Tag Archives: writing

Five Reasons Why 17X Certified Resume Writer Pitches Fail

Are you a 17X Certified Resume Writer?

Do you seek your prospects by searching for LinkedIn profiles with green #OpenToWork banners?

From https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbredehoft/.

Do you find that your prospects resist your pitches?

From https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jbredehoft_i-have-a-question-for-people-who-need-to-activity-7150154185278144512-tPMt/.

Here are five reasons why your pitches may not be resonating.

  1. You don’t say WHY you exist.
  2. You don’t say HOW you’ll make me a lot of money.
  3. You don’t say WHAT you will emphasize in my resume…because you never read my profile.
  4. You’re a “me too” resume writer.
  5. You say nothing about product marketing, identity, biometrics, or technology.

If you’re a 17x Certified Resume Writer with generic failing pitches, Bredemarket can’t fix your issues, but maybe someone else can.

The five reasons

Reason One: You don’t say WHY you exist

Let’s face it. 99% of the 17X Certified Resume Writer pitches read “You have an #OpenToWork banner, and I write resumes, so you should buy my services.”

This tells me NOTHING about you, or why you do what you do.

  • Was there a childhood experience that propelled you into the resume writing field?
  • Or did a simple tweak to your own resume propel you forward?
  • Or are you just doing this because it beats delivery driving?

Who are you? Why should I care?

Maybe you should do something like this. For example, here’s why my consulting firm Bredemarket exists:

I am John E. Bredehoft, and I have enjoyed writing for a while now….I guess I’m a “you can pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands” type.

From https://bredemarket.com/who-i-am/.

Reason Two: You don’t say HOW you’ll make me a lot of money

Remember that I don’t care about your service. I care about how I’m going to get a company to hire me and pay me billions of dollars every year. (More or less.)

I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks, let’s make lots of money. By US Federal Reserve – Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70290373.

So, how will you do this? Do you have a process that results in stellar resumes? Or do you just type stuff at random and hope it comes out OK?

For example, here’s Bredemarket’s process. Did you see that my first two reasons in this particular post were “Why” and “How”? Now you know where I got those terms. And guess what comes next.

Reason Three: You don’t say WHAT you will emphasize in my resume…because you never read my profile

Be honest. When I see these pitches, I draw one of two conclusions:

  1. You saw my #OpenToWork banner and immediately fired off a generic pitch without looking at my LinkedIn profile, in which case I have no reason to work with you.
  2. You DID read my LinkedIn profile, but you’re such a poor communicator that you didn’t bother to say what you saw in my LinkedIn profile, in which case I have no reason to work with you.

Reason Four: You’re a “me too” resume writer

You may not realize this, but you are not the only 17X Certified Resume Writer out there. At the same time that you are sending your “You have an #OpenToWork banner, and I write resumes, so you should buy my services” pitch, other people are sending THEIR “You have an #OpenToWork banner, and I write resumes, so you should buy my services” pitch.

Your pitch doesn’t say why I should pick YOU. Or why you are great and why everyone else sucks. You all look the same to me.

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

As I look at your undifferentiated “me too” pitch and all of their undifferentiated “me too” pitches, none of which cover the “why,” “how,” or “what” of your 17X Certified Resume Writer services. When everyone says “me too” without differentiation, no one stands out.

By Ben Schumin – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1123246

As I said earlier: “If the 17x certified resume writers are unable to convey THEIR OWN unique value, why should I believe that they can convey MINE?”

Reason Five: You say nothing about product marketing, identity, biometrics, or technology

I end up shaking my head at the pitches that use the following introductory question to send me through their sequence:

I’m curious about which specific role you intend to apply for?

(I had to edit that pitch quote because the original version I received had a space between “for” and the question mark. I am in the United States. Punctuate accordingly.)

If you had actually read my profile (see reason 3 above), you’d know that I self-describe (at least this week, pending future edits) as a “Senior Product Marketing Manager experienced in identity and technology.” You’d also know that I talk about #identity, #biometrics, #facialrecognition, and #productmarketingmanager. You’d also know that my advertised top skills are Product Marketing, Content Marketing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Competitive Intelligence.

