Identity/biometrics/technology marketing and writing services
You may recall my recent post about Facebook business pages. It included four page examples, including the page Shirts by Kaytie.
I neglected to say that Kaytie is a relative of mine, whom I’ve known since birth.
Which makes the news I learned tonight even more depressing, when I was made aware of her obituary.
I’m still in shock as I process the news.
This post talks about the Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service, describes why your firm would elect that service over three of my other services, and explains how the Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service works.
Yes, I used the words “why” and “how” in the introduction to this post. It’s a habit (see my December 2022 e-book).
I know that the experts say that you’re NOT supposed to give your prospects a multitude of choices, and that you should keep your offerings simple. Sometimes REALLY simple.
But I’ve ignored the experts (again) and I’m giving Bredemarket’s prospects four options for content creation. I’ll briefly touch on three of them before describing the fourth one, the Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service. Once I’m done, you’ll know when you want to elect Bredemarket 2800, and when you’ll want to elect one of the other three options:
Sometimes you don’t know the parameters of your project, or perhaps you may have multiple projects that require Bredemarket’s assistance. In those cases, Bredemarket bills by the hour using something I call the Bredemarket 4000 Long Writing Service.
One example of a use case for the Bredemarket 4000 Long Writing Service is proposal work. Proposals can be complex things, which is why the Shipley Business Development Method has 96 steps.
Whether it’s proposal work or something else, I do the work (however much work there is) and bill you for the hours that I worked.
Perhaps you have ongoing needs and just need me to be available for a certain number of hours each month, yet you’re not ready to hire a full-time person to do the work. In that case, the Bredemarket 4444 Partner Retainer is the package that is best for you. With this level of commitment, I am embedded as part of your organization.
As I assert in the post “Three Levels of Engagement With Your Content Creator,” a retainer offers a happy middle ground between full-time employment and single project work. It gives you work flexibility, budget predictability, and consultant accessibility.
But what if you know the scope of your project, and it is a single simple project? If you only need between 400 and 600 words of text, then the ideal package for you is the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service.
As I note in the Bredemarket 400 video and brochure (both available here), common use cases requiring between 400 and 600 words of text include:
If your project only requires 400 to 600 words (give or take), the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service is ideal for you.
But what if you need more words than that? A lot more?
There are a few cases in which your firm may need roughly 3,000 words of text, rather than the roughtly 500 words of text described above.
In these cases, the Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service provides the content you need.
But is Bredemarket 2800 the same as Bredemarket 400, with more words and a higher price?
No.
Longer content requires a slightly different process.
Admittedly there are some obvious similarities between Bredemarket 400 and Bredemarket 2800.
But there are differences in the details.
The kickoff is an important part of the content creation process, since the questions I ask during the kickoff (since expanded) ensure that I produce the right content at the end of the process.
The kickoff ensures that the final written content (a) answers the WHY/HOW/WHAT questions about you, (b) advances your GOAL, (c) communicates your BENEFITS, and (d) speaks to your TARGET AUDIENCE. It is both iterative and collaborative.
The basic work during the kickoff is pretty much the same as for Bredemarket 400, although you and I will probably go in-depth on certain items, and there is a higher chance that the content specifications will be more detailed (for example, goals for each subsection of the content).
Sometimes one or two additional things will happen before I start writing the first draft.
Once I’m ready, I start writing.
Between you and me, I create a draft 0.5, sleep on it (sometimes literally), and then create a much more succinct draft 1.0. See “Your writers (in this case me) should be succinct,” in my post “Which Words Should Your Marketers Use? My Four Suggestions.”
It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that it takes longer to write 3,000 words than it takes to write only 500 words. Therefore, I allow myself up to seven days (actual days, not working days) to produce the first draft. (Contrast this with Bredemarket 400, in which I commit to create a draft within three days.)
Then I hand the draft over to you for the first review.
After I receive your review comments, I work on the second draft (again, taking up to seven days) and hand it over for the second review.
Then (if necessary) I work on the third draft and hand it over for the third review. Unlike Bredemarket 400, which only includes two reviews, Bredemarket 2800 includes three reviews because of the higher complexity of the content.
