Shape of Things

“Can we talk?”

It was a signature phrase for the late comedian Joan Rivers; a way to establish intimacy with her audience.

A song with that title was an R&B hit for Tevin Campbell in the early 90s, communicating the desire to get closer to a woman he loves.

It’s even the title of this mindfulness article.

But it’s a question rarely asked by companies to their customers.

In corporate marketing and PR, we hear often about customer-centric communications. But, sadly, most of the time it’s literally lip service. More often, companies talk at or to their customers.

There are many reasons companies don’t talk with their customers. Perhaps the most self-empowering reason of all is pure corporate hubris: Marketers believe customers really don’t know what they want until it is presented to them. You could call that the Mad Men Justification.

So, companies just move ahead blindly, not really knowing what motivates their most important customers; developing products based on what coders or designers in a back room think is important.

Marketers believe customers really don’t know what they want until it is presented to them. You could call that the Mad Men Justification.

It’s easy to avoid the ignorance is bliss syndrome once you develop a handful of questions that push key buttons linked to customer wishes, desires and anxieties.

“What gives you the most satisfaction in your job”?

“What are the biggest obstacles to implementing new technology within your organization”?

“What are the problems that keep you awake at night”?

“What would best help you do your job more effectively or make it more pleasant”?

“Who are the people that influence purchasing and what must you do to justify purchases”?

You probably could think of others that are relevant to your industry or business, but you get the idea.

So how do you engage customers to answer these questions? That’s an easy one based on my experience, because people want to talk about themselves and their jobs. And a token gift of company swag never hurts. Here are some ways to engage:

• By making appointments (ask for 10 minutes tops) at trade shows or randomly engaging people on the show floor.
• By conducting focus groups at lunch or dinner at user-group meetings, trade shows or customer visits.
• By asking customers questions over the phone.
• By setting aside a few minutes during company visits.

Who should ask these questions and compile the answers in a report? It could be account executives, but in my experience they are sometimes too defensive. Better that it’s someone not directly connected to sales. It could be an internal marketing or PR person, or better yet a third-party who knows the industry, but is only connected to the company through this type of work.

After tabulating the answers and documenting trends, you have a qualitative overview of what a representative portion of your customers want or need from you. Not a profile, but a true representation from actual customers.

There might be surprises. There might not be surprises, which is a gift in itself. Whatever the results, it all starts with that three-word question: “Can we talk”?

The PR mill can be a hoary thing: If you can’t find something significant to talk about, make it up: new foosball game in the office, CEO’s charitable activities, the company dog, a change in corporate titles — anything that can be press released, tweeted, blogged, Facebooked or Pinterested.  Most of these things have the shelf-life and nutrition of a potato chip left out on the counter.

For those willing to search, there are abundant story hooks that can lead to stories with immediate and long-lasting value.

What cool things are your customers doing?  Translate that into case studies for trade publications and new content for your website.

What are customers saying and thinking? Take a few hours to talk with customers about how they use your products and the value they get from them. I guarantee you’ll gain insight that can be translated into an editorial or trend piece.

What burning technical issue is addressed by your product or technology, yet under-exposed in the media or among your customer base?

What new markets are emerging and how can you become a knowledge leader by writing intelligent stories and/or blog posts that have value to customers and potential customers?

What is trending in the news or on social media that has relevance to your industry?

How can you contribute to a publication or website to build editorial credibility, even if it has little to do with your clients’ products or services?

Here are some things I’ve worked on recently as the result of looking into story hooks. I bet you can find a lot more for your company:

Think of these hooks as truffles.  They are there, but you need to train yourself to sniff them out.

I write quite a bit, consciously or unconsciously, about a client of mine, Red Gate. It’s easy to see why: they are brilliant in about every aspect of running a company: planning, execution, creativity, marketing.  Most of all, they deliver on what they promise.

