Truck Stop Prophet

Blame, Win, Blame… Repeat.

Politics isn’t about reality, it’s about shaping the perspective of reality. The Right has done a far better job of this over the past two years than the Left. Or maybe Obama, Reid, Pelosi don’t enjoy a good fight.

Either way, a lot of post-election night comment frames the Republican sweep of Congress as a naturally occurring trend, as predictable and tempered as the swing of a pendulum. That’s a positive-minded thought and perhaps it’s true. But I’ve seen it lead to a second, more complacent, even bitterly gleeful assumption that the majority party will receive the same trouncing next election after their agenda inevitably fails.

I’d like to go on record with a counter prediction: Namely, the Right-wing spin machine will do everything in its power to frame Obama for any failure to advance its agenda, and/or any political fall-out when the Right-wing agenda succeeds at the expense of the people.

In fact, while some states are still counting election results, I already see evidence that Republicans are laying the groundwork for this. Witness these words from last night’s victory speech by Rep. John Boehner, who is in line to become speaker of the House in the new Congress (emphasis added): 

“The people’s priorities will be our priorities. The people’s agenda will be our agenda… While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it is the president who sets the agenda for our government. The American people have sent an unmistakable message to him tonight, and that message is: ‘change course.’”

Boehners speech echoed three key rhetorical elements of the campaign season:

Obama + Reid + Pelosi = Government = Control = Culpability for the people’s pain

The problem is that Boehner and a Republican-led Congress now share a spot in the crosshairs of the people’s pain. So, in a clever rhetorical twist, Boehner accepted control on behalf of his party, while removing both from any responsibility for future negative fallout. By equating his party’s agenda with the people’s agenda, Boehner rewrote the above equation to read:

Obama + Reid + Pelosi = Government = Control = Culpability for the people’s, Boehner’s and Republican’s pain

By framing themselves as humble civil servants , Republican’s retain their underdog role, and can thus continue the narrative of the campaign trail. They’ve set the post-election stage to blame Obama for any unpopular political developments during their time in Congress. More to the point, their narrative provides needed air cover when forwarding an agenda that doesn’t necessarily have the people’s best interests in mind.

Some further predictions: Expect Obama to be branded for opposing permanently extended tax cuts for the rich (e.g. Obama wants to raise the people’s taxes), for dismantling financial regulation and reform (Obama’s against jobs for the people) and for rescinding healthcare reform (Insurance companies are defenders of the people’s liberty). Expect Obama to be branded as uncompromising in the face of an uncompromising Congressional majority.

To be clear, I don’t view Obama as a victim here – unless he’s the victim of his own inaction. Unless Obama and the Democrats rev up their counterspin – or, even better, their proactive spin machine, there’s no guarantee that negative voter reaction will end up on the Right’s doorstep during the next two elections – even if the Right is entirely to blame.

Friday Link Love

An accelerating meme that you’ll only find on the intertoobz: The Left Right Paradigm is Over: It’s You vs. Corporations (The Big Picture)

 A presidential power grab that even shocked executive-power fetishist David Rivkin: Obama argues his assassination program is a “state secret.” (Salon.com)

 You Are How You’re Murdered. (The Society Pages)

Beginning the Last Dance

So, I took a year off from blogging: Partly due to an overabundance of paid work, partly due to a crisis of conscience. I suddenly discovered that my initial blog bored the snot out of me. I was shilling my chops as a writer, not challenging them. I was trying to impress you all with how knowledgeable I was… And, for that, I apologize. I just needed the work really badly, and I read somewhere that demonstrating expertise (e.g. distributing free advice) was a great way to build credibility. But, given the thundering stampede of thought leaders out there, I figured it was time to cull the herd – beginning with me.

Not that I’m back-pedaling on the quality or value of my professional-grade copywriting services, or my particular expertise. Well-written content influences attitudes and decisions far more than many people realize. I just found it boring to write about professional copywriting.

Writing about Spin is a different matter – particularly the kind of Big Tent spin you’ll find on any cable news channel, where people bleed tears, sacrifice orphans and set themselves on fire just to move the needle on their agenda. If you want entertainment, watch Fox News. If you want reasoned discourse, watch Law and Order.

