B2B content creators often find themselves telling stories to drive their readers to take action. Usually the desired action is to do business with the company telling the story. But as Redlands-headquartered company ESRI demonstrates with ArcGIS StoryMaps, there are many ways to tell a story.
Why tell stories?
Now you could easily adopt a “just the facts” approach to sharing the necessary information, but your potential customers’ eyes may glaze over.
About a year ago, when I was selling Bredemarket’s services to a potential biometric client (obviously before I announced Bredemarket’s change in business scope and stopped providing services to finger/face clients), I started off by presenting a SWOT analysis. For those not familiar with the term, “SWOT” stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
For the topic of discussion with my potential client, I went through my independent analysis of all four of these items, engaging the people in the meeting who suggested some improvements. This SWOT analysis led into a presentation of the services that I could provide to the firm—services that addressed the weaknesses and threats that we had mutually identified.
What happened? I signed a contract with the company and worked on multiple projects to successfully address those weaknesses/threats.
Do you see what I did there?
As you probably noticed, I just told a story that had a conflict, actions, and a final resolution. “And they all sold biometric products happily ever after.”
Now SWOT analyses may not be your preferred type of storytelling, and frankly I usually don’t use SWOT analyses to tell stories. Stories can be of the “what happened to a company” or “what happened to me” form. For example, I recently told a “what happened to a company” story when talking about Conductor’s use of Calendly.
On April 20, 2022, ESRI announced its introduction of ArcGIS StoryMaps, saying that “StoryMaps Allows Content Creators to Unify Digital Experiences in One Place Furthering Esri’s Mission to Bring the Geographic Approach to All.” In its announcement, ESRI started by presenting the problem:
Capturing and sharing life’s experiences today often requires multiple platforms and tools, which can result in disjointed storytelling.
ArcGIS StoryMaps seeks to allow marketers and other content creators to use a single easy-to-use tool to tell their stories. As ESRI’s video on ArcGIS StoryMaps states, “Every story has a place, and every place has a story.” StoryMaps helps people tell place stories.
Now ESRI hasn’t asked me to tell stories for them (yet), but perhaps your Redlands-based company might want a storyteller. Consider the Redlands, California content marketing expert, Bredemarket. I provide marketing and writing services in the Inland Empire and throughout the United States.
Here are just a few examples of what Bredemarket can do for your firm:
I can provide many more B2B services; a complete list can be found here.
Before I create a single word, I start by asking you some questions about your content:
Why, how, and what do you do?
What is the topic of the content?
What is the goal that you want to achieve with the content?
What are the benefits (not features, but benefits) that your end customers can realize by using your product or service?
What is the target audience for the content?
After you’ve provided the relevant information to me, I’ll create the first iteration of the content, and we’ll work together to create your final content. The specifics of how we will work together depend upon whether you have elected the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service, the Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service, or something else.
When we’re done, that final content is yours (a “work for hire” arrangement).
If I can help your business, or if you have further questions about Bredemarket’s B2B content creation services, please contact me.
There is a LOT going on in Ontario, California that escapes the attention of most of us. For example, only dedicated boxing fans may know what is happening here on May 14.
Former world champion and light heavyweight Mexican boxing star Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramírez (43-0, 29 KOs) of Mazatlán, Mexico, will face former WBA Interim Light Heavyweight World Champion Dominic Boesel (32-2, 12 KOs) of Freyburg, Germany on Saturday, May 14….The event will take place at Toyota Arena in Ontario, CA, and will stream live exclusively on DAZN.
And the Toyota Arena is certainly promoting it. (“Zurdo” is Ramirez’s nickname.) Notice the prominent “BUY TICKETS” call to action. The Toyota Arena wants you to attend the event in-person.
And the DAZN streaming service is obviously talking about it and hoping that you sign up for the service. The yellow “SIGN UP NOW” buttons (two of them in this screen alone) are hard to miss. Unlike the Toyota Arena, DAZN doesn’t require you to be in person to view this fight.
What the Toyota Arena and the DAZN streaming service DIDN’T do when marketing the fight
Let’s look at one aspect of how the fight is being marketed.
Have you ever noticed that some companies believe that the best way to market themselves is to talk about themselves? They’re worse than a self-obsessed narcissist on a date.
Major Frank Burns (portrayed by Larry Linville) of M*A*S*H fame. (Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan not pictured.) By CBS Television – eBayfrontbackeBayphoto front & release, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30082123
If the “my company is most important” people were promoting this fight, the Toyota Arena could have started its Zurdo vs. Boesel page with the text below.
