Every project manager, marketing specialist, and tech support leader is walking around with at least a handful of potential B2B Marcom projects in their head.
Before any of them get any further, I’d like to ask them to stop. In fact, I did just that in a meeting today. I had Indium Corporation’s blogging team in a pizza frenzy while we were reviewing our blogs, other peoples’ blogs, and the state of the blog art.
Our blog team consists of some really plugged in and knowledgable people. They are the ones who devise, create, and finalize many of our pieces of literature and communications projects. After a brief discussion of how and where our target audiences look for answers and info, we all agreed that the answer is the internet. It seems preposterous to imagine an engineer waiting for his copy of Circuits Assembly Magazine to arrive in the mail, hoping it might contain an answer to a burning question. People turn to the web for fast help. We want to be that help.
So, we are officially charged with directing ALL our B2B Marcom thoughts regarding literature, brochures, exhibits, etc. to the digital format first. We’ll let the hardcopy stuff come later. This is a flip of the old way of business. Frankly, it is a bit overdue.
Web first, hardcopy second.
PS:
I am not down on, or against, print media. It has its place and is very valuable. Specifically, I really value Circuits Assembly Magazine. What I am changing is the mindset at project onset. We have to dream and create for the web (primary audience) and let the hard copy follow.
Roland Girouard:
Rick,
I have to agree with you about writing for the web. I am a numbers guy… and the web brings me statistical marketing information like never before. There is no other form of advertising that comes even close to providing detailed insights about your customers and potential leads. (Location, time spent on specific locations of site, terms they used to find our site, etc…)
As I mentioned at APEX this year, I’m thankful to meet someone in the industry who realizes times are changing, now! Your posts points out that people want answers now, so very true… The web is at our fingertips and answers are just seconds away, especially when after you have become a ‘professional searcher’ and learn how to wade through the non-sense in the search results (tip: try quotes around your search terms to get only the pages that contain all those terms).
One other thing I’d like to throw out there in this short post (I’ll be back again another day) is that when writing for the web…. Be sure to write for your target audience(s), especially if you are a worldwide company and write for the web. Write for your target audiences’ web preferences! For instance, don’t think, “All engineers speak english”. Even if this was so, wouldn’t you want to make those engineers as comfortable as possible while reading your technical data or sales materials? Certainly starting out by showing the information to someone in their 2nd or 3rd or 4th language is not a good start to making the user ‘comfortable’ and the experience easy… Different cultures act & react different ways to colors, meanings of words, etc…
Last, while writing for the web, be sure to incorporate basic marketing tactics… For instance, in the USA we read left to right so the eyeballs end up on the right side of the page – therefore this becomes a most valuable spot on a page to attract users’ attention.
Write for the web, but ensure you capture as many leads for your sales team as possible!
Rick Short:
Roland: speak English).
Great points – especially about writing for your audience’s preferences (“all engineers
We at Indium strongly agree. See these:
BLOG: http://www.indium.com/anny/
WEBSITE: http://www.indium.net.cn
CONFERENCES: http://www.nepconchina.com/NepconSouthChina2007/eng/ConferenceProgram.htm
PRINT INTERVIEWS: http://www.indium.com/anny/entry.php?id=1046
VIDEO INTERVIEWS: http://www.indium.com/anny/entry.php?id=1005
VIDEO ADS: http://www.indium.com/videos/ads