Tag Archives: marketing

The 22 (or more) Types of Content That Product Marketers Create

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

(Updated blog post count 10/23/2023)

I mentioned something in passing in Bredemarket’s recent go-to-market post that I think needs a little more highlighting. So here is a deeper dive into the 22 types of content that product marketers create. (Well, at least 22. I’m probably missing some.)

And by the way, I have created all 22 of these types of content, from blog posts and battlecards to smartphone application content and scientific book chapters. And I can create it for you.

Taylor Swift "22" single cover.
By “22” (Single by Taylor Swift) on 7digital, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39857014

“But John,” you’re saying, “Don’t you know anything? Content is created by content marketers!”

Read on.

The NON difference between product marketing and content marketing

If you consult with the experts, they will tell you that there is a distinct division between product marketing and content marketing, and that they are two entirely separate disciplines.

Janus, two-headed.
By Loudon dodd – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7404342

Why is it that so many business-to-business (B2B) marketers confuse product marketing with content marketing?

Because it requires a lot of discipline. That’s why.

B2B marketers who get it right understand the difference between these two fundamentally different types of marketing, what their purposes are and how to use them correctly.

From https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2019/08/27/is-your-business-confusing-product-marketing-and-content-marketing/?sh=2edf86f51d88

There certainly is a difference—if you work in a firm that enforces strict definitions and separation between the two.

U.S. - Mexico border.
No dark sarcasm in the blog post. By US Border Patrol – Department of Homeland Security, United States Border Patrol http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/photos/sand-dune-fence.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11951642

Some firms (especially startups) don’t have the luxury to enforce such definitions. They don’t have separate teams to create awareness content, consideration content, and conversion content. They have one team (or perhaps one person) to create all that content PLUS other stuff that I’ll discuss later.

One-man band.
sin, a one-man band in New York City. By slgckgc – https://www.flickr.com/photos/slgc/8037345945/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47370848

For example, during my most recent stint as a product marketing employee at a startup, the firm had no official content marketers, so the product marketers had to create a lot of non-product related content. So we product marketers were the de facto content marketers for the company too. (Sadly, we didn’t get two salaries for filling two roles.)

Why did the product marketers end up as content marketers? It turns out that it makes sense—after all, people who write about your product in the lower funnel stages can also write about your product in the upper funnel stages, and also can certainly write about OTHER things, such as company descriptions, speaker submissions, and speaker biographies.

Creating external content and internal content

Man holding a huge pencil.
Designed by Freepik.

And when you find a “you can pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands” person, you’ll naturally want to get them to write other things.

As a result, I’ve written a ton of stuff over my last 29 years in identity/biometrics. It didn’t take a great leap for me to self-identify as the identity content marketing expert and the biometric content marketing expert (and other expert definitions; I’m an expert in creating expert titles).

I’ve compiled a summary of the types of content that I’ve created over the years, not only for Bredemarket’s clients, but also for my employers at Incode Technologies, IDEMIA, MorphoTrak, Motorola, and Printrak.

Not all of these were created when I was in a formal product marketing role, but depending upon your product or service, you may need any of these content types to support the marketing of your product/service.

It’s helpful to divide the list into two parts: the external (customer-facing) content, and the internal (company-only) content.

10 types of external content I have created

External content is what most people think of when they talk about product marketing or content marketing. After all, this is the visible stuff that the prospects see, and which can move them toward a purchase (conversion). The numbers after some content types indicate the quantities of pieces of collateral that I have created.

  • Articles
  • Blog Posts (500+, including this one)
  • Briefs/Data/Literature Sheets
  • Case Studies (12+)
  • Proposals (100+)
  • Scientific Book Chapters
  • Smartphone Application Content
  • Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, Twitter)
  • Web Page Content
  • White Papers and E-Books

Here’s an video showing some of the external content that I have created for Bredemarket.

Bredemarket Work Samples, August 2023. Previously posted at https://bredemarket.com/2023/08/14/bredemarket-work-samples-the-video-edition/

9 types of internal content I have created

While external content is sexy, internal content is extremely important, since it’s what equips the people inside a firm to promote your product or service. The numbers after some content types indicate the quantities of pieces of collateral that I have created.