From Sandeep Kumar, A. Sony, Rahul Hooda, Yashpal Singh, in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education | Multidisciplinary Academic Research, “Multimodal Biometric Authentication System for Automatic Certificate Generation.”

That’s a wealth of information right there, even without looking at my work history, my skills, or my posts.

Too bad you didn’t use it in your pitch.

Time to fix it

I’ll grant that an introductory pitch doesn’t have a lot of real estate, but you should be able to rework your pitch to accommodate all five gaps in your current marketing.

Unfortunately, the word count for your pitch will be well below 400 words, the minimum word count that Bredemarket supports.

But you should be able to find someone.

Just avoid the people with the generic pitch.

From https://www.pinterest.com/pin/121737996155096419/.

(Pizza Stories) Is Your Firm Hungry for Awareness?

Leftover pizza is the best pizza. Preparation credit: Pizza N Such, Claremont, California. Can I earn free pizza as a powerful influencer? Probably not, but I’ll disclose on the 0.00001% chance that I do.

I wrote a post about pizza that concluded as follows:

Tal’s lead was hungry for ghostwriting services, and when they saw that Tal offered such a service, they contacted him.

What does this mean? I’ll go into that in a separate post.

From (Pizza Stories) The Worst Time to READ a Pizza Post on Social Media.

Now that it’s time to write the “separate post,” I really don’t want to get into the mechanics of how posts that attract prospects (hungry people, target audience) increase awareness and help you convert prospects for your products and services.

So forget that. I’m going to tell a story instead about two executives at a fictional company that has a real problem. The executives’ names are Jones and Smith.

The story

Jones was troubled. Sales weren’t increasing, prospects weren’t appearing, and if this malaise continued the company would have to conduct a second round of layoffs. Jones knew that “rightsizing” would be disastrous, so the company needed another solution.

So Jones videoconferenced Smith and asked, “How can we make 2024 better than 2023?”

Smith replied, “Increasing sales calls could help, and ads could help, but there’s another way to increase our awareness with our prospects. We could create content on our website and on our social channels that spreads knowledge of our products and services.”

Jones exclaimed, “That’s great! We could get generative AI to create content for us!”

“No, not that!” Smith replied. “Generative AI text sounds like a bot wrote it, and makes us sound boring, just like everyone else using generative AI text. Do we want to sound like that and put our prospects to sleep?”

By Ilya Repin – Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60387757

“So we need a human writer,” Jones realized, “one who can describe all of the features of our products.”

“Absolutely not,” Smith emphasized. “Customers don’t care about our features. They care about the benefits we can provide to them. If we just list a bunch of features, they’ll say, ‘So what?'”

By Mindaugas Danys from Vilnius, Lithuania, Lithuania – scream and shout, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44907034

“OK, we’ll go with benefits,” said Jones. “But why is content so important?”

“Take blogging,” replied Smith. “The average company that blogs generates 55% more website visitors. B2B marketers that use blogs get 67% more leads than those who do not. Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. And 92% of companies who blog multiple times per day have acquired a customer from their blog.”

Data source: Daily Infographic, https://www.dailyinfographic.com/state-of-blogging-industry

“Wow.” Jones was silent for a moment. “How do you know all of this stuff, Smith?”

“Because of the content that I’ve read online from a marketing and writing services company called Bredemarket. The company creates content to urge others to create content. Bredemarket eats its own wildebeest food.”

“Wildebeest?” Jones eyed Smith quizzically.

Black wildebeest. By derekkeats – Flickr: IMG_4955_facebook, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14620744

“Never mind. The important thing is that Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services could help us increase awareness, and vault us over the companies that have blogs but don’t bother to post to them. In one industry, about one-third of the companies with blogs HAVEN’T SAID A SINGLE THING to their prospects and customers in the last two months. If we were in that industry, we could leapfrog over the silent companies.”

By Lorelei7, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3164780

“That sounds great,” said Jones. “Let’s contact Bredemarket today.”

“Wonderful idea, Jones. By the way, I hear that Bredemarket excels at repurposing content also.”