At the end, I provide you with the final copy.
But what if you need your content much more quickly than the 1-2 months it may take to go through all three of the draft and review cycles?
As decribed above, you will receive up to three review copies during the process.
Because this is a collaborative process, your participation is important to ensure that I create the proper content for your firm. So be prepared to spent the time necessary to ensure that the content is right.
I realize that you probably don’t have a lot of time to review consultant content. If you did have a lot of time, then you’d probably write the content yourself rather than asking a consultant to do it. For this reason, I give you seven days to review each draft, rather than the three days that I give to firms that elect the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service.
Of course, if you require a more rapid turnaround, then you’ll need to review the drafts much more quickly, in the same way that I’ll need to write the drafts much more quickly.
After the kickoffs, drafts, and reviews, I’ll provide the final copy in Microsoft Word docx format, unless we’ve agreed on some other format. This will give you the content you need to put in your blog, in an article on your LinkedIn page, or in whatever content you need.
You can get more details on the Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service page.
Or you can read the brochure, which includes the standard price.
Are you ready to move forward in creating content the Bredemarket 2800 way?
Then we need to talk.
Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.
Remember when I said that I spent Labor Day renewing my City of Ontario business license?
Well, the approved license arrived in the mail today.
The electronic mail, not the snail mail.
This coming year will be the fourth year of Bredemarket’s existence. I started in August 2020, but it took a few weeks for the city business license and other paperwork to complete.
Now while the City of Ontario (California, not Canada) business license renewal entitles me to conduct business in the city as Bredemarket (when coupled with the Fictitious Business Name statement I filed with San Bernardino County), it is not an official endorsement of my activity by the city, and is definitely NOT an endorsement of the call to action at the end of this post.
More importantly, the City of Ontario has imposed four significant restrictions on the way that Bredemarket conducts business. Do they affect how I do business with you? We’ll see.
Done.
Although as we will see when we get to the third restriction, the whole meaning of “conspicuous place” is irrelevant to Bredemarket’s business.
The business license is issued “for consulting services, including marketing and writing services.” The license does NOT allow me to bake pies, perform auto maintenance, launch rockets into space, or perform heart surgery.
Dang guvmint.
Remember how the city requires that I post my license in a conspicuous place? Well, the city also prohibits me from having clients visit me at my work location. This makes sense, since residential neighborhoods aren’t really built to have a bunch of cars park outside a house where business is conducted.
This means that when I do have a person-to-person meeting (rather than a videoconference) to conduct business, the meeting has to be offsite. For example, a couple of years ago I met with an advisor at Brandon’s Diner in Upland. (And the lunch was tax deductible!)
Again, because my work location is in a residential neighborhood, I can’t put a huge neon sign in my front yard with the Bredemarket logo.
And no, I can’t put a small neon sign in my front yard.
Or any neon sign.
I wonder if the city will let me put signage on my mailbox? Actually, the UPS Store probably won’t allow that either.
The reason that these city restrictions don’t matter to you is because (since we still have the Internet) Bredemarket is perfectly capable of conducting its business online.
You don’t have to look for my business sign, or a parking place in front of the place where I conduct business. Why not? Because I can meet with you via Google Meet or another videoconferencing service, or we can talk on the phone, or even exchange emails with each other.
I’ve worked from home since March 2020—first for IDEMIA, then for Bredemarket, then for Incode Technologies, then for Bredemarket again. During that time I’ve been able to meet all of the needs of Bredemarket clients remotely, despite no public parking and no signage.
Well, almost all the needs. I haven’t been able to perform aortic valve surgery for my clients.
Dang guvmint.
Do you want to use the marketing and writing services of a government-licensed consulting firm?
More importantly, do you want to use the marketing and writing services of a consulting firm that ensures the right questions are asked at the beginning of the project, and that you have complete input during the writing and review cycles?
Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.
I wasn’t going to labor on this Labor Day, but I ended up renewing my City of Ontario business license. (This coming year will be the fourth that Bredemarket has conducted business in Ontario.)
To receive that mailing from the City, Bredemarket of course has to have a mailing address, courtesy of a local UPS Store (formerly known as Mailboxes Etc.).