  • Battlecards (80+)
  • Competitive Analyses
  • Event/Conference/Trade Show Demonstration Scripts
  • Plans
  • Playbooks
  • Proposal Templates
  • Quality Improvement Documents
  • Requirements
  • Strategic Analyses

And here are 3 more types

Some content can either be external or internal. Again, numbers indicate the quantities of pieces of collateral I have created.

  • Email Newsletters (200+)
  • FAQs
  • Presentations

Content I can create for you

Does your firm need help creating one of these types of content?

Maybe two?

Maybe 22?

I can create content full-time for you

If your firm needs to create a lot of content types for your products, then consider hiring me as your full-time Senior Product Marketing Manager. My LinkedIn profile is here, documenting my 29 years of experience in identity/biometric technology as a product marketer, a strategist, and in other roles.

Or I can consult for you

But if your firm needs a more limited amount of content and can’t employ me on a full-time basis, then you can contract with me through my consulting firm Bredemarket. For example, I could write a single 400-600 word blog post or short article for you.

Or 2 blog posts/articles.

Or 22 blog posts/articles. (The more the merrier.)

Do you need these services?

Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.

Bredemarket logo

And yes, I know this post had two separate calls to action. What do you expect from a guy who thinks product marketers are content marketers?

And here’s one for the Swifties. No, it’s not “Taylor’s version.” But we all know that she is the only person who can reconcile differences between so-called standards bodies, since any standard Swift champions will become the de facto standard.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgFeZr5ptV8

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.

Dionne Quintuplets – School Days, painting by Andrew Loomis, 1938. By Andrew Loomis – https://www.flickr.com/photos/lac-bac/7797309642/in/album-72157631099965608/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56000992

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.

Quick Thoughts on Product Positioning

I’ve already talked about product launches in my recent On “Go-to-Market” post, but having worked in product marketing for some time, I know that there are a lot of tasks that your firm has to perform even when you’re not launching a new product.

One of those tasks is product positioning. And it’s important.

Product positioning isn’t quite as complex as global positioning (a factor of authentication, by the way). By Paulsava – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47209685

Six questions for product positioning

There are some complex ways to define product positioning, probably even at the level of Shipley 96-step complexity. But when I can, I gravitate for the simple.

Here’s how I define product positioning:

(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.)

  • Why your product (or service) exists.
  • How your product benefits your customers.
  • What your product is (but note that I asked the first two questions before this one).
  • Other facets of your product (goal, benefits, target audience—if this is new to you, catch up by reading my e-book on the six questions your content creator should ask you).

Why the questions matter

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?

Choose one (food) to go forever. Reproduced at https://josephmallozzi.com/2020/10/01/october-1-2020-lets-chat/

There are a number of popular memes that ask you to remove one popular food from a list of foods. What would happen if, instead of asking about pizza and tacos, you asked your target audience about your product and eight others? Would your product survive the cut, or would your prospects happily dump it?

Position your product so that it always remains top of mind for your prospects.

  • Answer the questions above.
  • Create content that is focused on the customer (not focused on your firm).
  • Create content that explains benefits (not features) to your prospects.

On “Go-to-Market”

After I slept on my “trust funnel” post, I decided that it was too long and took the entire “go-to-market” section out. But I saved it and am sharing it with you here.

This little piggy went to market

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

(Yes, I know that the little piggy didn’t go to market to do their own shopping. But bear with me here.)

If you are creating content as part of the formal launch of a product or service, you are creating SOME type of go-to-market (GTM) plan.

  • Perhaps it’s a well-defined plan.
  • Perhaps it’s a simple document.
  • Maybe it’s a haphazard dictate to “go to market in three days.”

About the “three days” thing

(C, I told you I was going to write this.)

Oh, and by the way, you can’t go to market in three days, even if someone says you can. You can’t. Or if you do, there will be significant gaps or inaccuracies.