Toyota Arena, built and owned by the City of Ontario, operated by ASM Global, can accommodate over 11,000 guests. The 225,000 square foot venue features 36 luxury suites located on two levels and a continuous concourse hosting a variety of concession and refreshment stands, merchandise kiosks, the VIP Club and other fan amenities. Toyota Arena hosts over 125 events annually including concerts, family shows, and sporting competitions. The Arena is home to several sport teams including: Ontario Reign (American Hockey League), Ontario Fury (Major Arena Soccer League), Aqua Caliente Clippers of Ontario (G League Basketball), and LA Temptation (Legends Football League).
This text appears on the arena’s “About Us” page. Why not also put it on the page for the fight, to ensure that the readers see it and realize the sheer awesomeness of the arena, the City of Ontario, and ASM Global?
Why not talk about the arena at the beginning of the fight announcement? Because fight promoters are smart. Fight promoters know that to make a sale, they need to maintain a customer focus.
Let’s say that you’re a boxing promoter and YOU have to promote this fight. Which of the following two facts is more important?
Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramírez has a boxing record of 43-0 with 29 knockouts.
The Toyota Arena is a 225,000 square foot facility.
Now perhaps the janitorial staff that has to service the Toyota Arena is more concerned about item 2, but if you want boxing fans to buy tickets or streaming access, you’re going to aggressively promote item 1 and maintain your customer focus.
So what is MY call to action to YOU?
If I were to ask you, there is a high probability that you are not a boxing promoter. I know this because I’m not submitting this post to The Ring as a press release, but am instead sharing it in various Inland Empire West business channels.
However, there is a pretty good probability that you own or manage a local business, and you have your own news that you want to get out.
And this news must resonate with your customers.
Perhaps you want to share a customer success story, case study, or testimonial—a casetimonial, if you will. This document must appeal to your customers, speak to their needs, and ideally lead to them considering your company’s services or products.
Or perhaps you want to share a white paper that addresses your customers’ needs, but also drives them to consider your business. For example, you might distribute a white paper that lists seven critical criteria for customer success—and coincidentally, your company’s offering satisfies all seven critical criteria. (What an amazing coincidence!)
I, John E. Bredehoft, through my Ontario-based DBA Bredemarket, can write casetimonials, white papers, and other types of content, working with you to answer these and other critical questions BEFORE producing the content:
Why, how, and what do you do?
What is the topic of the content?
What is the goal that you want to achieve with the content?
What are the benefits (not features, but benefits) that your end customers can realize by using your product or service?
What is the target audience for the content?
After you’ve provided the relevant information to me, I’ll create the first iteration of the content, and we’ll work together to create your final content. The specifics of how we will work together depend upon whether you have elected the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service, the Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service, or something else.
When we’re done, that final content is yours (a “work for hire” arrangement).
If I can help your business, or if you have further questions about Bredemarket’s B2B content creation services, please contact me.
The U.S. Census provides “quick facts” about U.S. jurisdictions, including business facts. While the business facts are ten years old, they still provide an indication of business health.
For Rancho Cucamonga, the U.S. Census Bureau has documented over 15,000 firms, over $3 billion in manufacturers shipments, and over $2 billion in retail sales. These figures have presumably increased in the last ten years.
If you own or manage one of these thousands of businesses, and you need to let other businesses know about your offerings, perhaps you should turn to the Rancho Cucamonga, California content marketing expert. Bredemarket can assist your firm with the following:
Bredemarket does not accept client work for solutions that identify individuals using (a) friction ridges (including fingerprints and palm prints) and/or (b) faces.
Bredemarket does not accept client work for solutions that identify individuals using secure documents, such as driver’s licenses or passports.
I’m making a lot of changes at Bredemarket right now, but I haven’t announced all of them.
For example, when I discontinued two of my editing packages (see my previous post “Bredemarket announcement: discontinuation of editing offerings”), I simultaneously raised the prices of two of my writing packages. I didn’t make a formal announcement at the time, for the obvious reason that potential clients usually don’t respond positively to a price increase.
But as I thought about it some more, I realized that there are benefits to explaining why I raised my prices, both from a “macro” perspective and from a “micro” perspective. (Yes, my BA is in Economics.)