One of Red Gate’s most recent triumphs is the 10 Geeks in 5 Weeks campaign. It used company culture as a recruiting magnet. If you think you are too small to compete with the big boys or girls over top talent, think again.  Maybe some Red Gate ideas can spur some of your own: http://www.red-gate.com/careers/video_gallery.htm#geeks.

Don’t co-op these ideas whole-cloth; use them as a launching pad for your own flights of creativity.

Sometimes the hardest thing is just getting started.  Objections are easy to come by, and big change seems insurmountable.

Maybe like the multiphobic Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) in the movie “What About Bob,” you should consider taking baby steps.  Here are five you can take to get involved with social media and lay the groundwork for establishing a community around your products and services.

1. Establish or participate in LinkedIn groups that share information about your industry. Initiate intelligent discussions and add constructive commentary on others’ discussion topics to solidify your credentials and expertise.  Provide special free offers that are valuable to group participants and provide an ancillary benefit of promoting your product or service. But, whatever you do, don’t pander.

2. Participate in forums.  Provide information and initiate discussion on topics related to your company’s products or services.

3. Get on twitter to monitor discussion about your company and the industry it serves, and to develop followers to whom you can provide information and perspectives.

4. Start a blog on your web site and contribute to it regularly — at least twice a month, but preferably once a week. If you don’t know how to do it, bring in a journalist to help you. Topics: technical information on your products or services, profiles of customers, industry perspectives or opinions, surveys, open-ended inquiries of readers, guest blogs by partners, video tutorials, research results — there are tons of resources within your company waiting to be harvested.

5. Take the information that you regularly use for press releases, case studies, white papers, and support documents and consolidate it into a permission-based e-newsletter.  Add surveys or forums to encourage interaction with readers. Six times a year is a good frequency. This will set up a direct link to your customers for sharing information and collecting feedback. Remember that the information has to be valuable to and welcomed by recipients.

These five steps will begin establishing a conversation with customers and potential customers, creating a sharing relationship rather than a vendor dictatorship. The ultimate goal is to begin establishing a community around your products and services — more on that soon.

There’s not much cause to be aggravated at the beach on a beautiful day.  But, there we were returning from an idyllic walk and I was fuming at the horrible quality of writing in the slick beach magazine.

My wife, a writer, had enough.  “I don’t want to hear any more about this.  I can sum up why this happens in two words: ‘good enough’.”

Yes, all the happy, non-specific adjectives, the indirect sentences, the lack of any humanity in an article about a small town we know has an interesting history and funny, articulate people, it all came down to that: It’s good enough.  Good enough to get real estate, restaurant and curio shop advertising.  Good enough for people to thumb through while awaiting fried seafood.

The same could be said for most corporate communication.  Most organizations settle for good enough without recognizing what a disservice it is to them, their customers and partners.

The thing with “good enough” is that it invariably has an expiration date. Search engines were good enough until Google; MP3 players before the iPoD; city magazines before The New Yorker; broiled fish before sushi.

The fact that good enough suffices for the vast majority of organizations sets up major opportunities for those who want to go beyond the average.  Just a little extra can pay big dividends in how your company is perceived, the amount of trust it receives, and the leeway customers are willing to give if you make a mistake.

Here are eight things you can do to move beyond good enough in your communications.

1. Speak in the language of your customers in all of your communications.

2. Communicate with customers in ways that help them become better; be supportive, absorbing, humorous, perspicacious, technically strong and/or sympathetic.

3. Write and publish case studies that make customers the center of attention.

4. Build solid relationships with editors and writers and deliver good material on deadline.

5. Listen to customers whenever possible – at trade shows, conferences and other events – and reflect their joy, fears and pride in your communication.

6. Support or set up community sites that provide useful information for customers and a forum for sharing experiences and answers to problems.

7. Don’t drink the company kool-aid; look at everything with a critical eye and avoid any whiff of propaganda.

8. Hire proven professionals to write and edit for you; don’t leave your story in the hands of amateurs.

These are just eight out of hundreds of ways, big and small, to transcend good enough.  What are some of yours?

