Have you worked out your company’s messaging yet? How many different messages do you have? Have you shared them with your marketing communication writers? Better get on it.

I was at lunch with three execs of a prospective client the other day. They want me to help them tell their story with new content, so we spent the first part of the hour talking about white papers, Web content, case studies, brochures, blog posts and Facebook.

“Hold on,” I interrupted. “That’s all about format. We need to talk about messaging first. What is it that you want to say to people? How are you going to demonstrate to them what makes you unique?”

I need to understand how their company is different from the competition, and messaging is a big part of that. Otherwise, we’ll end up with a lot of me-too content.

This company operates in what is commonly thought of as a commodity industry: the average customer buys on price and (if the company is lucky) grows to discover and value unique differentiators. So the goal of the marketing content is to describe those differentiators from the start so that the initial sale is not strictly about price.

Here’s what they said, and how it struck me:

• The business development manager said, “That’s easy. We’re quite simply the best at what we do.” Well, that’s pretty heartfelt, and it may even be true, but it makes for pretty lousy copy. I can’t go anywhere with it .
• The CEO said, “We’re small and we’re private, and we plan to stay that way. Some of our competitors are focused too much on being acquired, so they take their eye off the ball and quality suffers. We don’t have that problem.” That’s worth being proud of, and it may even add up to a message, but most customers don’t care who owns your stock; they care about their problems, and a vendor’s ownership structure rarely matters to resolving those problems.
• The director of sales says, “We’re able to help our customers align our services with their business objectives.” It sounds pretty dull and hollow when you put it like that, but it’s better than the other two. It’s the kind of thing a customer might say after a few years of working with the company. We might be able to take it somewhere as a theme.

The Point: This company is in need of content, but they have yet to decide on a message. There’s no harm in using each of these disparate ideas as talking points, but:

1. they need to add up to something;
2. they need to add up to something that customers care about; and
3. they need to make sense to me so that I can use them.

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. He also publishes a newsletter with more tips on working with your writers.

photo credit: Wilfrid CC3.0

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Marketing communication writing projects live and die on review loops. Marketers like talking about what needs to be changed, but writers would rather see it in print.

Bigglehole, our staff writer, would like to weigh in on this topic, and respectfully directs these four reasons to clients, in the spirit of delivering to them the high-quality content they want.

This is easy, so I’ll get right to the point:

1. No ambiguity. That’s pretty obvious. If you strike the word “approach” and replace it with “solution,” then I know your preference and I can propagate it through all of the work I do for you. If you write, “Title needs to convey automakers’ sense of urgency,” then I know what you want me to change and how you want me to change it. When you put your comments and changes in writing, it shows me how you would like the piece to look if you were writing it, and that goes a longer way toward helping me get you what you want than if you just talk about it.
2. You have to do some of the work. It may seem a bit perverse, given that you’re paying me to write, but I like it when you put some work into this, too. The fact of the matter is that most writers don’t write; we suggest. The combination of our suggestions and your reactions results in a better finished product.
3. Makes things go faster. I’m for anything that accelerates the process of getting from project-start to project-end successfully. To the extent that written feedback gets your point across to me more efficiently, it helps ensure that you too want to keep things moving. As Alvy Singer (in “Annie Hall”) might have put it, the writer-client “relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.” We don’t want that fate to befall your project.
4. It shows that you care. When you take the time to go through a draft with a red pen or revision marks, it shows me that I’m not working in complete isolation. When I see you working on the piece, it makes me want to put more work into it to match yours. Conversely, when you complain vaguely over the phone, it suggests to me that what I’m working on is not very high on your list of priorities.

Having said all that, Bigglehole concedes that some clients are more comfortable and adept at providing oral feedback than written comments. “As long as they let me record the conversation and charge extra for it, I can work that way. But it still doesn’t get as close to the client’s target as written comments do.”

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.

artwork credit: Charles Napier Hemy

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Set your marketing communications writers up to give you perfect content. Have them write about what they love (that you sell).

