How to gain relevance with your target audience

The old joke from my days as a science writer was that the photo was too often the same: a man in a plaid shirt presiding over a metal box filled with wires.

That's how I came up with the mantra "Write about people with problems, not boxes with wires." As writing coach in technology PR for the past 10 years, I asked professional writers to think about the group of people that both journalists and marketing directors share an interest in, and write about them.

Customer, reader -- one and the same

Marketing directors care about the customer; journalists care about the reader. And guess what? That's the same person. Write about that person -- his problems, decisions and actions -- and the technology and messaging come along for a free ride.

But write about the technology or the messaging and ... zzzzz. MEGO sets in.

Keep eyes from glazing over

MEGO stands for My Eyes Glaze Over. (I got that phrase from a Los Angeles Times New Delhi bureau chief. )

This is how to gain relevance with your target audience: Write about the audience.

Why so little success with corporate storytelling? Here’s what to do instead.

Executive Summary:

Marketers interested in experimenting with storytelling can start with a low-risk, low-cost piece of collateral: the customer case study. Use narrative structure to engage prospective customers. Add resonance to your value proposition.

Key Points:

1. Social media is inviting marketing executives to take a second look at narrative structure, which is standard in top-tier business press but missing from most marketing collateral.
2. A customer case study can be repackaged to show a hero (your customer) overcoming obstacles (with your products and services) and achieving market success (your customer's aspiration).

Sound Bite:

"Your social media guru and PR team usually are not equipped to write in narrative form. Senior PR people -- in the VP, SVP and EVP levels -- may have the skills, but they don't write case studies. An ex-journalist on your team is your best bet."

*****

Read the whole article:

With little success, I’ve been trying for 10 years to teach storytelling principles to PR practitioners. Workshop and class attendees understand it and enjoy it, but the few who try to apply a narrative structure to their work get bogged down in the approval process.

I rarely recommend it these days as a workshop component or class. My own PPTs and handouts are dusty.

The only time I teach it now is within the context of a class on writing award submissions. This seems to be the one type of document where the marketing department is willing to let go.

I wonder if this will change.

Scary for old-school marketers: audience that "talks back"

If you read trade press for the advertising industry, you’ll recall that the sudden rise of social media and the audience’s new ability to “talk back” in public prompted substantial fear. This was about five years ago.

Generation gap

Since then, I’ve noticed a generation gap in marketing approaches. In my own mind, I’ve come to divide marketing executives into two groups – new school and old school. For a while, the old-school guys were in positions of authority and making decisions that struck me as anachronistic. Meanwhile, the new-school guys were too low-ranking to exert influence and lacked necessary business insight.

Humpty Dumpty

In 2010, it appears to me that a balance is being struck within some companies. I picture the old-school guys as Humpty Dumpty, fallen and cracked but alive and powerful. Their strength: They understand business. But they’ve lost their creative mojo and know it, so they yield to new-school concepts and hire people whose skills are unfamiliar to them.

Twitter, FB, etc.

But will storytelling become part of the new mix? Will videos, websites, blog posts and short-form posts (Twitter, Facebook) adopt the narrative structure that turns novelists and movie-makers into millionaires?

Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore Mediasurvey, who gives media advice to the tech PR industry, last week sent his clients a report raising a similar question. He pointed out significant obstacles. The details are proprietary, so I can’t share, but I can say that I concur, for reasons of my own.

Start with case studies: affordable way to break the mold

Nonetheless, if companies are interested in a small, affordable way to begin breaking the mold, I can offer one highly do-able suggestion: Start with case studies.

This is the easiest ground to give and likely to produce immediate results.

Here are my contrarian teachings:

(1) Give away the punchline in the opening paragraph. Tell the end of the story at the very beginning. In other words, take a sentence or two from what would have been the results section at the end, and move it into the lead.

(2) Don’t keep the “situation,” “problem” and “solution” in separate sections. Mix them. Instead use this framework: a heroic figure whom we care about overcomes obstacles and gets what he wants, learning lessons along the way.

In a case study, the heroic figure is your customer. The obstacles he overcomes are common to prospective customers, some of whom didn’t recognize the problem as clearly you have articulated it or didn’t know it could be solved.