As Hunter S. Thompson famously wrote: “Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism – which is true, but they miss the point.” The point is that giving “scum and rotten” a legitimate voice and equal time is neither objective nor balanced reporting. It’s infotainment, and it was never limited to cable news. A couple of years ago, there was a front page story on the New York Times about Creationists’ “politically savvy challenge to evolution as the bedrock of modern biology.” As Charles P. Pierce retorted recently in Esquire magazine, this supposedly balanced reportage “is as self-evidently ridiculous as an agriculturally savvy challenge to Euclidean geometry would be.”

And what of it? News sources are just like any business. They have a brand product for sale. It’s all hair gel, TV personalities and Kool Aid. I may loathe the freak show that news content has become, but I just can’t get enough of it. The rhetorical stunts are like something out of Cirque du Soleil, or Hooper. The possibility for carnage are never far away. And details like facts and the Truth are only a distraction, as evidenced by the self-marginalization of the Liberal elite, which insists that the Truth is a dog whistle only it can hear. Talk about missing the point.

There’s this old joke about two guys who encounter a bear. When one bolts, the other says, “Don’t you know you can’t outrun a bear?”

“I don’t have to outrun the bear,” the other replies. “I just have to outrun you.”

See? That’s the populist Right – the guy who bolts. He understands he needn’t win the debate. He just needs to NOT LOSE. These folks know infotainment. They know how to steal the cultural conversation and run with it. Every time I think reality is going to catch up with them, they change the rules. There is no spoon. I hate them for that, and I loathe them. But I can’t ignore them. They’re just that good.

As Paul Simon sang, “That’s worth some money.” I can let them make me bitter, or I can let them make me better, which is by way of announcing a new direction for my blog, wherein we freely adopt a new view of the cultural conversation as bloodsport.

Let’s stop quibbling about whose agenda is right and whose is crazy, and let’s just enjoy the tactics, the maneuvering, the feints, and the crippling smack-downs. Let’s quit taking sides, and just look at what rhetoric works best, no matter how crazy it is, by examining its impact on our own lizard brains. We may all be witnessing the end of our culture, but that’s no reason not to have a little fun. As Henry Miller, our national prophet and the author of Tropic of Cancer, said: “Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and libraries and museums! Let the dead eat the dead. Let us living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!”

A Nation of Ideas

From the New York Times this morning comes this non-analytical, but interesting comparison of word frequency in the lexicon of Barack Obama and George Bush.

By contrast, “State of the Union” ranked third among Google’s most popular search terms this morning, right after “what is an iPad” and “toyota recall.

Source:
The Words They Used
The New York Times
January 28, 2010
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/01/28/us/politics/28obama_graphic/popup.jpg

Five Benefits Your Ghost-Blogger Can Never Deliver

In nature there is no right or wrong, only consequences.

Ghost-blogging isn’t misrepresentation. It’s a missed opportunity.

Even worse, if your business blog is ghost-written, it’s a missed opportunity in which you’re investing precious marketing dollars.

The mistake arises when business leaders assume blogging is the latest way to make marketing communications appear chic and up-to-date. As a result, they approach their blog like every other marketing tool in their arsenal. It becomes another receptacle for promoting the corporate message, only with the addition of a “personal face” slapped over it.

A ghost-written corporate blog often reflects the same me-too marketing attitude that leads to cookie-cutter web copy, ersatz press releases and boilerplate brochures. The rush to join the blogosphere translates to the blog’s regular content: Rather than take time to develop a personal voice and perspective, executives hire someone else to crank out content under the assumption that high-frequency posts indicates an abundance of wisdom and authority.

Social media advocates have spent a lot of pixels to call ghost-blogging inauthentic, and even unethical. These charges seem a bit dramatic to me. It’s enough to call ghost-blogging ineffective.

First, I tend to doubt that most ghost-written executive blogs attract a loyal following or deeply engaged readers. Even if they do, the most important relationship on a blog is between readers and content, not readers and the by-lined author. That’s why people say content, not authenticity, is king.

So, I won’t go so far as to say ghost-blogging never works. Some executives work closely with their ghosts to develop a strategic and uniform message for their business blog. They remain invested in the content, and take ownership for it.

The problem is that there are far more effective ways to communicate the corporate message, especially with the help of ghost-writing talent.

Regardless of how it’s applied, blogging is by nature a personality-driven medium. Yes, content matters. But take a look at which blogs influence a large, loyal and chatty following. The majority of them aren’t ghost-written company mouthpieces. Rather, they showcase the immediate and personal perspective of a charismatic blogger, and his or her following.

So, the problem isn’t blogging, or ghost-writers. It’s combining the two, which puts them at odds with each other. It’s a misapplication of marketing tactics, not strategy.