Now most people don’t interact with Bredemarket via my physical mailing address. The few that do include the City of Ontario, and three of my clients who have chosen to pay me via paper checks. (I’m flexible.)
This got me curious.
What if the Internet were to disappear tomorrow? What if the only way my clients could interact with Bredemarket was through my Bredemarket physical mailing address? Could Bredemarket still conduct business?
Possibly.
Some of my business would disappear overnight. Blog posts, for example, are meaningless in a non-Internet world, unless companies choose to post long text-based communications on utility poles. Or in laundromats.
Even if the Internet were to disappear, I could still write text for case studies (maintaining my Inland Empire case study writing business) and white papers. I could send my client a Microsoft Word file (perhaps an old version of Word), and the firm could send the file to their printer. But how would I send the file? Put a CD in the mail?
Luckily, we DO have the Internet.
If you need to communicate with Bredemarket regarding your marketing and writing needs, you can go to my contact page at https://bredemarket.com/contact/. As of today, my contact methods include email, phone, and web page form. You can even book a calendar meeting with me.
And yes, you can “snail mail” me also at 1030 N Mountain Ave #259, Ontario, CA 91762-2114.
In case you missed it…
Let’s address two items before we continue. Trust me; it’s important.
For the rest of the story, see “We Survived Gummy Fingers. We’re Surviving Facial Recognition Inaccuracy. We’ll Survive Voice Spoofing.”
Bredemarket occasionally gets pitches from people who want to write for the blog, or to link to something they’ve already written.
Most of these pitches are crap.
But I just received an excellent and relevant pitch from a PR coordinator. I won’t reproduce his pitch, though, because I don’t want to get sued.
Which in this case is a very distinct possibility.
The PR coordinator represents a company called AdvoLogix, and wanted me to reshare something his company had written.
My first question (of course) is why AdvoLogix exists.
We build and deliver technologies that help legal teams collaborate and grow.
From https://www.advologix.com/about-advologix/
The company provides legal software, resident on Salesforce, that addresses several areas:
Now I am not a lawyer, but I’m sure these terms mean something to lawyers. If you’re looking for these types of solutions, check the links above.
The PR coordinator had observed Bredemarket’s previous posts on artificial intelligence (excluding the one that I wrote after his pitch), and thought that AdvoLogix’s recent blog post on the same topic would be of interest to Bredemarket’s readers.
AdvoLogix’s post is clear in its intent. It is entitled “9 Ways to Use AI in the Workplace.” The introduction to the post explains AdvoLogix’s position on the use of artificial intelligence.
Rather than replacing human professionals, AI applications take a complementary role in the workplace and improve overall efficiency. Here are nine actionable ways to use artificial intelligence, no matter your industry.
From https://www.advologix.com/ai-applications-business/
I won’t list ALL nine of the ways—I want you to go read the post, after all. But let me highlight one of them—not the first one, but the eighth one.
Individual entrepreneurs can also benefit from AI-driven technologies. Entrepreneurship requires great financial and personal risk, especially when starting a new business. Entrepreneurs must often invest in essential resources and engage with potential customers to build a brand from scratch. With AI tools, entrepreneurs can greatly limit risk by improving their organization and efficiency.
From https://www.advologix.com/ai-applications-business/
The AdvoLogix post then goes on to recommend specific ways that entrepreneurs can use artificial intelligence, including:
Regardless of how you feel about the use of AI in these areas, you should at least consider them as possible options.
Obviously the company had a reason for writing the post, and for sharing the post with people like me (and like you).
AdvoLogix provides law firms, legal offices, and public agencies with advanced, cloud-based legal software solutions that address their actual needs.
Thanks to AI tools like Caster, AdvoLogix can provide your office with effective automation of data entry, invoicing, and other essential but time-consuming processes. Contact AdvoLogix to request a free demo of the industry’s best AI tools for law offices like yours.
From https://www.advologix.com/ai-applications-business/
So I’m not even going to provide a Bredemarket call to action, since AdvoLogix already provided its own. Good for AdvoLogix.