In her LinkedIn Learning course, Deirdre Breakenridge prefers to define a four-month go-to-market plan, with specific deliverables for every one of the months in the plan. Of course, she admits that this is ideal, and sometimes you can’t take a full four months to bring a product or service to market. Whether you take four months or six months or even two months, GTM execution for any robust product or service needs a significant amount of time to get all the pieces together.

One of the reasons that it takes months to execute a GTM plan is because a GTM plan requires inputs from several departments, including

  • product,
  • marketing,
  • product marketing (if it is separate from the first two departments),
  • engineering,
  • customer success/customer service,
  • finance,
  • sales, and
  • legal.

You won’t get all of THEM to produce inputs, or even agree what the inputs should be, in three days. It takes time.

But there ARE teeny tiny GTM efforts

One exception to the four-month guidance: if your “product” or “service” is VERY small (like a single blog post), you can obviously go-to-market much more quickly.

For example, here’s my Asana-based “GTM plan” for a single blog post, “I Changed My Mind on Age Estimation.“

From the private Bredemarket Asana Content Calendar, back in the days when Twitter (TW) was still Twitter.

Sometimes. At other times I skip Asana altogether and just take pictures and post stuff, like what I did with my “Coldest Beer in Town” and “Classy by Definition” posts from earlier today. Variety is good.

Back to normal GTM

But when your product or service is more complex, then you need to plan your GTM campaign and make sure that it answers all questions about your product or service.

There are all sorts of GTM guidelines out there, and I was part of a team who collaboratively created three different flavors of GTM guidelines over the course of several months, starting with the complex and ending with the ridiculously simple. And the team STILL couldn’t get the other teams to agree on the parameters of the guidelines.

I’m not going to dictate MY ideas on GTM guidelines, but I will say that whatever guidelines you create, make sure that by the time a GTM effort created under these guidelines is finished, both your prospects and your employees will gain the appropriate understanding of your product or service, and the GTM content will answer all of their questions.

(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 you don’t know what questions to ask, my six questions (why, how, what goal, benefits, target audience) can be adapted for GTM purposes.

What about your GTM content?

Are you executing a go-to-market plan and need to create some content?

  • Do you need customer-facing external content (blog posts, white papers, whatever)?
  • Do you need employee-facing internal content (FAQs, battlecards, whatever)?

Regardless of the content you need, Bredemarket can help you. Here’s a list of the types of content I’ve created over the years:

Articles • Battlecards (80+) • Blog Posts (400+) • Briefs/Data/Literature Sheets • Case Studies (12+) • Competitive Analyses • Email Newsletters (200+) • Event/Conference/Trade Show Demonstration Scripts • FAQs • Plans • Playbooks • Presentations • Proposal Templates • Proposals (100+) • Quality Improvement Documents • Requirements • Scientific Book Chapters • Smartphone Application Content • Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, Twitter) • Strategic Analyses • Web Page Content • White Papers and E-Books

Whatever you need, talk to me. And be prepared for me to ask you six (or more) questions.

Bredemarket logo

Coldest Beer in Town

HK Food Store, Grove & 6th, Ontario, California.

Illogical marketing slogans like “coldest beer in town” are fascinating.

If you take a moment to think about it, every mini mart and liquor store in town has to chill beer to the exact same temperature before it freezes, so no store will have colder beer than any other store. (For the specifics, including the effect of ABV on alcohol freezing temperature, see Oxbow Tavern’s blog post.)

But liquor store marketers know that we DON’T take a moment to think about it. When it’s hot and we want beer, we want the “coldest beer in town.”

Well, while it was hot this morning, and while the HK Food Store was open (unlike the C & M Classy Mart a couple of miles northwest), I opted NOT to get the coldest beer in town. I wasn’t carrying a beer bottle opener, and I didn’t feel like breaking the law by walking down Grove Avenue with a beer bottle hidden in a paper bag.

My loss.

You Need a Laptop AND a Smartphone For This To Work. Or You Don’t.

If you are reading this on your laptop (or your desktop), point your smartphone to the QR code on your laptop (or desktop) screen to read my first e-book, “Six Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You.”

(UPDATE OCTOBER 22, 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 you are reading this on your smartphone, just click on this link: https://bredemarket.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/bmteb6qs-2212a.pdf.