The excited Jones asked Smith to contact Bredemarket, and then walked to a nearby venue and sang a song.

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

Explaining the Confusion of Wildebeest

A confusion of wildebeest. By Danijel Mihajlovic – https://thenextcrossing.com/wildebeest-migration-kenya, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=96024366

I’ve been using the word “wildebeest” more often lately. In the Bredemarket blog, on Bredemarket’s LinkedIn pages, on my own LinkedIn page, and even in a job application cover letter.

For those who don’t know why I’m so hot on wildebeest, let me explain.

It all started with the dogs

When I started Bredemarket as a marketing and writing service firm, it stood to reason that I would have to market and write about Bredemarket itself.

There’s a common phrase for this practice: “eating your own dog food.”

Another John (a Mr. Carson) took “eating your own dog food” literally. From NBC. This picture from Madly Odd, https://madlyodd.com/johnny-carson-alpo-dog-food-ad/

It’s a VERY common phrase.

And that’s a problem, because people who eat their own dog food sound just like everybody else.

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

So I moved to iguanas

It’s important to differentiate yourself from the competition. Trust me on this.

So I stopped talking about eating my own dog food, and when I set my initial goals for 2021 in December 2020, one of my goals was “eat my own iguana food.”

From https://bredemarket.com/2020/12/04/bredemarkets-four-goals-for-2021-the-12-4-2020-1100-am-edition/

But then I moved on

But for some reason the iguana emphasis left me cold, and I quietly pivoted back to mammals a little over a month later.

Black wildebeest. By derekkeats – Flickr: IMG_4955_facebook, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14620744

Now I don’t always eat my own wildebeest food myself in this regard. I’ve previously noted that my Empoprise-NTN blog isn’t updated regularly…

From https://bredemarket.com/2021/01/25/three-ways-to-prove-to-your-customers-that-your-firm-is-an-ongoing-viable-concern/

(Which reminds me; time to update Empoprise-NTN again. If Buzztime even exists any more.)

From https://bredemarket.com/2021/02/09/when-wildebeests-propose/

The following month I made it official in “When wildebeests propose.”

You’ve heard the saying about eating your own dog food. That statement bored me, so I started talking about eating your own iguana food. Eventually I tired of iguanas and pivoted to wildebeests.

From https://bredemarket.com/2021/02/09/when-wildebeests-propose/

And for over 2 1/2 years I’ve continued to focus on the majestic wildebeest, both singly and in confusion (the correct term for a group of wildebeest). Let’s face it: how many other marketing and writing experts are talking about wildebeest? It’s my own little distinctive thingie.

The problem with wildebeest

But now I’m asking myself whether this is a GOOD distinction. After all, the common definition of “confusion” is NOT a positive one. Unless you’re a New Order fan.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_L_-CKg6pw

So perhaps I’ll retire the wildebeest for something new that more closely reflects Bredemarket’s differentiators:

I help firms win by explaining why the firm serves its customers, focusing on customer needs, and highlighting benefits.

Yes, those are the same differentiators that I currently include in my personal LinkedIn profile. But after all, Bredemarket is a one-person operation.

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

If you have an idea of something that is better than a dog, an iguana, or a wildebeest, post it in the comments.

Four Restrictions on Bredemarket’s City of Ontario Business License, and Why You Should Care

Remember when I said that I spent Labor Day renewing my City of Ontario business license?

Well, the approved license arrived in the mail today.

City of Ontario business license for Bredemarket, October 01, 2023 through September 30, 2024.

The electronic mail, not the snail mail.

By Geierunited – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95926

This coming year will be the fourth year of Bredemarket’s existence. I started in August 2020, but it took a few weeks for the city business license and other paperwork to complete.

Now while the City of Ontario (California, not Canada) business license renewal entitles me to conduct business in the city as Bredemarket (when coupled with the Fictitious Business Name statement I filed with San Bernardino County), it is not an official endorsement of my activity by the city, and is definitely NOT an endorsement of the call to action at the end of this post.

