ProStylus: The Blog - Latest Comments

Re: Five Benefits Your Ghost-Blogger Can Never Deliver

prostylus — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:13:06 -0000

Thanks for weighing in, Lisa.

Like they say, if the wheel ain't broke, don't reinvent it... Or something like that. ...You get the point.

Re: Five Benefits Your Ghost-Blogger Can Never Deliver

prostylus — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:11:22 -0000

I agree, Corey. It is all about the content. The question that a lot of businesses neglect to ask, however, is what package or medium enables their content to reach the target audience most effectively.

A blog is a very specialized - one might say highly individualized - type of package. Unlike static content like webcopy or newsletters, blogs blur the line between the content and its creator. In a sense, the blogger is part of his or her content. So, it's a mistake for businesses to assume a corporate blog is like any other vehicle for their marketing message.

Re: Five Benefits Your Ghost-Blogger Can Never Deliver

Lisa Hawkins — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:10:56 -0000

Whether ghost-written or not, e-newsletters continue as effective tools partly due to their regularity (cited above). In the Age of Info Overload, it's that "bringing content to the people" aspect. [I agree that the most effective (corporate) blogs are genuine writings of the bylined author.] Social media demands authenticity, so you're correct in the bottom line assessment - "counterproductive" is the right word.

Re: Five Benefits Your Ghost-Blogger Can Never Deliver

Corey Freeman — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:41:13 -0000

I don't necessarily consider Ghost Writers a bad thing if you use them with the proper intentions. Those who have a lot of ideas may not be able to articulate them as well...or perhaps they simply want articles for promotion but do not have the time to divert their attention. Ghost writers provide what every blogger needs - content.

As you've said, it's all about working WITH the writer to produce that kind of personality and engagement. Choosing the right writer for your blog is important. Many larger blogs employ "guest blogging" which, in my opinion, is just like free content writing...without the ghost part.

Re: When Should Content Be Free?

prostylus — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:27:24 -0000

Thanks DD, I'm glad you found it helpful.

Re: When Should Content Be Free?

Dentist Denton — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:25:58 -0000

That was a very informative post about content. I think that in those ways, you can generate good feedbacks too. Thank you for sharing this article.

Re: When Should Content Be Free?

prostylus — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:29:18 -0000

Thanks Greg. As a copywriter, I'm basically a tactician. But I take a lot of my cues from the strategic thinking that you and Brian blog about.

Re: When Should Content Be Free?

gregdonahue — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:59:58 -0000

Extremely good comments, Dan. From someone who has been in the trenches w/ this, I think you hit the nail on the head. I expounded a little more in this posting: http://wp.me/pwQCG-1N

Re: When Should Content Be Free?

prostylus — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:39:34 -0000

Thanks Kim, and glad to hear my perspective is substantiated by a real-world corollary. Sounds like a case study might help you make your case with your other clients. ; )

Meanwhile, I see a lot of black & white thinking in marketing these days: inbound vs outbound, social vs traditional media, registered vs free content. The either/or perspective makes inviting blog content. But in the real world, there are no bad marketing tools, only misapplied ones.

Re: When Should Content Be Free?

Kim Cornwall Malseed — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:46:44 -0000

Hi Dan, You make great points in your post. I agree, registration or no registration doesn't have to be all or nothing. I recently worked with a B2B software client on changing their 'registration required' policy for all collateral and demos to having introductory, high level info freely available and using the micro-conversion "step by step' registration strategy for more in-depth white papers, etc. It's only been a few weeks but they are already showing very positive results. Trying to persuade other clients to apply similar strategies.