In the course of overcoming obstacles, the customer uses your company’s tools. But picture the customer as MacGyver, the resourceful TV show character who could engineer his way out of any jam with scotch tape and a tin can. This means the emphasis is on the customer (MacGyver), not particularly on your tools – although the story cannot be told without your tools. Go light. Don’t sell. Just tell.

Your subheads could like like this:

Executive summary – Here you mix the “problem” (beginning) and “results” (end) in one or two sentences – briefly -- just enough to tell “a story of transformation.”

• Show change, not the “situation analysis” or “background.” Customer X had a problem common to your prospective customers; now he has business success. Ignore the middle of the story for now. That comes in the next section.
• Use your best stats in the executive summary. Don’t save them for the “conclusion” at the end, especially since most readers won’t get that far, anyway. Even if all they do is skim the first graf, the readers will walk away with the most important idea.

Problem/solution – Here you tell the middle part of the story. This is your customer overcoming obstacles they have in common with your prospective customers, with your tools in hand.

By juxtaposing problem and solution, you gain tension. When you separate them, you have static facts. Tension keeps readers reading.

Ideally, the customer is learning along the way. What lessons can he share? What would he have done differently from the start, knowing what he now knows? What can other businesses learn from his experience? What’s replicable about his success?

When you mix the problem and solution, you are telling a story. When you separate them, you are writing a conventional case study. Which do you think will get higher readership?

Results – Here you amplify the phrase or sentence you pulled out for use in the executive summary. You list business results, if possible, that were outgrowths of the problem’s being solved. You give more stats, while reminding the reader of that super-great one stat you included in the executive summary.

Why adopt this storytelling framework for case studies?

1. An image of business success will now be associated with your company's products or services, even if the reader was a skimmer who quit reading after the first graf.
2. A skimmer is less likely to stop after the first graf because you’ve added an element of suspense (the missing middle), and rewarded him from the start. It’s silly to think that a reader will patiently wade through static facts in hope of a possible reward at the end. Give him confidence from the start that you aren’t wasting his time.
3. People remember stories more readily than they remember facts.
4. Your reason for writing isn’t to tell the world about your customer; it’s to draw in prospective customers who will recognize themselves and their problems in the story. Your customer is a stand-in for your prospective customer, who can now visualize himself succeeding, thanks to the concrete specifics of your story.

Breaking the mold takes courage. You might consider trying it a couple of times and watching the response. If it works, keep it. If it doesn't, toss it. It's a just a case study, right? A tiny piece of your marketing collateral. No big deal. Case studies are not costly in time or money. They aren't high-profile. There's little to lose and readership to gain.

Caveat: Your social media guru and PR team usually are not equipped to write in narrative form. Senior PR people -- in the VP, SVP and EVP levels -- may have the skills, but they don't write case studies.

An ex-journalist on your team is your best bet. Or, if you've got a member of junior staff who successfully pitches top-tier business press, give them a crash course (30 mins) and let them learn from experience. Top-tier business press often write in narrative form.

The advent of social media and questions about the rise of business storytelling give you soft ground for experimentation. The conventional powers that be as well as the audience are now in a forgiving mood. Risk for this type of experiment has never been lower.

***

For more how-to posts, check out:

• contributed articles
• making leap from trade press to business press
• key question asked by business press
• how to listen for storytelling details

For PR peeps: Quotes advice & AP style visuals

Have you seen these two SlideShare prezos?

Writing quotations for press releases

The first has been popular. It's guidance on crossing the chasm between a conventional PR quote and one that journalists will find useful and credible. My advice: Try to strike a balance.

Learning AP style with visual reinforcements

The second isn't eye-opening; it's meant for reinforcement. When you're learning AP style, it helps to expose yourself to visual representations of correct style. Better still, if you do a lot of editing or writing of press releases, that experience is a valuable way to acclimate yourself. This prezo puts right and wrong on the same slide, with visuals to reinforce which is good/bad.

When "cheaper & better" carries you across the chasm

My colleague @allenbush offered an excellent asterisk to my post on making the leap from trade press to business press. It's so well put and so right on that I'm sharing it with you, with his permission, of course. I added the subheads.

Here are relevant excerpts from his e-mail to me:

I found one exception (perhaps not an exception but an asterisk) to a rule you mentioned in your post - that reporters are not interested in better/cheaper - actually two on that same note. The big one is disruption.