More importantly, the City of Ontario has imposed four significant restrictions on the way that Bredemarket conducts business. Do they affect how I do business with you? We’ll see.

First: I must post the business license in a conspicuous place

Done.

City of Ontario business license, posted in a conspicuous place in an undisclosed location. And no, I don’t wear my glasses all the time.

Although as we will see when we get to the third restriction, the whole meaning of “conspicuous place” is irrelevant to Bredemarket’s business.

Second: I can’t conduct just ANY business

The business license is issued “for consulting services, including marketing and writing services.” The license does NOT allow me to bake pies, perform auto maintenance, launch rockets into space, or perform heart surgery.

You won’t see the Bredemarket 33410 Aortic Valve Surgery Service any time soon. The city won’t let me offer it. (33410, by the way, is the medical code for Under Surgical Procedures on the Aortic Valve.)

Dang guvmint.

Third: No visitation from clients

Remember how the city requires that I post my license in a conspicuous place? Well, the city also prohibits me from having clients visit me at my work location. This makes sense, since residential neighborhoods aren’t really built to have a bunch of cars park outside a house where business is conducted.

No, Bredemarket clients cannot park their cars in front of my house. And no, this is not my house. (And they’re not your cars either.) Fair use. The Verge, “Multimillion-dollar Ferraris, Jaguars, Astons, and a fine cup of tea.” The cast of cars and characters from the first Goodwood press day in 1993. Lord Charles March is by the front door of the house with his light blue AC 16/80 designed by his grandfather.

This means that when I do have a person-to-person meeting (rather than a videoconference) to conduct business, the meeting has to be offsite. For example, a couple of years ago I met with an advisor at Brandon’s Diner in Upland. (And the lunch was tax deductible!)

Fourth: No signage permitted

Again, because my work location is in a residential neighborhood, I can’t put a huge neon sign in my front yard with the Bredemarket logo.

Bredemarket logo
Imagine this in my front yard.

And no, I can’t put a small neon sign in my front yard.

Or any neon sign.

I wonder if the city will let me put signage on my mailbox? Actually, the UPS Store probably won’t allow that either.

Bredemarket’s mailing address is 1030 N Mountain Ave #259, Ontario CA 91762-2114. If you read my previous post, you know that “MBE” stands for Mailboxes Etc.

So what?

The reason that these city restrictions don’t matter to you is because (since we still have the Internet) Bredemarket is perfectly capable of conducting its business online.

You don’t have to look for my business sign, or a parking place in front of the place where I conduct business. Why not? Because I can meet with you via Google Meet or another videoconferencing service, or we can talk on the phone, or even exchange emails with each other.

I’ve worked from home since March 2020—first for IDEMIA, then for Bredemarket, then for Incode Technologies, then for Bredemarket again. During that time I’ve been able to meet all of the needs of Bredemarket clients remotely, despite no public parking and no signage.

Well, almost all the needs. I haven’t been able to perform aortic valve surgery for my clients.

Dang guvmint.

The city does not endorse this call to action

Do you want to use the marketing and writing services of a government-licensed consulting firm?

More importantly, do you want to use the marketing and writing services of a consulting firm that ensures the right questions are asked at the beginning of the project, and that you have complete input during the writing and review cycles?

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

Should Inland Empire Companies Generate Content with ChatGPT (or other generative AI tools)?

An image of a neural network. By DancingPhilosopher – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135594693

Inland Empire companies are asking the same question that other companies are asking: “Should my business use ChatGPT (or another generative AI tool) to quickly generate content?”

Bear in mind that I have a vested interest in the answer to this question, because Bredemarket’s business is content generation for other businesses. So I don’t have a natural inclination to tell you not to buy my services and use ChatGPT or Bard or whatever instead.

Nevertheless, I’ll outline the advantages and drawbacks of using automation (in this case generative AI tools) to create written content. Then I’ll look at the three options for your business’ content generation needs. (Surprise! One of those options is to contract with Bredemarket. You’ve been warned that a call to action is coming.)

