When You MUST Focus on Features

Bredemarket has consistently preached benefits, benefits, benefits, since customers want to know what’s in it for them. Customers don’t care if Bredemarket has been in business for three years; they care about how Bredemarket will facilitate consideration of their offerings.

But Tamara Grominsky, in her article “High-Converting Homepages,” points out one significant exception to the “benefits over features” rule—or, in alternate terms, the “outcomes over capabilities” rule.

We’ve been taught to market the benefit, not the feature. The team at Fletch PMM believes there’s a better way. They focus on capabilities over outcomes.

In the startup world especially, buyers need to know the “how”. You don’t have the credibility yet to skip over what the product is and how it works. Buyers don’t believe the outcomes until these more basic questions are answered.

From https://newsletter.pmmcamp.com/p/edition-52

The remainder of Grominsky’s article, which you can read here, lists five steps that you and I can follow to ensure that prospects understand our capabillities so that they will “believe the outcomes.” Step 4, for example, includes Fletch PMM’s handy-dandy value proposition builder.

Now I just have to absorb this and get a little more feature-centric about my marketing and writing services.

And if you want to receive Tamara Grominsky’s insights in your mailbox every week, go to https://newsletter.pmmcamp.com/subscribe.

One (Just One) of Jessica Morisette’s Six Genius Tips for Increasing Instagram Engagement

Before I launch into the post…

Milestone time

This is the 500th Bredemarket blog post. Woo hoo! But I’m not going to celebrate now, because we have to get down to business.

Back to Instagram engagement

Do you want to increase engagement to solidify commitment?

Photo by Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man) – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1051815

No, not THAT type of engagement, although there are parallels between engagement with a person and engagement with content.

In the same way that content impressions can move a prospect to awareness, content engagement can move a prospect to consideration. And even if you don’t believe in the traditional funnel, it’s obviously a good idea to get prospects to engage with your content.

Morisette’s six-step strategy

Jessica Morisette of JM Virtual Solutions recently wrote a blog post entitled “Increase Instagram Engagement With This One-Hour Strategy.” Although I’m sure that she wouldn’t object if you spent 59 or 61 minutes (rather than an exact 60 minutes) on daily engagement, and she DEFINITELY wouldn’t mind if you took some of her techniques and applied them to social media platforms other than Instagram.

Personally, I started trying to put her engagement strategy in practice over the weekend, both on Instagram and (with some adaptation) on LinkedIn. Depending upon time, I may try to apply it on your favorite social platform.

Morisette introduces the post with the following:

Building engagement on Instagram involves creating a genuine connection with your audience. It’s not just about getting likes and comments; it’s about creating meaningful interactions that lead to brand loyalty and growth. To achieve this, you need a strategy that focuses on targeted accounts, not just random. 

From https://jmvirtualsolutions.org/blog/f/increase-instagram-engagement-with-this-one-hour-strategy

She then lists six steps to her suggested media engagement strategy. Now I could rip her off and reprint all six here, but then you wouldn’t read her post (which you should do).

So instead I’m going to briefly cover her step 5, engaging with your peers and community.

Skipping to step 5

After devoting time to particular portions of the Instagram platform, Morisette suggests that you start engagement with particular segments. One of those segments is peers and community.

Why?

Supporting others in your niche can encourage them to reciprocate.

From https://jmvirtualsolutions.org/blog/f/increase-instagram-engagement-with-this-one-hour-strategy

I know that content creators are often perceived to be in competition with other content creators, but since each of us is targeting different ideal clients, that competition is less than you think. Since content creators are all in this together, there’s a clear benefit from us supporting each other.

In fact, Morisette believes that this mutual support is so important that she recommends that you engage with your peers and community BEFORE you engage with your ideal client (step 6).

Why does Morisette believe that?

CTA time

Well…you’ll have to read her post for the answer.

For those who are keeping track, that’s the call to action (CTA) for MY post.

Oh, and also follow @jmsocialsolutions on Instagram. And meaningfully engage!

Your Prospects Don’t Care About Your Technology

Technologists, you know how tough it is to create a technology product.

  • You have to assemble the technology, or perhaps create the technology yourself.
  • You have to work on the most minute details and make sure that everything is just right.
  • It takes a great deal of effort.

What if your product story is ignored?