If your goal is to increase the visibility, credibility and authority of your business or its executives, and you wish to leverage the talents and logistical benefits of a ghost-writer, then the most appropriate marketing medium is an emailed newsletter.

Regularly emailed e-newsletters allow all of the logistical benefits of a ghost-writer, and carry far more value as a marketing tool than a blog. Among the benefits:

1. A more realistic schedule: Whether published weekly, monthly or quarterly, newsletters are simpler to plan and coordinate with a ghost-writer. Also, their regularity promotes more focused communications: Most businesses can find one or two items of genuine interest to report every month.
2. More active outreach: Rather than driving people to your blog, a newsletter brings content to the people.
3. A well-defined funnel: Since most newsletters require registration, they can more clearly define the scope and characteristics of people at the top of your marketing-to-sales funnel.
4. Better tracking: Blog analytics tell you a lot about your audience, but a hyperlink-rich newsletter can tell you more about what motivates individual audience members to take action.
5. No comment: The authenticity issue with ghost-bloggers congeals in a blog’s comments section, where readers can engage with the perceived author. No matter how talented your ghost-writer, he or she is poorly qualified to interact on your behalf. A newsletter not only eliminates this issue, it relegates any unwelcome reader perspective to the privacy of an email response.

Bottom line: Ghost-blogging is a symptom, not a disease. The disease is ineffective application of sound marketing tools. Fortunately, there’s a cure: Put your ghost-writer to work where he or she won’t create unnecessary and often counterproductive layers between you and the audience.

When Should Content Be Free?

Photo credit: kalandrakas

I’m not asking. Ann Handley of MarketingProfs is. Specifically, she raised the question last week on OPEN Forum, an oddly titled site since it’s only open to American Express cardholders. Even so, I recommend reading Ann’s post here. You’re welcome to offer your own thoughts below (credit cards welcome, but not required).

To summarize, Ann correctly posits two approaches to distributing your eBooks and white papers:

1. You can require interested readers to register their name, email and contact information before they access your content, or
2. You can offer content free for download, thereby encouraging readers to share it and hopefully turn it viral, thereby generating maximum exposure for minimum expense

I can see how the latter possibility would appeal to marketing types. Who would turn down bragging rights for an article that’s become the darling of the chatocracy? As Ann explains, marketers are disinclined to hide content behind a registration wall because “the real goal is visibility with your audience.”

I respectfully disagree. Visibility is the mission of advertising, not marketing. Admittedly there’s some overlap here. But the desire for content to “go viral” falls squarely on advertising’s side of the advertising-marketing Venn diagram.

Content goes viral because it promotes a shared emotion, experience or attitude, which is fundamentally what advertising aims to achieve for a brand. In a sense, the role of advertising is to feed marketing, and the role of marketing is to feed sales.

So, is content more valuable when it’s behind a registration wall, or when it’s set free to propagate on the internet.

I’m wondering why this is an either/or question. In researching this post, I referred to blog posts and slideshares of Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale. Interestingly, I found he cited two almost identical statistics that seem to contradict one another.

In the first, Brian wrote on his blog that registered content could drive away 75 to 85 percent of potential leads.

In the second, he notes in a slideshare that 80% of marketing expenditures on lead generation are lost, ignored or discarded by sales. Among the top reasons, he cites, are that leads aren’t properly qualified or prioritized.

So, maybe the question should be how to qualify leads without scaring away prospective customers.

The answer isn’t a matter of which approach is better, but rather which approach applies, and when.

It’s unwise, for instance, to demand registration for content early in the buying process when customers are beginning to gather information about you and your competitors. High-level perspective, such as industry articles, buyer’s guides, web copy and case studies help customers place your value against a larger context.

This content should be offered gratis.

Make it easy for prospects to get educated about what questions to ask. You build trust by making it safe to learn those questions from you.

As customers move further along the buying process, their questions become more knowledgeable and specific. They’re better equipped to recognize content of value to their research. If you’ve already built trust by helping them learn what questions to ask, they’re more likely to submit a name or an email in exchange for more specialized content.

Carroll makes an excellent point about minimizing prospects’ commitment during the process. He recommends using a series of “micro-conversions:” requiring an email for a white paper here, a job title for an article there. Eventually, by enabling prospects to educate themselves, you’re also compiling a profile to help guide sales to close the deal.

