Creating focused expectations

I’ve been thinking about brand personalities lately, especially ones for b-to-b companies. It’s really the essence of branding, because personalities lead to expectations and expectations lead to preference (or, in the case of a negative expectation, lack of preference). We have the opportunity to build a focused expectation with every ad we place, every web page we design and every tradeshow display we erect.

 Unfortunately, many b-to-b companies have yet to pick up on this.

With most b-to-b advertisers, creative responsibility is pushed as far down in the company as possible, although marketing and sales managers still enjoy dabbling in the process. It’s like an exciting hobby, except they get paid to do it. The result is that advertising for Division A rarely conveys the same look and feel as ads for Division B or C.  Because of this, customers fail to receive a focused impression of the company’s image. And that’s a serious mistake.

Caterpillar’s “One Voice” program is a great example of how to overcome this problem. You won’t find any dainty Caterpillar ads because daintiness doesn’t fit the Caterpillar voice. You won’t find any funny ones either, nor will you see eye-popping computer effects.

It’s not that Caterpillar doesn’t have a sense of humor or that their graphic designers don’t like special computer effects, but that they make conscious decisions not to use these techniques because they feel building a consistent personality for their brand is more important. Each ad reminds customers and prospective customers what they can expect from Caterpillar: strong, reliable products backed by serious, competent people.

IBM used to stand for business machines – boxes with complex computer stuff inside. But just about the time that personal computers started looking pretty much alike to computer buyers, IBM changed its image to that of a company that could help us do more with our boxes — like hook them up in huge networks, integrate enterprise software solutions and mine data for better decision-making. Our expectations of IBM have changed as a result.

I’m old enough to remember drilling for oil with truck-mounted drilling rigs that were essentially designed for shallow-depth water wells. You can’t do that anymore. Now you go down more than a mile just to get to the ocean floor and you drill several more miles before you reach pay dirt, assuming your geophysical information is correct.

That’s why Schlumberger, a leader in seismic and geophysical data services based in Houston, makes each and every one of its ads in oil-industry publications convey a serious, technologically advanced image. Its body copy is full of high-tech phrases like “microresistivity imaging” and “deep-water cementing for zonal isolation.” Layouts are always similar with the Schlumberger logo in white on a reflex blue background (which gives magazine production managers the heebie-jeebies, I’m told).

Schlumberger’s customers risk hundreds of millions of dollars on these subsea projects and the asset managers they’re trying to reach are not likely to settle for second-best. So in their world, either you look like the one-and-only right choice, or you’re no choice at all.

Having a deadly serious brand personality isn’t always the way to go, of course. New Pig Corp. based in Tipton, PA has built a $100 million business in spill-containment products by taking just the opposite approach. When you call the toll-free number (800-HOT-HOGS) or get ready to select something from their “Pigalog” of more than 5,000 leak and spill control products, you’re probably already smiling. New Pig has happily built a loyal, predictable customer base that shares a messy, disgusting problem: industrial seepage. And they’re smiling all the way to the bank.

So you see there are many ways to skin this cat, and there’s not any one right way to do it. .

If you’re going to spend the time and money to develop a brand image program, make sure you consider the personality aspects of it. Because your brand personality tells people what they can expect from you, and if they expect something good, you’re on the way to making a sale.

 

From Brand Hate to Brand Love

I just finished reading an article in FAST COMPANY about Ticketmaster, the World’s Most Hated Brand (July/August, 2011).  And while that distinction is debatable, CEO Nathan Hubbard didn’t disagree with it very much.  It seems that years of slow service and inflexible systems have generated strong consumer dislike for Ticketmaster.

“If Ticketmaster were a person,” one person tweeted, “I’d kick it in the f**king face.”  And other stuff like that.

When you think about it, there are many hated brands out there.  Who doesn’t have a horror story about the cable company or your wireless provider? 

Banks are a popular subject of hatred these days, thanks to our multi-trillion dollar stimulus program that made them healthy and able to pay themselves huge bonuses again – while they turn their backs on small business owners who desperately need investment funds to expand and create jobs.  I’m amused by Ally Bank’s ad campaign parodying abusive bank practices while they pretend to be different.  Efforts like that usually only remind viewers how all banks are abhorrent.

Some brand hatred scenarios are temporary or limited to small segments of the population.  I was recently surprised how many well-educated, financially successful people in my inner-city neighborhood rose as one to register their hatred for Wal-Mart when the retailing giant announced plans to locate a store not too far away.

And it’s easy for an otherwise respected company to become the subject of passionate, vitriolic loud and ugly protest when it makes an environmental false step.  You don’t want to get the tree-huggers riled up.

So what should you do when you find your brand love turning into brand hate?  Here are a few suggestions to help steer the ship back into safe harbor.