Re: Your Story is More Interesting than You

Jason — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:32:51 -0000

One very hard thing about teleprospecting actually getting a good call guide. I stress the fact that we need more narrative and I'm frequently shot down that we just need to be simple and factual. But tell me how does writing a script of questions intrigue the decision maker and make them feel comfortable with you? If someone is highly interested but even more highly time constrained this is a great approach. But we all know that many DM's have a fair share of free time throughout the day. Basic and advanced time management figures show that we waste at least 4 hours of every day no matter what we're doing in any job. So yes back to the point - most of the time the time is available to have a much more in depth conversation with narrative, personal story, fact and figure, etc... But there's this huge mindset that narrative is irrelevant and it drives me bonkers!!!
The purpose of speaking directly to a potential buyer is to narrate a story. I'll give a B2B and a B2C example here:
B2B: I'm on the phone with someone who potentially is a customer for a software company. I tell that that software X can match "identities" across applications and systems even if they're external to gain a single view of that "identity." So what do I do after giving the basic value prop? Do I jump in and just start asking them how many records they have, if the quality of their data is bad, etc...? Or do I show them that I have some knowledge of practical use and application to them in their pains? Sure this requires my learning on my part but seriously what is wrong with that? Is it so wrong to narrate a story of how a competitor or similar organization experienced success and pain resolution?
B2C: So I'm working for a company that provides satellite, phone and internet to apartment and condominium buildings. We're conducting an event at a large complex that comprises both condos and apartments. The manager is trying to sell people on simple fact that HD is available and it's a great price. This would simply be my close. I go into the conversation with the consumer with interest in what they like and not just on television. I then help them try to imagine themselves having a great time watching all of their favorite shows and learning about new ones only available to our subscribers. Surfing the internet with 99% reliability and a steady data speed. Than getting that bill at the end of the month which is 25% less than the two competitors in the area for phone and cable service. He was so frustrated that I raked in 10 new customers over his 3. (It may also help that he was much older and all the ladies came over to me - which he commented on).

Re: The Fearful Secret of Copywriting Success

prostylus — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:29:23 -0000

There's a fine line indeed between building relationships through open sharing, and leveraging those relationships to pay the bills. This topic is really a question of finding balance rather than selecting the right path. Like they say: in nature, there is no right or wrong, only consequences.

Thanks for sharing...

Re: Your Story is More Interesting than You

prostylus — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:24:12 -0000

Thanks, Jason. Your example of the engineering/design/test company illustrates my point exactly. Features are just details. People want to hear the benefits, the value.

Benefits comprise narrative. They imply a conflict (e.g. the current inadequate way of doing things), and resolution (e.g. how life could be better). That exactly mirrors my point that value = narrative.

And, again, you nail it with your point about the human touch - particularly in B2B. Consumers may buy brands. But the same doesn't always apply to business. Business decisions are based less on a feeling or experience (i.e. what consumer advertising aims for), than on risk and returns. A solid narrative or track record helps prime the pump for attracting new prospects, but it takes a real person to establish a connection, build trust and maintain the relationship.

Your perspective is always welcome here. Virtually any rule of solid business copy has its corollary in teleprospecting. They're two sides of the same coin.

Re: Your Story is More Interesting than You

Jason — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:55:08 -0000

My day to day work requires narrative. But is it fair for me to assess narrative as being equivalent to teleprospecting?
True it may not be copy but what is the real difference between spoken word and written word?
If my narrative is not effective verbally what difference will it make when I send copy to my contacts and connections? None at all because they won't like the person that I am so they will disregard my copy, my text, my nurturing materials and my everything that I am.
Everything that I'm not makes me everything that I am. I narrate to my contacts with honesty, with humor, with passion, with an urge to invoke their feelings of pain in the area that my solution solves and with the human touch.
The human touch is what drives narration to success. We are all human no matter how hard or how soft we all present ourselves to the world. We cannot get around this in any way.
So yes I've had great success with narrating stories. Stories like your competitor uses this, this company had this problem and solved it with this, we can't do this because this is our focus, etc... etc... etc... really these narrative stories go on and on and one because examples, solutions, products and services are so variant and can benefit or adversely affect a decision maker in so many ways.
A great example of my work helping a client draft narrative is with a company who manufactures engineering design test equipment for stregnths of materials and dynamics of mechanics. Because they're engineers they're so focused on the stats and numbers of the product. Like you said - this doesn't stick to the minds of the customers as there is no meat to put on there bones with this narrative. I helped them to realize that they need to speak to their industry targets with an understanding of their needs, challenges and how they can help to solve that and how they've helped others solve those problems. It worked, at least from my perspective, and I hope that counts because I'm, again, on the front line "narrating stories" to my clients targets and I seen greater response to this.