I thought it would die a pleasant death, like interest in Paris Hilton after she became a good girl, but it’s not: Authentic is still embedded in the minds of the American business world, especially among PR and marketing people.

The way authentic is being practiced reminds me of a Mad magazine cartoon from the late 60s. A guy’s walking down the street while kids snicker, “What a schmuck!”  Guy gets home, looks himself in the mirror and says “People think I’m a schmuck because I dress like a schmuck.” In the final frame, he’s walking down the street dressed for success like Hugh Hefner (tweed jacket with elbow patches, ascot and pipe) while kids snicker in the background, “What a schmuck!”

What authenticity ain’t

Authenticity isn’t about dressing yourself in new clothes or describing yourself as authentic.  It’s not saying “honestly” or “truly” in your press releases and speeches.  And it’s definitely not posting a picture of your CEO on the website wearing distressed jeans and a retro t-shirt or pursuing his or her rock-climbing hobby.

What it is

Authentic is what someone else feels instinctively about your organization.  What your customers say because all of your dealings with them are embedded with integrity. What the media says because you’re honest and upfront with them. What employees say because they are valued and treated fairly.

If you are doing the above, your company will automatically benefit from word of mouth. But, if you want to extend that, here’s five ways you can ensure authenticity in your communications.

1. Remove adjectives and cliches from your marketing and PR materials, unless you are quoting third parties such as customers and/or analysts.

2. Use clear prose and illustrations to help customers, partners and media understand what you do — don’t hide behind bloated corporate speak.

3. Communicate openly with your customers and employees; take what they suggest, consider it, act on it and thank them for the input.

4. Care about the community of people who use your products and services; provide programs and forums that help them improve professionally and personally.

5. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Show a sense of humor in your communications whenever appropriate.

No amount of rhetoric can buy authentic. If your organization’s values are not strong, no matter what you say, you won’t be able to hide the inner schmuck.

How close are you to your clients?  Do you know their preferences, their hot buttons, their areas of interest, what kind of information they need to do their jobs better?

For many, PR means stamping out press releases.  But at a higher level it should stand for personal relationships with your clients – not only the clients paying you, but also members of the media and social media, who also should be treated like clients. Here are some things that separate a true PR professional from a release slinger.

• A true PR pro knows the client well enough to soothe the friction that can often occur in stressful business environments.
• A true PR pro keeps the client’s best interests at heart and knows when to shoulder responsibility.
• A true PR pro forgives, but also expresses concerns.
• A true PR pro is always honest.
• A true PR pro is a partner, helping the client out in times of need.
• A true PR pro knows enough about the client’s business to offer analysis, consulting and constructive criticism.
• A true PR pro will hold the line on a client’s possible excesses.
• A true PR pro will direct the client to information he or she might be interested in, just like one would do for a friend.
• A true PR pro sees his or her clients as people, not faceless companies.

With all the buzz about social media, it’s sometimes forgotten that the traditional story placement in a trade, business or local publication is an incredibly valuable asset. Here are tips on getting stories in print or pixels.

You’ve written the press release, taking pains to quantify the benefits of the product or service in easily understood terms.  You’ve documented the significance of your announcement with quotes from analysts, customers or other third-party sources.  The story is free of puffery and bombast.  In short, you have news.

Or, perhaps you’ve written a great application story, one that concentrates on a unique process or technology being applied in innovative ways.  You have a valuable asset, but now you need to leverage it.

You have a good targeted press list, and perhaps you’ve added some vertical-market publications or technology editors from general-interest outlets that might be interested in the story.  You’ve sent it out to your mail list and perhaps to a wire service.  Now, you need to secure coverage.  Here are key things to keep in mind: 