With Valentine’s Day still on our minds, it’s a good time to think about love, as in loving what you write about.

Tom Chandler of the Copywriter Underground posted recently on Tom Gaylord, an authority on airguns. Gaylord loves the subject of airguns so much that he could write all day and all night about them, and he does just that. Chandler writes:

The first words out of Gaylord’s mouth were: ‘Most important is to write about the things you love doing.

‘I see my role as more an educator than salesman,’ he said, and his straightforward style of writing reflects it. He’s been writing about airguns for almost two decades, and expects to ‘continue doing so until I drop.’

‘You should write about the things you love so much that you can’t wait to write the next post or article.’

Do you like that concept? What would you have to do to surround yourself with freelance writers who love writing about your products and services?

Getting Your Writer to Love Writing for You

In surveys of employees, education and training are often among the most valued perquisites. What if your freelance writer, on the other hand, values something completely different?

Like relationship.

Consider these ways to relate to your marketing communications writer:

1. “Horses for courses” – Give your writer the kind of work you know that she likes and at which you know she excels, and keep bringing her back to it. When you first engaged her, you certainly asked, “What kind of writing have you done before?” Did it occur to you to ask, “What kind of writing do you like to do?”
2. Treat her like an insider – “We have a marketing strategy meeting coming up next Monday afternoon, and I’d like you to join us.” How difficult is it for you to arrange that? The sooner you get beyond treating your writer like your auto mechanic, the sooner she can do more than check your fluids and change your oil. Don’t forget that your writer is halfway between you and your audience, and a professional writer will pick up valuable things you’ve overlooked.
3. Personal rapport – How many kids does your writer have? Where is she going on vacation? What’s her favorite cuisine? How is her day going? A lot of people don’t have the personality to ask questions like this, but it’s how relationships are built. You know these details about some of the people in your life; why not about your writer? The writer who knows that her relationship to you is important, is the one who can love writing for you.

Of course, writers are in it for the money, but when that’s all they’re in it for, you can usually detect it in their work product. When you as a marketing manager engage your writer in a relationship, the writer is inclined to fill that work product with more of herself. You win, the writer wins and your content wins.

These are extensions of some of the ways you can help your writer over the hump. When she’s completely on your side and loves writing for you, you’ve got a big-time ally.

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/sis/ / CC BY 2.0

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Even after you’ve hired the writer, writing projects don’t just happen. Somebody needs to move them along, and it’s usually your writer (if you’ve picked a good one).

Nothing works because you want it to. You have to make the damned thing work.

-Thomas Edison (I think)

I saw that several years ago in a quotation-of-the-day calendar, and it has always stuck with me.

It applies to writing, doesn’t it? Writers realize that good content doesn’t emerge from their pen or keyboard because they want it to; they have to make it come out.

On a larger scale, as a marketing manager you should know that few of the projects you commission – white papers, Web content, case studies, technical articles – happen because you want them to; you (or somebody) has to make them happen. Facts need checking, reviewers need reminding, editors need prodding, interviewees need birddogging, text needs proofreading, final versions need approving…

Who does most of this?

Would you believe your writer does?

There’s a lot more project management to business writing than most people – including writers – realize. There are also a lot of steps you take for granted inside the organization on the path from idea to a deliverable, and in a writing project, most of them end up in the writer’s purview because nobody else handles them in a timely manner otherwise.

Paul Lagasse posted recently on the diplomacy that freelance writers need to exercise when their management of a project pulls them into onsite client meetings. Most marketing managers value writers for the “bricks” of good content, while overlooking the “mortar” of good project management.

One more Edison quotation to wrap up:

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

Your organization’s content is no accident either, and sometimes it’s your writer who contributes the extra work to make the content happen.

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: wikimedia

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Your marketing communications play a big role in earning your customers’ trust. Writers can help with this, but it’s not easy to get them to do so.

With its 2010 Trust Barometer, the public relations firm Edelman reports that 83% of U.S. consumers value

transparent and honest practices, and a company being a “company I can trust” as extremely important

and rate these their first and second priorities.

