But credibility is a funny thing. It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes us believe one person and not another; or believe one claim while remaining suspicious about a very similar claim made by someone else.

To make sure your message is believed, you can’t have too many credibility-builders (though spending too high a proportion of your reader’s attention on credibility issues might backfire by making you appear desperate). In general, more credibility is better.

Let’s look at the top cred-builders:

• Statistics – ideally independently generated
• Awards – the fairy dust of the credibility business
• Accreditations – sometimes essential, other times a hygiene issue
• Analyst attention and endorsement – can go a long way for some customers in some markets
• Media attention and endorsement – the better the source, the more it adds to your cred
• Lists of customers – if you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em
• Testimonials – more credible than you’d think; the good ones have a ring of truth
• Case studies – often boring and ignored; if you can get them read, they’re worth their weight in gold
• Your resources and assets – just being big and solid and here to stay builds credibility
• The credentials of your team – hard to get this into every conversation, but never hurts
• Other successful products – winners breed winners
• Your company’s commercial success – the trick is to not to focus on the growth but the reasons behind it

Softer signals that indicate credibility:

• Your reputation – the only way to control it is to execute brilliantly in every department
• The way you speak – a straight, open, honest tone of voice does wonders for credibility
• The way you look – clean, inviting design says clear thinking and user-friendliness
• The way you behave – personal interactions can wipe away all of the above or double it

The last credibility builder is probably more important than the first sixteen but is usually undervalued: good, solid logic.

If your argument makes sense and is built on premises that the audience accepts, they will believe you. If it’s built on shaky foundations or makes little leaps of faith, they won’t.

At Velocity, we often break down our clients’ stories into a diagram that shows the steps to a sale — the things people have to believe in order to progress to ‘Yes’. Sometimes the path shows four easy steps separated by simple logic. Other times, it’s seven or eight steps, some separated by yawning chasms — the zones where we’ll have to work extra hard to get prospects to the next step.

The sixteen credibility-builders are all important. But without the seventeenth – a good, strong case – you’re supporting a false front. Spend some time analysing your own steps to a sale. Make sure you’re not asking people to take leaps of faith. Build an argument that earns every step and you’re more than half the way home.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B marketing, credibility, logic, persuasion, selling

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The author, Carmine Gallo, refers to the Jobs approach as a ‘ten point framework’. Really it’s just a list of ten tips, but they’re excellent tips. If you follow them, your presentations will be much better — and many of the tips apply to written communication, too.

Lately, we’ve been exploring ways to deliver really powerful web seminars and these tips will all come in handy. I won’t paraphrase them but I do recommend the article.

And since writing the draft of this post, John’s CEO, Paul Ostergaard, sent a link to this terrific presentation on Identity 2.0 by Dick Hardt, founder of Sxip Identity. It’s an entertaining, funny introduction to a concept that Sxip is evangelising and an excellent example of how to sell a technical, abstract story without being technical or abstract.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B, Content, Marketing, persuasion, presentation, selling, writing

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This post is about the most important part of every marketing communication: the opening. The come-on. The headline, subhead and first paragraph. If you’re reading this sentence, it’s only because I’ve passed one of the trickiest obstacle courses in marketing. I’ve got you to stop, read one line, read the next and decide to continue.

I accomplished this through a bit of craft and trickery (including a naughty word) but mostly through an incredibly powerful thing called empathy.
Empathy is at the heart of every great communication, from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (among the most moving 700 words ever spoken) to classic ad lines that boil down entire marketing briefs into five words (like “Buy more beef, you bastards.” from the Australian Beef Commission).

Empathy demands that you stop being you and start being your target audience. If you can do that, you’re more than halfway to an effective piece of communication. If you can’t do it, you need to do more homework or find someone who can.

Starting from empathy does all sorts of good things for your marketing. For one, it forces you to create punchy, relevant, intriguing openings. Short, sharp headlines; subheads with a bit of context; introductions that speak plain English and tell the reader this is about them not just about you.

Remember, you’re not you. You’re a very busy person who knows nothing about your product, who has a toothache and whose boss is being a total jerk. Even putting your lousy ad, website, brochure or video in front of him is an affront akin to Oliver Twist asking his captors for ‘more’. How very dare you.

Since you’ve already interrupted your audience, the least you can do is to reward their attention by being clear, open, relevant and, if possible, just a wee bit entertaining. Let’s take these one at a time:

Be clear – For God’s sake spit it out. Save the business-speak for… on second thought, bin the business-speak altogether. The voice you’re looking for is the one that comes out of your mouth, not your pen or keyboard.