An “exchange” of questions

As I mentioned in my post about creating and populating Facebook business pages, yesterday afternoon was the first time in years that I had attended a monthly Ontario IDEA Exchange meeting. For those who aren’t familiar with these meetings, they allow small business owners from the Ontario, California area to meet and…um…exchange ideas.

By Mack Male – originally posted to Flickr as Ontario Convention Center, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9512928

One of the attendees asked me what I thought of ChatGPT.

If you’ve read the Bredemarket blog or the Bredemarket LinkedIn page, you know that I have some thoughts on this. (If you haven’t seen my thoughts, I’ll share them later in this post.)

It turns out that the attendee had a reason for asking the question that went well beyond generative artificial intelligence (generative AI), and touched on automation in general.

  • Should we use ChatGPT, Bard, or another generative AI tool to generate text content, or should we contact a content marketing expert?
  • Similarly, should we use a generative AI tool to generate image content, or should we contact a graphic design expert?
  • Going beyond generative AI, should we use tax preparation software, or should we contact a tax preparation expert?

You can ask this same question about a variety of business services. Should you opt for the (sometimes) cheaper automated solution, or should you get a real person to perform the service?

This can be a loaded question. After all, I can’t tell you that you should always use a person for these tasks when I personally use Freepik and a well-known tax preparation software package.

Designed by Freepik.

So, returning to content, let’s take a (probably non-objective) look at the pros and cons of using generative AI tools for content creation. After all, some of my best friends use generative AI…and they’re still my friends (and obviously not my customers).

Generative AI content advantages

While generative AI isn’t as trendy a topic as it was a few months ago, people are still talking about using generative AI to create text content. And there are clearly some advantages to it.

Fair use, from https://www.racers-behindthehelmet.com/post/first-historic-pole-position-and-podium-for-antonella-bassani-in-porsche-cup-brasil. Photo credits: Porsche Cup Brasil.
  • It’s very fast. No, you won’t create your text in a minute. But with properly written prompts (commands to the generative AI tool) and by using a few iterations, you can probably get generative AI text content in five minutes. You won’t get text content of any length from Bredemarket in five minutes.
  • It’s (usually) free. In most cases, you can obtain your text at no cost to you. Again, Bredemarket doesn’t work for free.
  • It’s easy. You don’t need to know how to write. Sure, you need to know how to write the prompt, but you don’t need to worry about the mechanics of writing the text itself, and when to use “its” or “it’s”. You don’t want to sound like a looser, after all. (That was wrong.)
  • It’s “good enough.” Under most circumstances, the text created by a generative AI tool gets the job done, and is obviously better than no text at all.

Generative AI content drawbacks

Perhaps I’m biased, but I think that we can all agree on the drawbacks that I’ve listed below.

From https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/evaluating-quality-cell-counting-methods-experimental-design-and-statistical
  • Potential accuracy issues. Generative AI content is sourced from the Internet, and you know how accurate the Internet can be at times. For example, when I was working for my former employer, I asked one popular generative AI tool to tell me the weaknesses of my employer’s product. The tool returned two responses, one of which was plain wrong.
  • More potential accuracy issues. The way generative AI tools work, most of them provide their answers as if they were most certainly true, with no attempt to provide the probability that the response is correct or incorrect. In essence, Mr. Gen AI is an automated know-it-all with complete certainty in its answers, even when they are obviously wrong.
  • Potential relevancy issues. Depending upon your generative AI tool, you may not have access to the latest data and may instead rely on older data that was available when the generative AI tool was trained. At one point, several of the popular generative AI tools were trained on data from 2021 or earlier, which meant that they knew nothing about events that happened last week.
  • Potential privacy issues. When you feed prompts to a generative AI tool, the prompts are stored by the tool. What if you’re using a public tool, and you’re feeding confidential data from your company to the tool? What’s going to happen to your company’s private data? (This is especially critical when the data crosses international borders, something that gave Samsung serious concern.)
  • Potential tone of voice issues. If your company feeds a prompt to a generative AI tool, and your competitor feeds the same prompt to the same tool, you will get similar or identical responses. If both companies use these responses, then the companies will sound like bland “me-too” providers, with no differentiation.

