Here’s an interesting tweet via Pluggio (my aff. link) from @CiscoIT all about an award from @Computerworld for a video case study.

I was intrigued enough to click through and find out more.

Strike one for Cisco. (Get the click!)

Arriving at the landing page I find this headline giving a great summary of what awaits:

Business Video Case Study: How Business Video Transforms Cisco Business Processes

Strike two for Cisco. (The job of the headline is to entice the reader to stay on the page and see what’s on offer or of interest.)

Alas, when I click on the link to go read the case study I get redirected to a Cisco login link.

And wouldn’t you know it but I don’t have access to my password.
It’s probably at home on my main machine… grr!

A little frustrated with myself, I look beneath the fold and there’s a section titled “Associated Files” with three very relevant file names just waiting for a click!

There’s an ‘executive summary’, a ‘presentation’ and, to my amazement, an ‘IT Case Study’ file! All in pdf format, and with file sizes shown for convenience.

And not a login or registration form in sight!

Strike three for Cisco?

Well, maybe. Though in soccer terms, this is probably a yellow card event for time wasting or offside behavior.

Why?

You see I was all fired up to read the case study only to be confused at the final hurdle. Part of me is worrying about the login requirement while another brain processing time slice is wondering if the three pdf files are the same, or different, to what lies behind the authentication firewall.

Why should a b2b marketer be worried about that? For the simple reason that a confused mind is less likely to buy (in the long term) or to feel confident about spending more time on ambiguous web content (in the short term).

In this case I’d probably give Cisco the benefit of the doubt and assume that the three associated files and the protected case study are one and the same. Which makes the Cisco login requirement an anomaly.

However, if they are in fact different then I’d be much happier as a prospect if the web page clearly spelt that out. I could then make an informed decision about registering or not.

How about you?
Do you think case studies should be hidden behind firewalls?

- Mark ‘IT Case Study Writer‘ McClure

I’m pleased to announce that my ‘tech content rocket’ blog successfully blasted off from the technologymarketers.com platform launch site at 15:10 hours GMT on 23 March, 2011.

Geostationary orbit above a volatile b2b mix of information technology and marketing elements has been completed.

All being well, the tech content rocket blog’s search for intelligent uses of story telling techniques in customer case studies, and for the ongoing evolution of educational marketing approaches to white papers, will hopefully yield new insights into their roles across IT buying cycles.

Back on terra firma (aka this samuraiwriter.com/blog), I plan to delve more deeply into how b2b content marketing for the computer networking industry is shaping up…or not.

- Mark McClure

Case Study and White Paper Writer To The Computer Networking Industry

According to some social media commentators, cyberspace is now littered with abandoned blogs and populated by drive-by surfers who find even 140 characters a struggle. Has business blogging therefore become a waste of time for b2b technology marketers?

I think not! Despite what the ‘digital herd mind’ might be echoing, here are three compelling reasons why b2b blogging is still very much in play for marketers in the IT computer networking industry.

1) You Own the Words that (Help) Change Minds

What? You don’t think so?

Granted, by itself, an individual blog post may not. Taken together, it’s a different story. That’s because what others refer to as ‘content marketing’ comes alive to your prospects when you actively take the high ground and discuss how your products and services can make a real difference to their business… and to their careers.

Consider those controversial test results on your latest data center switch? Yes, customers and prospects really do want to know how you’ll address their concerns.

And that emerging standard your competitor’s taking the lead on?

Where, how, and when will your company respond? People with money to spend on products like yours want to know! And a significant number of them may be nowhere near signing your NDA to find out.

That’s why your blog’s an ideal place to woo and exchange ideas with this audience. And not only that. You can slice and dice posts into tweets and status updates. Use them as digital bait for discussion groups and email links.

Best of all, you (well, your company mainly, but see #2 below) gets to own the content and the messaging platform, something that those social media ‘experts’ advocating a headlong rush into Twitter’s event horizon and FaceBook’s content vaults, conveniently neglect to emphasize.