A company’s strong financial performance, which was consumers’ third priority in 2006, is their tenth priority now, far below treating employees well and pricing goods and services fairly.

So as a marketing manager, you’re thinking, “Hmm. We should do what we can to earn trust and convey trustworthiness in our communications, shouldn’t we?” Well, if you haven’t been doing it up to now, this would be a good time to start.

Does Your Writer Keep You Honest?

Who drafts all of those communications you put out, all of the vehicles on which your customers will evaluate your trustworthiness?

Your writers, of course.

Do you pay them to make you toe the line? When you engage them, do you say, “If you catch us trying to say something that sounds fishy or unreliable, let us know”? If they call you on a dodgy statistic, or doubt the veracity of your sources, do you thank them and agree to find more solid ones?

I thought not.

You could do that, but here are some reasons why it probably won’t happen:

1. This kind of purity may pit you against others in your organization. “It holds 985 megabytes of data,” says your Engineering team. “Call it a gigabyte and be done with it.” Your writer points out that there are 1 billion bytes in a gigabyte, so you’re stuck in the middle between the writer and Engineering.
2. You need to beat a deadline. Is your time more important than your customers’ trust? How much back-and-forth with the writer can you afford to boost the veracity of the piece?
3. Your writer doesn’t want to antagonize you. A common bit of professional camouflage goes, “Well, Bill, you know your readers and customers a lot better than I do, so I’ll take your lead on leaving that detail in the paper.” The writer wants to get paid and get hired again, so probably won’t go to the mat with you on a disagreement over your facts.
4. There is ALWAYS a fib somewhere, and the only way to avoid them completely is to say nothing to your customers. You may just find out this out if you empower your writer to grill you on your evidence. It’s a marketing piece, not a New York Times investigation.

Rude Questions from Your Writer

Jason Cohen, of A Smart Bear fame, posted recently on Rude Q&A. Pardon the unnecessarily rude first sentence of the post – bloggers often pride themselves on shock value – but Jason offers a valuable lesson in tough questions that come from investors, for which businesspeople should have ready, defensible answers.

If you hire professional, diplomatic writers, you should be able to go through at least some of Jason’s questions peacefully:

• What are the top three features your competitor has that you lack? How do you address that today, and what are you doing about it in the next six months?
• What are three tangible, undeniable ways in which your product/company saves more money than you cost, and saves more time than you consume?
• There are thousands of companies who make the same basic claims you make: high-quality, on-time, on-budget, good service, happy customers. What makes you any different?

You should already have gone through these questions internally before starting your project, and you should ask your writers whether they are up to posing them of you as well.

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:

emmma peel

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The marketable story is always there. It’s easy for us to lose sight of the best way to tell our story, though. And if we lose sight of it, our ideal reader will certainly never be able to find it.

Hire a marketing communications writer who can tell you to cut out all the bull and get to the point.

One marketing manager needed a writer to help tell a sales transformation story. Here is how he described the project to the writer:

We have a 100-slide presentation on our sales transformation process. We need you to help us do the following:

• Understand the key elements of the company’s Sales & Marketing Transformation
• Confirm that we have captured the right information relative to your participation in the transformation
• Brainstorm ways that we could best disseminate the story to its client and internal audiences
• Outline possible roles that we each can play in further tailoring this content for differentiated audiences

“Who put that together?” I asked. “A management consultant? It’s ghastly.”

It isn’t that a good writer doesn’t understand all the fancy words. It’s that nobody will read about a sales transformation, and absolutely nobody will read a 100-slide presentation about a sales transformation. However, a lot of people will read a story about a sales transformation. And a good writer will deliver a story.

“Instead of sending that to the writer,” I suggested, “tell her you need her to fix more than sentences and paragraphs. Tell her you need her to fix the way we tell our story.”

Have you ever told a writer, “Help us tell our story better”? Did you find a writer who could do it?

