Archive for Content Marketing – Page 18

Content Marketing Biases: Your Attitude Is Showing

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, October 11th, 2010

How biased are you about peoples’ faces, ages, skin tone, body size, ethic origins? Scientists know that our attitudes and prejudices are subconscious.

We may think we’re fair and all-inclusive, but our brains operate surreptitiously, sending us intuitive messages that influence our speech, our decisions and our behavior… and if you’re a content marketer, it will permeate the content you write!

Don’t believe me? Or, maybe you believe me and are saying “So what?” You need to know how your customers and clients see your biases showing up. Your biases are reflected in everything you do, including your content marketing.

If you’re creating content that markets a product or service, how can you become aware of your prejudices, since they lie hidden in our subconscious brains?

Take the Implicit Associations Test, the IAT, offered online for free by Harvard through a site called Project Implicit.

Here are a few things they’ve discovered after hundreds of thousands of web visitors did their tests:

Findings observed in seven years of operation of the Project Implicit web site

  • Implicit biases are pervasive. They appear as statistically “large” effects that are often shown by majorities of samples of Americans. Over 80% of web respondents show negativity toward the elderly compared to the young; 75-80% of self-identified Whites and Asians show a preference for racial White relative to Black. Read More→
Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better
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Content Marketing to a Caveman’s Brain

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, October 7th, 2010

How do you gain the attention of readers? How do you get them to stay and read your blog post, your web pages, your newsletter?

Your brain is 100,000 years old. You may not wake up in the Savannah of East Africa, grab your spear and walk miles to hunt prey for food. But on your commute to work in traffic, the same stress hormones (cortisol) are surging through your body as you fight traffic to get to your office.

Once there, your senses scan the environment for prey, competitors and allies, and the same goal-seeking behaviors are at play. The male of the species, in particular, is driven to acquire and achieve to protect his family and status.

For women, it’s slightly different, but not entirely. Women tend to the feeding of their offspring and mate, attend to the shelter, and are acutely aware of emotional needs of her family members. She may also fight traffic and go to an office full of stress, competitors and allies. As a female, she multitasks many responsibilities and skillfully uses language and relationships to get things done.

Our brains haven’t changed in 100,000 years. Our world, however, has. Most significant in the last 20 years is our ability to communicate and stay informed on a global level. Marketing is changing along with this world that offers multiple media channels to spread more messages to more people. Content marketing is growing rapidly as a way to connect with consumers who have become adverse to interruptive advertising.

Here’s what I’m reading in an excellent book, The Buying Brain by A.K. Pradeep:

The questions remains, how do we engage with the primal brain – embedded deep within us – in this modern world? How do we soothe and seduce it?

How do we send it messages that are important enough to be noticed and remembered?

How do we stand out from the amazing barrage of sensory stimuli to be the one product or brand that makes sense and is embraced by the brain?

How do we make life easier and more fun for this miracle of nature that’s perpetually on guard?

More importantly, how do we start treating our customers as the smart, evolved people they are?

With respect and dignity, compassion and caring, delivered in a way that invites and engages, but doesn’t over-stimulate or alarm? Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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10 Ways to Make Content More Engaging

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

The Content Marketing Institute has hit another home-run with their question to content experts, “How do you make content more engaging?” Ten experts responded, including moi, and their answers are illuminating, especially for anyone charged with creating quality content for blogs, social media, and writing for the Web.

In my opinion and experience, marketing that engages is emotional.

The human brain is emotional at its very core.

While women process messages with more emotions than men, both must be engaged emotionally for a message to be remembered and acted upon.

Marketers must uncover the key emotional triggers their product inspires and pinpoint them in their messages.

Here is a summary of what other content marketers think about this important question:

Just as there is no single definition of engagement, there is no single way to engage with your audience:

  • Focus on what is important to your ideal reader, which is often different than what is important to your business.
    • Actively listen to your audience and respond to their needs.
    • Create buyer personas to capture key information about your readers.
    • Try to connect with your readers emotionally. Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Persuasion, Writing for the Web
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Engaging Content: Start with Why

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, October 4th, 2010

How do you write engaging content? How do you unlock the minds of your readers?