Once I explained my rationale in raising consulting package prices, I knew that some potential clients would NOT want to do business with Bredemarket, but that other potential clients definitely WOULD use Bredemarket’s services. And I want to work with the latter group, because they pay better.
Service pricing from the macro perspective
Simplistically, there are two price tiers for people like me who offer writing services. I won’t characterize them with positive or negative adjectives, but those two tiers can be decribed as follows.
One pricing tier for writing services
One of the pricing tiers is definitely lower than the other tier, and these writing services can be provided by anybody, in any location, for a low price.
Which means that if you want to make $22.50 per hour on a 1,000 word project at five cents a word, you need to complete that writing project in…27 minutes.
And now you know why so many pennies per word writers live in the Third World. They can afford to live on these rates.
And why the “guy” quoted in the Reddit comment above didn’t immediately go to his $10 writers. I guess his $10 writers weren’t turning out quality writing at those rates.
The other pricing tier for writing services
Some writers choose not to compete on price, instead competing on expertise and level of service, and/or by targeting a particular clientele. Morning Brew cites a Business Insider behind-the-paywall post about one high-end offering.
Some ghostwriters on LinkedIn are making $500–$700 an hour writing posts for high-powered execs and LinkedInfluencers, according to Insider.
First, look at the market these ghostwriters target: executives and influencers. While the term “LinkedInfluencers” has extremely negative connotations, there are people on LinkedIn who write posts to achieve very specific (and measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely, or SMART) goals, such as talent attraction, lead generation, or revenue realization.
To help their clients reach these SMART goals, the ghostwriters need to provide a superior level of service. The ghostwriters must understand the clients’ goals for the project and work closely with the client to ensure the final written text addresses those goals.
Finally, the ghostwriters need to have one or more types of expertise.
General expertise in writing. Can the ghostwriter effectively communicate the client’s message, incorporating a focus on the client’s customers and an explanation of the benefits the client’s customers can realize by following the client’s advice?
Expertise in the client’s industry. Can the ghostwriter communicate the client’s message in a way that is convincing to the client’s customers, and in a way that establishes the client’s expertise?
Expertise in LinkedIn. Can the ghostwriter produce something that readers on LinkedIn will find? I hesitate to use the word “viral” because of its negative connotations, but if a client wants a LinkedIn article to be read by potential purchasers of electric cars, then the article has to be written in such a way that it will appear on the LinkedIn feeds of potential electric car purchasers.
Guess what? You’re not going to get someone to write that for $10.
Service pricing from the micro perspective
Now let’s look at (some) specifics of my own business, and how my initial pricing affected my business. I’m going to concentrate on two of my service packages: my Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service and my Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service.
When I initially started Bredemarket and created these (and other) service packages, I already envisioned that these offering would include production of one (or more) drafts with review by the client, and submission of the final copy.
September 2020 description of the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service.
And then I started offering both packages to clients, with rates that fell between the $0.01 per word category and the $700 per hour category. Over the next 16 months, I worked on client projects based upon these packages and prices, using Toggl Track to keep track of the time I actually spent on each project.
At the same time I iteratively expanded my process for completing these packages, adding more value to my offering by beefing up the beginning stages of the project (most recently by incorporating new kickoff questions based on Simon Sinke’s Golden Circle) and adding additional services through the course of the project.
At the beginning of 2022, I audited these hours to see the time that I spent on each package project. Then I asked myself: if I had charged my hourly rate instead of the package rate, would I have made more money with the hourly rate, or more money with the package rate? I figured that if I would make more money by charging an hourly rate, then I was losing money with my then-current package rates.
Guess what? I was losing money (from an opportunity cost perspective) because I had underestimated the hours that I would spend on these package projects. In some cases I would have made twice as much at my hourly rate than I did at the package rate.
To address this opportunity cost revenue gap, I had two choices:
Work faster by doing less. (“Who cares about benefits? Who cares about your goals? I’ll just put some words together and we’ll be finished. No, this doesn’t include HAVARD citations.”)
Charge more by raising my consulting package pricing.
Rather than reducing the level of service I provided to clients, I chose to raise my consulting package pricing.
But should I tell anyone that I raised my consulting package prices?
If you look at the September 2020 description of my Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service above, you’ll see that I didn’t provide my package pricing. I just said “$Quote.” I figured that I would only share this pricing with potential clients who were well into the sales funnel.
This is not uncommon for service providers or product providers. How many times have you gone to a company website to find the price of something and encountered the words “contact us for pricing” or something similar?