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: Seattle Municipal Archives

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Let them snack on your content

Are you convinced that you need a white paper, because everybody has them? Don’t weld yourself to a single format for your story; think about other ways of telling it.

Jay Baer has an excellent post this week on Info-Snacks, based on the notion of “atomizing” content, in the words of Todd Defren of Shift Communications. (I suppose that makes this a post on a post on a post, doesn’t it?)

It’s another take on the Content Buffet, in which you tell the story of a single idea, a single change in your organization, through multiple vehicles: blog posts, social media, case studies, Web content, videos, and yes, white papers.

Does your marketing communications writer think in these terms? Instead of calling him up and saying, “We need you to write a white paper,” suppose you called him up and said, “Here’s the story we want to tell; what do you think are the best ways to do it?”

A versatile writer will suggest alternative formats for different parts of the story. Why shoehorn everything into a single paper, when you can appeal to different audiences with different formats? Your job isn’t to crank out a paper; your job is to give people valuable content and get them to follow you.

Can you rely on a writer for that? Or do you talk to your marketing agency?

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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Lead, and your writers will follow.

Most of your followers in social media are external, but don’t forget to build a following among your writers as well.

As a marketing manager, your social media efforts are mostly outward-facing: start conversations with prospects, curry favor with journalists, keep existing customers engaged and inform investors.

Have you tried using social media for internal followers? How about your marketing communications writers? Even if they’re freelancers – even if they’re not your writers – you can build a base of followers among them.

Today, I saw a post in Yammer – a kind of internal Twitter – from a marketing manager in another division:

I’m building a mail list and a Yammer group of writers. If you’re involved in writing PR, marcom or technical materials, and would be interested in info-exchange with others on the front line, please reply with your contact info.

I liked the post (by clicking “Like”), and I like the idea as a way of building an internal following among technology marketing writers. What can this manager do with this following?

1. He can grow it into a forum in which marketing communications writers bounce ideas and questions off of one another.
2. He can put it in his pocket and call it a successful proof of concept for internal social media.
3. He can mine it for writing talent when he needs some.
4. He can lead it, to make sure that its members know corporate messaging and direction.

If you could get your writers to follow you – instead of just taking instructions from you and delivering copy – where would you lead them?

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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Writers' Networking Do's

Marketing managers are often looking to hire new writers, but they don’t like being assailed by them in networking situations. A few words to the wise marketing communications writer.

I’m pleased to be attending a networking mixer for the San Diego chapter of the American Marketing Association this evening, which will combine a presentation by people from the front office of the San Diego Padres with dinner and a game against the arch-rival Los Angeles Dodgers. These events get me away from the computer to spend a few hours among kindred souls seeking truth in the dark forest of social media marketing.

I hope that some writer doesn’t pester me to death for nine innings.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mind the company of marketing communication writers. It’s the primitive networking skills most of them demonstrate that bug me.

Maybe it’s the amount of time they spend lashed to a keyboard listening to the little voices in their heads. Maybe it’s that they’ve chosen the profession because they’re uncomfortable in social, collaborative contexts. Or maybe it’s the odd sort of defensiveness and vulnerability most of us feel in a room full of people we don’t know, with the strange feeling that we ought to make an effort to meet someone new, since we paid to be here. (Boy, will I catch flak for this post.)

3 Networking Do’s

Keep in mind, though, that marketing managers, like everyone else, hire people they know, like and trust.

In the spirit of encouraging better networking etiquette among writers – and the hope of a change of pace for tonight’s ballgame – here are three techniques I’ve heard writers and other professionals use over 15 years of mixers and trade events:

1. Start with a simple ice breaker. Figure out a benign, non-invasive, socially smooth question to pose to a complete stranger. Then use it to break the ice. My favorite is the most obvious one: “What brings you to this?” You’re both at a venue for a presentation of some kind, so talking about what brought you there is pretty basic and non-threatening. Besides, after a few sentences, your interlocutor is likely to turn the same question around to you, which is the idea of the entire thing. Lousy ice breakers: “What do you do?” “What company do you work for?” “How about this weather?”
2. Keep the conversation moving. “A relationship needs to move forward constantly, or else it dies,” says Woody Allen’s Alvy Singer in Annie Hall, “and what we have here is a dead shark.” The ice breaker will get you so far, then you can begin networking; i.e., talking as professionals. Too many people dive for the jugular here and want to figure out whether you and your connections and your budget are worth the effort, with choice questions like, “So, who are some of your clients?” or “Would you like to see some writing samples?” I’d rather someone asked me something like “What have you been working on lately?” It lets me talk, it lets you learn, and it keeps the conversation from becoming a dead shark.
3. Have an elevator speech. K. Sean Buvala proclaims that the elevator speech is dead, but I don’t buy it. Unless your interlocutor is incorrigibly self-centered, eventually your turn will come to explain that you write, and these are the kinds of things you write, for these kinds of companies. Professionals accustomed to networking have this down pat; it’s easy to tell whether they’re at ease with it. Work something personal into your elevator speech, so that I know whether you’re the kind of person around whom I want to spend time, whether it’s the 10 minutes before the presentation starts or nine innings.

1 Networking Don’t

And because I haven’t completely suppressed my professional tendency to focus on the negative, here’s something I recommend you NOT do:

Don’t expect to land a new client.  It’s a networking event, not a bazaar. Don’t go slinging business cards like confetti, stubbornly convinced that you’re going to land a client that day or bust. Focus on what you’ll learn in the presentation, whom you’ll meet, and whether you’ll have a laugh or two. It’s a much easier mindset to take into a mixer.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack…

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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While most job-seekers rely on a résumé to describe who they are and where they’ve been, professional marketing communications writers often prefer a marketing piece more akin to a brochure.

Do you ever ask for a freelance writer’s résumé? What for?

Most freelance writers don’t deal in résumés. In some large companies, the function of hiring a freelance writer ends up in Human Resources, where the starting point for everything is a résumé. This is especially likely if the writer is a sole proprietor billing against a personal Social Security number.

As a marketing manager, getting a résumé from a freelance writer may strike you as a square peg in a round hole. After all, a writer is either:

1. freelance
2. full-time
3. pseudo-freelance while looking for full-time
4. your cousin

If he’s #2 or #3, he’ll have a résumé because he’s in the mood for a job. (Don’t hire him if he’s #4; I guarantee you’ll regret it by the next family gathering.) If he’s #1, he usually hangs out his shingle in other formats:

• E-brochure – The kind of thing you’d expect to see on a Website, with statements of capabilities and services offered. These have the stigma of being “not what Web 2.0 is about,” but how else can you as a marketing manager figure out whether you’re dealing with a writer or a refrigerator repairman? A tastefully executed Services page on a Website or blog readily answers the question, “Is there some chance you can solve my business problem?”
• Portfolio of writing samples – Unless he’s been writing top-secret papers for the intelligence community all of his professional life, the writer should have samples and be prepared to display them. If you don’t see them on his site, ask for them. Challenge the writer to show you something that is similar to what you need written; however, don’t shut the door just because you don’t see the 6-page white paper on interferometric modulation that you want him to clone for your company. You may need to assess the writer’s ability to digest a new topic and deliver a good technology essay based on it. Which leads us to…
• Testimonials – Referrals and endorsements from any marketing communications writer’s other clients should leave you comfortable that he will do what he says he’ll do – the cornerstone of any business relationship – and write the paper that you need. If for some reason he has no references and you still want to work with him, you can always try…
• Your network – He may know somebody you know and trust, and perhaps that’s enough of a shingle for you. There’s a lot of value in your network and the trusted relationships you have, and a connection like this may be all the writer needs to market himself. Some writers don’t bother with marketing material, samples or testimonials at all because their own network connects with yours, bringing all the work they can handle right up to their door. These people certainly don’t need a résumé.

In the context of hiring a freelance writer, these four formats go much further towards demonstrating to you his ability to solve your problem than a résume does.

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: SOCIALisBETTER

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