But when you want to tell the story about your product, and all the effort you put into it, your prospects ignore everything you say. You might as well not be there.

Designed by Freepik. And yes, you need to woo your prospects.

Do you know why your prospects are ignoring you?

Because they don’t care about you. It’s all about them.

People want to satisfy their own needs

But the “it’s all about me” attitude is actually a GOOD thing, if you can harness it in your messaging. Let’s face it; we all have an “it’s all about me” attitude because we want to satisfy our needs.

  • You want to satisfy your own needs because you only care about selling your product.
  • I want to satisfy my own needs because I only care about selling Bredemarket’s services. (I’ll get to the selling part later.)
  • And your prospects want to satisfy their own needs because they only care about their problems. And because of your customers’ self-focus, they’re only going to care about your product if it solves their problems.

So when it’s time to tell the story about your product, don’t talk about your technology.

Adopt a customer focus

Instead of talking about you, talk about them.

From the Gary Fly / Brooks Group article “7 Tips for Implementing a Customer-Centric Strategy,” at https://brooksgroup.com/sales-training-blog/7-tips-implementing-customer-centric-strategy/

Adopt a customer focus and talk about things that your prospects care about, such as how your product will solve their problems.

  • Do your customers struggle for visibility, or awareness? Will your technology help their visibility?
  • Do your customers struggle when considered against the competition? Will your technology help them stand out?
  • Do your customers struggle to make money (conversion)? Will your technology help them make money?
  • Do your customers require better ease of use, speed, accuracy, or other benefits? Do the features of your technology provide those benefits?

In short, your customers need to understand how you can solve their problems.

How do you adopt a customer focus?

But how can you make sure that your story resonates with your prospects?

Perhaps you need a guide to work with you to craft your story. Yes, I can serve as a guide to solve YOUR problem.

If you’re interested in how Bredemarket, the technology content marketing expert, can help you create a customer-focused story for your prospects, find out how to create technology content that converts

Does Self-Focus (Rather than Customer Focus) Lead to Blandness?

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
By Slastic – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7260831

(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.

Bottles of Huy Fong Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce.
The pride of Irwindale. Fair use. From https://www.huyfong.com/

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.

On Trust Funnels

Kasey Jones alerted me to the phrase “trust funnel,” and I’ve been thinking about it and its relationship to content marketing. Here are my thoughts.

The sales funnel

Many of us are familiar with the concept of sales funnels. The idea is that there are a bunch of people at the top of the funnel, and people move through the sales process.

Like sausage making.

By Rklawton – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=735848

As people move down, the funnel gets narrower and narrower as some people exit the funnel. At the bottom of the funnel, there is a very small hole that represents the customers who have converted, or who have actually purchased something.

In a rare instance of my championing simplicity, I like to use an easy three-step sales funnel model with awareness, consideration, and conversion.

From Venn Marketing, “Awareness, Consideration, Conversion: A 4 Minute Intro To Marketing 101.” (Link)

You may use a more complex sales funnel, but the exact number of steps in the funnel really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that your content marketers create content that addresses each step in your funnel.

  • In early steps of the funnel, the content goal is to ensure that prospects know that you’re out there and you have a solution that benefits the prospects.
  • In later steps of the funnel, the content goal is to move prospects to the point where they will purchase something from you, rather than purchasing it from one of your competitors or not purchasing anything at all.

Some of the approaches to sales funnel-based content marketing are based upon the faulty assumption that people progress through the funnel in a logical and predictable manner. In the logical model, you present an awareness piece of content, then follow that with a consideration piece of content, then finally present content to convert the prospect into a customer.

It’s all very orderly.

Like sausage making.

But people are not sausages

This model of the rational buyer is not always reflected in reality because people are not pieces of meat (except for the guy above). Here’s what Magdalena Andreeva says about “the messy middle”:

It’s about time we redefine the classic marketing funnel. It describes the user journey as a rather linear path, while the reality is a lot more messy, complex, and unpredictable.

Let’s scrap the dated marketing funnel and try to map out the real user journey.

It starts with a trigger, and then it goes into an almost infinite loop between exploration and evaluation – over and over again. And finally, the user exits the loop by making a decision or a purchase.

From https://hop.online/digital-strategy/how-to-influence-the-messy-middle-of-the-buyer-journey/

No, it’s not logical, but people are not logical.