As I said before, QR codes are sometimes useful, and sometimes not.

If you want to know the “why” about the e-book-see what I did there?-visit my announcement of the e-book. You can view the e-book there also.

By the way, I just checked my WordPress stats. Since this e-book was published in December 2022, it’s been downloaded over 160 times. I hope it’s helping people.

There’s a Reason Why “Tech” is a Four-Letter Word

By Tomia, original image en:User:Polylerus – Own work (Vector drawing based on Image:Profanity.JPG), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3332425

We often use the phrase “four-letter word” to refer to cuss words that shouldn’t be said in polite company. Occasionally, we have our own words that we personally consider to be four-letter words. (Such as “BIPA.”)

There are some times when we resign ourselves to the fact that “tech” can be a four-letter word also. But there’s actually a good reason for the problems we have with today’s technology.

Tech can be dim

Just this week I was doing something on my smartphone and my screen got really dim all of a sudden, with no explanation.

So I went to my phone’s settings, and my brightness setting was down at the lowest level.

For no reason.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

– Arthur C. Clarke, quoted here.
From https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202613

So I increased my screen’s brightness, and everything was back to normal. Or so I thought.

A little while later, my screen got dim again, so I went to the brightness setting…and was told that my brightness was very high. (Could have fooled me.)

I can’t remember what I did next (because when you are trying to fix something you can NEVER remember what you did next), but later my screen brightness was fine.

For no reason.

Arthur C. Clark, by ITU Pictures – https://www.flickr.com/photos/itupictures/16636142906, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64344486

Was Arthur C. Clarke right? And if so, WHY was he right?

Perhaps it’s selective memory, but I don’t recall having this many technology problems when I was younger.

The shift to multi-purpose devices

Part of the reason for the increasing complexity of technology is that we make fewer and fewer single-purpose devices, and are manufacturing more and more multi-purpose devices.

One example of the shift: if I want to write a letter today, I can write it on my smartphone. (Assuming the screen is bright enough.) This same smartphone can perform my banking activities, play games, keep track of Bredemarket’s earnings…oh, and make phone calls.

Smartphones are an example of technologial convergence:

Technological convergence is a term that describes bringing previously unrelated technologies together, often in a single device. Smartphones might be the best possible example of such a convergence. Prior to the widespread adoption of smartphones, consumers generally relied on a collection of single-purpose devices. Some of these devices included telephones, wrist watches, digital cameras and global positioning system (GPS) navigators. Today, even low-end smartphones combine the functionality of all these separate devices, easily replacing them in a single device.

From a consumer perspective, technological convergence is often synonymous with innovation.

From https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/definition/technological-convergence

And the smartphone example certainly demonstrates innovation from the previous-generation single-purpose devices.

When I was a kid, if I wanted to write a letter, I had two choices:

  1. I could set a piece of paper on the table and write the letter with a writing implement such as a pen or pencil.
  2. I could roll a piece of paper into a typewriter and type the letter.

These were, for the most part, single purpose devices. Sure I could make a paper airplane out of the piece of paper, but I couldn’t use the typewriter to play a game or make a phone call.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1216813

Turning our attention to the typewriter, it certainly was a manufacturing marvel, and intricate precision was required to design the hammers that would hit the typewritter ribbon and leave their impressions on the piece of paper. And typewriters could break, and repairmen (back then they were mostly men) could fix them.

A smartphone is much more innovative than a smartphone. But it’s infinitely harder to figure out what is wrong with a smartphone.

The smartphone hardware alone is incredibly complex, with components from a multitude of manufacturers. Add the complexities of the operating system and all the different types of software that are loaded on a smartphone, and a single problem could result from a myriad of causes.

No wonder it seems like magic, even for the best of us.

Explaining technology

But this complexity has provided a number of jobs:

  • The helpful person at your cellular service provider who has acquired just enough information to recognize and fix an errant application.
  • The many people in call centers (the legitimate call centers, not the “we found a problem with your Windows computer” call scammers) who perform the same tasks at a distance.
By Earl Andrew at English Wikipedia – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17793658
  • All the people who write instructions on how to use and fix all of our multi-purpose devices, from smartphones to computers to remote controls.