I’ve touched on a number of these issues in more detail in pieces that I’ve written on the Bredemarket blog (and in one case on LinkedIn). These explain when I use generative AI, and when I do not.

So what should YOUR business do?

Depending upon your business needs, your budget, and your marketing direction, you have three choices.

(UPDATE OCTOBER 23, 2023: “SIX QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU IS SO 2022. DOWNLOAD THE NEWER “SEVEN QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU” HERE.)

  • Use a generative AI tool to write your content. It’s fast, it’s free, it’s easy. It may be good enough.
  • Use a low-cost writer to write your content. If you want to spend a little money, you can find writers who will work for pennies per word. That’s more than a generative AI tool, but you have a better chance of getting the content you want.
  • Use Bredemarket. I cost more than pennies per word (the cost for my standard 400-600 word writing package is in the brochure on my Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service page), but Bredemarket’s collaborative kickoff process, including the opening six questions that I ask you, helps to ensure that your firm will get the content that you need.

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

Bredemarket logo

Bonus: here’s what Google Bard says on the topic (written by Google, not by me)

Sure, here are three advantages and three drawbacks of using generative AI to create written content:

Advantages:

  • Speed: Generative AI can create content much faster than humans. This can be a major advantage for businesses that need to produce a lot of content quickly, such as content marketing agencies or news organizations.
  • Cost-effectiveness: Generative AI can be a more cost-effective way to create content than hiring human writers. This is especially true for tasks that are repetitive or time-consuming, such as writing product descriptions or blog posts.
  • Accuracy: Generative AI can be very accurate in generating content that is factually correct. This is because it is trained on large datasets of text and code.

Drawbacks:

  • Creativity: Generative AI is not as creative as humans. It can only generate content that is based on the data it has been trained on. This means that it may not be able to come up with new ideas or insights.
  • Bias: Generative AI can be biased, depending on the data it is trained on. This is a concern because it could lead to the creation of content that is inaccurate or harmful.
  • Plagiarism: Generative AI can sometimes plagiarize content from other sources. This is because it is trained on a variety of text data, including some that may not be properly cited.

Overall, generative AI can be a valuable tool for creating written content. However, it is important to be aware of its limitations and to use it responsibly.

Here are some additional things to keep in mind when using generative AI to create written content:

  • Always fact-check the content before publishing it. Generative AI can sometimes make mistakes, so it is important to double-check the information.
  • Be clear about the purpose of the content. Are you trying to inform, persuade, or entertain? The purpose of the content will help you determine the tone and style of the writing.
  • Be aware of the audience. Who are you writing for? What are their interests and needs? Tailor the content to your audience.
  • Use generative AI as a tool, not a replacement for human creativity. Generative AI can be a great way to get started with a writing project, but it is important to put your own unique spin on the content.

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.

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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

The Temperamental Writer’s Temperament

Since I have self-branded myself as the “temperamental writer,” it makes sense to explore what other people say about the writer’s temperament.

Curiosity

By Tom@HK – https://www.flickr.com/photos/gracewong/ – https://www.flickr.com/photos/gracewong/312922826/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9621314

Rob Bignell:

If there is an overarching temperament that is important to all fiction writers, curiosity about life and others arguably is paramount.

From https://inventingrealityeditingservice.typepad.com/inventing_reality_editing/2013/10/what-is-a-writers-natural-temperament.html

This also applies to non-fiction, Rob. Trust me.

Inquisitiveness (or not)

Zadie Smith:

Some writers won’t read a word of any novel while they’re writing their own. Not one word….Try to recommend a good novel to a writer of this type while he’s writing and he’ll give you a look like you just stabbed him in the heart with a kitchen knife. It’s a matter of temperament. Some writers are the kind of solo violinists who need complete silence to tune their instruments. Others want to hear every member of the orchestra — they’ll take a cue from a clarinet, from an oboe, even.

From https://advicetowriters.com/advice/a-matter-of-temperament-1

Perhaps I’m wrong, but in the world of non-fiction, writers MUST hear at least some members of the orchestra. To comment on the world around us, we need to know what is happening in the world around us. We can’t make up our own Narnia and write to it, because our audience lives in the real world.