Oh, and in addition to assuming logic, standard content creation methods assume that your firm knows where every buyer is on their journey. This assumption is essential so that your firm can detect a prospect in the awareness phase and take the necessary steps to move them downward into the funnel (or toward the endless loop pictured above).

Kasey Jones and the trust funnel

I mentioned Kasey Jones at the beginning of this blog post, based upon something she shared on LinkedIn. She started with an inconvenient truth that blew the second assumption out of the water.

Your buyers will probably never like or comment on your posts.

Kasey Jones LinkedIn post, 8/25/2023. (Link)

So much for all of those fancy tools that identify the sources of interaction with your content. They don’t work if people don’t interact with your content.

Yet Jones notes that these people are still buying. Three of them reached out to her in the last two weeks.

Each mentioned my content as why they wanted to work with me.

But they have never, not once, engaged with anything I’ve done on here.

Still, they were in my trust funnel, just the same.

Kasey Jones LinkedIn post, 8/25/2023. (Link)

This is where I noticed that word “trust funnel.”

It’s different from the sales funnel that we are laboriously tracking in our customer relationship management (CRM) tool. For content marketers, these things literally pop up out of the blue from a “trust funnel” that we know nothing about, even though we’re building it with our content.

If I wished, I could name multiple examples of people reaching out to me because of my content or Bredemarket’s content.

Jones’ point in all this was to emphasize that you need to keep on creating “scroll-stopping content” to attract DREAM (her capitalization) clients.

Even though you don’t know who you are attracting.

You’re not a sausage grinder making sausages. You’re a flower attracting bees.

By The original uploader was Y6y6y6 at English Wikipedia. – Original image located at PDPhoto.org. Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Drilnoth using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7365698

Now I could end this discussion right here with Kasey Jones’ comments, but I thought I’d perform a LinkedIn search to see who else was talking about the trust funnel.

And I found Kevin Schmitz.

Kevin Schmitz and the trust funnel

Schmitz approached the topic from a different perspective in his post from earlier this week. He focused on a particular piece of content: a person’s LinkedIn profile and activity.

Schmitz asserted that if someone approaches you with a meeting request, and the person’s LinkedIn presence is (his words) “bare bones,” you’re less likely to take the meeting. But if a meeting requester posts engaging, relevant content, perhaps you’ll take that call.

Schmitz went on to say:

Your presence on LinkedIn is not a “lead funnel”.

It’s a “trust funnel”.

We work so damn hard to establish trust in the meeting.

Yet, most of us are person 1 (the “bare bones” person) with an uphill battle each and every meeting.

Kevin Schmitz LinkedIn post, 8/22/2023 ot 8/23/2023. (Link)

If you’re interested, Schmitz’s post goes on to suggest ways to make your LinkedIn presence more engaging.

The meaning for content marketing

So what does the idea of “creating content that resonates with your invisible trust funnel” mean for content marketing?

Most people realize (or I hope they realize) that organic content often does not have an immediate payoff, especially for complex B2B sales. Even if I write the most amazing automated biometric identification system (ABIS) content for a Bredemarket client, the client won’t get orders within the first three days of posting the content. (I’ll have more to say about “three days” in a future post discussing go-to-market efforts.) Even if I am the biometric content marketing expert. (I’ve been working on promoting THAT piece of content for a while now.)

It takes longer than three days for content marketing to yield results. One source estimates four to five months. Another source says six to twelve months. Joe Pulizzi (quoted by Neil Patel) estimates 15 to 17 months. And all the sources say that their estimates may not apply to your particular case.

But Bredemarket (and I in my personal communications) will continue to cater to that invisible trust funnel and see what happen.

And if you’re reading this post in Janury 2025, thank you. If you want to talk to me about content creation, some of these links may still work!

Bredemarket logo

Three Key Ways to Receive Bredemarket Information

Are you considering contracting with a marketing and writing service?

Would you like to know more about Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services to provide the right words for identity/biometrics, technology, and local B2B firms?

Would you like multiple options to learn about Bredemarket?

This post is ONLY intended for people who want to stay up-to-date with information from Bredemarket. If you have no such interest, you can skip reading this post and I’ll “give a couple of minutes back to you.”

There are a number of ways to get the latest Bredemarket information, but these three are probably the most important.

