There is a popular practice in which people ARE well aware of the original message, but only some of them discern the hidden message, or metamessage, behind those words.
And you don’t have to look to business communication to find examples of this. Take the romantic world, in which the statement “If you go out with me I’ll treat you like the princess you are!” conveys the metamessage of predatory desperation. In the business world, “Let me take that under consideration” means that the speaker is not considering the proposal for a nanosecond.
Sometimes many of us can’t discern the metamessage until long after the message is stated.
Remember the message that Whitney Houston gave to Diane Sawyer?
Respect: We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness and arrogance don’t belong here.
Integrity: We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly and sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we cannot or will not do something, then we won’t do it.
Communication: We have an obligation to communicate. Here, we take the time to talk with one another…and to listen. We believe that information is meant to move and that information moves people.
Excellence: We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do. We will continue to raise the bar for everyone. The great fun here will be for all of us to discover just how good we can really be.
Now to be fair to Houston, the cocaine detected in her toxicology report may not have been CRACK cocaine, and cocaine was not the only substance detected. But now we know that while crack may have been “wack,” cocaine was OK, and marijuana, Xanax, and other things were OK too.
I have no desire to be fair to Enron, but I guess we can say that “the very best in everything we do” can be defined as “maximizing personal value,” that there isn’t an “obligation to communicate” EVERYTHING, and that falsifying records does not necessarily mean ruthlessness or arrogance.
When the metamessage agrees with the message
How often do you roll your eyes in amusement when a business says something?
Conversely, how often do you nod your head in agreement when a business says something?
Now I’ll grant that there’s not universal agreement on whether Company X is truthful in its messaging. For every person who thinks that Apple is the last guardian of privacy on ths planet, there is someone else who is convinced that Apple is an evil corporation who has (and I quote an anonymous source) “become what they accused Microsoft of.”
But it doesn’t matter what the world thinks.
What matters is what your prospect thinks.
Does your prospect think your company is telling the truth?
Does your prospect think your company is lying?
Does your prospect need more information to make a decision?
How case studies help you reach message-metamessage agreement
One powerful way to convince a doubting prospect is via a case study.
It always helps when someone else is singing your company’s praises. Especially when the subject of the case study backs up what you’ve been claiming all along.
Last Saturday I hoped to gain inspiration so that I could shoot a video or capture an image to promote Bredemarket’s technology writing services—namely, writing blog posts, case studies, white papers, or other content to empower technology firms.
By mid-morning, with no inspiration, I captured a technology image of…something.
Chaffey High School, Ontario, California, November 11, 2023.
As I confessed in my “behind the scenes” video that day, I have no idea what this thing is, or whether this is used for water, gas, or something else entirely.
Chaffey High School, Ontario, California, November 11, 2023.
Why I did not know
And do you want to know WHY I couldn’t describe what I saw?
Because I failed to get a collaborator to work with me.
If an appropriate person from Chaffey High School presented themselves to me, they could have described:
Why this technology was necessary.
How the technology worked.
What the technology was.
You’ll notice that I asked the “why” question BEFORE I asked the “how” and “what” questions. Because “why” is most important. If a student or staff member sees this thing on the Chaffey campus, they naturally want to know why it’s there. They don’t really care if it pumps 100 liters of whatever per second.
How I can produce the right words for your technology firm
And that’s how I will work with YOUR technology firm when Bredemarket creates content. We work TOGETHER to create the content you need.
Do you need to create content that converts prospects for your technology product/service and drives content results?
As identity/biometric professionals well know, there are five authentication factors that you can use to gain access to a person’s account. (You can also use these factors for identity verification to establish the person’s account in the first place.)
Something You Are. I’ve spent…a long time with this factor, since this is the factor that includes biometrics modalities (finger, face, iris, DNA, voice, vein, etc.). It also includes behavioral biometrics, provided that they are truly behavioral and relatively static.
As I mentioned in August, there are a number of biometric modalities, including face, fingerprint, iris, hand geometry, palm print, signature, voice, gait, and many more.
If your firm offers an identity solution that partially depends upon “something you are,” then you need to create content (blog, case study, social media, white paper, etc.) that converts prospects for your identity/biometric product/service and drives content results.
If you’re familiar with Bredemarket’s “six questions your content creator should ask you”…I came up with a seventh question because I feared the six questions were not enough, and I wanted to provide you with better confidence that Bredemarket-authored content will achieve your goals.
To no one’s surprise, I’ll tell you WHY and HOW I added a seventh question.
If you want to skip to the meat, go to the WHAT section where you can download the new e-book.
Why?
Early Sunday morning I wrote something on LinkedIn and Facebook that dealt with three “e” words: entertainment, emotion, and engagement, and how the first and second words affect the third. The content was very long, and I don’t know if the content itself was engaging. But I figured that this wasn’t the end of the story:
I know THIS content won’t receive 250 engagements, and certainly won’t receive 25,000 impressions, but maybe I can repurpose the thoughts in some future content. (#Repurposing is good.)