The AdvoLogix post did not specifically reference Steven Schwartz, although the company stated that you should control the process yourself and not cede control to your artificial intelligence tool.
Something that Schwartz did not do.
Roberto Mata sued Avianca airlines for injuries he says he sustained from a serving cart while on the airline in 2019, claiming negligence by an employee. Steven Schwartz, an attorney with Levidow, Levidow & Oberman and licensed in New York for over three decades, handled Mata’s representation.
But at least six of the submitted cases by Schwartz as research for a brief “appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,” said Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York in an order….
In late April, Avianca’s lawyers from Condon & Forsyth penned a letter to Castel questioning the authenticity of the cases….
Among the purported cases: Varghese v. China South Airlines, Martinez v. Delta Airlines, Shaboon v. EgyptAir, Petersen v. Iran Air, Miller v. United Airlines, and Estate of Durden v. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, all of which did not appear to exist to either the judge or defense, the filing said.
Schwartz, in an affidavit, said that he had never used ChatGPT as a legal research source prior to this case and, therefore, “was unaware of the possibility that its content could be false.” He accepted responsibility for not confirming the chatbot’s sources.
Schwartz is now facing a sanctions hearing on June 8.
From https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/27/business/chat-gpt-avianca-mata-lawyers/index.html
On that sanctions hearing date, Schwartz was mercilessly grilled by the judge. Later that month, the judge sanctioned and fined Schwartz and another lawyer.
In the end, you are responsible, not the tool you use.
By the way, Roberto Mata lost the case. Not because of his lawyers’ misuse of AI, but because the case was filed too late.
Inland Empire companies are asking the same question that other companies are asking: “Should my business use ChatGPT (or another generative AI tool) to quickly generate content?”
Bear in mind that I have a vested interest in the answer to this question, because Bredemarket’s business is content generation for other businesses. So I don’t have a natural inclination to tell you not to buy my services and use ChatGPT or Bard or whatever instead.
Nevertheless, I’ll outline the advantages and drawbacks of using automation (in this case generative AI tools) to create written content. Then I’ll look at the three options for your business’ content generation needs. (Surprise! One of those options is to contract with Bredemarket. You’ve been warned that a call to action is coming.)
As I mentioned in my post about creating and populating Facebook business pages, yesterday afternoon was the first time in years that I had attended a monthly Ontario IDEA Exchange meeting. For those who aren’t familiar with these meetings, they allow small business owners from the Ontario, California area to meet and…um…exchange ideas.
One of the attendees asked me what I thought of ChatGPT.
If you’ve read the Bredemarket blog or the Bredemarket LinkedIn page, you know that I have some thoughts on this. (If you haven’t seen my thoughts, I’ll share them later in this post.)
It turns out that the attendee had a reason for asking the question that went well beyond generative artificial intelligence (generative AI), and touched on automation in general.
You can ask this same question about a variety of business services. Should you opt for the (sometimes) cheaper automated solution, or should you get a real person to perform the service?
This can be a loaded question. After all, I can’t tell you that you should always use a person for these tasks when I personally use Freepik and a well-known tax preparation software package.
So, returning to content, let’s take a (probably non-objective) look at the pros and cons of using generative AI tools for content creation. After all, some of my best friends use generative AI…and they’re still my friends (and obviously not my customers).
While generative AI isn’t as trendy a topic as it was a few months ago, people are still talking about using generative AI to create text content. And there are clearly some advantages to it.
Perhaps I’m biased, but I think that we can all agree on the drawbacks that I’ve listed below.
I’ve touched on a number of these issues in more detail in pieces that I’ve written on the Bredemarket blog (and in one case on LinkedIn). These explain when I use generative AI, and when I do not.
Depending upon your business needs, your budget, and your marketing direction, you have three choices.
(UPDATE OCTOBER 23, 2023: “SIX QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU IS SO 2022. DOWNLOAD THE NEWER “SEVEN QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU” HERE.)
Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.
Sure, here are three advantages and three drawbacks of using generative AI to create written content:
Advantages:
Drawbacks:
Overall, generative AI can be a valuable tool for creating written content. However, it is important to be aware of its limitations and to use it responsibly.