Bredemarket blog

To subscribe to the Bredemarket blog and get the latest information directly from Bredemarket:

The Bredemarket blog contains over 400 posts on marketing, writing, identity and biometrics, technology, and California’s Inland Empire. It also lets you know how you can use Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services for your company.

LinkedIn Bredemarket page

To subscribe to the LinkedIn page and see the latest content from Bredemarket, and special content from Bredemarket’s market-oriented LinkedIn pages:

I’ve found LinkedIn to be a valuable source of information, and much of the third-party information I find on LinkedIn is reshared on the Bredemarket LinkedIn page and its market-oriented “showcase” pages on identity, technology, and local business. (You can follow those three pages also.)

Bredemarket mailing list

To subscribe to the mailing list and receive special private content in advance of everyone else:

I’m revitalizing the mailing list to let those with a keen interest in Bredemarket know about my future plans.

Is the Funnel Consideration Phase Quantitative or Qualitative?

From Venn Marketing, “Awareness, Consideration, Conversion: A 4 Minute Intro To Marketing 101.” (Link)

The picture above shows a simple sales funnel example. The second of the three items in the funnel is the “consideration” phase.

  • In that phase, those people who are aware of you can then consider your products and services.
  • If they like what they see, they move on to conversion and hopefully buy your products and services.

But how do prospects in the funnel consideration phase evaluate your offering as opposed to competitor offerings? Is it truly a quantitative and logical process, or is it in reality qualitative and emotional?

Quantitative consideration

For purposes of this post, let’s assume that there are two competing companies, Bredemarket and Debamarket, who are fighting each other for business.

OK, maybe not literally. I have never boxed in my life. By Royal Navy official photographer – http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib//31/media-31189/large.jpg This photograph A 29806 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25124750

Second, let’s assume that Bredemarket and Debamarket offer similar services to their prospects and customers:

  • Blog posts
  • Case studies
  • White papers

Finally, let’s assume that a big government agency (the BGA) has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for blog/case study/white paper services, and Bredemarket and Debamarket are the two companies competing for the award.

Source selection

Now I’m not a big-time pre-acquisition consultant like Applied Forensic Services, but I’ve been around long enough to know how pre-acquisition consultants work—especially when working with big government agencies like BGA.

A pre-acquisition consultant will develop a Source Selection Plan (SSP). In competitive procurements such as the one in this example, the SSP will state exactly how proposals will be evaluated, and how the best proposal will be selected.

Here is the U.S. Government’s guidance on Source Selection Plans. (link)

SSPs can be very complex for certain opportunities, and not so complex for others. In all cases, the SSP dictates the evaluation criteria used to select the best vendor.

Michael Ropp of RFP360 has published a very simple example of how a particular group of proposal responses may be evaluated.

The weighted scoring approach breaks down your RFP evaluation criteria and assigns a value to each question or section. For example, your RFP criteria may consider questions of technical expertise, capabilities, data security, HR policies and diversity and sustainability. Weighted scoring prioritizes the criteria that are most important to your business by assigning them a point or percentage value. So your weighted scoring criteria may look like this: 

  • Technical expertise – 25%
  • Capabilities – 40%
  • Data security – 10%
  • HR policies – 10%
  • Diversity and sustainability – 15%
RFP360, “A guide to RFP evaluation criteria: Basics, tips and examples.” (Link)

Individual question evaluation

In most cases the evaluator doesn’t look at the entire technical expertise section and give it a single score. In large RFPs, the technical expertise section may consist of 96 questions (or even 960 questions), each of which is evaluated and fed into the total technical expertise score.

For example, the RFP may include a question such as this one, and the responses from the bidders (Bredemarket and Debamarket) are evaluated.

QuestionBredemarketDebamarket
96. The completed blog post shall include no references to 1960s songs.0.8 points awarded.

While many Bredemarket blog posts comply, “How Remote Work Preserves Your Brain” does not.
1.0 points awarded.

Debamarket fully complies.
Example evaluation of a proposal response to an individual RFP question.

Final quantitative recommendation for award

Now repeat this evaluation method for every RFP question in every RFP category and you end up with a report in which one of the vendors receives more points than the other and is clearly the preferred bidder. Here’s an example from a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposal source selection process. (And you can bet that a nuclear agency doesn’t use an evaluation method that is, um, haphazard.)

