Books every professional copywriter should own

In my contacts with other writers, I am continually amazed at the lack of interest in the mechanics of writing. It's as if Word's spellchecker, appalling grammar checker and an unused dictionary and thesaurus will do – anything else is either irrelevant or simply garnish.

Of course, they will often also have been given Eats, Shoots and Leaves for Xmas (and may have read it) but that's about it. Many will not even know of the existence of other guides that could make their lives simpler, their writing better and arguments with clients easier to win.

The following are the reference guides I use pretty much every day.

Once you've got a book that tells you how to spell, the next thing you need is one to help you put your words together correctly, punctuate them accurately and maintain consistency. Enter the style guide. Some clients will go to the time and expense of creating their own (I've written one myself). However, with a very few exceptions this is a waste of time and money. Instead, simply buy one off the shelf.

By far the best style guide on the planet is The Chicago Manual of Style. It's very easy to use, clear, concise and right 99.9% of the time even though it is aimed at US English writers (double check spellings if you use it for guidance on word usage).

If you want to be a stickler for UK English, there's The Oxford Style Manual but, in my experience, it's a bit old-fashioned and leaves a lot to be desired in the usability stakes.

Beyond this there are a bunch of others: Guardian Style (a bit lightweight though good on confusing words), The Penguin Writer's Manual (again, a little old-fashioned but with a good style section), and Chambers Good Writing Guide (a little basic in some places but a good overall guide). Then there's the Economist Style Guide which, in my humble opinion, should be pulped.

Finally, another American interloper – The Elements of Style by Strunk and White – a cheap, pocket-sized guide that's worth reading just for its chapter, 'An Approach to Style'.

Of course, some things are just technical. Sometimes you need to know 100% what's right in UK English. For that you need The Cambridge Grammar of English. Yes, it's almost a thousand pages long but it's surprisingly usable and will more often than not give you the definitive answer you are looking for.

So, if you're serious about writing (or even not that serious but don't want to look like an idiot in front of a client), pop over to Amazon and buy The Chicago Manual of Style, The Cambridge Grammar of English and The Elements of Style – it'll be the best £60 you'll spend this year.

5 B2B marketing trends for 2011

So the goose is cooked and eaten (and probably re-cooked and eaten again), the presents are being crammed into cupboards and we’re all back to work. The new year brings its usual bright eyed, bushy tailed exuberance and the dawning realisation that the deadlines that looked so far away before Xmas are not so distant now. And we‘re all beginning to think about how 2011 may shape up for the B2B marketer.

Rather than make some hard and fast predictions for the year ahead (and look like a complete idiot in 12 months time) I thought I might point out some of the trends that I see bubbling up for the year ahead. There’s no science here, merely observations from current projects and discussions with clients and agency folk.

1: The return of brand

There are many that have enthusiastically trumpeted the death of brands and branding. It is, they say, fatally undermined by the more open conversations of social media. These days there’s simply no place for companies to craft images of themselves that won’t be tweeted into oblivion the next day (Gap logo anyone?).

Well, yes, to a degree this is true. At least it is when brands try to be something they’re patently not. But what about when the brand is a relatively accurate depiction of the company behind it? What about when it resonates with customers?

When the media are as hyper-fragmented as they now are, you cannot be everywhere, engage in every conversation, befriend every commenter. And neither should you. You need to be where it matters most – in the mind of the customer when they think about shortlisting, buying or recommending your product. Everything else is garnish.

Curiously enough, of course, this is where branding comes firmly back into the picture. It provides that layer of comfort and reassurance, a degree of personality and a bunch of emotion that can just tip buyers over the edge into purchasing. And while it is more difficult than ever to reach your customers, the effects are both longer lasting and more valuable.

2: The marketing automation chasm

I’m quite seduced by marketing automation. I love the theory, the on-demand capabilities it offers, the way you can evolve a campaign over time. The thing is though, I’ve now been in meetings with half a dozen or so clients who have bought into the theory and are now left utterly frustrated by the reality.