1.  Quantify the problem

Do some basic research to find out how widespread the problems are, and hopefully identify the key issues.  Don’t assume from anecdotal information that you know how deeply rooted the consumer issues are.  Look for underlying causes and segment your study so you can determine if the problems are widespread or limited to certain groups.

If there are multiple problems, prioritize them and determine which ones need attention first.

2.  Develop solutions

In some cases the solutions are obvious.  You make a slow process faster.  You give the buyer more options before they buy.  You provide “insurance” if the buyer decides to back out.

For bigger issues, like those related to the environment, you provide facts that help people understand the whole picture.  You make sure they know about things you are doing to minimize the impact or improve the quality of life for those affected.

Wal-Mart is dealing with their urban penetration problem with some creative new strategies involving smaller footprint stores with more attractive facades.  From the 195,000 square foot Super Center behemoth, to the 42,000 SF Neighborhood Markets and the newer 15,000 SF “Marketside” concept stores emphasizing fresh foods, Wal-Mart is attempting to serve inner-city customers with smaller stores that stand out less obtrusively.

In other cases where the issues are more complex and solutions less obvious, you invite interested parties to participate in the discussion.  You establish forums for open debate and sharing of ideas.  You become transparent.

3.  Spread the word

Once you’ve identified the problems and started the process of developing solutions, you get the word out that changes are underway.  Everyone knew that’s what BP was doing after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but there’s no denying their television commercials helped soften the blow of negative opinion along the Gulf coast.

Social media has given millions of Twitter and Facebook users a platform to vent their unhappiness, but it also offers the opportunity to spread the news about service and facility improvements.

The worst thing a brand owner can do when faced with mounting negative attitudes is ignore the complaints.  The old saying, “Their perception is your reality” applies more now than ever.  If customers think you have a problem, you do.  And the sooner you start fixing it, the better.

 

Pacesetter or passenger?

I was attending a luncheon the other day with several hundred oil and gas industry marketing folks, enjoying the food and experience of dining at one of Houston’s finest country clubs.  At my table were four bright-eyed, intelligent young ladies, all employed in marketing communications by a leading oil equipment and services company.  It’s hard to guess ages, but they were easily shy of the thirty-year mark.

It took me back to 1992, the year I spent as chairman of the Business Marketing Association.  I made an honest effort that year to visit all of the association’s 30 or so chapters and share some of my chairman-like wisdom with BMA members.  The title of my talk was, “Pacesetter or passenger?”

The reason I chose that subject was, even 20 years ago, the average age of marcom practitioners was dropping rapidly, along with the relative influence of our members.  No longer was it common for marketing communication managers to have titles like senior vice president and report directly to the chief executive officer  (who in those days was referred to simply as president).  With every reorganization the marcom function was being forced further down the corporate ladder.

As I sat there listening to my luncheon companions laugh and talk amongst themselves, I wondered how much influence they were having on their company’s strategic direction.  Were they helping chart the course and steer the ship, or were they just along for the ride?

It seems like an impossible question for people with limited experience in large organizations. Not only are you left out of the sessions where strategy is determined, often you have to make a Herculean effort just to find out what strategies have been adopted.  As I advised my BMA colleagues 20 years ago, however, there are several things you can do to insert yourself in the decision-making loop.

1.  Understand corporate priorities

It’s hard to master anything if you’re out of step with what top management wants for the company.  Understanding the “corporate vision” is not that easy, but by scrutinizing annual reports, long range plans, mission statements and other vision-setting documents blessed by top management, you should be able to pick up clues about issues and initiatives that are critically important. 

The most direct way to determine top management priorities is to ask someone.  But make sure it’s someone who really knows.  A lot of people act like they are “plugged in” to C-level thinking, but they’re not.

And it’s important knowing what questions to ask.  You’ve got to do a little homework before you can even approach the wavelength that top managers operate on.  It’s best if you prepare questions from your perusal of “vision” documents, ones that will help you understand how things fit in the grand scheme.

 2.  Prepare a formal marketing communications plan

Most large companies have marcom plans that spell out what they hope to accomplish, how they intend to go about it, and who will have to be reached to accomplish their goals.

And yet it’s always surprising to discover how many companies never bother to link business-level marcom plans with strategic vision issues.

Preparing a formal plan forces managers to share their game plan with you, and it gives you the opportunity to add value by recommending complimentary strategies to support the corporate vision.  Make sure your plan addresses all the issues.

3.  Take initiative to get things started

Assuming you know what the corporate priorities are and have taken the time and effort to prepare a formal plan, now you can start using time to your advantage.

Stephen Covey, in his classic book, “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People,” points out there is a huge difference in effectiveness between people who exercise initiative and those who don’t — up to 5,000%, he says.  Anticipate needs by putting key dates on your calendar and developing timetables so you aren’t caught off-guard.