From U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “FINAL EVALUATION RECOMMENDATION REPORT FOR
PROPOSALS SUBMITTED UNDER RFP NO. RQ-CIO-01-0290
ENTITLED, “INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES AND SUPPORT
CONTRACT (ISSC).”” (link)

So what does this example show us? It shows that L-3 Communications/EER received a total score of 83.8, while its closest competitor Logicon only received a score of 80. So EER is the preferred bidder.

So in our example, BGA would evaluate Bredemarket and Debamarket, come up with a number for each bidder, and award the contract to the bidder with the highest evaluation score.

Quantitative recommendation for the little guys

Perhaps people who aren’t big government agencies don’t go to this level of detail, but many prospects who reach the consideration phase use some type of quantitative method.

For example, if the (non-weighted) pros for an item under consideration outnumber the cons, go for it.

“What are Pro and Con Lists?” (link)

Five pros and only three cons. Do it!

All quantative, objective, and straightforward.

If people really evaluate that way.

But is consideration quantitative?

Now of course the discussion above assumes that everyone is a logical being who solely evaluates based on objective criteria.

But even Sages such as myself may deviate from the objective norm. Here’s a story of one time when I did just that.

As I previously mentioned, I had never written a proposal response before I started consulting for Printrak. But I had written a Request for Proposal before I joined Printrak. For a prior employer (located in Monterey Park), I worked with an outside consultant to develop an RFP to help my employer select a vendor for a computer system. The questions posed to the bidders were not complex. Frankly, it was a simple checklist. Does your computer system perform function A? Does it perform function B?

The outside consultant and I sent the final RFP to several computer system providers, and received several proposals in response.

  • A few of the proposals checked every box, saying that they could do anything and everything. We threw those proposals out, because we knew that no one could meet every one of our demanding requirements. (“I can’t trust that response.”)
  • We focused on the proposals that included more realistic responses. (“That respondent really thought about the questions.”)

As you can see, we introduced a qualitative, emotional element into our consideration phase.

According to Kaye Putnam, this is not uncommon.

Qualitative consideration

Humans think that we are very logical when we consider alternatives, and that our consideration processes are logical and quantitative. Putnam has looked into this assertion and says that it’s hogwash. Take a look at this excerpt from Putnam’s first brand psychology secret:

Your brand has to meet people at that emotional level – if you want them to buy. (And I know you do!)  

Findings from several studies support this, but one of the most seminal was outlined in Harvard professor Gerald Zellman’s 2003 book, The Subconscious Mind of the Consumer. Zellman’s research and learnings prompted him to come to the industry-rocking conclusion that, “95 percent of our purchase decision making takes place in the subconscious mind.”

From Kaye Putnam, “7 Brand Psychology Secrets – Revealed!” (link)

But how can the subconscious mind affect quantitative evaluations?

While logic still has to play SOME role in a purchase decision (as Putnam further explains in her first and second brand psychology secrets), a positive or negative predisposition toward a bidder can influence the quantitative scores.

Imagine if the evaluators got together and discussed the Bredmarket and Debamarket responses to question 96, above. The back and forth between the evaluators may sound like this:

  • “OK, we’re up to question 96. That’s a no brainer, because no one would ever put song references in a BGA blog post.”
  • “Yeah, but did you see Bredemarket’s own post that has multiple references to the song ‘Dead Man’s Curve’?”
  • “So what? Bredemarket would never do that when writing for a government agency. That piece was solely for Bredemarket.”
  • “How do you KNOW that Bredemarket would never slip a song reference into a BGA post? You know, I really don’t trust that guy. He wore two different colored shoes to the orals presentation, a brown one and a black one. Someone as slopy as that could do anything, with huge consequences for BGA communications. I’m deducting points from Bredemarket for question 96.”
  • “OK. I think you’re being ridiculous, but if you say so.”

And just like that, your quantitative logical consideration process is exposed as a bunch of subconscious emotional feelings.

How does qualitative consideration affect you?

As you develop your collateral for the consideration phase, you need to go beyond logic (even if you have a Sage predisposition) and speak to the needs and pain points of your prospects.

Yes, pain.

Spock is behaving illogically. Jayenkai, “Pain – Star Trek Remix.” (link)

Here’s a example from my law enforcement automated fingerprint identificaiton system (AFIS) days.

