Kranz Communications

The fifth and last in a series of five content marketing questions any communications strategist should answer:

5. Have you created a pathway for further action?

In B2B marketing, the whole point of content is to move prospects further along the sales pipeline. But in order to create movement, you have to give prospects something to move to — a meaningful “next step” at the conclusion of every piece of content. Plan ahead. After prospects have read an article, is there a white paper or ebook they can download? When they reach your ebook’s conclusion, is there an invitation to a webinar or an online demo? Once they’ve participated in an event, is there an opportunity to speak to an expert one-on-one? Each step should mean a greater delivery of value on your part — and for the prospect, a deepening engagement with you.

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The fourth in a series of five content marketing questions any communications strategist should answer:

4. Are your tactics really worth the time?

Part of the appeal of many content tactics — such as blogging, Twitter, enewsletters — is that they’re cheap. But what they save in money they can more than make up for in TIME. This is the brutal, ugly reality too many of today’s social media and content cheerleaders rarely acknowledge. You, however, cannot afford to be so blithe. Just as you measure ROI in bottom-line dollars and cents, you have to evaluate your efforts against the time they absorb. Are the hours spent on blogging and Tweeting really drawing an audience or improving your SEO efforts? If so, great. If not, you may need to budget your time as carefully as you budget your money.

Next post: Next steps.

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The third in a series of five content marketing questions any communications strategist should answer:

3. Is your content distributed effectively?

Too often, great content is buried where prospects won’t ever find it. Please, don’t create a “resource center” on your website and expect visitors to dig through it to find relevant material — they won’t do your marketing work for you. On your site, distribute content links on pages with related subject matter. Better yet, reach beyond your site. Do the associations you belong to have sites and/or newsletters that could use your content? Have you formed friendships with bloggers who could post and/or talk about your material? What about, gasp, traditional media — are there journals or magazines that will run your stuff? Leverage the full value of your materials by being aggressive with distribution.

Next post: Time ROI.

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The second in a series of five content marketing questions any communications strategist should answer:

2. Have we really tapped all our relevant areas of expertise?

This is more easily explained by example: I have a client who runs a repair depot service for point-of-sale technologies, such as debit card readers and barcode scanners. Now, the technology is the obvious center of their know-how. But in order to fulfill their services, they’ve become experts in logistics and transportation. When gas prices peaked in 2008, they were able to capitalize on their prospects’ concerns with an ebook about reducing freight and fuel costs. It was a different spin on their usual value proposition, but it tapped a complementary area of expertise to reach customers on an issue that mattered a great deal to them. Look outside of your usual messaging: what else do you know that customers care about?

Next post: Effective distribution.

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The first in a series of five content marketing questions any communications strategist should answer:

1. Are we creating content our target market genuinely wants?

In the old push-advertising model, the desirability of our deliverable (the ad) wasn’t an issue — the audience was a captive prisoner and it was enough for our interruptions to be merely tolerable. But in a pull model intended to attract customers actively seeking information, our content must be compelling — if prospects don’t want it, they’re very free to ignore it. That’s why overt self-promotion is a no-no. Instead, our content has to either entertain or inform (or both). “Informing” is especially important for B2B marketers; our materials have to enlighten readers on new trends, show them new technologies, help them solve problems and/or achieve goals — they must be downright useful, one way or another.

Next post: Tapping all your expertise.

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Funny headline I found today via Google Alerts: “Acne Cured the Ebook.”

Who knew zits held so much power? What’s next: “Pimples Pummel Pertussis”?

In any event, if you ever questioned the magic of a misplaced comma, doubt no more.

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Every day, I get follow requests from so-called “social media experts.” Funny, but when I go to their home pages, I don’t find any evidence of actual social or business activity. You know, experience in sales, marketing, public relations. Experience in communications or community building. Experience in any meaningful way that has connected reaching people to building enterprises.

So what makes these people social media experts, other than spending a whole lot of time on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, what-have-you?

I’m reminded of an anecdote my wife shared with me regarding a recent guest lecturer at Boston College. The speaker, a noted author famed for her salty language and realistic take on hard issues such as faith and alcoholism, told a story about the time she announced her conversion to Catholicism to her ex-husband, a professor of comparative religions.

