucked this one from the tree:

Large companies are spending 18% of their marketing budget on content and small companies are spending almost 40%, according to a study by Junta42.

I like these statistics, and I want my customers and prospects to remember them. Memorable statistics are persuasive statistics. But what’s the best way to make statistics memorable?

If you’re going to use statistics, make sure they’re statistics that your reader can’t forget.

• Make them absurd. If your content and your audience will put up with it, make your point with absurd statistics, as Beninatto did above. For that matter, make them sarcastic, if you can get away with it:

Mr. Thompson has unfailingly predicted eight of the last four economic recessions.

• Make them authoritative. Face it – most “authoritative sources” are virtual fire hoses of unmemorable statistics. If you can find a sufficiently conspicuous source and cite a single important statistic, you have a chance of making it stick. You need to be sure that your source does not overshadow your stat here, though. For example:

Two years into Barack Obama’s effort to use quit smoking, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs affirmed that the President has not had a cigarette in nine months. Obama has struggled with the habit for three decades, smoking as many as eight cigarettes a day.

• Make them arresting. Arresting statistics catch readers off guard and force them to wrap their head around something astounding. It may be hard to come up with something that arresting in your industry, so use context to help:

69% of B2B marketers are not convinced that they’re using social media effectively.

This means that, of the 10 people in the elevator on your way to the office this morning, seven of them were thinking, “Today I’ve got to figure out how to get more traction for my company on Twitter and Facebook.”

A proof point needs to stay sharp

Keep using statistics in your content as proof points. They boost your persuasiveness and show that you’ve done your homework.

• In blog posts, use them in the title and opening paragraph.
• In white papers and long-format pieces, put them in a “Main Messages” table in the summary and repeat them in the conclusion.
• In tweets, place them near the beginning.
• In case studies and customer success stories, use them in pull quotes and callouts.

Just make sure they’re memorable.

How else do you use statistics in your content marketing?

John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”

photo credit: Mykl Roventine

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Entrepreneurs breathe their own exhaust. Marketing managers ask the audience what it thinks and try to keep entrepreneur-exhaust from poisoning it.

The DEMO Innovation Tour came to town last week and held a reception at the office of one of the sponsors. Plenty of entrepreneurs were there, and their enthusiasm was palpable. In fact, it was dripping from the rafters, like Dali’s soft watches.

Marketing managers, you need to rescue your audiences from entrepreneur-exhaust.

Movie dubbing in arcane languages

A woman with impeccable skin and vibrant, focused eyes told me about the dubbing platform they’re building. (Whenever I hear “platform,” I know I’m going to have to work hard to understand whatever comes next, because it won’t make sense if I just listen to the words and try to add them up. “Ecosystem” is in the same category.)

The platform allows movie studios to outsource overdubbing projects to small vendors. Think “Ironman” in Urdu: Few studios would want to fund that, but a small vendor in Pakistan might, if it had the chance.

Her colleague with the crew-cut joined her and explained that multiple vendors would, over time, compete with their respective overdub tracks, and users would rate them. This product will benefit an entire ecosystem (!) of small, in-market dubbing vendors, who can earn royalties on their work; of movie studios, who can wring a few more bucks out of titles they would never have paid to dub; and of users, who get the titles they read about on Yahoo! and Amazon in their own language.

There was a clock on the wall behind them, and I watched 15 minutes of my precious attention span go by before I finally understood their story. Or at least, the first part of it. There was more, but I excused myself from the entrepreneur-exhaust and grabbed some food.

Router and database – all in hardware!

I ran into Rick, whom I know from one of my former clients. That company has since folded, and Rick related the saga to me. His description of the final days there was breathless but entertaining, and I was enjoying his company. And then I went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like…

“So, what are you working on now?”

With equal breathlessness, he told me about his long-standing plans for a router modeled on gate arrays and EPROMs – “nobody wants to fund a chip” – with a database in hardware so that nobody could ever copy it, and about the crying need for this in SQL Server because the database instances can’t synchronize to one another fast enough to keep up in high-volume environments. He’s found the opportunity for some funding from a Russian investor, but they don’t look at things the same way as venture capitalists, so he’s still getting comfortable with the new financial language…

I like Rick’s accent, his barrel-chested delivery, and his penchant for invoking childhood recollections of Alexandre Dumas novels. It was an entertaining chat, but after a while my smile began to wither from entrepreneur-exhaust, and I felt my face begin to crack. I feigned dry mouth from the pita bread appetizers and excused myself to search for water.

