Using Failure as a Foundation

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“This is one tip I’ll offer to any struggling writer out there,” says Heather Fawcett in Writer’s Digest: “If you have an old idea in a notebook or saved to a flash drive, try recycling it into a new form”.

“It’s time you reinvented the word failure and saw it as feedback,” Suzie Flynn, BSc agrees… When you fail you have the opportunity to look at things from a new perspective, to experiment and even playfully have fun with new ways of doing things.

It was back in the early days of Say It For You that my then networking colleague Robby Slaughter had published the book Failure: the Secret to Success.  Based on the thesis of that delightful book, I explained to my readers two ways in which failure could be an important ingredient in blogging for business:

  • Your posts can demonstrate that you understand the problems the searcher is facing, and are devoted to the process of finding – and sharing – unique solutions.
  • Failure can become a standard by which to understand how a successful outcome will look and feel.

Some ten years later, I gained another perspective on failure when then Nuvo editor Laura McPhee devoted an entire section of the paper to highlighting “alumni”, people who worked there but who had departed for “better things”. As a content writer, I understood that the best way to make a company or professional practice relatable is to introduce readers to the people behind the brand, even if those people are no longer involved in making the products or delivering the services. And, of course, some of those stories and memories are going to revolve around failures – things that, at the time, had gone very wrong.

For me, Heather Fawcett’s piece in Writer’s Digest added a whole other dimension to the concept of using “failure” as a foundational element in content marketing: “recycling” ideas and presenting them in a new way more relevant to what’s happening “in the now”… One great content marketing sustainability tip is to keep an idea file, online or in a little notebook or folder with articles you cut out of newspapers or magazines, notes on ideas gleaned from a seminar, from listening to the radio, reading a blog or a book.. Your folder of “ingredients” , I tell newbie content marketers, will make your job a whole lot easier!

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Commenting on Comments on Your Content

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 “If you are a business with a blog on your website, then I would lean towards NOT allowing comments on your blog,” Nathaniel Tower writes. Most of the comments on business blogs tend to be spammy attempts to direct your potential customers away from your site and to their own instead,” Tower says. “You aren’t going to sell anything in the comments.”

On the other hand, Tower observes,  sincere comments can promote community, and even be a source of ideas.  You can allow comments on some posts, but not on most, he advises. In fact, he suggests, you might write comments on other people’s posts or blogs, being sure your remarks are “thoughtful and promote discussion”.

There’s a reason many major marketing blogs don’t allow comments, Caroline Forsey of Hubspot points out,  confessing “we don’t either”. Her Hubspot colleague Dan Zarrella found that “blog conversations don’t lead to more views or links.” His conclusion: “With your blog, comments should not be a goal – They don’t lead to views or links.” Probogger comes at the question from a different point of view – removing comments doesn’t have to be a decisions you make once, for the first week or month the post goes live, but can be done at any point later on.

On the other side of the question, Fabrizio Van Marciano, on Magnet4Blogging,  uses a wry metaphor, asking us to think about eating toast in the morning cold with no butter or jelly (which Fabrizio likens to the blandness of a blog with no back-and-forth engagement).

In theory, I agree with Van Marciano – blogs should be available not only for reading, but for acting and interacting. Still, spam comment attacks are ubiquitous, typically  arriving in three forms (a. total nonsense, with links to sites the writer is promoting, b. comments totally unrelated to the topic of the blog post, and c. blatant advertising for web services.

At Say It For You, we don’t automatically accept comments, reserving the right to “check them at the door”.

 

 

 

 

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Either Way, a Good Bottle is a Good Bottle

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For the average wine drinker, it’s a no-big-deal thing, but for serious aficionados of Champagne and for those in the wine industry, Alison Napjus points out in Wine Spectator, there’s an important distinction:

While small grower producers, or “RMs”, source their grapes only from vineyards they own ,” negociants”, or ” NMs”, purchase their grapes from different villages and subzones. Connoisseurs (“wine snobs”?) might value RM products, but transferring ownership of land among family members is “prohibitively expensive” under French law, Napius points out, and RMs have trouble meeting demand. NMs, meanwhile, have begun paying closer attention to viticulture in their own vineyards.

The result of all this supply/demand push-pull is that the ” perfect” Champagne product today is neither an RM nor an NM, the author explains. Consumers are really just looking for a steady supply of quality Champagne. “At the end of the day, it’s what’s in the glass that matters, not the code on the label,” the author concludes.

The same observation might be made in my field of content marketing, I couldn’t help thinking. “Content marketing works by capturing the attention of your desired audience members and helping them address their informational and task-oriented needs,” Jodi Harris of the Content Marketing Institute explains.

  • Prefer to use straightforward or “Huh? Oh!” titles for blog posts? Doesn’t matter, so long as, in the body of the post, you deliver on headline’s promise.
  • Whether you post content once a week or once a month, consistency helps build trust with your audience.
  • Statistics can be used to demonstrate the extent of a problem or to provide data about products and services a company offers. Either way, when presented effectively, numbers can move readers to make decisions.
  • “Jargon”, industry or profession-unique terminology can be used judiciously by content writers for explaining and defining a point, or simply as a way to establish common ground with a select audience.