• Prioritize follow-up according to those publications that are most important to your client. Using Bacon’s or other media-listing services, determine whether it is best to follow up by phone, e-mail or fax.
• Determine how to position the story, review questions and answers, and make certain that you understand the key elements of the story and/or announcement. Be prepared to answer questions and speak naturally about the product and/or story.
• Coordinate timing of follow-up to coincide as much as possible with the publication’s deadline date and when it is best to submit stories, and the best time of day, week or month to contact the editor/writer.
• Make sure you are reaching the proper editor/writer and targeting your presentation to the proper section of the publication.
• Plot out your presentation so you are emphasizing newsworthy aspects as concisely as possible. Write out a script or keep notes handy if necessary, but try to sound natural. Make sure your follow-up provides information of value: an offer of images, a fresh perspective, an opinion not offered in the original story, an update on the original information.
• Be pleasantly persistent if your news item or story is rejected without any reason given. Ask the editor or writer: “Can you tell me why this isn’t considered a significant story?” Present your case based on knowledge of the publication’s past coverage, and why the story is important to the publication’s readers and the industry. Be polite, but firm. If the answer is still no, try to end the conversation on a positive note: “I’m sorry you don’t see the story the same way we do, but I appreciate the time you’ve taken to explain your decision. It should help us to prepare future stories that are more relevant to you.”
• Establish a personal rapport with your press contacts as much as possible. Compliment them on a story that you think was well done. Follow their work, and not just when it involves a client. Thank them for getting a client’s story right or positioning it prominently, saying something like “I thought your treatment of the story reflected its importance to the industry,” or “I thought you honed in on the most important aspects of [our client’s] new product.” If your press contact shares personal information, take note of it and ask about it in the future. Provide your contacts with editorial leads, especially if they are not related to a client. Let them know you are paying attention to what they are doing. Be more than another voice on the phone asking for something.
• Be an advocate for your clients. Be enthusiastic. Let editors know you are disappointed if coverage doesn’t appear. Let editors/writers know how important their publication is to your client and state the client’s case forcefully when necessary.
• If a story idea is turned down, appeal to a higher authority if it can be done tactfully and without undercutting a regular contact. This action should be taken especially if your contact says something like, “My editor doesn’t think this is an appropriate story.” Your reply should be: “I’d like the opportunity to present it to him/her personally. If it is still rejected, at least I’ll know exactly why and it could help me in the future.”
• If your story doesn’t get the coverage you expect the first time around, try repositioning it a couple of months later. Do a shorter version. Emphasize another aspect of the story. See if you can get an update that might make it more newsworthy.
• After a placement is confirmed verbally or by e-mail, check the issue of the publication in which it is scheduled to appear. Call immediately if the coverage does not appear. Don’t place blame, but stress the importance of the coverage to the client, reiterate why the story is important, and push for coverage in the next issue. Inform the client of your actions and the results immediately.
• Conduct a web search after the release goes out and report initial results to the client. Also conduct a search before preparing a clipping report.

Getting good media placements for your clients is the result of having a good story to tell, developing long-term relationships and mutual respect between you and your media contacts, offering deep knowledge of your clients and their technologies, and being gently persistent.

Thirty years ago, Ian Dury and the Blockheads recorded a brilliant song called Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3.  Don’t know what happened to part 1 or 2, but this song always makes me smile.  With apologies and the greatest of respect to the late Mr. Dury, here are some of my reasons. I’d love to hear yours.

Smell of rain in Spring
Satch and Bing
New Elmore Leonard
Feelin’ unfettered

Smart tweets
Marinated meats
Sand on the beach
Squishing thru ma feet

Sugar-cane coke
Everyday folk
Live conversations
Adult libations

Career choices
Singular voices
Emotional intelligence
Witty irreverence

Better days ahead
Books to be read
Support of friends
Even tiny dividends

Greeting another day
Youngsters at play
Doing your part
To prop up art

Blueberry jelly
Cholly Rose on telly
More Nick Lowe
Paying off escrow

Dry martini
Black bikini
No tooth decay
Stayin’ in the fray

Fresh New Yorker
Pelecanos corker
Sunday Times
Brian Wilson chimes

Sharing excitement
The rare indictment
Something hilarious
Nothing querulous

Tortilla Flats
Porkpie hats
Paddling in winter
Finding the splinter

Reasons to be cheerful, part 1
Reasons to be cheerful, part 1

One of the best things a company can do is write about how customers use its products.  Not in the pandering way that makes “case study” a dirty phrase, but in a way that enlightens current and potential customers about how your product works to solve a problem or make something better.  Provide stories about solutions to common problems and you’ll have a built-in readership, whether the stories are published in a trade publication or website, an e-newsletter, the company website, or all of the above.