Content Is People

Photo Credit: sndrv

Most direct mail marketers regard a letter with a 3% response rate to be a smashing success. When you’re targeting a consumer market numbering in the millions, a 3% success rate actually means something.

But B2B is a different kettle of fish. Its market, by definition, is on a smaller scale. Sure, direct mail – or marketing copy of any kind – can still generate new leads, expand the client-base and soften up the marketplace before the troops land. But most B2B revenue models need skin in the game in order to compete.

In B2B, the best marketing content is people – sales people… Whether on the phone or on the convention floor, they’re the folks who talk to the customer. And, if they’re any good, they’re probably listening as well. If anyone knows what the customer is asking, or buying, or reading, it’s the sales staff.

That’s why marketing strategy should follow sales strategy, and why marketing copy should do likewise.
Sales staff are like actors hired to tell your company’s story. They’re out there on that stage every day performing variations on a theme. As the guy hired to write the script, I generally request some time with the actors.

Unlike marketing and executive folks, sales staff are only one degree removed from my copy’s target audience. In some respects, they make an even better focus group than the customers. Their jobs depend on knowing what plays well with the audience, and what lands with a thud.

Go figure, but that’s useful information to me.

Knowing the actors doesn’t hurt either, particularly if I’m writing sales materials like brochures and PowerPoint presentations. Some sales staff prefer to do the talking, and use printed content either for emphasis or as a leave-behind for the prospect.

Knowing up front how they use my business copy allows me to draft an appropriate level of detail. Clearly, illustrative material needn’t be as granular, whereas a leave-behind had better anticipate and answer any customer questions, and include a clear call to action.

The first rule of B2B copy isn’t to sell, sell, sell. It’s to do no harm to the people who use it. It shouldn’t be overly clever, or promotional or expository. It shouldn’t upstage the salesperson, or impose textbook marketing rules that fall apart after first contact with the customer.

Like any well-designed tool, business copy should integrate so seamlessly into the business mission that the two are virtually indistinguishable.

Specialist or Generalist? How to Choose the Freelance Path for You.

Photo Credit: piccadillywilson

Is it better to be a copywriting specialist or a generalist? Should you do one thing very well, or be a jack of all trades?

Today’s the day that all-around copywriter Peter Bowerman, and white paper expert Michael Stelzner will go head to head on that topic in an online debate.

I predict the debate will conclude that choosing to be a generalist or a specialist is a matter of personal preference. (If the conversation continues beyond that, I predict it’ll focus on how to pitch the path you’ve chosen.)

So, let me begin where I think today’s debate will end:

You choose your path, and then your marketing strategy, not the other way around.

Archilochus, the old soldier poet from ancient Greece once said:

“The fox knows many things, and the hedgehog knows one big thing. But they both gotta hustle if they expect breakfast.”

Okay, I may be paraphrasing that a bit. The point is you can choose to be a fox or a hedgehog, but without clients you can’t eat. Either way you go, you need to communicate what value your services return.

The hedgehog
A specialty makes it easier for prospective clients to find you – in fact, they’re already looking for you. They’ve already decided they need to outsource a white paper or case study. Or they need someone intimately familiar with their particular industry or market.

They’re not quibbling over whether they should hire a writer. They’re actively searching for the best writer in the niche.

The trade-off for specialists is often geographic. Although their target market is actively searching for their services, it’s a smaller market than what generalists enjoy. So, specialists need to build visibility and credibility where their market congregates.

Luckily every market congregates on the internet. So, pitching a specialty through SEO tools is an easy approach. Launching a blog is a little more challenging, but it builds credibility. Specialists reaching for the brass ring will find the time do speaking engagements, or publish a book on their area of expertise.

The fox
Generalists have to hustle more, a lot more. They can solve a wider range of copy-related problems, but fewer businesses are looking for them. So, raising visibility isn’t as critically important as building trust.

The hard reality generalists need to accept is the market doesn’t particularly value how well they write. Unemployed staff writers and journalists are flooding the freelance market. Meanwhile, websites like oDesk.com and Elance.com are awarding assignments to low bidding writers, and writing shops in Asia are underpricing even them.

The market perceives generalists as a commodity, and prices them accordingly.

So, generalists who hope to survive and thrive are wiser to avoid piecework, and instead build and maintain strong relationships. Finding sustainable work as a generalist is an inside job, gained by referrals from past clients and through word of mouth.

The majority of businesses out there don’t intuit the value of good copy, much less the value of outsourcing it to a freelancer. So generalists need to get close to their prospects and listen. They need to be able to identify business problems that good content can solve. They need to have a realistic idea of how better copy can solve it. And they must be able to make a compelling case for the value of their solution.