  • If your prospect is a police chief who is sick and tired of burglars ransacking homes and causing problems for the police department, don’t tell your prospect about your AFIS image detail or independent accuracy testing results. After all, 1000 ppi and 99.967 accuracy are only numbers.
  • Provide the police chief with customer-focused benefit statements about how quickly your AFIS will clean up the burglary problem in the town, giving residents peace of mind and the police department less stress.

If you can appeal to those emotions, that police chief will consider you more highly and move on to conversion (purchase).

Can I help?

If your messaging concentrates on things your prospects don’t care about, most of them will ignore you and not shower you with money. Using the wrong words with your customers impacts your livelihood, and may leave you poor and destitute with few possessions.

Remember what I said about pain points? By Unknown author – Library of Congress[1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6237178

If you need a writer to work with you to ensure that your written content includes the right words that speak directly to your prospects, hire…Debamarket!

Oh wait. Debamarket is fictional.

OK, talk to Bredemarket then.

Awareness Calls to Action

Blog posts are transitory things, reflecting the views of the author at a particular point in time. Those views can change as the world evolves, or as the author evolves.

Take the author who wrote the following statement in late 2022: “Posts for awareness don’t need CTAs (calls to action).”

The author who wrote that statement was…um, it was me.

Can I get a re-do on that one?

What I said in December 2022

The quoted statement above is from a section in the December 2022 blog post “Does Every Blog Post Need a Call to Action?

Incidentally, I still believe that you don’t need a call to action in EVERY blog post.

Some will argue, “Well then why did you write it?”

To answer that, here’s some of what I said in that December 2022 blog post.

Candy Street Market, 110 W Holt, Ontario, California

Take my post from last Saturday, “Candy Street Market is coming.”

This post simply talked about a new candy store in Ontario, California, but never talked about Bredemarket’s content creation or proposal writing services.

So why did I write a post that doesn’t directly lead to business?

For the awareness….

(I) am concentrating more on serving local firms in California’s Inland Empire….But the locals need to know that I’m here.

From https://bredemarket.com/2022/12/04/does-every-blog-post-need-a-call-to-action/

What I’m saying in July 2023

While perhaps it’s valid to say that the Candy Street Market blog post didn’t need a CTA (although some would dispute that), I myself have written other “awareness” blog posts and content that DID need a CTA.

(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.)

For example, take another blog post that I wrote in December 2022, “Six Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You: the e-book version.” It didn’t end with a request to contact me. It didn’t attempt to move the reader down the funnel from awareness to consideration. The blog post merely said that there are six questions.

But it did have a “download” CTA.

While the CTA didn’t in and of itself move the reader to consideration (and hopefully to conversion), it did make them, um, more aware. For those who followed my CTA and downloaded the e-book, they learned why their content creator should ask “why” and other questions. And by the time they got to page 13 14, they saw this:

For some of you, this e-book has helped you to decide on the questions that you will ask your preferred content creator, or the questions that you will ask yourself before you create your own content.

But for others, you might be asking how Bredemarket can help you create content. As I said earlier, you’re probably not ready to contract with me yet. We have to talk first.

If you’re interested in Bredemarket’s services, contact me via one of the methods listed at the https://bredemarket.com/contact/ URL.

From “Six Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You.” Go here to download.

So THAT’S where I moved the reader on to the consideration phase—AFTER they had read the blog post AND the e-book.

But while they were still on the blog post, I assumed they were still in the awareness phase.

By Steve simple – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7749648

Summing up

Here’s the TL;DR version:

  • The Candy Street blog post was an awareness blog post that didn’t need a Bredemarket-focused CTA, because it only alerted people of Bredemarket’s existence.
  • The Six Questions e-book blog post was an awareness blog post that DID need a Bredemarket-focused CTA, because I wanted them to download and read the e-book and THEN move on to consideration.
  • I’m going to update the old blog/CTA blog post to refer to THIS one.
  • I may change my mind again.

As for the CTA to THIS blog post, there isn’t one—yet. This post was written for a purpose that I will reveal shortly.

Illustrating Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt for Facility Monitoring

I just ran across an excellent example of how a content marketing expert can raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in the mind of a prospect in the “consideration” phase.

These prospects need people to monitor their facilities and protect them against threats. In today’s world, it’s technically possible for facility monitoring professionals to work from anywhere, including their own homes.

Rapid Response Monitoring wants to discourage this.