They’re finding implementing automated campaigns so complex and time-consuming that the frustration is palpable. As a result, despite spending oodles of cash on one of these systems, many are still basically doing the same batch-and-blast campaigns as before (albeit with slightly better analytics).

Note to marketing automation vendors – it would be a tragedy if this chasm means that we’ll never get to the kind of smart, dynamic campaigns we all know are possible.

3: The de-hyping of social media and a focus on what works

We’ve gone through the giddy excitement of social media as the bright shiny new thing, the panacea that will sweep away traditional approaches. We’ve counted the followers, fans and likes. And we’re blogging and tweeting our little hearts out trying to keep up. What next?

This year, I think we’ll see the absorption of social media approaches and techniques back into the overall marketing mix. Yes they’re important but they’ll have to fight for their place at the table along with everything else.

There is plenty of good sound research available on what works with B2B and tech buyers. It’s time we all started taking note of it so when the board asks what we’ve done with the marketing budget we can look them in the eye. Who knows, we may even get more money to work with.

4: Utilitarian marketing (or helping people get stuff done)

Most of the time, people do not care about your product. Most of the time, there are a hundred and one other things they need to think about before getting to you. In fact, most of the time, they’d really rather get home on time to see their kids.

While this could be an excuse for some collective wrist-slashing it is also a massive opportunity. While not new – see the explosion in apps of all sizes – this year will see more efforts by smart marketers to help their customers and prospects get stuff done faster and easier. This needn’t be about apps, it can be about how-to guides and videos, podcasts, ebooks, whatever. It’s the intent that matters.

5: Mobile everything

Okay, so mobile has been predicted as the next big thing for marketing for a few years now. But with the growing dominance of the smartphone for B2B buyers, surely now is the time to really get it right.

This can be as simple as making sure your content plays nicely on tiny screens but it could also be about putting the right information in people’s hands just when and where they need it (see trend 4 above).

One thing to note, while us fluffy marketing types are all in love with our iPhones and their lovely big screens, the vast majority of B2B buyers (especially in tech) use Blackberries (see trend 3 above about doing what works).

That’s it, now to get on and see how much of it actually happens. Happy new year.


Capturing attention, boosting recall

Here's a clever idea (in theory at least). You know the little bits of text you have to enter on many sites to prove you're a human and not an evil scheming bot? These 'captchas' are normally in wavy text often requiring you to guess at least one of the letters. Well Solve Media has hit upon a simple but smart way to enhance brand recall by having visitors enter a branded phrase instead.

The theory of course is as old as the hills. If you want people to remember something get them to reinforce it by doing something. And Solve Media has some nice research from Wharton Business School to back this up:

"On average, on a relative basis, we found that TYPE-INs™ increased brand recall 111% and message recall by a factor of 12 compared to the exact same creatives displayed as non-interactive static advertisements."

This, of course, has implications for all sorts of other activity where we could reward prospects for similar behaviour.

But a word of caution. This is a coercive approach. In order to get X I have to type in Y. I can see the real possibility of a drop in response where people refuse to enter the text on principle. Take the example above, for a hardcore Firefox user, typing "Browse Safer" in a Microsoft IE branded box might be akin to blasphemy.

Likewise, while users may recall the message, this does not mean that they will have a positive view of it (or of the brand behind it who have interrupted their browsing). As with so many things, it all depends on context and the specifics of the message.

I've got to say though, it is pretty clever.

What Club Penguin can teach you about content marketing

For those of you who don’t know it, Club Penguin is a online virtual world for younger kids where everyone creates a penguin character (often brightly coloured), has an igloo for a house and can ‘buy’ small round pets called puffles. There is a free option where you get the basics but can’t customise your penguin and igloo very much and a paid membership option where everything becomes available.

