Messaging | PrairieSkyGroup

You Can’t Tweet a Whitepaper- Part 1 of Content Strategy and Tactics

I heard someone say, “Marketing is just publishing.” And if this is true, then the saying “Content is king,” should also be true. The question is… does your king have clothes? And is he dressed appropriately?

In thinking about content I’ve come up with four key elements and a set of questions you can ask yourself about each to see how well-dressed your king is.

The four elements are: 1) Creation, 2) Quality, 3) Focus and 4) Media. Marketing’s job is not content creation…

Building Blocks for Internet Marketing

Here’s a model I’ve developed to think about the four basic building blocks for inbound Internet marketing: 1) Content, 2) Contacts and 3) Tools, all of which are first surrounded by a clear and concise #4; Messaging.

Landing Page Design Test Answers – Wanted: Woo “Lee” Masters

Overall, less is more on a landing page. You objective is to get the visitor to take an action, so capturing their attention, being direct, and guiding them to the action is what it’s all about. You have about three to five seconds to do this. Here are my answers to the test questions.

Don’t Charlie Sheen Your Customer Testimonial Video

Watch this to find out if you make one of these five mistakes in your customer testimonial videos.

People Don’t Read. What Are You Going To Do About It?

Sales people like to talk. The good ones listen. Marketers, on the other hand, tend to be verbal but more focused on reading and writing. They wind up working on the copy for websites, PR releases, direct mail, email, literature and whitepapers. The problem is… no one reads any more. So much of this activity is wasted. Too bad. What are you going to do about it?

The Women’s Lot Narrative and the Helpmate Role.

There is a long cultural history in the US of women taking on the role of “helpmate.” George Lakoff calls the situation women face the “Women’s Lot” narrative. For a long time women could only be nurses, not doctors. However, they could help doctors. They can help in HR but not become CEO. They can help their families or their spouse. So what characteristics does a helpmate have, whether they are male or female? They work hard to serve others, often getting little credit for them selves. Any marketing narrative and message to this prospect constituency must contain these key elements.

Eight Simple Steps for Adding Gender to Your Database

Regardless of your gender, if you’re a B2B marketer and not considering it, you are missing a key element in messaging. While 90% of marketers may acknowledge that gender is important, I find only 10 percent of 1:1 marketing campaigns or databases have any data on gender. Here’s a simple deep dive technique to add gender to your database.

Metaphor 7: The Messaging Summary

Over the last set of posts, I’ve discussed the subtleties of messaging in relation to how we think and how the brain works. I have a strong conviction that most B2B messaging is still stuck in the facts and figures mode, and most companies are trying to use reason and logic alone to persuade prospects to buy their products. As a result, they are missing huge marketing and sales opportunities, especially when positioning for market growth.

Metaphor 6: The Positive Frame – The Lady or the Leopard

Recent research (O’Keefe & Jensen, 2008) indicates that the negative frame will only take you so far in influencing behavior through messaging. Their research finds that there is a slight positive effect at persuasion for messages that were positively framed. It may be simply that we prefer thinking about the beautiful lady and not the leopard, pleasant thoughts compared to dark thoughts. However, I believe framing in a positive way helps activate the dopamine circuitry in the brain that is associated with positive emotions, happiness and satisfaction.

Metaphor 5: The World’s Most Powerful Single Word Frame – What Two Year Olds Can Teach Us About Sales and Marketing

What’s a two year-old’s favorite word? It’s “NO!” of course. And why do they use this word? Just to piss us off? How engaging! But that’s exactly why they learn and use the word… to be “engaging”. In a discussion of the way the brain works and metaphorical thinking, this is the single most powerful metaphor we learn to use. Here’s a quick way to improve your odds of engaging.