In the first of a three-part posting, I’ll define what makes a good case study and how to obtain the information you need before writing. 

What is a case study?

A case study outlines how a customer uses a product or service to do something faster, better or cheaper.

What makes a good case study?

• Detail. With a case study, God is in the details. Readers want to know exactly how something was done and why it is important. They want solid information: numbers, comparisons, customer testimonials, “before-and-after” contrasts.
• Uniqueness. The best story is one that an editor or reader has never heard before. Or, if he or she has heard it before, it should be presented in a way that will make it stand out from the hundreds of others appearing on the web at any given time.
• Relevance. The story has to be relevant to key issues facing your customers or potential customers.
• Good writing. Well-written stories, even if not as newsworthy, will get read before ones that are written poorly.
• Images. Images might not sell a mediocre story, but they can make a good story great.

Peeling the onion (getting inside the story)

Background Information.  Before conducting interviews, obtain as much information as possible about the application and the customer.  The best sources:  the account rep or technical person who deals with the customer for project-specific information, and the company web site and/or trade publications for more general company information.

The Interview.  This is the most important source of information.  The information you are able to coax out of the customer contact will mean the difference between a generic story and a story that has uniqueness, detail, personality and focus.  Because many customer contacts are difficult to reach, you must try to get all necessary information in one interview.  Some things to keep in mind:

• Concentrate on the 5 Ws and an H (Who?, What?, When?, Where? Why? and How?), as well as on the SW (So What?).
• Be polite, but firm in your questions. Don’t be negative, but be cynical, as cynical as the editor or reader who will be judging your story.
• Don’t accept vague statements on face value. The response to “Our customers are happy with our new products,” should be (in a most pleasant voice): “How do you know that? Have you surveyed them or found a way to measure their happiness?”
• Be curious and interested. Listen attentively and ask questions to find out more. If the person whom you are interviewing feels that you are curious and interested, he or she is much more likely to spend more time with you.
• Be prepared, but be flexible. Always have a list of questions you need to ask, but don’t be afraid to deviate into other areas if that’s where the interview takes you. Tangents often reap the greatest rewards.
• Be gently persistent. Keep trying to get the key information you need. If a question doesn’t get you what you want the first time around, have other variations of it ready and ask it again later in the interview.
• Ask about the people you are interviewing. Find out how long they have worked for the company, in what position they started out, other companies they have worked for, etc. If they had a particularly tough problem to overcome, sympathize. Remember, you are interviewing a person.
• Put the interviewee at ease. Make sure the interviewee knows up front that he or she will have a chance to review the article before it goes to the publication.
• Don’t be afraid to appear dumb. If you are prepared, you should be confident. If you don’t understand something, ask the person politely to explain. “Perhaps I should know what a tessellated pixel is, but I don’t. Could you please define it for me?” If you don’t hear something correctly, ask again: “I’m sorry, could you tell me again what hardware you are using?”
• Three words: benefits, benefits, benefits. Technical information is good for supplying the detail required for a good story. But, the benefits to the company are the real story. Technology without results is just a toy.
• Get correct titles and name spellings. Nothing turns off a source of information worse than having his or her name spelled wrong after spending 30 minutes to an hour talking with you.
• Find out if they have images available. A picture is worth…
• Thank the interviewee and ask permission for future help. Time is extremely valuable. Thank the interviewee for his or her time and ask if it is OK for you to call him or her in the future if you need more information.
• Be clear about your intentions. Let the interviewee know when you will have a draft for review and in what time frame you are seeking approval and images.

Next: Interview questions and pre-writing preparation.