Using another Covey tip, be sure to block time on your weekly schedule for the important activities that aren’t critical yet, but will be if you delay getting started.  If one of your marcom strategies supports a corporate issue that’s beyond the scope of your usual topics, give yourself plenty of time to get the messaging developed.

4.  Be an advertising scientist

In research-oriented companies, failure is encouraged because it promotes learning and leads to breakthrough successes later.  Scientists develop the “ultimate” solutions by analyzing results and making each experiment a little better than the last.  That’s what we should be doing with our advertising and marketing programs.

Many of our advertising forefathers were obsessed with measuring results so they might do better the next time.  People like Claude Hopkins, Rosser Reeves, Marion Harper, John Caples and David Ogilvy all made research a key part of their rise to fame and fortune.

I’m convinced that if we, as marketing communications practitioners, are ever going to play a Pacesetting role for our clients, we’ve got to start doing a better job of measuring results and learning from our mistakes.

5.  Be a strategist

Marketing communications people spend too much of our time doing tactical things.  We worry too much about how to do something better, and not nearly enough about what should be done or why we should do it.

When the discussion turns to pricing, packaging or product distribution, we tune out — because that’s not our job.  We’re oblivious to gaps in our product or service offering that put us at a competitive disadvantage.  We pay attention to competitive advertising, but only to make sure our ads are more clever than theirs.

And we surely don’t ask field sales people for their opinions on our work because we’re afraid of what they might say.  We don’t want them involved at the creative level, because they’ll get things all twisted around.  Or so we think.

That’s the mark of a tactician, for sure.  Marketing communications people who wish to play key roles in helping their companies achieve marketing success should stop being so concerned about “ownership” of tactical issues, and start looking for opportunities to participate in strategic activities that will make even bigger contributions.

So what’s it going to be — pacesetter or passenger?  You can help chart the course and steer the ship or you can just go along for the ride.  It’s one of the biggest choices a marketing communications practitioner can make.

The evils of borrowed interest

Borrowed interest is the lazy adman’s crutch.  It’s the ultimate creative shortcut – a way to appear creative without actually having to come up with a genuine creative idea.  I hate borrowed interest.

BTW, I’m always challenging people who use the word “hate” casually, but in this case, the term fits.  If you’re ever summoned before the High Court of Advertising Appropriateness, I hope your file is devoid of borrowed interest examples.  (There is a statute of limitations on borrowed interest, so if you accidentally did some of these ads early in your career, after ten years those don’t count against your record any more.)

Because business-to-business advertising is the toughest area of our industry, it has more than it’s share of borrowed interest ads.  I’ve been calling attention to these atrocities and ridiculing them for more than thirty years to no avail.  They just keep popping up everywhere you look.  The same lame concepts over and over again.

In the oil and gas industry where I spend most of my time, you can currently spot race car pit crews (teamwork), track runners clearing hurdles (performance), magnifying glasses (seeing things differently) and mountain climbers (pushing the limits).  Transocean, recently famous for its Deepwater Horizon debacle, is using a chess board analogy to ensure that you “make the right move.”  I’m pretty sure that means not working with BP anytime soon.

But borrowed interest is not limited to oil and gas by any means.  In every issue of every business and trade magazine you can find worthy examples of creative corner cutting.  One recent issue of FORTUNE magazine featured a leading consulting firm with an inflated sheep to connote getting more out of existing resources, and a stack of light bulbs for another firm wishing to convince you they have better ideas.

Borrowed interest afflicts advertisers of all shapes and sizes.  We have dart boards for hitting the target, jigsaw puzzles for putting all the pieces together, and no list of borrowed interest topics would be complete without globes to show globalness.

The sad thing is that in almost every case, if you study these ads carefully, you can find something worthy of a benefit-driven headline and visual.  It’s usually buried about halfway down in the body copy.

For example, in a packaging industry magazine I once spotted a Hitachi printer ad with a photo of a huge diamond followed by the headline, “The quality gem you’ve been searching for.”  Several inches down, however, is the revelation that Hitachi PXR Series printers offer the lowest operating costs of any inkjet printer.  Isn’t that more significant than searching for gems?

The bottom line is that good b-to-b advertising requires you to get far below the surface barriers of jargon and technology.  You can’t have a truly creative idea until you understand the message, and that takes some work.

One problem is that technical experts, when given the opportunity to help produce an ad tend to become amateur creative directors.  Instead of helping you search for that salient point of difference, they leap frog into creative concepts that are usually just clichés.   Amazingly, these individuals sometimes get upset if you don’t feed back to them their half-baked ideas.

The trick is to thank them generously for giving you a running head start on developing some distinctive concepts that will emphasize and support the primary advantages of your product or service – but not lead them to believe their starter ideas will necessarily be part of the final presentation.