Contracepting pigeons in the park

A husband-and-wife team is building a business around a pharmaceutical agent that interferes with the process of fertilization in pigeons.

The Mrs. had impeccable skin also – I should wear my glasses to these events more often – and a delicate frame, and the Mr. was affable and gregarious. They had sensible, concise answers for how the drug works, and they even had a few customer success stories, but their entrepreneur-exhaust was still oppressive.

They took me through an audio tour of their business six ways from Tuesday, explaining why it works on pigeons but not many other birds, how they’ve successfully navigated EPA and FDA, how PETA is on their side, and how their closest competitor – a purveyor of poison – has thrown in the towel, leaving the market ready for a new take on the problem of the uncontrolled pigeon-fecundity.

“Go ahead – ask me anything about pigeon birth control,” they tacitly said in unison. “For that matter, don’t bother; let me just tell you.”

Ask them what they think, already!

I’ll ask again: Do you do things like that to your audiences? Or do you ask them what they think of your idea? Do you care what they think of your idea? Can you turn the corner from unidirectional persuasion to marketing as a conversation?

All of these happy entrepreneurs talked about their product’s features and benefits at length. I didn’t mind – as long as they were talking, I could fill my mouth with free food – but if I had had a purchasing decision to make, I would have become cranky that they weren’t interested in me and the problems I have to solve.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Nobody cares about your products or how cool they are. They care about their business problems and whether they can trust you to solve them.

Most organizations don’t understand the function of marketing managers, but in a startup, they protect the audience from entrepreneur-exhaust.

John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”

photo credit: U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Jonathan Chandler

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1. “Hey, Marketing Manager. Tell Me a Story.”

The first step in writing a white paper is an outline, which acts as a skeleton that you flesh out with evidence and persuasion.

My post last October, 4 Elements of a White Paper Outline, resulted in a large number of visits, so I’ll go into more detail in this post. As a matter of fact, I’ll give you an outline, right in this post.

It’s the outline for a technical benefits white paper I wrote some years ago; the client has given me permission to use it. You may go ahead and steal it. After all, I stole the title for this post from Abbie Hoffman’s famous Steal This Book, so it seems only fair.

Your company’s hardware acceleration technology relieves system bottlenecks by offloading compute-intensive algorithms from software running on host processors to dedicated hardware. The task is to create a paper that interests engineers in your technology and convinces them that your approach makes sense.

Summary

This is 1-3 paragraphs on what the paper covers. It answers the reader’s question, “Why should I bother reading this?”

Many marketing communications writers defer writing the summary until after the body of the paper is finished. I prefer to take a stab at one at the outline stage. It shows my reviewers what I understand they want to convey and gives them the opportunity to straighten me out if need be.

Since you plan to discuss your own technology in the paper, mention it in the summary. Don’t be coy and spring it on the reader at the end.

Acceleration Opportunity

The Market and Competitive Threat
The Application
The Algorithm

In this section and subsections, you describe the landscape and trends around acceleration technology: who’s buying it (citations of recent market data help to make this more credible), how they’re using it (e.g., for speeding up anti-virus scanning at enterprise e-mail gateways), and the mathematics behind the algorithm.

It’s a good idea to put some buckshot in the air and point out to readers the necessity of their doing something different. The essence of a white paper is persuasion, and the subtle suggestion that obsolescence awaits readers who do nothing, goes a long way toward convincing them to act.

Your Design

State of the Industry
Your Solution

You’ve led the reader to the point in the paper at which you describe your own approach to acceleration technology.

It’s useful to describe existing approaches to acceleration – e.g., sacrifice network throughput in the interest of security, throw more boxes at the problem, create a custom chip, rewrite the software more efficiently – but for the sake of balance, the reader needs to understand that there are downsides associated with each one. Each approach also meets several different factors with varying degrees of satisfaction: cost, time to market, maintainability, performance, standards-maturity, and so on.

Your acceleration technology is not the fastest hardware and not the fastest software, but it combines and optimizes the mix of the two for a new approach, and it most nearly satisfies all of the selection factors. You may also leave an out for the next generation of your accelerator, which will indeed satisfy all of today’s factors.

Case Studies/Use Cases

XML Processing
Network Security
Cryptography

If you’ve kept your readers this far, it’s a good idea to trot out instances where your acceleration technology is in use, preferably with statistics to demonstrate that it’s better, cheaper and faster than what was in place before.

Case studies within a white paper are a relief to a reader. “I’m interested only in cryptography, so I get to skip the other two. That will help me get through this paper faster.” Don’t try to make all of your case studies fascinating to all readers; just ensure that each one will resonate for its particular audience.