Oh, and the people that somehow have to succinctly explain to prospects why these multi-purpose devices are so great.

Because no one’s going to run into problems with technology unless they acquire the technology. And your firm has to get them to acquire your technology.

Crafting a technology marketing piece

So your firm’s marketer or writer has to craft some type of content that will make a prospect aware of your technology, and/or induce the prospect to consider purchasing the technology, and/or ideally convert the prospect into a paying customer.

Before your marketer or writer crafts the content, they have to answer some basic questions.

By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11293857

Using a very simple single-purpose example of a hammer, here are the questions with explanations:

  • Why does the prospect need this technology? And why do you provide this technology? This rationale for why you are in business, and why your product exists, will help you make the sale. Does your prospect want to buy a hammer from a company that got tired of manufacturing plastic drink stirrers, or do they want to buy a hammer from a forester who wants to empower people to build useful items?
  • How does your firm provide this technology? If I want to insert a nail into a piece of wood, do I need to attach your device to an automobile or an aircraft carrier? No, the hammer will fit in your hand. (Assuming you have hands.)
  • What is the technology? Notice that the “why” and “how” questions come before the “what” question, because “why” and “how” are more critical. But you still have to explain what the technology is (with the caveat I mention below). Perhaps some of your prospects have no idea what a hammer is. Don’t assume they already know.
  • What is the goal of the technology? Does a hammer help you floss your teeth? No, it puts nails into wood.
  • What are the benefits of the technology? When I previously said that you should explain what the technology is, most prospects aren’t looking for detailed schematics. They primarily care about what the technology will do for them. For example, that hammer can keep their wooden structure from falling down. They don’t care about the exact composition of the metal in the hammer head.
  • Finally, who is the target audience for the technology? I don’t want to read through an entire marketing blurb and order a basic hammer, only to discover later that the product won’t help me keep two diamonds together but is really intended for wood. So don’t send an email to jewelers about your hammer. They have their own tools.
By Mauro Cateb – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90944472

(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.)

Once you answer these questions (more about the six questions in the Bredemarket e-book available here), your marketer or writer can craft your content.

Or, if you need help, Bredemarket (the technology content marketing expert) can craft your content, whether it’s a blog post, case study, white paper, or something else.

I’ve helped other technology firms explain their “hammers” to their target audiences, explaining the benefits, and answering the essential “why” questions about the hammers.

Can I help your technology firm communicate your message? Contact me.

Bredemarket logo

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.

Three Ways to Identify and Share Your Identity Firm’s Differentiators

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

Are you an executive with a small or medium sized identity/biometrics firm?

If so, you want to share the story of your identity firm. But what are you going to say?

How will you figure out what makes your firm better than all the inferior identity firms that compete with you?

How will you get the word out about why your identity firm beats all the others?

Are you getting tired of my repeated questions?

Are you ready for the answers?

Your identity firm differs from all others

Over the last 29 years, I (John E. Bredehoft of Bredemarket) have worked for and with over a dozen identity firms, either as an employee or as a consultant.

You’d think that since I have worked for so many different identity firms, it’s an easy thing to start working with a new firm by simply slapping down the messaging that I’ve created for all the other identity firms.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Designed by Freepik.

Every identity firm needs different messaging.

  • The messaging that I created in my various roles at IDEMIA and its corporate predecessors was dramatically different than the messaging I created as a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Incode Technologies, which was also very different from the messaging that I created for my previous Bredemarket clients.
  • IDEMIA benefits such as “servicing your needs anywhere in the world” and “applying our decades of identity experience to solve your problems” are not going to help with a U.S.-only firm that’s only a decade old.
  • Similarly, messaging for a company that develops its own facial recognition algorithms will necessarily differ from messaging for a company that chooses the best third-party facial recognition algorithms on the market.

So which messaging is right?

It depends on who is paying me.

How your differences affect your firm’s messaging

When creating messaging for your identity firm, one size does not fit all, for the reasons listed above.

The content of your messaging will differ, based upon your differentiators.