Be open – Most marketing acts as if it’s got a dirty little secret; a hidden sales agenda. Well guess what, it’s not a secret, it’s not especially dirty and your agenda is actually standing naked on the desk with a bird of paradise in its mouth. Just do your job and sell me stuff.

Be relevant – This is about me isn’t it? Well prove it. Start being about me right from the beginning. Start with an interesting way of looking at my world and my problems. Then maybe I’ll hang around.

Be entertaining – Like it or not, marketing is show-biz. There needs to be a spring in your step. You need to be enjoying yourself not getting a tooth extracted. If you think what you do is boring, I guarantee you that I will too. This doesn’t mean you have to be funny. Trying to be funny and falling even a tiny bit short is a very sad and embarrassing thing. Just be comfortable on stage, in the spotlight.

I’ll write specifically about headlines in another post, but these four points should help guide your openings (and, frankly, the middles and endings as well).

For an example of what I’m talking about, scroll up. You’ve just read this entire post so one thing you know is that this opening worked.

Send me one of your headlines and opening paragraphs and I’ll see if I can do a make-over to show what I mean (look ma, no brief!).

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B, Content, empathy, Marketing, persuasion, selling, writing

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•    The Signal – your message; the thing you want people to take away
•    The Noise – everything else; the things that distract, delay and get in the way of the signal

Most B2B marketing – especially in technology businesses – is so full of noise, the static drowns out the music.

The idea, obviously, is to drive out the noise and deliver clear, crisp signals.

Here are a few ways to do that:

1) Give yourself less space
The less space you have to deliver your message, the more likely it is that you’ll make the best possible use of the space you have. (You can always spread it out later without adding content).

Bumper stickers have very little noise.  No room for it.

2) Give yourself less time
Don’t spend a few days on that web copy or brochure. Spend a few hours.
It will be better.

3) Boil down mercilessly, then subtract
Take a page or a paragraph that you’ve already reduced to its bare minimum and cut another 30%.  Be ruthless.

4) Kill everything that doesn’t sell
The decoration, the frippery, the content-free photos, needless or unreadable screenshots, bloated captions, rules, boxes, sidebars. Kill them.  The support points, credibility builders, facts, figures, quotes, legitimate exhibits… let them live.

5) Have only one bull’s-eye per target
Decide what you want the audience to do or to think, then focus all of your efforts on this.  Don’t give them three other options or try to do four other things at the same time.  Focus.

6) Clean up your act
Clear communications look simple and inviting.  Nice type, plenty of white space, lots of subheads to break things up.

7) Make like Hemingway
Short sentences, plain language.

I could probably come up with seven more tips but that would defeat the purpose.
More signal, less noise.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B, Content, Marketing, persuasion, selling, writing

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Here are eight tips, harvested from Jury Arguments and Texan DUI specialists Trichter & Murphy (there’s a lot of DUI in Texas), plus my notes for applying them to B2B tech marketing:

• “Your credibility with the jury depends on how they perceive your competence, your likeability, and your character.”
  In B2B, this is about brand, attitude, style and credibility.

• “Your passionate belief and enthusiasm about your case shows that you care.”
  Enough of the bloodless, jargon-packed techno-speak.

• “Appeal to all the senses: use persuasive visual aids or exhibits in your argument and opening.”
  At Velocity, we’re big on guerrilla video and Pecha Kucha (20 slides, 20 seconds each = rock & roll).

• “Present your argument in a way that caters to the juror’s world view, not yours. To do this, you must consider the juror’s values, wants, and needs.”
  The most obvious thing in marketing is still the least practised.

• “Tell the jury not only what the evidence is but what the evidence means. Your job is not simply to bring the facts to life. You must also interpret the evidence for the jury.”
  A benefit for every feature…

• “Reduce your theory to a short, one-paragraph explanation, clear of obstacles, that can be understood by a group of bright twelve-year olds.”
  The art of the elevator pitch.

• “Admit at the outset the weak points in your argument . You can expose your weaknesses in a better light than your opponent, who will expose them in the darkest possible way. An honest admission, having come from you, not only endows you with credibility, it also leaves your opponent with nothing to say except what you have already admitted.”
  We’re big believers in sharing Pros and Cons — admitting real issues that can’t be ignored and showing how trivial they really are. Ask me for an example from a recent piece.

• “Don’t misquote evidence or try to twist or interpret it into a form that doesn’t have legs.”
  At Velocity, we’re a tough jury. If you can convince us, we can convince anyone.

Who needs copywriters? Get yourself a good lawyer.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B, Content, Marketing, persuasion, selling, writing

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© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Content, persuasion, selling, structure

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