If you can drop names of customers, it’s a huge benefit.

Hardware Acceleration-Main Messages

Conclusion
Follow Us

Now, you tell them what you’ve told them. This is useful because some readers will cut right to the chase and read the end, then go back for the body of the paper only if the conclusion convinces them that they’ve missed something.

The main messages are a series of bullet points (preferably three) that skim the highlights of your paper’s argument. Again, these help the impatient reader qualify the paper as worthy of his/her time and effort.

Your conclusion picks up where the Summary left off, adding more detail about your technology and its real-world applications and savings.

“Follow Us” used to be “For More Information.” If your paper has accomplished its goal, readers don’t need more information from you. They want to go out to the Web and follow you to see what other information they can find about you. Sure, you give them a phone number and a landing page, but point them to your presence in social media and on blogs.

John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

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1. 4 Elements of a White Paper Outline
2. Castrating Your White Paper in 1 Easy Step

A good marketing communications writer is versatile, but don’t push it. Everybody’s talent stops somewhere.

How thin can you spread your marcomm writer?

Can she do a good job on everything you need, like:

• white papers
• Web content
• technology overviews
• case studies
• press releases
• corporate backgrounders
• annual reports
• blog posts
• SEO copywriting (isn’t that redundant nowadays?)

Or, do you find you need multiple writers for the different stations along your Content Buffet?

Facts of Life about Writers

A man’s got to know his limitations.

-“Dirty Harry” Callahan

Doug Clarke of Hologram Publishing posts that “Good writers, like good singers or dancers, are versatile in numerous topics, formats and genres, and are not just one-trick ponies.” In fact, most marketing communications writers become drawn to other types of content by their clients. “You did an article for a local magazine; can you write our Web content?” Six months later, the writer is hanging out a new shingle.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but as a marketing manager, you have to be sensitive to where your writers’ limitations lie, and be careful not to push them past it, or it will blow up in your face.

4 Questions before Stretching a Marcomm Writer

Here are four questions it’s perfectly fair for you to ask before nudging your marketing communications writer one step closer to his limitations (especially if you’re not sure of what you yourself are getting into):

1. “Can you describe a project in which the format was new to you, and you delivered content that made the customer happy?” Let’s face it – I need the content, and you know writing, but I’m trying to reduce my risk. Tell me a story about when you went through this before, and convince me that you’re up to it; otherwise, I don’t want to chance it.
2. “Can you show me a sample from that project?” Slam dunk if he can, and still iffy if he cannot. He should be able to give you something to allay your concerns, or else point you to another writer.
3. “What method will you follow in writing this?” (Not, “Do you have a method?”) This is part of how he should persuade you that he’s up to the task. If he has written all of your press releases, but never done a case study, ask him how he would plan to go about it.
4. “What do you need from me to write this? Are you able to help drive the project, or do I need to do that?” How much support do you need as marketing manager to drive review loops, work with the designer, birddog subject matter experts or customers, and generally get things done on a project with which you’re not familiar? Somebody – either you or your writer – is going to have to run the project, so you’d better make sure that your expectations line up with those of your writer.

I recommend that you get satisfactory answers to these questions before you dive into the other important questions:

1. How long will it take?
2. How much will it cost?

If you’re not comfortable basing your business decision on the answers to the first few questions, then great answers to the last two questions won’t do you much good.

John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilspicys/ / CC BY 2.0

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What’s in your content: Marketing writing or corporate cheerleading? A parable for the marketing manager.

A dear friend who does a lot of business writing once remarked,

Compact, compelling copy that doesn’t fall into business jargon is tough.  So much of it is fake words strung together with cheerleading.

I’ve mulled that over for a couple of years and can finally weave a parable around it.

In short, my response is:

You say “fake words” and “cheerleading” as if they were bad things.

Here’s why.

Sporting Event = Game + Cheerleading

I’ve taken to attending football and basketball games at my sons’ school of late. It didn’t take me very long to develop a deep appreciation for the role played by the top-flight cheerleading squad in these sporting events: they cheer, kick, jump, form pyramids, turn somersaults, sell raffle tickets and generally spice up the evening. They’re a show unto themselves, really, and I can easily forget about the game I’m supposed to be watching, for all the talent, energy and acrobatic skill they display.

Cheerleaders are unflappable. Regardless of the team’s plight or good fortune, their tone is upbeat, emotionally engaging and designed to make you feel good about being there. It’s a job they do well, and we spectators need them to do it for us. They don’t put points on the board, but it’s great performing nonetheless.