Technology that removes a barrier

Disruptive products are interesting specifically because they remove a major price or complexity barrier and take something from niche into the mainstream in doing so. Reporters are very interested in this.

The key is that it's not just the "cheaper and better" that you lean on, but that it's moving a product across the proverbial chasm and creating or expanding on a market in doing so.

But it's in fact the "cheaper and better" part (when dramatic enough and in the right product spot) that can start a disruption. Unfortunately, truly disruptive products are few and far between!

Affordability as a timely topic

The second one is simply that there are opportunities for affordability stories out there as long as the economy continues to suck. So again, couching a significant price differentiator in the right terms can generate coverage.

Make the leap from trade to business press

Technology startups often have trouble making the leap from trade press to business press.

Here's what your company must provide to your PR team, if you want them to successfully send you to the big leagues.

• Competitive analysis


• Forward-leaning differentiator


• The "why," not just the "how"

Competitive analysis -- Your competitors are not adversaries. They're your helpers in that they make your story better. Name them in your e-mail pitch to a top-tier business reporter. The more names, the stronger the pitch.

Likewise, name peripherally related companies and industries, and name your partners and customers, too.

There are a lot of reasons for this:

(1) A single company does not an industry make. Your company can't be "the only one" that does what you do. Even if you have no identical direct competitors, any alternative to your company's offering counts as competition, even if it's radically different or radically inferior.
The larger the swimming pool and the more swimmers in it, the more likely a reporter will pay attention to it. Sheer numbers help. The reporter's only taskmaster is the audience, and if there's an already-interested large audience for a topic, he is more likely to cover it.
(2) Conflict is an essential ingredient of storytelling. If that makes you squirm and want to wriggle away, look at it this way: The World Series is interesting only because teams are pitted against one another with something at stake.
If you assembled the world's best batters and sold tickets to batting practice, you probably wouldn't make much money. If you assembled the world's best pitchers and watched them practice without batters, how many people would pay to watch? Probably not many.
A business story is a sports story, with league standings, batting averages, secret playbooks, charismatic coaches and star performers.
You can be a good sport. You don't have to be mean and aggressive to compete. But remember that conflict is your friend.
(3) The pie slices need to change size. I'm talking about economics here. Consider college-level cost-benefit analysis, which involves comparing "before" and "after" pictures with regard to a particular business decision or action. Whose pie slice will get smaller? Whose will get bigger? Whose will stay the same? If your company's actions are not "disruptive" in this sense, there's no story.
For example, say Company A acquires Company B. How will companies D, E and F need to respond? If you have no effect on companies D, E and F, there's no story.
Forward-leaning differentiator -- In what way is your company's secret sauce a sign of the times to come? You can't just have secret sauce; it has to be indicative of the future.

Typically, big-name companies invest in a small-time competitor's great new idea, whether through acquisition, research, new hires or even a direct donation to the competitor. This sometimes ticks off the little guy, who fumes that the bigger company is getting credit for something it's not even good at and was slow to appreciate in the first place. The little guy cries out, "But we're better, we're way ahead, we're the real thing." The little guy resents the big company's fame and advertising budget.

But when big companies jump into a market that *you* invented, that's good.

Now you have data points for your business pitch. Now you have competitors' names to include in your competitive analysis. You've influenced companies D, E and F, and they are now watching you.

Typically, the startup that invented the market really *is* way ahead, and that puts the startup's CEO and CTO in the position of "authority on the subject," which is exactly who reporters want to talk to.

So don't talk solely about your company or technology; instead be the third-party arbiter of the emerging competitive analysis. Talk about where the market is headed, and talk in an analytical manner about factors that could accelerate or "de-celerate" progress. Paint a picture of the future. Explain *why* the market is headed there, what's lost if it doesn't get there, and who will make money once the future has arrived.

Inherently, this conversation will show off your company in an authentically positive light, and your participation will be essential to telling the story at all.

The "why," not just the "how" -- This is the technology startup's biggest stumbling block in making the transition from trade press to business press.

Trade press write about "how it works." That's what they do. Technology startups enjoy telling that story and tell it well. Success is easy here.