I tell clients that we go through hundreds of raw ideas and idea fragments just to get to a half dozen or so worthy of presentation.  Usually the final concepts are blended from several starter ideas, so if you need to stroke your over-eager client, point out how their embryonic idea led to the one you’re about to present. 

They will love it.  Guaranteed.

Selecting An Ad Agency

Creativity and chemistry are the attributes most frequently mentioned when searching for a new advertising and marketing services firm.  But in today’s rapidly changing business world, there are many other important considerations, especially when it comes to business-to-business products and services.

 1.  Message packaging

For my money, the most important skill of a B2B communicator is the ability to identify, prioritize and “package” messages for your various audiences.  Many clients think they have the identification and prioritization aspects already figured out, but in my experience, they seldom do.

That’s because most B2B marketing managers come from technical backgrounds like engineering or science.  Their left-brain dominant approach is largely skewed to logic, order and sequence.  Often they will tell a product development story chronologically, instead of starting with the most significant conclusions.

You can pick up almost any technical trade magazine, scan the advertising, and find key points buried halfway through the body copy.  If the objective of an ad is to lead with the most promising customer benefit, it’s mystifying to me why so many don’t.

2.  Relevant creative

The second part of message packaging (after message identification and prioritization) is to format those messages in ways that break through the clutter and become instantly relevant and memorable.  Too many agencies take the easy way out with borrowed interest or clichés.  I used to laugh at stuff like this, but that was 20 years ago.  It’s no longer funny.

If you take the time and effort to properly identify and understand the most significant attributes, you can then start developing creative concepts that bring those attributes alive.  Anything short of this is wasting money.

3.  Strategic thinking

In today’s hypercompetitive business environment, you need agency partners who are good at helping you think through the strategic issues.  It’s no longer enough for them to be good tacticians.  The best implementation is virtually worthless if you pick the wrong target or front the wrong message. 

And timing is often an issue, too.  I’ve seen too many initiatives limp out of the gate because the client felt pressure to respond quickly to a competitor’s campaign.  They would have been better served to take their time, formulate a powerful response and schedule it to coincide with a major industry event so the competitor had no time for a counter-response.

Strategic-thinking agencies will also make an effort to understand how your competitors are positioned, and will help you avoid “me too” approaches that fall flat with customers and prospects.

4.  Brand counselors

Which leads to the most misused word in marketing – branding.  Everyone’s a branding expert these days, but so few B2B companies do branding well.  Why is that?  In evaluating potential agency partners, you should look for examples of brand development programs they have produced that ring true. 

Take time to ask questions when they present branding case studies so you can understand the appropriateness of the recommended solution.  Remember the key word “expectation.”  Is the program geared to building a focused expectation for the advertiser?  If there is an obvious brand promise, can the client be held to it?  Will the branding program help employees know how to act and respond to customer needs?

Branding is not a magic black box.  It should not be an overly complicated process.  Don’t be fooled by process diagrams and mumbo-jumbo verbiage.  Look for clearly articulated objectives and results.

5.  Social media

It’s natural for older client-side managers to dismiss social media as being not relevant for their situation.  (I’ve been experimenting with Twitter for almost two years now and still can’t see the value.)

But if you break communications down into its three basic components (my 3M’s  — Messages sent to Markets via Media vehicles), then social media just becomes another possible delivery conduit. 

A good agency partner will be considering this possibility for every client, and will probably come to you at one time or another with a social media program recommendation.  You should want them to do this, but you should also want them to have some experience in  applying the recommended approach for someone else first.  Forward-thinking agencies will have one or several people who are wired to tinker with stuff like that, so factor it into your selection process.

6.  Accountability

In my opinion, the number one failing of business-to-business marketing communications professionals (agency and client-side) is the inability to show cause and effect relationships between spending money and getting something back.  We get so caught up in “doing good stuff” that we forget to measure what happens when the program has run for awhile

In our hearts, we know the campaign is good.  The anecdotal evidence is overwhelming.  But the hard evidence that will convince CEOs and CFOs to invest more is missing.

You should look for an agency partner that has already figured this out, and has taken one or more steps to fill the void with compelling data that replaces subjective judgments with objective ones.

Chemistry between agency and client managers is important, but nothing destroys chemistry faster than off-target creative efforts or missed strategic opportunities.  When searching for the right ad agency partner, you should insist on the whole package.

Branding is not design

If you’re old enough to remember the Mary Tyler Moore Show, the news anchor played by Ted Knight was handsome and impeccably attired with a booming, authoritative voice.  He also happened to be dumb as a rock.  If you went by exterior appearances, Ted Baxter was someone you could really put your trust in, until you saw him in action that is.