Choleric, Melancholic, Sanguine, or Phlegmatic

 K.M. Weiland:

The first step in learning how to maximize your personality’s pros and minimize its cons is to figure out your basic personality type. One simple approach is that of the “four temperaments” approach (popularized by Tim LaHaye, among others), in which human personalities are narrowed down into four basic categories: choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic. 

From https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/whats-your-writing-personality/

Heck, I’ve already spent time figuring out my Jungian archetype. I didn’t exactly relish re-examining myself on the Tim LaHaye model.

But I reviewed Weiland’s summary of the four temperaments anyway, and decided that I exhibit some of the traits of the melancholic writer:

  • Natural bent toward writing
  • Detail-oriented
  • Precise
By Publisher: R. Prudent. Paris. – Own collection., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52055282

The other temperaments vary greatly.

But what does this mean for firms needing content?

You can get any content marketer to write your words, but you’d be better off getting a curious, inquisitive, precise one who isn’t going to sit back and let a bot do all the work. (The whole “bot” thing is what riled up my temperamental nature in the first place.)

And by the most amazing coincidence, I know a content marketing firm that exhibits all of these “temperamental” capabilities.

My own firm, Bredemarket, that serves identity/biometric, technology, and local (California’s Inland Empire) firms that need blog posts, white papers, and other types of written content.

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

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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.

Quick Tech Takes on Speech Neuroprosthesis, AEM Dynamic Media, and Graph Databases in IAM

Yes, I’m stealing the Biometric Update practice of combining multiple items into a single post, but this lets me take a brief break from identity (mostly) and examine three general technology stories:

  • Advances in speech neuroprosthesis (the Pat Bennett / Stanford University story).
  • The benefits of Dynamic Media for Adobe Enterprise Manager users, as described by KBWEB Consult.
  • The benefits of graph databases for Identity and Access Management (IAM) implementations, as described by IndyKite.

Speech Neuroprosthesis

First, let’s define “neuroprosthetics/neuroprosthesis”:

Neuroprosthetics “is a discipline related to neuroscience and biomedical engineering concerned with developing neural prostheses, artificial devices to replace or improve the function of an impaired nervous system.

From: Neuromodulation (Second Edition), 2018

Various news sources highlighted the story of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient Pat Bennett and her somewhat-enhanced ability to formulate words, resulting from research at Stanford University.

Diagram of a human highlighting the areas affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). By PaulWicks – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130714816

Because I was curious, I sought the Nature article that discussed the research in detail, “A high-performance speech neuroprosthesis.” The article describes a proof of concept of a speech brain-computer interface (BCI).

Here we demonstrate a speech-to-text BCI that records spiking activity from intracortical microelectrode arrays. Enabled by these high-resolution recordings, our study participant—who can no longer speak intelligibly owing to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—achieved a 9.1% word error rate on a 50-word vocabulary (2.7 times fewer errors than the previous state-of-the-art speech BCI2) and a 23.8% word error rate on a 125,000-word vocabulary (the first successful demonstration, to our knowledge, of large-vocabulary decoding). Our participant’s attempted speech was decoded  at 62 words per minute, which is 3.4 times as fast as the previous record8 and begins to approach the speed of natural conversation (160 words per minute9).

From https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06377-x

While a 125,000 word vocabulary is impressive (most adult native English speakers have a vocabulary of 20,000-35,000 words), a 76.2% accuracy rate is so-so.

Stanford Medicine published a more lay-oriented article and a video that described Bennett’s condition, and the results of the study.

For Bennett, the (ALS) deterioration began not in her spinal cord, as is typical, but in her brain stem. She can still move around, dress herself and use her fingers to type, albeit with increasing difficulty. But she can no longer use the muscles of her lips, tongue, larynx and jaws to enunciate clearly the phonemes — or units of sound, such as sh — that are the building blocks of speech….

After four months, Bennett’s attempted utterances were being converted into words on a computer screen at 62 words per minute — more than three times as fast as the previous record for BCI-assisted communication.