  • What makes your blog writing effective?
  • How do you create quality content that pulls in interested readers?
  • How can you reach, attract, and make an impact?

For that matter, how can anything you write or say actually work to market your business and bring in potential customers? Let’s face it, you’ve probably been saying some of the same things for a while now, and … so have your competitors!

How can you be engaging to your clients if your competitors are all talking about the same thing?

I wrote about this important $64,000 question last week, and I’m immersed in research about what makes content engaging right now. One of the books I’m reading is Simon Sinek’s Start with Why. He says we should start our messages with the big WHY… why we’re in business, why do we do what we do. In other words, make it clear what your higher purpose is.

“Your higher purpose is where your talents and the needs of the world meet.” ~ Aristotle

Don’t you love it when a good quote for today’s busy world comes from a 2,400-year-old guy? Here’s the content marketing version from Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute and Junta42:

“Your higher purpose is where your expertise and the needs of your customers meet.” ~ Joe Pulizzi

Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Persuasion, Writing Great Blog Content
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Content Marketing with Blogs: What Do You Believe?

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

Here’s a key element for writing content that inspires clients to take action:

What does your business believe in? More importantly, as an important part of your business, what do you believe is most important for your clients? What’s your true purpose?

This is not a philosophical question, although it is grounded in profound human needs and values. This is a marketing question. You need to know why you care, and you need to communicate that to customers in your content marketing and blogs.

This question makes sense because people don’t buy from companies, they do business with people. They don’t care about your products so much as what they will do for them. Clients want to connect with values that count.

And, in a culture with an overabundance of choice, with many companies and products doing the same things, customers will always choose to do business with someone who cares about them, their world, the world, and values.

More good advice from VelocityPartners, UK. They’ve just released their B2B Marketing Manifesto, and while this is key to professionals charged with marketing in the business world, it is especially crucial to entrepreneurs, solo professionals, and small businesses… anyone writing content marketing materials.

Think about it: why should people care what you have to say in your blog unless they can identify with your values? …Unless you express to them what you really care about and why?

It doesn’t matter if you’re “green,” dedicated to a charity or not. For myself, I am passionate about saving professionals time, energy and money because I believe that content marketing with blogs should be easy and effective for everybody, not just big companies.

Here’s an excerpt from the B2B Manifesto, the second imperative for content marketing:

2. Expose your beliefs

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Blog Content
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Content Marketing Blues: the Battle for Attention

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, September 27th, 2010

Content marketing with blogs isn’t as easy as it used to be. But like you, I can complain all I want to. It doesn’t matter.

The good news is there are more people going online to read things they need to know, to solve the problems they have.

The bad news is there are more blogs, more competition for attention.

What do you need to do to win the battle for attention and survive the WIIFM flter?

Doug Kessler and the boys over at VelocityPartnersUK ask this question in the B2B Manifesto. (You can get your copy here.) And they answer it. For example, they suggest 5 imperatives for B2B marketers. I think this is essential advice for anyone using a blog for business, not just B2B marketers.

Here’s an excerpt and my interpretation of what this means for my own business:

1. Get a World View:

Before you can sell a product or service, you need to sell a world view.

But very few marketers spend any time at all clarifying their world view.

What is a world view and why is it so important? Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing
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Writing Web Content: 5 Simple Steps for Results

By Patsi Krakoff
Friday, September 24th, 2010

Organize, simplify and get better results from your Web writing by asking 5 important questions:

  1. What is the problem (pain, predicament)?
  2. Why hasn’t this problem been solved?
  3. What is possible?
  4. What is different now?
  5. What should your readers do now?

As you compose your copy, you should write out several sentences to answer each question. This will keep you on task, and lead your readers through to action. I suppose it depends on what you’re writing, but I can’t think of many web pages, blog posts, articles where these 5 questions wouldn’t be appropriate.