Business press don't care about the how, nor do they care if your company does the how faster, better and cheaper than other companies can do it. They simply don't care. Stop talking about it.

In particular, they don't care if your "technology is better." Really, I can't emphasize this enough: Hush! It's all just "yada yada yada" to them. Stop saying it.

Instead, go back to the second bullet here -- "forward-leaning differentiator" -- and become that third-party arbiter of shifts under way in the emerging market.

Your ego may initially protest that your company should instead be the star, but let's get real: Do you know who Sharlto Copley is? Do you know who George Clooney is?

Sharlto Copley was star of the 2009 sci-fi sleeper "District 9," an awesome mock-documentary inspired by real events during South Africa's apartheid era. Talk about an awesome performance. But guess what? Sharlto Copley wasn't even nominated for best actor. George Clooney was, though.

Accept the fact that George Clooney's presence in your awesome sleeper of a technology story is a powerful engine. Ride it, baby! His light becomes your light. It's a way in.

And once you're in, you're in.

How to write quotations for press releases

Do you have to include a quotation in a press release?

No.

Then why bother to include one, other than that it's a PR custom?

No canned messaging, please

Adding a quotation to a press release gives you an extra opportunity to gain relevance in the lives of the recipients. Unfortunately, most companies squander this opportunity by slapping quotation marks on either side of canned messaging.

Credible? No. Compelling? No. Likely to induce the MEGO effect (My Eyes Glaze Over)? Yes.

Instead, consider quotations the perfect spot for tying your announcement to external context -- that is, something happening outside your company that's on your audience's mind. Make your commentary opinionated or interpretive.

Real-life example of context and opinion

Here's an example. [3/30/10 addendum: This quote example drew criticism on Ragan.com.] This an excerpt from a press release announcing that a top news exec is joining my employer's executive team. Richard Sambrook, previously the BBC's director of global news, has become Edelman PR's global vice chairman and chief content officer.

The italics and parentheses in our CEO's quote below are mine:

"... His journalism and senior media company management resume is difficult to rival (opinion); equally important to us
and our clients, Richard has been at the forefront of the digitisation of
news and its interaction with the audience and stakeholders (external
context)...."

This quotation helps answer the questions "why him" and "why now."

Yikes! Not this!

In contrast, this version would have been bad:

"We're delighted to announce that Richard will round out our executive team by
helping us deliver on our commitment to provide best-of-breed PR to all our
stakeholders."

I hope you're laughing. Familiar, isn't it? Too many press release quotes sound just like this.

Anxiety-ending tip: Don't write, just tweak

Here's a great trick I picked up from David Dickstein, whose role at Intel is at times similar to mine: Don't write a quote at all. Finish writing your release, then circle back to something you already wrote and slap quotation marks around it. Then tweak it to add external context that's on your audience's minds. Then tweak again to add interpretation or opinion.

The common pitfall is to write a press release, all except for the quote, and then say, "OK, now, what should I say for the quote?" At that point, your mind is empty, so no wonder it's a futile struggle. Always keep this in mind: relevant content first, wordsmithing later.

"Why this? Why now?"

I often hear about people trying to "sound like an executive" or "sound smart" or "write in the CEO's voice." Boollschitt. (Excuse me!) That's fake. Don't do it.

Focus on answering these questions: Why this? Why now?

The Yoda of Journalism Speaks

My all-time fave book on writing has been displaced. Sorry, Associated Press, I still love you and “The Word” by Rene J. Cappon, but you’re going to have to step aside for the Poynter Institute’s Roy Peter Clark, the Yoda of journalism.

This Jedi grandmaster’s book was published in 2006, six years after I left journalism to become a full-time writing coach in the corporate world. I didn’t know about it until last week when the Poynter Institute tweeted Clark’s article on J.D. Salinger, who died last week.

I now have a borrowed copy of “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.” My colleague, also a former AP reporter who now works for A&R Edelman, pulled it off his cubicle shelf for me.

Here’s an excerpt, taken from Tool 21: “Know when to back off and when to show off.”

In “Why I Write,” George Orwell explains that “good prose is like a window pane.” The best work calls the reader’s attention to the world being described, not to the writer’s flourishes. When we peer out a window onto the horizon, we don’t notice the pane, yet the pane frames our vision just as the writer frames our view of the story.