From https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2023/08/brain-implant-speech-als.html
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaWb1ukmYHQ

The Benefits of AEM Dynamic Media

Now let’s shift to companies that need to produce marketing collateral. Bredemarket produces collateral, but not to the scale that big companies need to produce. A single company may have to produce millions of pieces of collateral, each of which is specific to a particular product, in a particular region, for a particular audience/persona. Even Bredemarket could potentially produce all sorts of content, if it weren’t so difficult to do so:

  • A YouTube description of the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service, targeted to fingerprint/face marketing executives in the identity industry.
  • An Instagram carousel post about the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service, targeted to voice sales executives in the identity industry.
  • A TikTok reel about the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service, targeted to marketing executives in the AI industry.

All of this specialized content, using all of these different image and video formats? I’m not gonna create all that.

But as KBWEB Consult (a boutique technology consulting firm specializing in the implementation and delivery of Adobe Enterprise Cloud technologies) points out in its article “Implementing Rapid Omnichannel Messaging with AEM Dynamic Media,” Adobe Experience Manager has tools to speed up this process and create correctly-messaged content in ALL the formats for ALL the audiences.

One of those tools is Dynamic Media.

AEM Dynamic Media accelerates omnichannel personalization, ensuring your business messages are presented quickly and in the proper formats. Starting with a master file, Dynamic Media quickly adjusts images and videos to satisfy varying asset specifications, contributing to increased content velocity.

From https://kbwebconsult.com/implementing-rapid-omnichannel-messaging-with-aem-dynamic-media/

For those who aren’t immersed in marketing talk:

Fair use, from https://www.racers-behindthehelmet.com/post/first-historic-pole-position-and-podium-for-antonella-bassani-in-porsche-cup-brasil. Photo credits: Porsche Cup Brasil.

The article also discusses further implementation issues that are of interest to AEM users. If you are such a user, check the article out.

Graph Databases in Identity and Access Management (IAM)

I previously said that I was MOSTLY taking a break from identity, but graph databases impact items well beyond identity.

So what is a graph database?

By Originally uploaded by Ahzf (Transferred by Obersachse) – Originally uploaded on en.wikipedia, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19279472

A graph database, also referred to as a semantic database, is a software application designed to store, query and modify network graphs. A network graph is a visual construct that consists of nodes and edges. Each node represents an entity (such as a person) and each edge represents a connection or relationship between two nodes. 

Graph databases have been around in some variation for along time. For example, a family tree is a very simple graph database…. 

Graph databases are well-suited for analyzing interconnections…

From https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/graph-database

The claim is that the interconnection analysis capabilities of graph databases are much more flexible and comprehensive than the capabilities of traditional relational databases. While graph databases are not always better than relational databases, they are better for cerrtain types of data.

To see how this applies to identity and access management (IAM), I’ll turn to IndyKite, whose Lasse Andersen recently presented on graph database use in IAM (in a webinar sponsored by Strativ Group). IndyKite describes its solution as follows (in part):

A knowledge graph that holistically captures the identities of customers and IoT devices along with the rich relationships between them

A dynamic and real-time data model that unifies disconnected identity data and business metadata into one contextualized layer

From https://www.indykite.com/identity-knowledge-graph

So what?

From https://www.digitalcheck.com/postal-banking-no-need-to-play-the-political-game/

For example, how does such a solution benefit banking and financial services providers who wish to support financial identity?

Identity-first security to enable trusted, seamless customer experiences

From https://www.indykite.com/banking

Yes, I know that every identity company (with one exception) uses the word “trust,” and they all use the word “seamless.”

But this particular technology benefits banking customers (at least the honest ones) by using the available interconnections to provide all the essential information about the customer and the customer’s devices, in a way that does not inconvenience the customer. IndyKite claims “greater privacy and security,” along with flexibility for future expansion.

In other words, it increases velocity.

What is your technology story?

I hope you provided this quick overview of these three technology advances.

But do you have a technology story that YOU want to tell?

Perhaps Bredemarket, the technology content marketing expert, can help you select the words to tell your story. If you’re interested in talking, let me know.

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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.

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