Rather than delving into my content with over 25,000 impressions but less than 250 engagements, and rather than delving into the social media group I discussed, and rather than delving into the Four Tops and the Sons of the Pioneers (not as a single supergroup), I decided that I needed to delve into a single word: indifference, and how to prevent content indifference.
Because if your prospects are indifferent to your content, nothing else matters. And indifference saddens me.
The first questions in the Bredemarket Kickoff Guide, BmtKickoffGuide-20231022a. No, you can’t have the guide; it’s proprietary.
I decided that I needed to update my process, as well as that e-book, and add a seventh question, “Emotions?”
What?
For those who have raced ahead to this section, Bredemarket has a new downloadable e-book (revised from an earlier version) entitled “Seven Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You.” It includes a new page, “Emotions,” as well as minor revisions to the other pages. You can download it below.
All too often, Bredemarket confines its writing discussions to the traditional ABCW (articles, blog posts, case studies, white papers) categories.
But what if your content needs are non-traditional and fall outside of the usual nice neat business writing categories?
From the 2023 Route 66 Cruisin’ Reunion, Saturday, September 16, 2023.
If you are an Inland Empire business who needs words, but not in the traditional “ABCW” (articles, blog posts, case studies, white papers) business types, Bredemarket will help you with your non-traditional writing needs.
Take a look at the examples I’ve provided below, and if these spark interest within you, authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.
Book a meeting with me at calendly.com/bredemarket. Be sure to fill out the information form so I can best help you. For example, if you’re an Inland Empire business requiring non-traditional content, fill out the form accordingly.
I won’t go into all 22 types again, especially since some of them are internal content rather than customer-facing content. But I’d like to highlight the “ABCW” four types that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, plus a couple of others.
Articles and blog posts
I’m lumping articles and blog posts together, because while some “experts” try to draw hard-and-fast distinctions between the two, they’re pretty much the same thing.
Whether it’s a blog post on your website, a post or article on LinkedIn, or even some extended text associated with an Instagram picture or a TikTok video, what you’re creating is some text that entertains, persuades, inspires, or educates your reader, or perhaps all four. You set the goal for the article or blog post, then tailor the content to meet the goal. (I’ll talk more about goals later.)
Case studies
From “How Bredemarket Can Help You Win Business,” available via this post.
Case studies show your readers how your solution was applied to someone else’s problem, and how your solution can benefit your prospects with similar problems.
Maybe your prospect is a city police agency that needs a tool to solve crimes, and your case study describes how your solution solved crimes in a similar city. Again, you set the goal for the case study, then tailor the content to meet the goal.
White papers
On the surface, white papers are informational, but when a company issues a white paper, the “information” that the white paper provides should gently guide the reader toward doing business with the company that issued the paper. Using the example above, you could write a white paper that outlines “Five Critical Elements for a Local Crime-Solving Solution.” By remarkable coincidence, your own solution happens to include all five of those critical elements. Again, you set the goal and tailor the content.
Briefs, data sheets, and literature sheets
One-page sheet for the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service. More information here.
Perhaps you need to provide handouts to your prospects that describe your product or service.
Regardless of whether you call these handouts briefs, data, sheets, literature sheets, or something else, they should at a minimum contain both “educate” and “persuade” elements—educate your prospects on the benefits of your product or service, and persuade your prospects to move closer to a sale (conversion).
Again, you set the goal and tailor the content.
Web page content
If your business has a web page, I hope that it has more words than “Under construction.” Whether you have imagery, video, audio, text, or all four on your web page, it needs to answer the questions that your prospects and customers have.
You know what I’m going to say here, but it’s still important. You set the goal and tailor the content.
But…what if your business needs content that doesn’t fall into these traditional business categories?
Non-traditional content: going to a car show
I went to a car show this weekend—specifically, this year’s Route 66 Cruisin’ Reunion in downtown Ontario, California. (Yes, I know that Route 66 actually passed three miles north of downtown Ontario, but work with me here.)
While some of the exhibitors were personal, some of them were businesses. As businesses, what was the major marketing collateral that they generated?
Not a blog post, or LinkedIn article, or any of the traditional business media collateral.
In addition to the car itself, this exhibitor included poster boards with words describing the car.
Another exhibitor did the same thing.
So while these car show exhibitors didn’t choose a traditional way to convey their words, they shared written text anyway.
Your non-traditional business communication needs
Maybe you don’t have a classic car. Maybe you don’t have a car at all. Do you need to share words with your prospects and customers anyway?
Now I don’t know your business communication needs. You do. But I can guess a few things.
Do you need to tell your clients/potential clients why you do what you do?
Do you need to tell them how you do it?
And last but not least, do you need to tell them what you do?
I know that this may seem like an unusual order to you. Why not start with what you do?
Because your customers don’t care about what you do. Your customers care about themselves.