To base your impression of Ted Baxter on his carefully staged reading of the news would be wrong.  His actual personality was something else entirely.  In his case, the “book” was significantly different from the “cover.”

That’s why branding people shouldn’t put too much emphasis on design.  Yes, design is part of it, but only a part.  The key word to me is “expectation.”  When you see or hear about a brand, what do you expect?

In many ways, brands are like personalities, and it’s instructive to use real people as examples of the way we react to brands.  If you barely know someone, you probably don’t have much of an expectation about how they will behave.  The more you’re exposed to them, however, whether it’s in person or through the media, the more you develop highly focused expectations about what you should expect from them.  

When people fail to live up to our expectations, like Tiger Woods, for example, we react with surprise, shock or disappointment.  If it’s only a small deviation from our standard expectation, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.  If the deviation is significant, or if we witness a steady series of inconsistent behaviors, our expectations change.

That’s what brands do.  If we have a positive impression of a brand, we expect something good when we interact with that brand.  Likewise, if our expectations are negative, we expect to be abused, gouged or annoyed.  It has little to do with design.

For my money, branding is more about words and actions.  You tell people what they should expect and then you proceed to deliver on that promise.  In molding and shaping this desired expectation, messaging is a lot more important than graphic design.

And as long as we’re talking about molding and shaping expectations, let me put in an appeal to keep your aspirations simple and focused.  You cannot be the Mission Statement.  Most strong brands are clearly identified with a single attribute.

Rolex is quality.  Wal-Mart is everyday low prices.  FedEx is reliability.  Apple is innovative design. Volvo is safety.  The list goes on and on.

Marketers that try to do too much with their brand expectation run the risk of making it too complicated for customers to grasp and retain.  The Holy Grail of branding, to me, is when one customer turns to a colleague and says, “I like XYZ because ______” and the “because” is the brand expectation you have been striving to establish.

I will readily concede that expectations can be impacted by design.  You walk into Tiffany’s or Neiman Marcus expecting high quality because of the way the store is designed and the merchandise displayed.

But in my B2B world, customers rarely find themselves in a retail environment, and even if they do, their expectations are most likely already shaped by other considerations.  Construction equipment buyers, for example, know that Caterpillar products are rugged and reliable before they set foot in a dealer’s showroom.

It’s far more important in branding to get the messaging right.  If you do that properly, design will almost take care of itself.  

(And for all the graphic design people who might be reading this, you guys are the best!)

Dealing with negative brand images

The scenario: You’re attending a major trade show, riding in an elevator with several people you don’t know, when one of them starts talking about your company, Yurco.

First guy: I ran into Bill Johnson with Yurco this afternoon.

Second guy: Yurco? Bill Johnson is with Yurco? When did that happen?

First guy: He just joined them several months ago. I’m not sure how long it’s going to last, though.

Second guy: How come?

First guy: Well, Yurco is always low-balling contracts. Then they stick it to you with special fees and add-ons. That’s really not Bill’s style.

Second guy: You got that right. I’ve also heard their quality’s not the best.

First guy: Yeah, it’s too bad a classy guy like Bill would get caught up in all that.

As a new product manager for Yurco, your first inclination is to set these guys straight, but unfortunately the problem runs much deeper than that. In this case, Bill Johnson’s brand image is a lot better than the company he now represents.

Your perception is that Yurco pursues an aggressive pricing strategy. Theirs is low-balling.

Your perception is fit-for-purpose product quality. Theirs is shoddy workmanship.

Your perception is that Bill Johnson is proud to work for Yurco. Theirs is that Bill has fallen on hard times.

Brand images create customer expectations and, as we see in this example, expectations are not always positive. Yurco may have a catalog full of useful products, a customer service department second to none and a content-rich Web site with lots of e-business features that make it easy for customers to do business with the company.

Unfortunately, these customers are stuck on a brand image that gives them entirely different expectations. They expect your company to play fast and loose with contract proposals. They expect marginal product quality. They also expect that Bill Johnson won’t stay long with Yurco.

Yurco can launch the most creative and expensive brand-image advertising program in the history of business, and it won’t have much effect in this situation unless the company addresses its pricing and product quality issues. Yurco can boast of the innovative features of its latest products. Executives can talk about services and solutions and problem-solving until they’re blue in the face. None of these appeals will be properly received until they face the harsh reality of the existing negative image.

Many marketing managers live in denial when it comes to brand images. They’ve recited their 25-word “what we do” features and benefits pitch so many times, they believe it must be true. It never occurs to them that customers are totally unable or unwilling to recite a similar pitch when playing back a description of the company.

This is the reason I dislike mission or vision statements so much: The vast majority are totally unrealistic. Not only is it impossible for companies to actually be all the things they claim to be, but more importantly, customers will never give you credit for anything remotely close to that.