Re: The Fearful Secret of Copywriting Success

Trisha Lee — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:57:41 -0000

You said it yourself:
"Savings: There are no unemployment benefits for the self-employed. Debt and insolvency are not your friends, particularly when you’re sitting at the negotiating table".

I'm an expertise-sharer whenever I'm sought and sometimes when I just know better. The bills however, remain to be paid. If I can earn from said expertise, then I say do it, not a communist but a capitalist be.

Re: Friday Link Love (already?)

David Spinks — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 03:09:14 -0000

Thank you very much for a kind words and for the great conversation today. I was very glad to see so many people had opinions on the topic.

@DavidSpinks

Re: http://www.prostylus.com/Blog/?p=120

Corey Freeman — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:20:39 -0000

Thanks for the awesome links! There's a lot of good information to read here. I guess I'll have to make bigger and better posts to keep getting mentioned on your site. ;)

Re: http://www.prostylus.com/Blog/?p=120

prostylus — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:45:03 -0000

Jay, Danny,

Oof, did I imply that I dislike interviews? I really meant to say I dislike fluff, and celebrity interviews are often just that.

Sample question: Where you always this amazing?

In fact, I LOVE a good interview. I just think it requires an interviewer who is as interesting and engaging as the interviewee.

And, yeah, I thought Jay delivered on both (and yes, Jay, I also went back and read some of your other interviews. In addition to the ones you recommended, I also liked Beth Harte.)

I particularly found Danny’s comments on blogging to be very affirming, namely that he spends 80% of his time commenting on other blogs, and 20% on his own. That’s a practice I had already intuited, which helps explains why I started the Friday Link Love feature on my blog. I wanted credit for some of my best thinking, which happens in the comments section of other blogs. (This week was a little different: I only commented on one of the blogs I mentioned in the post.)

That tactic led me to discover another one: pingbacks attract traffic, and often high caliber traffic. You two aren’t the only uber-media who responded to my post. Suddenly, the Link Love feature isn’t a toss-off. I’d better compose my Friday posts more thoughtfully in the future because clearly the people I link to will likely be reading me. Lesson learned.

So, I give you both a lot of props for finding (and demonstrating) very clever ways to spin conversations out of your content. That, to me, is really the whole point of a blog – whatever it’s ultimate purpose. It’s nice to be read. But it’s even better to elicit a response.

Thanks for commenting, and for modeling what blogging’s all about. Big fan here.

Re: http://www.prostylus.com/Blog/?p=120

Danny Brown — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:13:06 -0000

Hey there Dan (GREAT first name, by the way!) ;-)

As Jay mentioned, thanks for including our chat - hopefully you enjoyed it and it wasn't too much of a push (especially if you're not a fan of interviews to begin with!). I agree, Jay does a really good job at making it a little different from the norm as far as "interviewing" goes, and I like that you don't really get a chance to think about an answer, so hopefully it's a more authentic result.

I'll be sure to check out the other links (Sonia's always a good read), and again, thanks for including Jay and myself here - cheers! :)

Re: http://www.prostylus.com/Blog/?p=120

jaybaer — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:24:46 -0000

Thanks for much for including my interview with Danny Brown on your list of recommended reads.

If you're anti-interview, this may not resonate, but I have 16 other live Twitter interview transcripts on my site at http://www.twitter20.com Lots of well-known social media types have participated. My favorites are probably Scott Monty, Amber Naslund, David Armano, and Valeria Maltoni. Danny was a fantastic addition to the group.

The Twitter interview format has its advantages and drawbacks, but it certainly keeps interview subjects on their toes. Some great perspectives have come out of those interviews.

Re: http://www.prostylus.com/Blog/?p=120

prostylus — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:43:45 -0000

Well, Peter, now you know why I generally take more time when commenting on blogs.

You didn’t misunderstand at all where I was going with my comments. But please don’t assume, just because I’m willfully driving my wagon into a ditch, that I am myself. We all have off weeks when the words aren’t flowing, or the clients are slow to return calls, or the self-marketing doesn’t appear to be catching a spark.

So, yeah, probably not the best mindset from which to dash off a comment on your blog – or on mine…

That said, you score a very clear point by reminding me that good copy is defined by how well it makes the phones ring, increases traffic, etc. Under that definition, I agree, good copy is the supreme marketing tool - unless your clients begin to view you as their secret weapon.