In essence, the company will have a salesperson contact you, explain the benefits of the solution in question, and THEN quote the price after you are awed and dazzled by the solution’s benefits.
But there are other views on the matter of exposing vs. not exposing pricing, and there people who state the benefits of providing transparent pricing for services. You can find many sources for the “show pricing” argument, but I like the way that Pia Silva stated the “show priing” case in this Forbes article. Here are two of Silva’s benefits for this approach:
Pricing transparency immediately weeds out bargain shoppers, which are people I’m not interested in working with. If you want a healthy, profitable service business, you must have a decent margin on your work, and that will never be in line with a customer whose only concern is the price point (which is a short-sighted way to make business decisions)….
I believe the best way communicate [values]…is by doing something very transparent that demonstrates integrity, i.e. being upfront about our pricing and not changing it based on what we think the client can afford.
You read about the Bredemarket content creation process. While there are slight differences between the Bredemarket 400 and Bredemarket 2800 content creation processes, each process is extensive, with nine steps. I’m not in the business of “you ask me to write something, and I’ll complete it 27 minutes later.”
Only AFTER you have read about the service and the content creation process do I provide my pricing. It’s kind of like a traditional sales pitch, but in written form.
The U.S. Census provides “quick facts” about U.S. jurisdictions, including business facts. While the business facts are ten years old, they still provide an indication of business health.
For Fontana, the U.S. Census Bureau has documented almost 14,000 firms, over $1 billion in manufacturers shipments, and over $2 billion in retail sales. These figures have presumably increased in the last ten years.
If you own or manage one of these thousands of businesses, and you need to let other businesses know about your offerings, perhaps you should turn to the Fontana, California content marketing expert. Bredemarket can assist your firm with the following:
Both small and large businesses need to attract customers to their companies, their products, and their services. Once potential customers are aware of the company’s business, then they can consider the benefits of the company’s offerings and (hopefully) decide to purchase the company’s products and services.
But what if you don’t want people to buy your company’s products and services?
Edgar Porras, 49, of Moreno Valley, was charged in a criminal information filed today with one count of bid rigging. In a plea agreement also filed today, Porras agreed to plead guilty to the offense.
During the scheme that ran from 2013 through August 2018, Porras conspired “to suppress and restrain competition by rigging bids to obtain selected food contracts offered by the BOP,” according to court documents. To further the scheme, Porras, who was a contractor to a food company identified as “Company A,” agreed with co-conspirators not to compete to obtain the BOP contracts, and collectively they decided which conspirator would submit the lowest – and presumably winning – bid for a contract.
By spending his time on rigging bids, the guilty party made sure that he couldn’t actually spend valuable time improving prison food. And we certainly don’t want that.
If you want to ensure that your business doesn’t make money, then I have two helpful tips for you.
Two TERRIBLE tips for business promotion
Tip 1: It’s all about you
When potential customers research businesses, they are usually looking for a company that can solve their problems. In other words, customers want a business that speaks to the customer’s needs.
However, we all know that the customer is always wrong, and that customers don’t realize what is important to YOU, the business owner. (What is wrong with these customers?)
Therefore, it’s important that your marketing materials talk about YOUR concerns, rather than the concerns of the customer. This will impress the customer, who will obviously realize that their concerns are unimportant compared to YOURS.
Here are three examples of things to include in your marketing materials:
Spend a lot of time talking about when the company was founded, the number of patents and awards held by the company founder, some early stories that you find funny (why isn’t the Bill Gates arrest story on the front page of Microsoft’s website?), and how the company has changed since its earliest days.
When talking about your company’s products and services, be sure to concentrate on the features that impress your employees. Don’t try to apply these products to actual customer needs; customers should be able to figure this out themselves. Or just take the word of your engineers that the product is great.
If you write company-centric rather than customer-centric materials, then you are guaranteed to have customers ignore you, or even better avoid you.
Tip 2: Never update your content
Set it and forget it. It’s an easy way to maintain online content.
Granted, when you first create a website, a blog, or a social media account, creation of initial content is unavoidable. Now it’s quite possible that you can delay the appearance of that content by not posting anything until the content is perfect, but at some point the content is going to have to go live.
But once that unavoidable posting is complete, then your job is done. If you keep the same static content on there, you’ll maintain consistency. To maintain that consistency, be sure to avoid the following three things:
Avoid posting any new content. Once you post new content, then the search engines will flag and highlight the new content. And you don’t want the new content to appear more important than the old content, do you?
