Web Ink Now

Attention Marketers: Hire a Journalist!

On the speaking circuit when I talk about The New Rules of Marketing & PR (including thought leadership based marketing) and when I show examples from innovative organizations, nearly everyone in the audience enthusiastically embraces the ideas. Many people see the potential that thoughtful content has for their business and understand how different this approach is from the some old stuff they are doing (trying to convince the media to write about their widgets and buying expensive "on message" advertising).

But there is always a contingent of people whose eyes glaze over and who adopt a bit of a defensive posture. I always hope one of the skeptics will ask a question because they always voice the same general concern: "This all sounds good, David. But how can we actually create all this content you're talking about: e-books, white papers, blogs and the like? We have a small marketing department and very little budget."

The answer is quite simple: hire a journalist!

With the consolidation of the newspaper and magazine businesses, journalists have found it difficult to get and keep good jobs. Many experienced people are looking for work. And there are many more people coming out of journalism school than available entry-level jobs.

A journalist skillfully creates interesting stories about how an organization solves customer problems and then delivers those stories in the form of ebooks, white papers, content rich web pages, podcasts, and video. And consumers love it. How refreshing to read, listen to, and watch these products of journalistic expertise instead of the usual product come-ons that typical corporations produce.

Of course, this is a dire situation for many reporters and editors themselves, but a tremendous opportunity for corporate marketing and PR departments that need to find great talent to create effective content. Sure, this is a drastically different job description and some marketing VPs may have trouble getting their arms around this kind of hire. But I'm convinced based on the characteristics, skill sets, and work ethics of the journalists I know as well as the evidence from companies (such as IBM) that have already experimented with hiring journalists into the marketing department, that this approach is the right one.

Journalists themselves will need to think deeply about the opportunities that a corporate assignment might bring to their career. Many journalists have a strong emotional aversion to selling their skills to corporations. While some would rather wait tables than work for "the dark side," others may find the opportunity refreshing and maybe even an consider the possibility that a corporate stint as an enhancement to their career that would make them more marketable to magazines and newspapers in their future career.

So I ask my marketing and PR friends: Why not just go for it and hire a journalist?

Mobile phones are the new lighters

Last night I took my teenage daughter to the Orpheum Theatre in Boston to see two of her favorite bands: Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace. We had a great time. This was one of the first concerts I've been to recently where the audience was in their teens and twenties. Alas, the bands that I choose to see attract forty-somethings like me.

Last night, half the crowd was holding up mobile phones during the show. Some were snapping photos. Some were shooting videos. And still others wanted to be part of the action by waving around a light source.

When I was my daughter's age in the late 1970s, I went to dozens of concerts. Some highlights: The Clash, The Ramones, The Grateful Dead (25 times), Talking Heads, The Romantics, Muddy Waters, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, Frank Zappa… I'll stop naming bands now because this is probably way too much information at this point.

Back in the day we all held up lighters to be a part of the action. Sometimes you'd see thousands of lighters.

Last night there were a thousand mobile phones (and a handful of lighters too).

At rock concerts, mobile phones are the new lighters.

I was thinking how many of the online marketing tactics we use today are really new ways of doing things that have been done for many years.

> Ebooks are the new white papers (but white papers are still important for many audiences)

> Google AdWords are the new Yellow Page ads (but in some local markets the Yellow Pages are still important)

> Wikis are the new print directories (Print directories? Do they still make them?)

> Blogs are the new guy on the barstool who is funny and smart and people listen to (anyone have time for the bar anymore?)

Are your marketing and PR tactics better suited to a previous generation?

Eight Quick Tips to create thoughtful Web content to reach buyers directly

As many smart marketers know, a well crafted white paper, e-book, or Webinar contributes to an organization's positive reputation by setting it apart in the marketplace of ideas. This form of thought leadership based Web content brands a company, a consultant, or a nonprofit as an expert and as a trusted resource.

While each media for getting your thought leadership content into the marketplace of ideas is different, they share some common considerations:

Quick Tip #1: Most importantly—Do not write about your company and your products. Thought leadership content is designed to solve buyer problems or answer questions and to show that you and your organization are smart and worth doing business with. This type of marketing and PR technique is not a brochure or sales pitch. Thought leadership is not advertising.

Quick Tip #2: Define your organizational goals first. Do you want to drive revenue? Get people to donate money to your organization? Encourage people to buy something?

Quick Tip # 3: Based on your goals, decide if you want to provide the content for free and without any registration (you will get many more people to use the content, but you won’t know who they are) or if you want to include some kind of registration mechanism (much lower response rates, but you build a contact list).

Quick Tip #4: Think like a publisher by understanding your audience. Consider what market problems your buyer personas are faced with and develop topics that appeal to them.

Quick Tip #5: Write for your audience. Use examples and stories. Make it interesting.

Quick Tip #6: Choose a great title that grabs attention. Use subtitles to describe what the content will deliver.

Quick Tip #7: Promote the effort like crazy. Offer the content on your site with easy-to-find links. Add a link to employees’ e-mail signatures, and get partners to offer links as well.

Quick Tip #8: To drive the viral marketing effects, alert appropriate reporters, bloggers, and analysts that the content is available and send them a download link.

Writing White Papers: Michael Stelzner shows how to capture readers and keep them engaged

Oh, how I love to receive advance copies of books. It makes me feel special to read something and perhaps begin to use some great ideas before the book goes on sale and others have a chance.

Michael Stelzner whose blog I have been reading sent me an advance review copy of Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged (thanks Mike). This is an excellent guide for anyone who would like to take advantage of delivering compelling Web content in the form of white papers. Beginners will learn the basics, but there is a ton of valuable information for people like me who have written a lot of white papers over the years.

The chapter on creating a compelling title by itself is worth the price of the book. The chapter begins: “What’s the value of a title? A title is a nice suit, a cocktail dress, a pretty face, a head-turner or any other metaphor that grabs your attention.” I’ll be using the advice on titles frequently as I struggle for titles to book chapters, columns, and speeches.

Done well, white papers deliver authentic thought leadership, branding an organization as one to do business with. Sadly, many white papers are simply product pitches that annoy readers. Throughout his book, Stelzner shows you how to get it right. He’s written nearly 100 white papers himself for recognized companies, including Microsoft, FedEx, Motorola, Monster, HP and SAP so he speaks from experience.