And when was the last time you saw a mission statement that addressed a weakness or negative issue? This obviously goes against the code of United Mission Statement Writers International.

In the case of Yurco, customer concerns about deceptive pricing policies and subpar product quality must be placed at the top of their to-do list before the company can move on to more esoteric branding goals.

Several years ago, I was working with a large oil field equipment company that had hired a leading research firm to do a customer satisfaction survey. We were sitting in the spacious, wood-paneled main conference room with all its elegant furnishings and satellite conferencing equipment, listening to the head of the research firm go through the survey findings when he got to a customer concern about how hard the company was to deal with.

“Arrogant” was a word that kept coming up. “Bureaucratic” was another one. “Inaccessible top management” was a third descriptor. Even though customers acknowledged that the company’s products were the highest quality in the industry and its reputation for innovative technology was unsurpassed, the company was losing market share. Several multimillion-dollar orders had recently been lost to competitors.

And here was a respected oil-industry researcher, a man to whom this company had paid many tens of thousands of dollars, telling them about a serious problem and they were dismissing it as insignificant. Their general reaction was, “We’ve heard this before. This is the typical thing people say about market leaders.”

Maybe it’s what they say about ex-market leaders. If you’re aware of negative image issues and your branding program fails to put those concerns at the top of the list of things to worry about, you can expect the situation to only get worse.

When crafting your next brand personality statement, maybe you should consider a “personality makeover” statement instead. It could be the first step to a totally new Yurco.

Tips for writing better copy

Of all the skills required to practice business-to-business marketing communications, copywriting is the most important by far. Copywriting is the very essence of “message packaging,” so I find it ironic that many clients think they need to write copy for their agency or in-house group (the message packaging team). Ironic because I can count on one hand the number of technical persons (e.g., engineers or chemists) I’ve encountered in more than 40 years that could truly write good copy.  Most technical people can’t write intelligible prose to save their lives, and the really insightful ones know that inherently. Writing requires daily practice, and I am not just talking about e-mails and interoffice memos.

Having said that, however, if a non-writer is determined to write for promotional purposes, at least keep these 10 guidelines in mind:

Prepare an outline. Before starting to write, take a few minutes to organize your thoughts. Even if the outline is a handwritten list of key points, it will help focus the overall messages and develop a logical sequence to the points you wish to make.

Keep the audience in mind. Ask yourself, “What does my audience need to know? What concepts or facts are most likely to catch their attention? Will they understand the buzzwords?” I’m constantly amazed at how technical writers make sweeping assumptions about their readers’ interest level or technical knowledge. Why risk losing the audience when you can define a few basic terms for easier comprehension?

Explain your key idea early. Note that I said key idea, not key ideas. Most communications pieces should emphasize a single idea and include secondary points only after the main point is explained. Ads, mailers, tradeshow promotions or whatever become jumbled and confusing when their creators try to do too much with them. Use your key idea as a stopper, something to engage your readers’ interest and pull them in to the document’s body.

Decide on a call to action. It is amazing how many business-to-business marcom pieces have no call to action or even a weak one, such as, “Contact your nearest ABC rep for all the details.” Prospects are too busy to figure out what action you want them to take. Besides, you can set the hook with a thoughtful incentive, such as offering a white paper on the major considerations concerning the subject of your communications, or a free trial or product demonstration, or a brochure that does more than simply describe the product. (How about calling it the “XYZ Selection Guide”?)

There are many ways to make your fulfillment piece more enticing if you put some thought to it.

Use examples to reinforce your point. Most sales and product managers are reluctant these days to make specific claims; I guess they got their hands slapped somewhere along the way. When you ask them basic questions, such as “How much faster?” or “Why is it cheaper?” they sidestep the question with the skill of a politician. But for precisely these reasons, many
b-to-b customers are skeptical of broadly phrased, boilerplate claims. Inserting a specific example after the sweeping statement boosts your credibility immensely.

Use features and benefits. I wish I had $20 for every time I’ve read a “bold” advertising statement that included a product feature but didn’t explain the benefit, or conversely, that waxed poetic about a significant benefit but didn’t explain what feature (or features) made that possible. Many technical managers honestly believe you don’t need to explain these things, that their customers know the answers and it would be condescending to expound on the subject. I’m here to tell you they 1) don’t know the answers you want them to know, and 2) don’t have time to worry about it. They simply turn the page or chuck your fluffy piece in the receptacle for fluffy pieces located conveniently beneath their desk.

One shot for copy editing. When a committee needs to look at your copy, adopt this important rule: The more the merrier on the first draft, provided they meet your reasonable deadline for getting comments back to you. But on draft No. 2, reduce the number of copy approvers to one or two; anything else is chaotic, not to mention an inefficient use of company resources.

