Does your website say good things about you?

© Robnroll

If lame marketing content is such a serious disadvantage why is there so much of it on so many high-tech websites? No early-stage company thinks of itself as a sub-par marketer.  But this is what’s conveyed by many high-tech websites with vague or overblown claims and unclear messages indistinguishable from the competition.

And it makes no difference if it’s a mature brand or an upstart in an established category or an early-stage outfit struggling to establish leadership in a new one. In each case, content that clearly communicates who you are and why you’re significant does three things, all of them good:

• It sets you apart from those who are less articulate and creates an air of accessibility.
• It facilitates understanding of your industry, especially a new one.
• In a new space it cements your standing as a leading exponent of the “new, new thing” whatever that happens to be.  Industry watchers and sales prospects will naturally gravitate towards you.

We were again reminded of the dearth of writing that sells in this post by New York Times best-selling author Dave Kerpen ( Likeable Business and Likeable Social Media). Self-evident and relevant as his principles may be, especially to B2B brands in technology, they are no less elusive. Clear and compelling written content will positively differentiate your messages and give you a leg up. People who write well are taken seriously more readily, he says.  Likewise for young companies striving to seriously impress prospects and opinion leaders.

In mercurial marketplaces, expressing your brand with precision and speed can represent a key competitive advantage — but only for those marketers who can see the writing on the wall. What’s your written content saying about you?

When he’s not ranting on this site, Stan DeVaughn can be found holding forth on The Write Stuff, the blog of Write Angle, Silicon Valley’s premiere content creation and writing agency for I.T. and other technology categories.

You Won’t Learn Anything Useful About Your Content From Anyone Who’s Not a Customer

We’ve all seen them.  Those click-bait posts that pop up everywhere:  “What (fill in the blank) can teach us about (fill in the blank).”   Saw one today that inspires what you’re reading now. It had to do with teenagers and marketing.  This was right after seeing another one about what the “Olympics can teach about product development”, or something equally absurd.  We suppose these things must work for somebody, or else there wouldn’t be so many of them, right?  And in the interest of full disclosure we’ll admit to clicking on them from time to time.

The teenager theme, however, reminds us of something said by Don Draper, uber-cool ad exec in an early episode of “Mad Men.”  Young people, Draper observed back in the day when agencies were enthralled by the youth market (nothing’s changed!), can’t teach anybody anything for the simple that “they don’t know anything.”  Succinctly put.  We’ll go a step further and declare that no one other than your customers can teach you anything you need to know about how to use content to acquire more customers. If your web site fails to pull the visitors you’re targeting you need find out why.  If your calls to action fall short of the action you’re calling for, you need a more compelling proposition.  If the visitors you desire fail to see anything compelling and relevant, you need to ask why and find out how to improve it.

(Photo: Wikipedia)