Our preparation gives us the endurance to continuously provide professional monitoring services from within our hardened facilities. Since our founding, our choice has been to keep critical monitoring operations staff on-site. Monitoring from home provides lower-quality service (security issues/distractions). We believe you deserve more.

From https://www.rrms.com/in-facility-monitoring/

Now Rapid Response Monitoring writes a lot more about why its solution is better, and you can read those words here.

But what about pictures?

There is a relationship between words and pictures, with the most famous relationship expressed as “a picture is worth a thousand words.” (Artists may say that a picture is worth many more words.)

Take a look at Rapid Response Monitoring’s picture and see what this communicates to prospects in the consideration phase for facility monitoring services.

Which Words Should Your Marketers Use? My Four Suggestions.

I’ve talked about the words “why,” “how,” and “what” and their relation to writing, but I haven’t talked about the word “which.”

Not in relation to sandwiches, but in relation to words.

If you are a marketing executive, you know that the words you use in your marketing content can make or break your success. When your company asks employees or consultants to write marketing content for you, which words should they use?

Here are four suggestions for you and your writers to follow.

  1. Your writers should use the right words for your brand.
  2. Your writers should use the right words for your industry.
  3. Your writers should use words that get results.
  4. Your writers should be succinct.

Your writers should use the right words for your brand

Your company has a tone of voice, and your writers should know what it is. If you can’t tell them what it is, they will figure it out themselves.

Your company has a particular writing style—hopefully one that engages your prospects and customers. Regardless of your writer’s personal style, they must create copy that aligns with your own style. In effect, they put on a “mask” that aligns the words they create with the words that your company needs.

Your writers should use the right words for your industry

Similarly, your company provides products and services in one or more industries, and your copy must align with the terms those industries use, and the way industry participants express themselves.

For example, a writer who is writing content for the biometric industry will use different terms than a writer who is writing content for art collectors because of the differences in the two target audiences.

  • Biometric readers (the people, not the devices) care about matching accuracy measurements, such as those compiled by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in its Face Recognition Vendor Test, or as measured in agency-managed benchmarks. (Mike French’s example.) They often respond to quantitative things, although more high-level concepts like “keeping citizens safe from repeat offenders” (a public safety-related benefit) also resonate.
  • Art collectors care about more qualitative things, such as not being scared of handing over their dream to a commissioned artist whose work will inspire affection. (Well, unless the collector is an art investor and not an art lover; investors use different terminology than lovers.)

So make sure your writers get the words right. Otherwise, it’s as if someone is speaking Italian to a bunch of French speakers. (Kaye Putnam’s example.) Your prospects will tune you out if you use words they don’t understand.

Your writers should use words that get results

There is one important exception to my suggestions above. If your company’s current words don’t result in action, quit using your current words and use better ones that support your awareness, consideration, conversion, or other goals.

If you start talking about your solution without addressing your prospect’s pain points or problems, they won’t know why they should care about your solution.

For example, let’s say that the message you want to give to your prospects is that your company makes wireless headphones.

So what?

The prospect doesn’t care about wireless headphones per se. The prospect cares about the troubles they face with tangled cords, and how your company offers a solution to their problem of tangled cords.

Features are important to you. Benefits are important to your prospects. Since the prospects are the ones with the money, listen to them and talk about benefits that change their lives, not how great your features are.

Your writers should be succinct

I have struggled with succinctness for decades. I could give you countless examples of my long-windedness, but…that wouldn’t be appropriate.

So how do I battle this personally? By creating a draft 0.5 before I create my draft 1. I figure out what I’m going to say, say it, and then sleep on the text—sometimes literally. When I take a fresh look at the text, I usually ruthlessly chop a bunch of it out and focus on the beef.

Now there are times in which detail is appropriate, but there are also times in which a succinct message gets better results.

Selecting your content marketer

If your company needs employees or consultants to write marketing content for you, make sure they create the right content.

If your company’s views on content creation parallel my own, maybe I can help you.

If you need a full-time employee on your staff to drive revenue as your personal Senior Product Marketing Manager or Senior Content Marketing Manager, take a look at my 29 years of technology (identity/biometric) and marketing experience on my LinkedIn profile. If you like what you see, contact me via LinkedIn or at jebredcal@gmail.com.

If you need a marketing consultant for a single project, then you can reach me via my Bredemarket consultancy.