Yes, numberless others will probably (and hopefully!) re-purpose and curate the content you create. Sometimes they’ll do this well and you’ll be pleased. Other times, you’ll wonder why you even bothered. Maybe a stiff drink will help…

But the upside is that all roads lead back to your digital communication hub. An online fortress where friendly visitors are welcome, the drawbridge remains open and the moat is clean enough to swim in!

2) (Y)our Reputation is (Y)our Greatest Asset

Perhaps some readers remember corporate town hall meetings where the CEO reminded assembled employees:
“Our employees are our greatest asset.”

There are two problems with that immortal line:

a) Many employees don’t (if they ever did) believe it anymore.

b) It’s wrong.
Perhaps the CEO would be more accurate with this revision:

“Some employees might be our greatest asset.”

Now b) could be true for a tech start up when their idea’s written on a restaurant napkin, and further VC funding depends on geeks coming up with the goods.

However, for larger, established IT networking companies, the market reality is that both talent and companies are ambitiously mobile. Meaning, this month your job is in New York until it’s moving to Mumbai… but without you.

(For those in Mumbai, I offer little solace to the likelihood that same displaced job may eventually disappear with automation; but not before it turns up in Vietnam. There’s really no hiding place for being just expensively competent anymore…)

No, what our savvy CEO should really be telling the assembled troops is the truth. Something I once heard a multinational’s CIO explain to staff based in Asia. It went like this:

“Our reputation is our greatest asset.”

And he meant it. While employees are important, and companies will often do their utmost to attract and retain the best, they’re all expendable. Every last one of them, from the CEO downward. And, in my mind, that include Steve Jobs, Apple’s visionary and iconic leader.

However, a company’s reputation is a different matter. It can be damaged and even lost in mere seconds and minutes these days, thanks to those very same communications networks and informed communities many marketers rely on to build their brand.

And the cost in time, expertise, delayed products and lost sales to resuscitate a tarnished image can run into many millions of dollars.

Of course such disasters are thankfully rare but employee attrition, force adjustments, overseas centers of excellence – whatever you want to call losing your job – are much more common.

So that’s why accomplished b2b tech marketers should do all in their power to cement both their company’s reputation, and their own.

Blogging’s an ideal vehicle in which to do this. Interesting and (sometimes) controversial b2b tech bloggers get known and liked not only by prospects and customers, which their employers quickly appreciate; but their voices are also heard by peers and competitors.

While your loyalty should be to your employer first and foremost, any tech marketer who follows trends will know that the online world not only brings people together to do business, but it also introduces millions of potential competitors for your job!

Yes, it does. And a growing number of these people are multilingual and ‘hungry’ to succeed. They may not be multicultural (who really is?) but they invest time and effort in learning how to market and do business with the “Western world” (an admittedly imperfect label for numerous languages and cultures. But restrict it to a universe of the top 20 IT networking companies, and the view through cultural glasses becomes a little clearer.)

The interesting thing about blogging is the career doors it can open. To see what I mean, take a look at this post I wrote on my career change and personal growth blog:
“Your Online Resume is Everywhere”.

Naturally, without permission, you can’t use content your ex-employer owns, even if you wrote it. Still, imagine that same blogging content syndicated, re-purposed, commented on by an army of peer bloggers over the years; and archived forever more by those tireless Google bots…

“Your online reputation really is your greatest asset.”
(Thanks for the inspiration, Mr. CIO!)

3) Pitfalls, Prats and Pisspoor Writing

Fortunately, the blogging world’s full of people making asses of themselves. By itself, that isn’t a disaster because many established bloggers are open to helping others who genuinely want to write better and build an audience.

A b2b blogger who consistently posts interesting and eye catching content is something to behold. Even rarer is one who responds to comments and respect the opinions of others while ignoring those of the willfully ignorant (“that’s what a search engine’s for, you muppet” – my favorite expression on meeting such folks).

Are you up to the b2b blogging challenge?

Do you disagree with any of what I’ve written here?

I’m open to hearing all constructive comments!