Avoid updating old information on your website or social media content. Outdated content such as 2015 copyright dates and references to Windows NT support are powerful messages that accentuate the long time that your company has been in business, without cluttering it up by mentioning anything modern. If your company was established in the 1990s, then animated GIFs and automated MIDI players convey an essential lack of innovation. For example, see http://www.netanimations.net/ (and yes, that’s http, not https).
Avoid updating outdated links. If you have a Twitter account that links to your website, and you fail to pay your web hosting bill, be sure that the Twitter account continues to link to the dead website. When the potential customer encounters the dead website, this will pique the customer’s curiosity and the customer will search for your new website, if any.
Professional salespeople often talk about pre-qualifying leads. If you follow the three steps above, then you will automatically pre-qualify your leads, since any customer who takes the time to find your current information is obviously motivated.
If you want to ignore my advice
Because I am always right, you will obviously follow my advice to alienate potential customers. If you instead choose to attract customers, then you’ll ignore my advice and do the exact opposite of what I say.
But what’s the fun in customer-centric, current content?
This post explains why it feels familiar to a previous post of mine, what this certification is, and when I will (and will not) use my shiny new HubSpot Academy certification. It also includes a different call to action than the one I usually use.
Deja vu all over again: remember my CF APMP certification?
While certification in and of itself does not necessarily indicate operating confidence, it provides some level of assurance that the certified person knows what he or she is talking about.
Which is why I pursued and achieved APMP Foundation certification (CF APMP) in September 2021.
For those who don’t know, the Association of Proposal Management Professionals provides many benefits, including improved service to Bredemarket clients because of my access to the APMP Body of Knowledge.
It also provides a mechanism for proposal professionals to certify their mastery of the proposal field.
Which is great, if you’re a proposal professional.
But I also do other stuff.
What does it mean to be “Content Marketing Certified”?
My Bredemarket consultancy can be sliced and diced in several ways, one of which is to look at the proposals side of my business and the content marketing side of the business. The latter concentrates on generating content that attracts customers to a company’s offering, leading to revenue. At Bredemarket, I practice content marketing on two levels:
I create content for Bredemarket that attracts customers to use my services.
I create content for my customers that attracts THEIR customers to use THEIR services.
As you can see from the text of the certificate above, content marketing encompasses numerous subtasks:
Long-term content planning. Haphazard creation of content is not as beneficial as creation of content to achieve a particular goal.
Content creation. An important part of the process, but ONLY a part.
Content promotion. If you build it, they may not come. They have to know about it first.
Content analysis. Analyzing pertinent factors about the performance of the content.
Increasing results. Does the content increase revenue?
What about the shiny new designation that comes with the shiny new badge?
Unlike other certifications such as an academic degree, PMP certification, or my APMP Foundation certification, there is not a suffix that I can add to my name to tout my credentials. So I can’t call myself “John E. Bredehoft, HSA CMC” or something like that. (You should only use acronyms sparingly anyway.)
But I can certainly refer to my certification in certain circumstances.
Here’s a quic: which of these would be appropriate?
If you answer the correct question in this quiz…YOU GET NOTHING.
I’ve spent this afternoon posting messages to selected Facebook and LinkedIn pages, showcase pages, and groups talking about updates to blog content (and in one case a LinkedIn article).
If you look at the updated blog posts/LinkedIn article in question, you’ll see that they now start with this statement:
(Updated 4/16/2022 with additional benefits information.)
Then, when you scroll down the post/article to a benefits discussion, you’ll see this insertion:
(4/16/2022: For additional information on benefits, click here.)
This post explains
why I made those updates to the blog posts and the LinkedIn article,
how I added a new page to the Bredemarket website, and
what I still need to do to that new page to make it better.
Why I updated selected blog posts and a LinkedIn article
I talk a lot about benefits on the Bredemarket blog, but all of the conversation is in disparate, not-really-connected areas. I do have a page that talks about the benefits of benefits for identity firms, but that doesn’t really address the benefits of benefits for non-identity firms.
Then, while I was taking a HubSpot Academy course, I found a possible way to create a central page for discussion of benefits.
According to HubSpot, the need for pillar pages arose because of changes to Google’s search model.
Google is helping searchers find the most accurate information possible — even if it isn’t exactly what they searched for. For example, if you searched for “running shoes,” Google will now also serve you up results for “sneakers.” This means that bloggers and SEOs need to get even better at creating and organizing content that addresses any gaps that could prevent a searcher from getting the information they need from your site.
