SalesVPI

How to Think Like a Publisher

In 1982 I joined Ziff Davis publishing company in a special group that Bill Ziff set up to figure out how to migrate his print publishing empire into electronic publishing. This experience fundamentally changed my thinking and my life path.

Content marketing thought leaders today are regularly instructing us to think like publishers. When I ask people to explain what this really means and, more importantly, how they would create content like publishers, they typically respond with blank stares.

Those familiar with the way many websites are supported by content management systems have some familiarity with this concept. But this doesn't inform the creation process.

How does the CMS analogy help our understanding of creating like publishers? Publishers separate the major tasks involved in producing finished work products. The database is key to this approach.

A content management system is a database that stores source content that populates website templates. This makes it faster and easier to change content on websites by simply changing content in the database. It reduces website maintenance costs by lowering required technical competencies.

Typical stages in the creation process are:

• Acquire (source information or knowledge)
• Edit into small modular segments
• Store source assets in database
• Design delivery templates (magazine formats, websites)
• Use editorial process to write timely stories (scripts)
• Layout and assemble work products
• Complete physical work product or deliverable (website, doc, video, etc.)

Contrast this with a typical business production process. In most cases, whether we're producing a letter, presentation, brochure, video, etc. we take what I call a "point production" approach. We create a single work product or for a single purpose.

Usually one individual or group perform the work in each stage, or skip stages that don't apply to a production process. For simple content environments, such as when content explains specific company or product factors, this works just fine.

Publishers disaggregate these functions. Each stage is a function that can be performed independently. This allows special resources and processes to be applied. It brings speed, economies and higher quality to each stage of the process -- not unlike specialization on the manufacturing floor.

But today's challenges of producing customer relevant content significantly raises complexity. In order to be able to tailor content to make it relevant by roles/personas, business issues, buying stages, industry factors, and competitive factors, we must produce significantly more content, and build it in different ways.

We must also produce content for multiple media or delivery methods: print, audio, video, electronic on web and mobile for example.

Here is a resource for more information about creating content like a publisher and for detailed processes for each of the above stages.

 
 
 

Creating Relevant Content

The shift from building content about a company and it's products and services, to building content that speaks to specific interests of target audiences, raises the issue of content relevance.

What makes content relevant? How would we gauge the degree of relevance of a content item?

This shift is being driven by new customer buying processes enabled largely by internet availability of information traditionally provided by vendors. As buyers begin their buying process with online research, content becomes more critical than ever before. Content is what helps companies get discovered during this research process. Used properly, content can help companies discover potential buyers before they decide to contact vendors.

Search engine optimization (SEO), internet syndicated articles, and marketing automation technology (among others) have changed the marketing game.

Buyers are not interested in vendor products and services until quite late in their buying process. At the start, they are primarily interested in their business problems. And, to paraphrase the common line about politics, all problems are personal.

So content is relevant when it is tailored to specific:

• Buyer roles or personas
• Issues or interests
• Questions buyers ask at different stages in the buying process
• Industry factors
• Alternative approaches to buyer solutions
• Communication purpose (capture attention, educate, motivate, prove, etc.)

In a complex corporate sale most companies sell to three to seven different buyer roles. Typically problems are comprised of multiple issues. Customer buying processes can be segmented into at least four stages. Many companies sell into two or more industries. Customers have many optional approaches to solve their problems.

Consider the implications of these variables. For any topic, if one wanted to optimize content relevance for every combination of situations it would require over 1000 versions! Now obviously this is an overstatement, but don't let that make you too comfortable. If you are building content for purposes of lead nurturing, you probably need three different pieces of content for each version.

My company Avitage has published a Content Relevance Scorecard that you might find useful if you are interested in a quick evaluation of the relevance of your content.

What does your company do?

"It's Not about the Bike" -- the title of Lance Armstrong's excellent autobiography.

Becoming a world class cyclist requires far more than the bike. Strategy, practice sessions, workouts, diet, and mental aspects impact performance far beyond the equipment.

The implications of his statement occurs to me every day. For example, too often people think a software system will solve their business problem.

Another is the way sales people answer the typical customer question: "what does your company do?"

There are two perspectives that can direct the response: the vendor perspective and the customer perspective. Sales people often fixate on their products or services. They think customers are as interested in key features as are they.

Customers are actually asking one of two questions. They may be asking the product or service question so they can attempt to self-diagnose. Have you ever heard a customer respond to a product oriented introduction, "oh, we don't need that"?

I choose to hear the question this way: "what problems that I might have does your company address?" This is a more productive question for both customer and sales person.

With new sales people it takes extensive coaching and practice to get them to maintain a disciplined response this way. I've found using the bike theme to be a useful way to reinforce this discipline.

Consider a company that sells video production. The customer's question could be answered, "we provide custom video production services." Pretty typical, right? Very undifferentiated.

By applying the principle, it's not about the bike, this vendor could consider the other elements of video production that could be stressed to communicate a more differentiated value. This could include expertise around specific topics, style, or purpose of video products. It could be a particular style, technical expertise or process that provides value to customers. Most powerfully, it could address the underlying customer problem or objectives with an insightful association to the expertise.

As I write this I'm looking out the window at the company in the adjacent building. There are eight black limosines lined up outside. The company provides lasik eye surgery. It occurs to me I regularly hear radio advertisements from many providers of this kind of surgery. This company has applied the principle it's not about the bike by providing limosine delivery as a standard part of their service.

There are many different applications of this theme. Apply it to your situation or business to make better decisions or to help your customers make better decisions.