Either way, thanks for the reality check.

Re: http://www.prostylus.com/Blog/?p=120

peterbowerman — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 23:10:48 -0000

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the pingback to The Well-Fed Writer Blog. Appreciate it. And yes, I know that kickbutt marketing skills come before KB writing skills. That said, you can be the greatest marketer in the world but if your skills are mediocre, you won't grow your business.

And I can't stay mute on your other comments... ;)

You wrote: "Also, kickbutt writing gets you noticed only insomuch as an absence of mistakes gets you noticed."

Not my experience at all. An absence of mistakes (or minimal mistakes, since we've all made them) is sort of a baseline requirement in building client loyalty, but it takes a lot more than that. And good writing - writing that gets the job done, gets the phones ringing, increases traffic, speaks powerfully to the target audience - that's worth infinitely more than just an absence of mistakes.

Finally, you wrote: "Good writing is really a sort of passive virtue compared to saving clients time, money and brain cells."

Dan. Really. Good writing IS the thing that saves clients time, money and brain cells. It's the thing that allows them to get projects done, not edit and re-edit and re-edit and finally have to find another writer to get what should've have been done right in the first place. And while it's a passive virtue in the sense that you don't have to do anything to get the benefits (IT does the heavy lifting), in a sense, for the same reason, it's an exceptionally active virtue in that good writing and the reputation it engenders (a reputation that indeed precedes you) leads to repeat business, introductions to other work, and "out-of-the-blue" referrals. I'm not sure what could be more active than that!

Unless I misunderstood where you were going with all that! Thanks again...

Re: Legitimizing the Corporate Blog (and Ghost-Blogger)

social_smart — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:55:34 -0000

At the BlogWell San Francisco Case Study Presentation - http://www.socialmedia.org/... - Dell's Digital Media Manager Lionel Menchaca gave some important insights into the ongoing development of Dell's social communities. (http://vimeo.com/5484057). One thing he noted was that "their customers are not interested in talking to the CEO, they want to talk to the developers." The key for a company blog is that it should be focusing on the aspects that the customer is interested in, whether it be B2B or B2C, and that it should be the personnel involved with those aspects that should be doing the blogging - whether that be for a product or service based operation. That is not to say that such a blog cannot be ghost-written, but I would expect that the writer would necessarily have to physically visit the department and personnel concerned, at least once a week, to really get an understanding of the issues involved. I don't think the job can be done effectively without a high level of trust and personal interaction with the staff concerned. As such, I think it would be an expensive option but it could be done - as long as it is made clear to the audience the basis on which it is being done.

Re: Legitimizing the Corporate Blog (and Ghost-Blogger)

chrisbaggott — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:32:45 -0000

So here is the thing. Regarding this statement: "Social media in general, and blogs in particular are about attraction, not promotion."

Exactly right. Except it overlooks that the vast majority of that attraction comes through search engines. Embracing that you recognize that you really don't have 'readers' you have 'seekers'. Seeking what? Seeking a solution to whatever they were searching for.

So how does that reality adjust your content strategy? Well it should get corporate bloggers focused on the problems of the customers and the solutions you provide. Does this sound promotional or helpful? If I'm asking a vendor for help (what I'm doing when I search) I'm going to be disappointed if they are not talking about their products or services or similar situations where they helped people like me.

And I'm going to be disappointed if there is no clear call to action. When someone is trying to solve a problem, they want to get to the solution and move on. They are not looking to subscribe or become regular readers...this is a myth. Focus on attraction and conversion. The visitor will be happy and your business will be happy.

Focus on three metrics: first time visitor %, Bounce Rates and Click Through rates. These are the three things that will tell you if you are a successful business blogger.

Chris Baggott
CEO
Compendium Blogware
http://blogging.compendiumb...

Re: New Feature: Friday Link Love

John White — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:35:27 -0000

Dan, how about a post (or maybe a series) on how to spend non-billable time in the age of social media? You've said you spend 1/3 to 1/2 of your blogging-time in reading and commenting, which is an interesting start. Lots of us can learn from your schedule, even if it's not industry-definitive.