Either way, a good piece of content is a good piece of content!

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Bringing Yourself to the Page

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” For better or worse, in today’s world, everyone is a brand, and you need to develop yours and get comfortable marketing it,” Jill Avery and Rachel Greenwald point out in the Harvard Business Review special spring issue. The question to ask yourself is what can you bring to the table of your industry out of your own personal experience. Two examples the authors offer:

  • You studied psychology, and have insights into human behavior.
  • You’re a UX designer who understands how to create more-accessible products.

Whatever your special talent, know-how, or experience, you can bring that to bear as an employee or executive to add value, is the point.

For us as content marketers, in essence “ghost-writing” newsletters, web page content, and blog posts for our business owner and professional practitioner clients, the concept of “bringing self to the page” has a double meaning. Yes, as Whitney Hill advises in a Writer’s Digest piece, “mining” areas of our own lives helps us connect with the right others. But since our purpose is to focus readers’ attention, not on ourselves, but on our content marketing clients, we use our own experience and wisdom to help readers “interview” those owners and practitioners in light of their own needs.

“Some articles have greater impact and reader engagement if written from personal experience, The Writer’s College explains. Writing an article from personal experience can avoid sounding generic, especially if you bring personal experiences to life with vivid sensory details, “showing” rather than just telling. Still it’s important to reflect on the impact and growth that resulted from the experiences you’re describing.

In using content marketing to translate our clients’ corporate messages into human, people-to-people terms, I prefer first and second person writing over third person “reporting”. I think people tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message. I compare the interaction between content writers and online readers to behavioral job interviews, where the concept is to focus, not on facts, but on discovering the “person behind the resume”.

In bringing our clients to the page, we know that “how-we-did-it” stories make for very effective marketing content for both business owners and professional practitioners. True stories about mistakes and struggles are very humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the people behind the business or practice, not to mention showcasing the special empathy those providers have for their clients and customers.

Through messaging, ghost writers, providers, and customers are all “brought to the page”!

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Listen to Stand Out and Be Heard

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In recent Say It For You posts, I had been discussing the importance of understanding your target audience, by being alert to their preferences and opinions as expressed on social media. I invited friend and networking colleague Joe Rutenberg, owner of CCC Solutions, to comment on “listening” to connect with a target audience….

Buyers are flooded with inbound messaging so how can you stand out and be heard? Listen to the right sources to get started. Writing content and delivering it consistently is hard. How can you deliver effective content regularly? Answer 2 questions:

  • What excites your audience?
  • What do you want them to do once they are excited?

You want to move your audience using content delivered at key stages of their decision process to achieve your goal.

The Right Goals

Do you want to: Close a sale; Entice a prospect; or Inform a customer about product benefits. Where in your Sales Funnel is each prospect? Content is based on your audience and where in the sales funnel they are. Regardless of audience type, resonating content, delivered consistently, is the goal.

Prospects and Clients

Prospects and clients have overlapping and different attributes and needs.

  • Prospects need to trust you and believe you reduce their risk.
  • Clients need to see recurring value and best pricing.

Effective content focuses on what your audience believes is important.

Resonating Content is Important

When you listen, others listen, and you build trust. When your content shows empathy and speaks to poignant topics, it becomes “sticky.” Content that “sticks” is about your audience, not you. Being “sticky” makes you top of mind and the “Go To” person in your technical area. Sticky content is remarkable because it is specific to an industry, function, market, product, or geography and is what your audience cares about.

Listen to Hear Topical Content

Listen to the marketplace to find content. In addition to AI sources, sources include:

  • Your clients – Ask clients 4-5 questions about their business, industry, and why they chose you. It is a great way to touch base.
  • Client and prospect websites – What are they talking about?
  • Industry and trade association newsletters and websites.
  • Community and Civic groups – When your audience is geographic.
  • Social media channels – Choose channels based on what you sell (B2B or B2C).

Listen to the common questions and concerns and build your “Topic Library.”

Consistent Delivery to Multiple Audiences

How can you deliver consistent content to different audiences all at once? The solutions are the right content writer and the right CRM. Depending on company size, you may have:

  • In house or outsourced content writing. Both work as it is all about talent.
  • No CRM or an enterprise CRM. A CRM is a must for marketing and sales.

A talented writer and robust CRM are a winning combination.

How to Stand Out

Use your CRM to reach your audience before they make decisions. Review your sales cycle and trigger content driven outreach prior to milestones in your sales cycle. Use content that is relevant at each stage of your sales funnel. Make your content “Sticky” and you will be remarkable!

 

Want To Stand Out In Every Crowd?

Visit www.cccsolutions.com and Close More Sales 

Explore CCC’s Marketing And Sales Strategies

 

 

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