The world they live in has a number of areas (a toboggan run, a light house, a dance club etc) and various games you can play onsite (card-jitsu being a particular favourite for me my daughter). So far so good (especially if you are eight) but what does this tell you about content marketing success?

Well, they do a number of things really well:

An active, rolling calendar of activities and themes

The site, while remaining broadly static in structure, is endlessly changing. Whether this is for Christmas or just because the carnival comes to town there is regularly something new to do. It never gets boring and retains engagement from its members.

Lesson 1: think ahead, at all costs don’t let your content become stale – have a plan you can work to that regularly refreshes and expands your content

User-controlled experiences

The site allows different users to have different experiences. You can become a secret agent and undertake challenges, you can become a ninja with the aforementioned card-jitsu or you can play solo or hang out and play with your buddies.  

Lesson 2: one size does not fit all, create different versions of your content for different types of users – allow them to interact with it in ways that suit them (eg text, audio, video, mobile)

Distributed content

While the prime focus is the online community there is now a range of offline content too. Since the site was bought by Disney, the magic kingdom’s merchandising machine has gone into overdrive. You can buy books, toy penguins, puffles, the lot. And, cleverly (or annoyingly if you’re a parent) offline content unlocks more exclusive online content.

Lesson 3: of course online is key, but don’t rely 100% on online for your success – create content that also works offline, on the move and face to face

It’s social

No new news here but the site is clever in how it does social networking. While it is locked down to keep kids’ identities safe, it is easy to see which members have been particularly successful at earning virtual money from the games and challenges. They have bigger igloos, more puffles, better hair (I know, penguins with hair – scary). They are also keen to show others new features and games.

Lesson 4: examine ways of giving those people who engage with your content rewards in terms of prestige and reputation – offer the most active ones opportunities to create content themselves and praise them for doing so

So there you go, what a community of multi-coloured animated penguins can teach you about content marketing.

If you learn just one thing about strategy, this is it

I'm currently reading Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War. Quite simply, it's one of the best books on strategy I've ever come across (and I've read a few).

Reading it last night, I came across this quote:

"...the essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than the enemy does. Instead of grasping at Option A as the single right answer, true strategy is positioning yourself to be able to do A, B, or C depending on the circumstances. That is strategic depth of thinking, as opposed to formulaic thinking."

This highlights a problem seen in marketing departments and agencies again and again and again (and one I bang on about endlessly) – the rush towards a single "right" answer with a fixed roll out plan.

Shit happens

Marketing doesn't happen in a vacuum. The world doesn't pause as soon as your plan is signed off. And people do not always act as you'd like (let alone competitors). Yet too many marketing strategies simply plough on regardless. Of course, quite often they have to. They are so rigid as to offer no alternatives.

To put it simply: the plan is not the objective. It's just one way of getting there.

These days, more than ever before, it is vital to be flexible in how you achieve your objectives. In reality there are a vast array of options available. Many of them are relatively low cost to develop and quick to deploy. The growth in what I'm calling trigger-based marketing also allows you to build flexibility in right from the beginning (and then adapt as you go). But you must get the thinking right, right from the start.

7 steps to a more flexible strategy

The next time you create a marketing strategy, try the following seven steps for starters:

1. Determine your objective in clear unambiguous terms.
2. Be specific in how you will know when the objective has been met.
3. Check your assumptions – what don't you know?
4. What do you think is the best way to meet your objectives? This is strategy A – your default position.
5. What if one or more of your assumptions is fundamentally wrong? This could be strategy B.
6. What if you were a new entrant into the market with none of your history? This could inform strategy C.
7. What if you trade comprehensiveness for speed? This could result in strategy D.

Critically, make sure that none of your strategies is a cul de sac. If it all goes wrong, can you quickly and easily swap to a different one? Can you dial up and dial down different aspects? Also, can you capitalise on new opportunities as they arise?

Robert Greene's site can be found here. And you can by the book here in the UK and here in the US.