Most writers have at least two modes. One says, “Pay no attention to the writer behind the curtain. Look only at the world.” The other says, without inhibition, “Watch me dance. Aren’t I a clever fellow?” In rhetoric, these two modes have names. The first is called understatement. The second is called overstatement or hyperbole.

Here’s a rule of thumb that works for me: The more serious or dramatic the subject, the more the writer backs off, creating the effect that the story tells itself. The more playful or inconsequential the topic, the more the writer can show off. Back off or show off.

That’s most of one page. The next page and a half gives examples and commentary. The chapter (all 3 1/5 pages of it) ends with a section called Workshop, which lists four activities and more examples.

How I love this man! Like all grandmasters, he’s humble and keeps a low-profile. If you read his bio, you might nod off even before you tune out.

Clark’s accomplishments are in fact immeasurable because they are living things. His uncommonly nuanced wisdom and impeccable judgment guide and transform countless journalists whose growth and contributions in turn spark more growth and contributions by untold others. (Whew! I need to rest. Writing that sentence made me tired! ... OK, here I go again:)

He’s like the Olympic torch, always being carried forward, or a venture capitalist, creating wealth by investing wealth. Or Barbara Streisand, whose perfectionism and perfect pitch let her occupy a different perceptual world than the rest of us. He thinks, feels and sees better than we regular people do, and – most importantly – articulates his vision in a way that propels the rest of us forward.

I never met the man or even so much as exchanged an e-mail. My respect grew slowly over years. I used to read the annual “America’s Best Newspaper Writing” anthologies, which Clark edited for a while. Other editors were Don Fry, Karen F. Brown and Christopher Scanlan, also stars in journalism’s coaching pantheon.

The “America’s Best …” books are compilations of award-winning journalism from each year since 1979. The editors offer insights and raise questions intended to help the reader become a better writer. If you want a snapshot of journalism’s glory days, the "America's Best ..." series is it.

Like Yoda and The Force, Clark's work offers timeless lessons.

How to get business press

To hit a home run with the business press, you need to answer this question: "Who will make money from it?"

If you merely describe your product, its benefits and the problem it solves, you're going to strike out. If you offer an industry analyst's forecast about the size of the market in the coming year, you're still out. If you add a happy customer, you're still out.

Pick up a Fortune magazine and thumb through it. Look for an article that doesn't answer the magical question. You won't find one.

Tech PR newbies don't know this. They generally have more success with trade press, who ask, "How does it work?" Technology clients happily provide that info, so it's an easy pitch. [Mainstream press answer the question "What's in it for the reader" and look for quirkiness.]

PR veterans always do a competitive analysis before putting together a business pitch. In particular, they look for a new or changing answer to the magical question. If they're really on top of their game, they pull out the unconventional wisdom, counter-intuitive lesson, or otherwise unexpected tidbit, and lead with that.

Your pitch doesn't have to be an explicit answer to the magical question. But the answer needs to be an underlying element within the larger body of info.

• Should you mention competitors in your pitch? Yes.
• Should you mention peripherally involved industries? Yes.
• Do you have to include data and dollars? Not always, but that adds credibility, and helps nail down in specifics a trend that may be vaguely felt but not clearly understood.
• Do you need a crystal ball? No. In fact, uncertainty of outcome increases your chance of success. Think of a suspenseful book or novel. Not knowing how it ends is a plus. That's what makes people lean in and begin listening for more info.

What if you don't have "news"? No problem.

Journalists define news differently than most clients do. Most clients mistake an announcement as news. The announcement may be a new product, an industry award or survey results. But none of those are news in the mind of a journalist. Why? Because those are expected outcomes. Companies make products, win awards and publicize data -- that's business as usual.

Journalists look for:

• Info readers need for decision-making about their own lives or businesses
• A break in the normal flow of events, an interruption in the expected

So anything that makes a moderately informed person say, "Huh, no kidding!" is news.

I recommend doing a competitive analysis with your head first, then scanning it with your gut second. Any mild sense of surprise will do; pluck that detail up and make it the first line.

If one pitch needs to work for all three genres of press -- business, trade and mainstream -- then make sure you have implied answers to all three questions:

1. Who will make money from it?
2. How does it work?
3. What's in if for the reader?