  • For example, if you were the U.S.-only firm established less than ten years ago, your messaging would emphasize the newness of your solution and approach, as opposed to the stodgy legacy companies that never updated their ideas.
  • And if your firm has certain types of end users, such as law enforcement users, your messaging would probably feature an abundance of U.S. flags.

In addition, the channels that you use for your messaging will differ.

Identity firms will not want to market on every single social media channel. They will only market on the channels where their most motivated buyers are present.

  • That may be your own website.
  • Or LinkedIn.
  • Or Facebook.
  • Or Twitter.
  • Or Instagram.
  • Or YouTube.
  • Or TikTok.
  • Or a private system only accessible to people with a Top Secret Clearance.
  • Or display advertisements located in airports.
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H02iwWCrXew

It may be more than one of these channels, but it probably won’t be all of them.

But before you work on your content or channels, you need to know what to say, and how to communicate it.

How to know and communicate your differentiators

As we’ve noted, your firm is different than all others.

  • How do you know the differences?
  • How do you know what you want to talk about?
  • How do you know what you DON’T want to talk about?

Here are three methods to get you started on knowing and communicating your differentiators in your content.

Method One: The time-tested SWOT analysis

If you talk to a marketer for more than two seconds about positioning a company, the marketer will probably throw the acronym “SWOT” back at you. I’ve mentioned the SWOT acronym before.

For those who don’t know the acronym, SWOT stands for

  • Strengths. These are internal attributes that benefit your firm. For example, your firm is winning a lot of business and growing in customer count and market share.
  • Weaknesses. These are also internal attributes, but in this case the attributes that detract from your firm. For example, you have very few customers.
  • Opportunities. These are external factors that enhance your firm. One example is a COVID or similar event that creates a surge in demand for contactless solutions.
  • Threats. The flip side is external factors that can harm your firm. One example is increasing privacy regulations that can slow or halt adoption of your product or service.

If you’re interested in more detail on the topic, there are a number of online sources that discuss SWOT analyses. Here’s TechTarget’s discussion of SWOT.

The common way to create the output from a SWOT analysis is to create four boxes and list each element (S, W, O, and T) within a box.

By Syassine – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31368987

Once this is done, you’ll know that your messaging should emphasize the strengths and opportunities, and downplay or avoid the weaknesses and threats.

Or alternatively argue that the weaknesses and threats are really strengths and opportunities. (I’ve done this before.)

Method Two: Think before you create

Personally, I believe that a SWOT analysis is not enough. Before you use the SWOT findings to create content, there’s a little more work you have to do.

I recommend that before you create content, you should hold a kickoff of the content creation process and figure out what you want to do before you do it.

During that kickoff meeting, you should ask some questions to make sure you understand what needs to be done.

I’ve written about kickoffs and questions before, and I’m not going to repeat what I already said. If you want to know more:

Method Three: Send in the reinforcements

By http://www.esercito.difesa.it, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82103540

Now that you’ve locked down the messaging, it’s time to actually create the content that differentiates your identity firm from all the inferior identity firms in the market. While some companies can proceed right to content creation, others may run into one of two problems.

  • The identity firm doesn’t have any knowledgeable writers on staff. To create the content, you need people who understand the identity industry, and who know how to write. Some firms lack people with this knowledge and capability.
  • The identity firm has knowledgeable writers on staff, but they’re busy. Some companies have too many things to do at once, and any knowledgeable writers that are on staff may be unavailable due to other priorities.
Your current staff may have too much to do. By Backlit – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12225421

This is where you supplement you identity firm’s existing staff with one or more knowledgeable writers who can work with you to create the content that leaves your inferior competitors in the dust.

What is next?

So do you need a knowledgeable biometric content marketing expert to create your content?

One who has been in the biometric industry for 29 years?

One who has been writing short and long form content for more than 29 years?

Are you getting tired of my repeated questions again?

Well then I’ll just tell you that Bredemarket is the answer to your identity/biometric content marketing needs.

Are you ready to take your identity firm to the next level with a compelling message that increases awareness, consideration, conversion, and long-term revenue? Let’s talk today!