- Mark ‘case study writer’ McClure

One of the ‘cold’ marketing searches I occasionally do is to find up-and-coming companies in my niche who could benefit from the tactical implementation of a content marketing strategy. (BlueMile Inc Marketing folks; if you’re reading here, please see the section all about your website near the end of this post…)

These are IT (networking) companies with solid products and services where technology-savvy customers are looking for (aka ‘demanding) ‘feature-rich’ solutions.

But the old rules of marketing, nay human psychology, still apply. Namely, that people will buy on emotions and justify with logic. This means even knowledgeable and level-headed b2b prospects will be partly swayed by emotional responses to the problem confronting them and to a vendor’s suggested solution.

Any marketing approach that ignores the prospect’s logical or emotional responses will dilute its sales effectiveness i.e. you won’t sell Jack!

For technology buyers and marketers it’s usually a given that the feature sets stand out strongly. I came from a computer networking geek background and long admired the bells and whistles that vendors built into their offerings. Even implementation manuals sometimes held a special place in my digital heart!

However, go two or three levels up the tech management org chart and any such attachment is mostly reduced to hacking away at the cells in a capex spreadsheet! For sure, the peer level managers on the business side will have little to no interest in technical features. They’re not even sure they ‘need’ IT these days…

Enter The Content Marketing Strategy

This is where things get real interesting because a content marketing strategy can help educate prospects on the proven solutions to the biggest problems they face in their business.

How is this done?

There are many tactical ways to reach/attract and educate your ideal prospects online e.g. regular blogging, audio podcasts, video, webinars, white papers and customer case studies are some of the popular tools being used.

Over time, the educational nature of the content marketing path can help nurture those prospects who begin to trust what you’re saying and proposing. This is ethical marketing and good for business.

Which brings me to one of the IT networking companies I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

BlueMile’s Web Site Has Plenty of Features…

Take a look at the BlueMile Inc Web Site.
They’re a Columbus, Ohio-based service provider with a range of technical solutions for local, national and international customers.

It’s all quite impressive and they’re doing a good job (remember they’re less than 50 people, if I recall correctly) at showing their technology options. Exactly the sort of thing I’d be checking out if I was interested in matching their capabilities against my requirements. In fact, my logical, network engineering mind would be hunting around for specs, data sheets, data center operational statistics etc.

From the perspective of a technology marketing writer the next steps are to add the business benefits into the case their website is making for doing business with them. (Of course, business is not won or lost solely on web site content. But it has a significant impact on prospects, especially those who are not yet looking for your solution. Just give it a year or two, however…)

Here are a number of ways to start doing this:

1- Turn the CEO’s whiteboard video sessions (Oct 2011 Update: the url links is broken) into a series of white papers, blog posts and even podcasts. The raw material is there ready to be re-purposed (my favorite content marketing buzz phrase at the moment!)

2- Start a blog or multiple blogs and use some of the staff featured in that fine home page staff photo to help come up with the content. Any good marketing writer will have an interviewing skill set they can draw on to extract the nuggets of wisdom and experience that form the core of useful posts.

3- Pick the key market you want more business from and create several customer case studies that show the business benefits and problems resolved or averted by choosing to partner with BlueMile Inc. (You’ll notice that BlueMile have started down the case study road by featuring some case studies from their partners. It’s only a matter of time, in my opinion, before they have a whole web page of their own.)

You might be wondering what sort of interest I have in this company. Well, go back and read the first paragraph of this post again. People do like to read constructive and positive things about themselves and their businesses. I know I certainly do.

And from checking freely available sources on the Internet, I suspect they are looking seriously at increasing their content marketing efforts. Carpes diem.

Anyway, regardless of where my horse comes in that particular ‘race’, there are probably marketing managers of other IT companies out there who will come across this very post. Yes, this blog does serve as one of my very own content marketing outposts

Feel free to contact me about all things white papers, case studies and a ton of other technical copywriting projects.

- Mark ‘technical marketing writer’ McClure