Here are some additional things to keep in mind when using generative AI to create written content:
There are Inland Empire companies that have an online presence, and companies that don’t.
If your Inland Empire company doesn’t have an online presence, one quick way to create one is to create a business page on Facebook.
This post outlines the benefits of establishing an online presence via a Facebook business page. It also provides four examples of Facebook business pages. Finally, the post addresses the thorny question of creating content for your Facebook business page.
For the first time in years, I attended an Ontario IDEA Exchange meeting at AmPac Business Capital on Tuesday afternoon. There was a mixture of attendees: some who had established several businesses, some like me who had run one business for some time, and a few who were just starting out in business.
The ones who were starting out were still trying to figure out all the things you need to do to start a business: figuring out why the business exists in the first place, getting the appropriate business licenses (and in some cases professional licenses), printing business cards (or creating the online equivalent), setting up SOME kind of way to track prospects and customers…and establishing an online presence.
Now some businesses choose to establish their online presence by creating a website.
I believe that this is the best way to establish an online presence since you have more control over the content. Plus, there are several alternative ways to create a business website (I use WordPress, but you can use SquareSpace, Wix, or any of several other website builders).
But even the simplest website can involve a lot of complexity—bredemarket.com currently has 57 pages, not counting tag pages and individual blog post pages.
For many small businesses, it may be much easier to create a Facebook business page then to create an entire website.
So how do you create a Facebook business page?
There’s no need for me to document all of that in detail, since many have already done so.
Starting with Facebook itself.
As long as you have a personal Facebook profile, and as long as you can provide basic information about your business (category, address, areas serviced, email, phone number, website, hours, etc.), you can create a Facebook page from your laptop or desktop computer by following these steps:
From https://www.facebook.com/business/help/473994396650734?id=939256796236247
- From the Pages section, click Create new Page.
- Add your Page name and category.
- Add your Page’s bio and click Create.
- (Optional) Add information, such as Contact, Location and Hours, and click Next.
- (Optional) Add profile and cover photos, and edit the action button, and click Next.
- (Optional) Invite friends to connect with your Page, and click Next.
- Click Done.
Don’t worry if you don’t have all the optional items, such as a page cover picture. You can add them later. This will get you going.
Other guides to creating Facebook business pages are available from Buffer (with pictures), Hootsuite (with pictures). Sprout Social (with pictures), and a number of other sources.
But before you create YOUR Facebook business page, let me show you four varied examples of EXISTING Facebook business pages.
Let’s take a look at some pages that already exist. Perhaps one or more of these will give you ideas for your own page.
Paso Artis is a European business whose proprietor is a painter who sells her paintings.
The menu options at the bottom of the picture above (some of which cannot be seen) illustrate some of the elements you can include in a Facebook page. Here are just a few of the page elements that Paso Artis uses:
(UPDATE 10/20/2023: Because Shirts by Kaytie is sadly no longer in business, I have removed the, um, live links to her Facebook page.)
Let’s leave Europe and go to Illinois where we find another artist, but her work is not displayed on paintings, but on shirts. Here is the Shirts by Kaytie Facebook page.
You’ll notice that Shirts by Kaytie has a different menu item order (and different menu items) than Paso Artis. For example, Shirts by Kaytie doesn’t have a Facebook “shop” element; you need to contact her directly to purchase items.
But Shirts by Kaytie certainly has photos.
Enough of such exotic locations as Europe and Illinois. Let’s head to California’s Inland Empire and look at my favorite marketing/writing services Facebook page, the Bredemarket Facebook page.
I’d like to point out two things here.
Second, Bredemarket has chosen to implement Facebook’s “groups” feature. In Bredemarket’s case, there are three separate groups that focus on various aspects of Bredemarket’s business. Inland Empire businesses can read the content in the Bredemarket Inland Empire B2B Services group and not get bogged down in out-of-area identity discussions about the change from FRVT to FRTE. (They’re missing out.)
I saved the Startempire Wire Facebook page for last because it makes terrific use of Facebook’s capabilities.