He scoffed at her, saying that in his position as an academic expert on religion, he knew what was worth knowing about any religion — and there wasn’t anything to her faith. Her comeback: “That’s like a guy who spends all day watching porn thinking he knows the first thing about p****y.”

Well put. And that, in a nutshell, pretty much sums up my opinion of so many self-titled “social media experts.”

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Imagine this marketing scenario: You have a chance to talk one-on-one, not with mere prospects, but with actual customers. And they’ve gone out of their way to talk to you. With an issue of great concern to them.

You’d kill for that, right?

But companies kill that opportunity all the time. When customers call for help, that’s when you should really shine if you want to make a lasting, favorable impression.

Case in point: Friday, I had to resolve some difficulties with an Amazon book I had tried to send to a friend. It didn’t get to him, but was instead routed to an unknown post office. So I contacted Amazon.

First of all, they had a feature on its site for an immediate call-back and they were true to their word; I had hardly finished typing when the phone rang. Within seconds, I was talking to a live human being — a real person, not a “if you want X, press 1 now” virtual anger-stimulator. And she was competent; once she understood the nature of the problem, she called USPS herself, while I was on hold, to reroute the package. Then she returned to me with a promise that she’d call me Monday with the latest update on the package.

Now, how do you think I feel? Yes, I’m satisfied. And I have renewed appreciation for Amazon; I can shop with them confidently, secure in the knowledge that one way or another, this is a transaction that’s going to work.

But is your call center making the same impression with customers? Or are you so enamored with cost-cutting that you’d rather blow a critical brand opportunity to save a few cents on customer service? Instead of “saving” money, save your customers. Your bottom-line will thank you.

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I want to thank Ann Handley and the readers at MarketingProfs; according to Ann’s article today, The Stuff of 2009: The Most-Read, Most Downloaded, Most Watched at MarketingProfs, two of my articles made the top ten list for the year: 10 High-Impact, Low-Budget Ideas for Marketing in a Down Economy, Parts One and Two.

According to Ann, “Jonathan Kranz’s two-part story on 10 high-impact, low-budget marketing ideas was a clear winner last year…”

I’m blushing. Thanks everyone!

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Metaphors are tricky things — push ‘em too hard and your premise crumbles. But I think the ebook, 7 Infectious Diseases of B2B Marketing, manages its analogies in ways that are both clever and apt. Kathryn Roy, the ebook’s author and principal of Precision Thinking, tells us more about her book and why she wrote it:

I was spurred to write the 7 Infectious Diseases of B2B Marketing because I was working with so many companies that were confident they were doing the right things, the right way — but weren’t. It goes back to that Mark Twain quote: “It ain’t what we don’t know that will hurt us. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Take a look at what is happening with home pages. I have a big issue with what I call, “Sleep Apendea,” in which passionate marketing people try to convey all the messages they think might resonate with their visitors. For example, I see many more B2B websites use Flash video or slide shows to convey complex positioning messages to their visitors. But this assumes visitors will stay engaged as the screen changes. Eye-tracking studies show what really happens: people glance at something on a web page when they detect motion, stay there for 3 – 5 seconds to see if it’s what they’re looking for, and then scan elsewhere on the page. If visitors see too much irrelevant material, they stop reading altogether.

I’m working with clients to streamline what they say to prospects. Here’s one example of a before and after value proposition for a web site:

In this example, XYZ company wants to claim leadership. But if you check Google Analytics, you’ll find that there aren’t a lot of searches for “3D direct modeling” not related to this company. So XYZ is emphasizing a category that’s based on terms searchers aren’t using. Your home page is just not the place to start educating prospects on what you call the category.

I think that many marketing people, like XYZ, give up before they have found a more powerful and succinct means of communicating their value proposition in terms that prospects understand. I hope that by posting more examples of how we can strengthen our messages, we can get more people to see what is possible and reconsider their own home pages and marketing materials.

Curing Sleep Apendea is no easy task — we’re dealing with addiction. I’m working on a new ebook to share more specific examples.

For more information on marketing cures, you can visit Kathryn at her website, http://www.precisionthinking.com

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