I’ve been re-reading Maria Velosa’s Web Copy that Sells this week. Her blueprint for creating simple copy that works to market your products and services is clear. There’s a reason it’s organized this way.

Psychologically, we’re hard wired to sit up and pay attention to problems. This is why it’s a good idea to lead off with your headline and first paragraph addressing readers’ problems and pain. Negative emotions are strong enough to wake us up and get us to read the rest of the story.

There are two things you must realize about this seemingly obvious and simple question:

  1. People who are in your target audience may not realize they have a problem (or how bad it can get). It may seem surprising, but often people are in denial, are ignoring the bad stuff, and are overly optimistic.
  2. People need to know you fully understand their pain AND CARE before they will read anything you have to say about it

Write a few sentences out about the problem. You want your readers to say, Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Blog Content, Writing Great Copy
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The B2B Manifesto: Trust Building Comes First

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

How good is your “trust-building?” I just read this term in a new digital release: The B2B Manifesto, just published by Velocity Partners in the UK.

Think about it. Before you can convert readers to clients, before you can get them to download your digital information and build your list, you’ve got to build trust.

The B2B Manifesto: 5 Imperatives and 6 Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention: page 19:

“You need to leverage trust-builders into each step of the (buying) journey:

  • case studies
  • awards
  • data
  • testimonials
  • analyst support
  • proof points”

I don’t think enough of you do a good job of trust building. Maybe you’ve not been properly taught or missed class that day? As for myself, I’ve never thought about “trust-building” as a defined goal, I’ve just always assumed I was doing it every step of the way. But am I? Maybe not as well as I could. Are you? Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, E-Books, On Writing Better, Writing for the Web
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Writing Better Content: An Emotional Pathway

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Writing quality content that markets your products and services online follows a logical progression, but it also follows an emotional pathway. You must engage the brains of your readers… as well as their hearts.

By that I mean, your content should follow a sequence, touching on the following emotions:

  • Negative, a painful problem, a fear
  • Positive, relief from a problem, benefits, imagine a better future
  • Neutral, rational, logical, analysis of facts
  • Curiosity, desire, imagination
  • Objections, reasons why and why not
  • Trust: social proof, statistics, case studies, personal stories
  • Scarcity, urgency, fear of consequences
  • Call to action, clear next steps, reassurances, guarantees, security

I been reviewing basic steps for writing quality content for the web that works to get you found, get known and get clients. According to Maria Veloso in Web Copy that Sells, there are 5 simple steps that will help you write quality content that connects and engages with readers: Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web
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Writing Better Web Content: Ask what? Who? Why?

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, September 20th, 2010

The rules haven’t changed, but it’s surprising how many people start creating content to market their business on the web without regard for the basics. Many people focus on the medium, the latest shiny tool: the blog, the Twitter tweets, and Facebook updates, without regard for the basic rules of writing copy for the Web.

Content marketing isn’t a buzz word because marketing people just like new buzzes. Content marketing is a requirement for anyone doing business because it beats writing advertisements that get ignored.

Smart marketers know the rules and never forget them. Even if the Internet changes at lightning speed, the writing basics  are the same.

I’ve only been writing online copy for ten years. Before that, I was a journalist and a psychologist so I learned to write  differently. Writing content for the Web is different. It’s designed to deliver information in ways that engage readers to take an action, most often click to register or buy.

Every once in a while, I go back to the basics. A standard learning tool for many copywriters is Maria Veloso’s Web Copy that Sells, published in 2004. The 2nd edition is now out and I’ve been reviewing and re-reading it. Good stuff.

Here’s a recap of some really key nuggets from this book:

Before you write one word of copy, you must first:

  • Know your objective
  • Know your target audience
  • Know your product or service

I know this seems so common sense it’s not worth spending time on, but trust me, the time you take to write down a few notes on each of these things will be well worth it. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing
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