By the way, if you are an Inland Empire business—especially an Inland Empire startup technology business—and you have never heard of Startempire Wire, STOP READING MY POST and go follow Startempire Wire’s Facebook page NOW. Startempire Wire is THE news source for Inland Empire startup tech information, and is a strong champion of the IE tech community.
So what does Startempire Wire’s Facebook page offer? Posts, photos, weekly videos, and the “Inland Empire Startup Scene” group. All of the content is jam-packed with information.
Now in some cases the Facebook pages are only part of the online presence for these firms. Both Bredemarket and Startempire Wire have their own web pages, and both firms are also active on other online properties such as LinkedIn. (Bredemarket is almost everywhere, but not on Snapchat.) But Facebook is an essential part of the outreach for all four of these firms, allowing them to reach prospects and clients who are only on Facebook and nowhere else.
Perhaps a Facebook page is a perfect solution for YOUR firm’s online presence.
But creating a Facebook page is not enough.
You need to populate it with content, such as images, videos…and posts.
And if your Facebook page doesn’t have any content, it’s useless to your prospects. As I’ve preached for years, an empty page makes your prospects and customers question whether you exist.
Now I’m not saying that you HAVE to update your Facebook page daily, but it’s a good idea to add new content at least once a month.
But what if you aren’t a writer, or don’t have time to write? Do you have to resort to ChatGPT?
Heavens no. (I’ll say more about that later.)
Well, online content creation is where Bredemarket comes in. I help firms create blog posts, Facebook posts, LinkedIn articles, case studies, white papers, and other content (22 different types of content at last count).
Let me help you populate your Facebook page (or other online content).
Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.
(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)
(Updated blog post count 10/23/2023)
I mentioned something in passing in Bredemarket’s recent go-to-market post that I think needs a little more highlighting. So here is a deeper dive into the 22 types of content that product marketers create. (Well, at least 22. I’m probably missing some.)
And by the way, I have created all 22 of these types of content, from blog posts and battlecards to smartphone application content and scientific book chapters. And I can create it for you.
“But John,” you’re saying, “Don’t you know anything? Content is created by content marketers!”
Read on.
If you consult with the experts, they will tell you that there is a distinct division between product marketing and content marketing, and that they are two entirely separate disciplines.
Why is it that so many business-to-business (B2B) marketers confuse product marketing with content marketing?
Because it requires a lot of discipline. That’s why.
B2B marketers who get it right understand the difference between these two fundamentally different types of marketing, what their purposes are and how to use them correctly.
From https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2019/08/27/is-your-business-confusing-product-marketing-and-content-marketing/?sh=2edf86f51d88
There certainly is a difference—if you work in a firm that enforces strict definitions and separation between the two.
Some firms (especially startups) don’t have the luxury to enforce such definitions. They don’t have separate teams to create awareness content, consideration content, and conversion content. They have one team (or perhaps one person) to create all that content PLUS other stuff that I’ll discuss later.
For example, during my most recent stint as a product marketing employee at a startup, the firm had no official content marketers, so the product marketers had to create a lot of non-product related content. So we product marketers were the de facto content marketers for the company too. (Sadly, we didn’t get two salaries for filling two roles.)
Why did the product marketers end up as content marketers? It turns out that it makes sense—after all, people who write about your product in the lower funnel stages can also write about your product in the upper funnel stages, and also can certainly write about OTHER things, such as company descriptions, speaker submissions, and speaker biographies.
And when you find a “you can pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands” person, you’ll naturally want to get them to write other things.
As a result, I’ve written a ton of stuff over my last 29 years in identity/biometrics. It didn’t take a great leap for me to self-identify as the identity content marketing expert and the biometric content marketing expert (and other expert definitions; I’m an expert in creating expert titles).
I’ve compiled a summary of the types of content that I’ve created over the years, not only for Bredemarket’s clients, but also for my employers at Incode Technologies, IDEMIA, MorphoTrak, Motorola, and Printrak.
Not all of these were created when I was in a formal product marketing role, but depending upon your product or service, you may need any of these content types to support the marketing of your product/service.
It’s helpful to divide the list into two parts: the external (customer-facing) content, and the internal (company-only) content.