Meanwhile, on the field or the court, the game is in one of three states:

1. It’s a wipeout, and we’re winning.
2. It’s a wipeout, and we’re losing.
3. It’s a close game, and it’s making us nervous.

The marvelous thing about cheerleaders is that, regardless of the state, they’re doing the same thing. Sure, maybe they’re doing the touchdown cheer less often in state 2, but they’re still cheering almost constantly, with smiles on their faces, pom-poms in their hands and high kicks in their legs.

Why?

Because their voice is an important part of the game, too. Other people have the job of scoring points; cheerleaders have a different job.

Writing and Cheerleading

As a marketing manager, you’re responsible for telling your organization’s story and starting the conversations that Sales will continue. But you can’t use the same voice or tone for every story and conversation. (If you do, you must be tired of it.)

What if “fluff” and cheerleading are an important part of your game, too?

Think of the marketing pieces you put out: white papers, press releases, case studies, technology overviews, market research, annual reports, corporate backgrounders, and all of the copy on your Website. Can you honestly look at all that content and say that it’s pure game, pure fact, pure attempts to persuade prospects with may-the-best-company-win objectivity?

Sure, you give your writers access to your executives, to industry analysts, to your internal data and research, and they give you back valuable content that Sales can use to persuade prospects and beat your competitors.

But fess up; you’ve also got some corporate cheerleading in there, haven’t you? A little rah-rah-sis-boom-bah-go-team-go that puts a sunny face on things, even if sales are tanking and your technology is under scrutiny by the European Union?

Can you be that honest with your marketing communications writers? Can you tell them, “That report you wrote last month was dead-on objective, but this needs to be an upbeat piece on how our product is making life better for soccer moms. Don’t mention our ongoing patent litigation; just paint a favorable picture. It’s what we need right now.”

More crucially, when your colleagues start making snide remarks about “fluff pieces,” can you take the heat?

Yes, you can. As a marketing manager you’ve done your job by providing both objective and “soft” content. Just tell the cynics the parable of the football game and the cheerleaders.

John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

photo credit: avinashkunnath

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1. Wit in Corporate Writing? 3 Places to Try It, and Lots of Places to Avoid It

Step 1: Cut off its graphics.

The writer was not happy.

“I put a lot of time, thought and effort into the graphics I used for that white paper, and the client pulled out every last one of them before publishing the piece. It’s an eight-page wall of text now. What a waste!”

She showed me her final draft to the client, and the version as published. She was right. They had castrated it by cutting out four informative graphics from a 10-page paper.

“They must think people read white papers as if they were the Dead Sea Scrolls,” she continued. “They don’t read them, they skim them. I use the graphics as eye-hooks to give readers places to park their attention for a second. They’re a big part of the persuasive element in any white paper. Without graphics, people’s eyes glaze over.”

I started to go through the published version but had to stop because I could feel my eyes glazing over. It hurt.

The Why of Graphics in White Papers

In “Punch Up Your Writing with Graphics,” Kevin Gault quotes two prominent marketing communications writers on the topic:

“There’s a connection between visual appeal and comprehension. We’re attracted to visually appealing and pleasing design elements, and making a white paper more visually appealing helps readers grasp important messages about products.”   -Jonathan Kantor, The Appum Group

“Words have to be read, but visuals provide instant communication. Properly used, graphics let you add a visual element to your message. They can engage readers by visually telling a story.” Roger C. Parker, author of Design to Sell

Did the writer ask why the client had castrated the paper removed the graphics?

“The marketing manager said that none of the other pieces in this part of their content library uses graphics, and they wanted to maintain consistency.”

When Writers Care Too Much

A point of order: I deliberately avoid the term “copywriter,” because it sounds like “hired gun,” somebody with no skin in the game, who is merely writing to keep the wolf away from the door. In fact, most business writers I’ve worked with put a great deal of themselves into their work and take proverbial pride in ownership of their product. Occasionally, this pride goes unrequited – or altogether spurned – when the client shoots himself in the foot. But hey, the words belong ultimately to the client, and the marketing communications writer who learns to deal with such setbacks will last longer in the profession.

The Moral

Good marketing communications writers go beyond telling your story to telling your story in a way that people will want to read. Graphics are a big part of this, so don’t castrate your white paper by cutting them out.

John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

photo credit: Flynn Wynn

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1. A White Paper Project That Went Well
2. White Paper Projects That Don’t Go Well – Part I

“Write a series of technical articles to help evangelize the technology,” we said, “two to three pages each. They should introduce developers and customers to the new features they can use in programming on the platform. We need to get the word out about this, so we’ll put the articles on the developer Web site. We’ll give you the topics, and you do the rest: interview the engineers, talk to the product managers, write it up, circulate drafts, edit it and submit it to the Web team.”