Freelancing is a business, and keeping a business is hard enough in a good economy. Whether you choose to be a fox or a hedgehog matters less than how intelligently you market what you do, and how passionate you are about what you write.

Your Story is More Interesting than You

Photo Credit: A Journey Round My Skull

Echoing A Rebel Without a Cause, I titled my high school journal A Hero Without a Plot. Dreaming of the glamorous lifestyle of a writer, I figured all I need do was live an interesting enough life, and my memoirs would practically write themselves and fly off bookstore shelves.

At fourteen, success was about being me – or rather an idealized version of me. All I had to do, I reasoned, was realize that vision of myself, and John Q. Public would climb over his grandmother just to hear me lay down the Wisdom.

My mistake was assuming I was more interesting than my story.

Narrative always trumps character, even for sensations like Susan Boyle and Captain “Sully” Sullenberger. We remember the act long after the actor.

Ever hear of Aron Ralston? No?

Well, how about  the hiker who spent five days with his arm trapped under a boulder before severing it with a knife, rappelling down a 65-foot cliff and hiking eight miles back to civilization? That ring a bell?

See what I mean? Chances are the words “stained blue dress” resonate more strongly with you than the name Kenneth Starr.

Remove our narrative, and we become invisible. Stories are what distinguish us.

The same applies to products and services. Like most characters, your product is just another face in the crowd. It remains indistinguishable without a story, and that story is the unique or superior value you provide.

Marketing and public relations approach narrative overtly, by telling a story in press releases, case studies, trade articles and web copy. That doesn’t mean they represent an automatic slam dunk. If anything, these long-form formats demand more compelling use of narrative to grab and hold readers.

Advertising and branding approach narrative more obliquely, allowing the unique value to take shape in a customer’s imagination. Advertising for Coca Cola, Apple or Carnival Cruise Lines, for example, invoke what the customer might experience, rather than the specific features their products deliver.

You may have spectacular products or services. But you have human customers, and they’re hard-wired for narrative.

I plan on exploring this topic in more detail. So, feel free to share how narrative has helped you or your clients craft more effective messages.

Friday Link Love

Photo credit: dawnzy58

Leading this week’s Link Love is blogger Dave Fleet’s open invitation to lurkers – i.e. readers who frequent a blog, but rarely ever leave a comment – to come out of the shadows and say “hello.”

Since Dave frequently writes about ghost-blogging, I’ve frequently read his posts – often long after comments are timely. Even so, that qualifies me as a lurker. So, I gave him a shout out in the comments section.

Now I’m inviting you to do the same. Any regular readers out there? If not, that’s cool too. I won’t feel as obligated to stick so doggedly to my weekly blogging schedule.

Speaking of ghost-bloggers, Mark Schaefer tackles the issue again, only this time he proposes some ground rules. If you must hire a ghost-blogger, Mark suggests, at least try to do it legitimately.

I respect his attempt, but I felt it was an academic argument. The underlying problem with ghost-blogging is a misapplication of strategy, not tactics. It isn’t merely unethical marketing, it’s ineffective marketing. Have your ghostwriter draft you a nice e-newsletter instead.

Interestingly, Mark’s next post introduces what could be the blogosphere’s first Authenticity Policy, which he and his blog’s readers helped inspire. Drafted and posted by Anne Giles Clelland, President and CEO of Handshake Media in Blacksburg, VA, the policy is posted here.

There’s social media thought leaders, and then there’s just social media leaders. Full props to Ms. Clelland.

How to spot a writer
From authentic bloggers, we go to authentic marketing writers. A post by John White on the aptly named How to Hire a Writer blog, recommends you ask prospective freelancers about their method.

Are you a writer? Then you have a method, right? …RIGHT?

If not, you’d better go commit John’s post to memory, because the toothpaste is out of the tube now.

Last but not least, Corey Freeman, teenage wunderkind gives props on her Writer7 blog to another wunderkind, blogger Alex Fraiser, who with his wunderkind co-blogger, Seth, publishes Blogussion.

The post on Blogussion that caught Corey’s attention, and that I’ve since bookmarked, offers a list of 18 articles to help you write better blog headlines. That sort of exhaustive resource could only appeal to a generation that doesn’t yet feel time is their enemy

Seriously though, I’m digging this new crew of bloggers, and what they’re bringing…