External content is what most people think of when they talk about product marketing or content marketing. After all, this is the visible stuff that the prospects see, and which can move them toward a purchase (conversion). The numbers after some content types indicate the quantities of pieces of collateral that I have created.
Here’s an video showing some of the external content that I have created for Bredemarket.
While external content is sexy, internal content is extremely important, since it’s what equips the people inside a firm to promote your product or service. The numbers after some content types indicate the quantities of pieces of collateral that I have created.
Some content can either be external or internal. Again, numbers indicate the quantities of pieces of collateral I have created.
Does your firm need help creating one of these types of content?
Maybe two?
Maybe 22?
If your firm needs to create a lot of content types for your products, then consider hiring me as your full-time Senior Product Marketing Manager. My LinkedIn profile is here, documenting my 29 years of experience in identity/biometric technology as a product marketer, a strategist, and in other roles.
But if your firm needs a more limited amount of content and can’t employ me on a full-time basis, then you can contract with me through my consulting firm Bredemarket. For example, I could write a single 400-600 word blog post or short article for you.
Or 2 blog posts/articles.
Or 22 blog posts/articles. (The more the merrier.)
Do you need these services?
Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.
And yes, I know this post had two separate calls to action. What do you expect from a guy who thinks product marketers are content marketers?
And here’s one for the Swifties. No, it’s not “Taylor’s version.” But we all know that she is the only person who can reconcile differences between so-called standards bodies, since any standard Swift champions will become the de facto standard.
45 million years ago, in 2018, Amanda Retzki pointed out a danger that can occur when firms talk about their accomplishments rather than focusing on their customers’ needs: bland, “me too” text.
One of the biggest reasons so much marketing today sounds the same (“exceptional customer service,” “commitment to quality,” “expertise that adds value,” etc.) is that companies fall back on what’s easy and what they believe they’re supposed to do: talk about themselves.
Seems like it should make sense, but it doesn’t.
Turns out, this “learn more about us!” approach will put you in the fast lane to bland, overused, cookie-cutter marketing (and results)….
If everyone follows the same marketing approach, everyone ends up with the same results: mediocrity.
From https://www.weidert.com/blog/tips-to-differentiate-company-marketing
(UPDATE OCTOBER 23, 2023: “SIX QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU IS SO 2022. DOWNLOAD THE NEWER “SEVEN QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU” HERE.)
If I may talk about myself for a moment (but hopefully in a differentiating way), this is one of the main benefits of my inclusion of the “why” question as part of the six questions that I like to ask potential Bredemarket clients. When I ask one of my prospects why their company exists, I get some valuable answers that help differentiate the prospect from everyone else.
As I said in a previous post on product positioning:
If your product suddenly disappeared from the world, would your target audience (or, in marketing-speak, personas) care?
Would your target audience be just as happy with the competitive offerings, or would the target audience lose out if your product’s distinctive benefits were suddenly no longer available?
From https://bredemarket.com/2023/08/28/quick-thoughts-on-product-positioning/
Hopefully, the world WILL feel a loss if your product disappeared.
But too often a company’s products appear to be just like the products from all the other companies, which makes the consideration phase (where prospects try to differentiate between products) difficult.
For example, I am familiar with a particular industry that has over 80 competitors. And most of those competitors use the word “trust” as a key part of their marketing strategy. (Not just a tactic; a strategy.) Spend some time reading the websites of all of the companies in this particular industry, and you’ll see the word “trust” so many times that it will become mind-numbing.
Here are a few examples:
power a world of digital trust
The Ultimate Guide to Trust & Safety
Businesses have just 10 minutes to establish trust
Optimize Identity Verification for Growth, Innovation, Trust
how to prioritize trust and safety
Various sources.
How can you tell the companies apart?
Only one company dares to buck the trend: Black Ink Tech, who champions (and has trademarked) the slogan “Truth Over Trust™.”
Then again, Bredemarket can’t talk. I shudder to think of the count of times that I’ve used some form of the word “collaborate.”
We all need to avoid blandness and stand out by exhibiting customer focus.
Do you need to differentiate your offering from others?
Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.
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