That was about all we told him, and he did all of that, for several months. He delivered reliably and on time.

Turns out that what we told him to do is not what we wanted him to do.

“There’s too much fluff in the articles,” observed the VP of Engineering. “We need more meat instead of muffins.”

The writer was perplexed. “I’m doing what you told me to do, but if you want me to turn up the technical heat, I will. But I assume that, if you just wanted pages of technical language, you’d have the Documentation group do this. You hired a technical marketing writer to help persuade people to work on the platform, right?” He underlined it.

Right.

“Can you give us something more technical, yet not turn the content into a user guide?” we asked.

“Sure. I just need to know whether you want meat, muffins, or meaty muffins,” he said. A good way to put it. Must be why he’s in marketing.

The articles got deeper and the VP of Engineering became more pleased. People started reading them more, and spending more time on them, according to our Web logs.

Moral: When you hire a writer, be sure to explain how shallow or deep you want the content to be. Meat or muffins. Corporate cheerleading (I always enjoy envisioning that) or something that a developer will pass on to a colleague, maybe even retweet.

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1. To persuade or not to persuade…

“We’ll need a white paper to explain the advantages,” said one. “We need to get existing customers to upgrade, but they won’t do it without a good overview. They’ll just be confused and ask us a jillion questions.”

The other agreed. “You’re right. We also need to get the attention of people using competing products, though, and prospects new to the space.”

“I think it’s a really compelling technical story. If the paper’s done right, Sales could probably use it for lead generation, we could hand it out at trade shows, maybe get some trade magazines to pick it up.”

“There’s a lot we could do with it. We could use excerpts in blog posts and collateral, follow up with case studies and syndicate it.”

“Good idea. So, when are you going to write it?”

“I’m not going to write it. Why don’t you?”

“I don’t have the time.”

“Neither do I.”

Silence.

“I know: let’s have the tech writers do it. Let’s talk to Tech Pubs and see whether they can cut us a writer for a few days. We can push them some graphics and text, and they can re-purpose some of the product documentation.”

“OK. Then we can do a technical review on it and get it out there.”

- – - – -

These two engineers have noble goals. They understand the value of a good technology marketing piece – in this case, a white paper – and how it can help them explain their technology to prospects. They’ve even been kissed by the marketing muse, judging from the way they want to use the paper.

So, what’s wrong with this picture?

They’re forgetting about the important difference between a technical publication and a technology marketing piece:

Persuasion

Both groups of writers need to inform, and they need to deliver technical information and details accurately. But technical writers don’t need to persuade anybody of anything; the customer has already bought the product. Marketing writers work long before the purchase has taken place; their stock in trade is persuasion.

These engineers require a writer who is able to deliver information in a balanced way – so that the reader doesn’t feel insulted – yet simultaneously unveil the advantages of the company’s product and persuade the reader to take the next step: pick up the phone, register for a demo, subscribe to a feed, pull out a credit card.

It isn’t that technical writers don’t know how to persuade like this; it’s that they’re unaccustomed to doing it in user documentation.

The moral: Leave your documentation to Tech Pubs, and your persuasive pieces to Marketing.

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“What do you want them to do after they’ve read the piece?”

One of our writers systematically asks these questions at the outset of every project. It’s a bit oppressive at times – I can remember when it was refreshing – but it does keep us on our toes. She’s particularly manic about the second question.

“If you don’t have a clear, specific call to action at the end of the piece, you’ve wasted an opportunity to capitalize on the reader’s attention,”  she intones. She’s right, but we still manage to squander the chance most of the time.

She’ll write a business-to-business case study or white paper, and draft a “For More Information” section at the end with a link to a newsletter sign-up, or a podcast, or a landing page for a demo of the product. None of which exists, but any of which is relatively easy to cobble together.

“Too much work,” says the Web group.

“We’d have to feed it with new content,” say the folks in Marketing.

“Never mind that; we just want them to buy,” bawls Sales.

So the 24-karat calls to action in the draft degenerate into a link to a verbose product page or – ack! – a link to the company’s home page or – gasp! – a phone number.

It’s like a Bridge to Nowhere. Sink time, money and effort into good, persuasive content in a Web medium, then ask readers to follow up the way they did in 1977: by calling a toll-free number.

What calls to action do you use? Are they a hard sell in your organization?

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