Now, your site needs to be organized according to different main topics, with blog posts about specific, conversational long-tail keywords hyperlinked to one another, to address as many searches as possible about a particular subject. Enter the topic cluster model.
But not all the content that I’ve written on benefits.
I’ve curated links to selected content (both on the Bredemarket website and on LinkedIn), provided a brief quote from the content in question, then provided a link to the original content for more information.
What I still need to do to the new page on the Bredemarket website
At this point the people who REALLY know search engine optimization are shaking their heads.
“John,” they are saying to me, “that’s not a pillar page!”
They’re right.
It’s just a very crude beginning to a pillar page. It lacks two things.
Multi-layered keywords associated with the “hub” topic
First, simply linking selected “benefits” pages together in a wheel is extremely simplistic. Remember how search engines can now search for both “running shoes” and “sneakers”? I need to optimize my wheel so that it drives traffic that isn’t tied to the specific word “benefits.”
Choose the broad topics you want to rank for, then create content based on specific keywords related to that topic that all link to each other, to create broader search engine authority….
For example, you might write a pillar page about content marketing — a broad topic — and a piece of cluster content about blogging — a more specific keyword within the topic.
Second, a pillar page needs better organization. Rather than having what I have now-a brief definition of benefits, followed by a reverse chronological list of posts (and the article) on benefits, the pillar page needs to address benefits, and its relevant subtopics, in an orderly fashion.
Pillar pages are longer than typical blog posts — because they cover all aspects of the topic you’re trying to rank for — but they aren’t as in-depth. That’s what cluster content is for. You want to create a pillar page that answers questions about a particular topic, but leaves room for more detail in subsequent, related cluster content.
HubSpot directs its readers to HubSpot’s own pillar page on Instagram marketing. Frankly I don’t know that I’d want to write something that long, but you can see how the pillar page provides an organized overview of Instagram marketing, rather than just a reverse chronological list of content that addresses the pillar topic.
More to come
So my pillar page on benefits certainly has room to grow.
But at least I’ve made an agile start with a first iteration, and the search engines can start processing the existing cluster of links as I make improvements.
And as I create additional pillar pages. I already have an idea for a second one.
Via Bredemarket, I work with a number of clients who ask me to create content for them. Since last September, I have used an internal “kickoff guide” form to start my conversations with these clients.
While I thought that this kickoff guide was pretty good, I just revised it to make it even better.
The September 2021 iteration of the Bredemarket kickoff guide
I developed the Bredemarket kickoff guide to address a number of issues, including the style limitations of Google Docs. But the primary issue that prompted the kickoff guide was the need to capture as much information about a client project in the early stages, to reduce later rework.
The primary set of questions that I asked was a set of questions that I’ve talked about ad nauseum (literally). Before getting into the nuts and bolts of the content itself, there were three critical questions that I asked the client:
What is the goal that you want to achieve with the content?
What are the benefits (not features, but benefits) that your end customers can realize by using your product or service?
What is the target audience for the content?
There were two reasons that I asked these questions. First, I believed that the client’s final collateral would benefit if I asked these questions. Second, I believed that Bredemarket would benefit by differentiating itself from other writers who just launched into “the facts” questions about the content.
This goes beyond a particular product or service, and addresses a company’s reason for being. Here’s what HubSpot says about the need for the “Golden Circle”:
…what Sinek found is that most companies do their marketing backwards. They start with their “what” and then move to the “how.” Most of these companies neglect to even mention “why.” More alarmingly, many of them don’t even know why they do what they do!
Contrast this with companies (Apple is an oft-cited example) that know why they do what they do, and effectively communicate this. It may be hard to believe this, but for Apple, the “why” question is even more important than the latest color of its products (current iteration: “it’s green”).
So can Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle help my clients receive better marketing collateral, and can it help me (and Bredemarket) differentiate myself from other writers? And if so, what do I have do to achieve these benefits for my clients and myself?
The April 2022 iteration of the Bredemarket kickoff guide
One part of the answer was to revise my kickoff guide. In the latest iteration, I precede my goal/benefits/target audience questions with three questions derived from Sinek’s “Golden Circle,” starting with the all-important “why” question.
Of course, I still have to use the revised kickoff guide with a client, but I hope to do this shortly in one way or another. If you could like me to use this kickoff guide with your firm to help create meaningful, relevant content:
Bredemarket 