Break out the thesaurus. Look for special words that will inject some life into your copy—not big, difficult-to-understand words, but unusual phrasing or maybe an unexpected adjective that causes the reader to stop and reflect for a moment. It’s the difference between “really strong mints” and “curiously strong mints”: One sticks in your brain, while the other sails on by.

Let it sit overnight. Whatever you do, don’t distribute your copy until you’ve had a chance to put it aside for awhile and can re-read it with fresh eyes. Often, I find that my copy needs considerable work the next morning when I thought it was nothing short of brilliant the night before. (this is probably good advice for all business correspondence.)

Sell the work. And finally, when the copywriter is face-to-face with the copy approvers, don’t let him give up on his ideas and words too quickly. Listen carefully, don’t get defensive and find out what the concerns are. Then, if you think his copy satisfies these concerns as written, defend it.

There are a gazillion ways to express anything, but different isn’t necessarily better. Besides, some managers see quick concessions as a sign of weakness; they want the writer to be strong and stand up for what he believes in, assuming he really does believe in it.

Business-to-business communications is about packaging complex messages for specialized audiences, and copywriting is the essential core of this process. You can’t succeed if you delegate it to an unskilled person.

In-house versus outside agencies

In-house or outhouse? The debate about using in-house advertising services versus traditional, outside agencies has raged for decades. It’s especially relevant if you’re marketing products or services with heavy concentrations of technology and jargon.

“They just don’t understand our business,” goes the call for hiring permanent employees who will learn the product/service messages well enough to think like the people to whom your communications programs are directed. Outside agencies are an easy mark for this criticism because they have notoriously high turnover and it seems like you’re always having to “break in” new agency staffers.

Since I’ve spent significant portions of my 40-year career on both sides of this debate, and since my business-to-business agency works with several clients’ large in-house staffs, I guess I can be as objective as anyone on this subject.

So here are some observations on in-house versus outside to help you sort your way through this surprisingly easy issue.

The case for in-house

1. Team membership

When you’re a company employee, you automatically qualify as a member of the home team. You’re not selling anything, so your motives are “pure.” And because your paycheck is guaranteed, you’re free to think about things as much as you like. Agency people have to get client permission to work on projects, and then they can only put in as much time as the budget allows. Otherwise, they’re giving away billable time, and that’s generally frowned upon in agency-land.

2. Continuity

In my experience, in-house people really do stay in one place longer than their outside agency counterparts. Assuming in-house agency staffers get better with every passing year, the continuity and accumulated experience this provides is the strongest argument in favor of the inside marcom group. If they don’t get better over time, however, this can have the opposite effect. Outside agencies ruthlessly weed out dead wood. In-house agencies don’t.

3. Access to Big Ideas

In-house people have better access to everything because they’re there every day. I’ve seen as many Big Ideas pop out in the elevator or company lunchroom as in conference rooms where attendees are supposed to be tossing out Big Ideas. Plus, you’ve got easier access to company information and dozens of valuable resources that make projects go smoother.

The case for outside agencies

1. Objectivity

You know the story about being unable to see the forest for all the trees? There’s a lot of truth to this. Inside people tend to fall victim to tradition or procedure (”we’ve always done it like that”) or just taking the path of least resistance. They may not be willing to go too far out on a limb to argue in favor of something the company needs to do, but has yet to fully embrace. Outside firms can offer new perspectives based on experiences with other clients in different or related markets.

2. Creativity

Creative people, namely artists, writers and now computer jocks, would rather work for outside agencies. They get a richer variety of assignments and, for the most part, see more opportunity for advancement. Outside agencies tend to offer a more nurturing environment for creative people. Conversations start at a higher level, because it is understood that advertising is important (that’s why we’re here, after all). In-house groups spend a lot of their time defending the practice of advertising against non-believers.

3. Productivity

I’ll probably get some argument here, but the flip side of team membership is that you don’t get dumped on as much with assignments that have little or nothing to do with marketing communications. During both of my stints as company-side practitioner, I recall thinking how much of my potential productive time was wasted doing meaningless tasks for big wheels who popped in my office with a late afternoon “Oh, by the way” request. Team players have a hard time saying no. Outside agency people are paid to focus on the assigned tasks.

Cost-savings

You may have noticed I’ve avoided “cost savings” as an issue in the in-house versus outside agency debate. That’s because it isn’t an issue.

In-house agencies must pay salaries competitive with outside agencies. If anything, they pay more. I’ve interviewed dozens of former in-house marcom managers whose salary expectations were out of line with outside agency pay scales. The same applies for writers, art directors and other in-house positions.

In either case, salaries and benefits comprise the greatest portion of inside or outside agency overhead. And these costs should be essentially the same for either type set-up. Other overhead factors like computers, furniture, office space, utilities, etc. are also a wash.