If you keep the focus on your customers, the answer to the “why” question will induce your customers to care about you, because it shows how you can solve their problems.
Let’s illustrate this.
Why and how Bredemarket creates non-traditional content
You may be asking why I create content in the first place. There are countless content creators, both human and non-human. Why turn to me when OpenAI and its bot buddies are a lot cheaper and faster?
Normally I include my recent professional picture, but I have been writing since my college days (on a typewriter back then).
Bredemarket’s service is independent of content type. I don’t have a “Bredemarket blog writing service” or “Bredemarket data sheet writing service” or “Bredemarket case study writing service.” My services are based on word length, not content type, with my most popular service targeted to customers who need between 400 and 600 words of text. From this perspective, I don’t care if you want the words to appear on your website or your social media channel or a paper flyer or a sign next to your car or a really really long banner towed behind an airplane. (Read about the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service here.)
Before I write a thing, I ask your some questions. It won’t surprise you to learn that my first questions to you are why, how, and what. I then move on to questions about your goal for the content, the benefits of your solution, the target audience for your solution, and many additional questions. (Read about the Six Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You here.)
Once the questions are out of the way, content creation is collaborative and iterative. I create a draft, you review it, and we repeat. The Bredemarket 400 service includes two review cycles; longer content needs include three review cycles. The goal is to ensure that both of us are happy with the final product.
Bredemarket’s process applies regardless of the specific content type, so I should be able to support whatever content you need, whether it’s traditional or non-traditional.
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.
Four ways that Bredemarket provides written content
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:
Bredemarket 4000 (by the hour),
Bredemarket 4444 (by the month), or
Bredemarket 400 (by the small project).
One: by the hour (Bredemarket 4000 Long Writing Service)
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.
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.
Two: by the month (Bredemarket 4444 Partner Retainer)
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.
Three: by the small project (Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service)
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.
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?
Why would you need 3,000 words?
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.
Longer blog posts. Often blog posts are pretty short and fit well within a 400 to 600 word limit. But sometimes you need longer, more detailed blog posts that delve into a topic more deeply. If you need 3,000 words to tell your story, tell it.
Longer LinkedIn articles. In most cases, social media postings will not hit the 3,000 word mark. (For some social media platforms it’s near impossible to hit that limit anyway.) One notable exception is LinkedIn articles, which can enter into the same detail as a long blog post. If your audience is on LinkedIn, then place your content natively on LinkedIn (repurposing it to your blog for your non-LinkedIn prospects if you like).
Longer case studies. Case studies can vary in length. As it turns out, the case studies that Bredemarket has written for its clients are simple two-pagers (including graphics) and fit well within the Bredemarket 400 parameters. But perhaps your case study demands richer detail.
White papers. While one may debate about the semantics of what is a white paper vs. what is not a white paper, you may demand a document that requires around 3,000 words of detail.
The content type that you know about, but I don’t. You may require a particular piece of content that doesn’t fit into the nice neat categories above, but requires text of between 2,800 and 3,200 words.
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.
How the Bredemarket 2800 process differs from the Bredemarket 400 process
Admittedly there are some obvious similarities between Bredemarket 400 and Bredemarket 2800.
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 beginning of the Bredemarket Kickoff Guide that I use. There are many, many more questions that I haven’t disclosed. Do you want to learn them? Buy the service.
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).
You and Bredemarket agree upon the topic, goal, benefits, and target audience (and, if necessary, outline, section sub-goals, relevant examples, and relevant key words/hashtags, and interim and final due dates).
For complex content requiring input and approval of multiple subject matter experts, you and Bredemarket agree on a preliminary list of tasks, assigned persons, and due dates.
For content that must be incorporated into your content management system, you and Bredemarket agree on the necessary format and other parameters. Otherwise, the final copy will be provided in Microsoft Word docx format, including (as appropriate) callout indicators, hyperlinks, key words, and/or hashtags.
For projects requiring multiple related pieces of content, you and Bredemarket agree upon the desired frequency of content.
The Bredemarket 2800 prework
Sometimes one or two additional things will happen before I start writing the first draft.
I may need to interview one of your customers or subject matter experts—for example, to obtain the facts necessary for a case study or white paper.
I may need to conduct additional research, as agreed upon by us during the kickoff.
The Bredemarket 2800 drafts
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?
Then we’ll mutually adjust the parameters (and the billing) accordingly.
However, remember that when I adjust my deliverable schedule, it also affects your deliverable schedule as described below.
The Bredemarket 2800 reviews
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.
The Bredemarket 2800 end product
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.
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.)
The UPS Store, 1030 N Mountain Ave, Ontario CA 91762.They WERE closed for Labor Day (but boxholders have keys).Bredemarket’s mailing address is 1030 N Mountain Ave #259, Ontario CA 91762-2114.
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?
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.
This used to be my laundromat. 454 N Mountain Ave, Ontario, CA 91762.
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?
Bredemarket 