If an outside agency makes 10% net profit, it has done extremely well. Usually it’s a lot less. And this profit margin includes commissions from media and mark-ups of other outside production. In-house agency advocates like to take the media and production budgets, multiply by 15% and present that as the annual savings opportunity.

Unfortunately, this analysis just doesn’t compute. When the in-house organization absorbs its share of all operational costs, including taxes, invoice processing and indirect overhead, the simple truth is that outside agencies are not pocketing commissions as incremental profit. These revenues go in the pot along with everything else and the bottom line is usually less than 10% of total revenues. And much of that is plowed back into the company to keep it competitive.

So the decision doesn’t hang on money.

The case for good people

If you are struggling with the in-house versus outside agency question, the only issue that matters is, “Which approach will give us the most effective communications program for our products and services for the money we choose to invest?”

And like everything else in the services business, the quality of the work will probably come down to the quality of people you can enlist. If you find quality people who want to form an in-house group, you should give them a shot. You’ll probably be pleased with the results.

But after a while, if you notice the service has dropped, you should be equally willing to disband the in-house group and go in the other direction.

It’s not about building empires or saving money. It’s not even about convenience. It’s about doing good work. And you can provide the proper environment for this on either side of the fence.

Getting guidance from technical experts

The worst thing you can do when you’re discussing a business-to-business marcom assignment with a technical expert is act like you know what he’s talking about when you haven’t a clue. Unfortunately, the tendency among younger practitioners, especially those on the client side, is to nod knowingly and say, “You bet,” when Mr. Technical asks if he’s making himself clear.

Nobody wants to appear thick-headed, so it’s easy to see why people act like they understand when they don’t. But it’s a rookie mistake; you’re hoping you can retreat back to your office with that armload of technical literature and figure it out there, but that’s not likely to happen. Which leaves you with two choices: Go back to Mr. Technical and ask for a second helping, or fake it.

Unfortunately, most young people choose to fake it, because they know that Mr. Technical wouldn’t be pleased to find his first session was wasted time. The reality is, however, that if you do this with him more than once, he may decide to avoid you altogether. You don’t want to upset him by asking lots of dumb questions, but who says you have to ask dumb questions? In my experience, technical experts will gladly spend time with marcom people who make an effort to learn the technology’s fundamentals. You don’t have to be able to design complex gizmos; just understand how they work and why certain ones are better than others.

Here are some basic questions I’d ask Mr. Technical, and you might be surprised to learn he hasn’t thought much about the answers:

What are the gizmo’s most important features and benefits? Technical people love to talk features, but they often leave out the benefits. (Everybody knows those, right?) Make sure you get both. Also, technical people don’t always give you the most important information first, and they love to throw in secondary and tertiary features just to show you how complicated their jobs are. If they provide a long list of technical features, ask them to prioritize it.

And here’s an important corollary question:

How do these features compare with the main competition? Try to think like a customer: Why are these things important? What other choices do I have? If your gizmo costs more, is it worth the extra money? These inquiries usually prompt the big idea for marketing, or at least the basis for it.

This is also the time when you’re most likely to act like you’ve got it before you really do. Keep burrowing until you can articulate the basic advantages and disadvantages of each approach, just as you would if you were about to make a purchase.

And as long as you’re thinking like a customer, here’s another good question:

Who is the most important prospect for this gizmo? This is an easy area to gloss over. You’ll get some quick and vague references to purchasing agents, process engineers or plant managers, but that really doesn’t tell you what drives these people to make buying decisions.

Try to find out their hot buttons; ask what pressures they’re likely to be struggling with, such as downsizing, rising energy costs and shrinking profit margins. Your direction-givers will try to tell you about all the exceptions to the rule, but if you really press, they can close their eyes and describe the typical customer or prospect in surprisingly vivid terms. This will give you psychographic clues about how to communicate with the key decision-makers. We’re talking creative concepts again.

What action do you want people to take? It’s amazing to me how many b-to-b ads and promotional pieces have no call to action, or a weak one such as, “Call today for more information,” or “Log on to our Website for full details.” When you go to the Website, you find the company’s standard home page with no reference at all to the subject of the ad.

Someone who is interested in your offer and willing to take the next step in the buying process would really be frustrated. For those people, it’s just good business sense to make that next step as painless as possible. Instead of linking them to the home page, send them to a special jump page geared to the subject. Include an e-mail form so they can click a few boxes indicating their situation, and maybe type in a special concern for someone to respond to.

But for people who aren’t quite ready to take the next step, suggest a non-threatening and helpful action that will nudge them in that direction, such as requesting a free information kit or a test report showing how your gizmo performs relative to other gizmos.

I’m sure you could ask your technical experts many other good questions. But if you just focus on these four, you’ll probably experience a technical information epiphany and be well on your way to becoming a valued marketing communications partner.