Information without voice is like content without design. Unless someone is dying to read about what you are writing, you have to grab them with your voice/personality. And because many of the articles in the content marketing space are saying very similar things, making your voice (and the voice you give your clients) stand out is one of your biggest tools. Use it.

The way I see it, there are five flavors of writers in today’s content marketing world.

Dry Toast – All information, no voice
This corporate collateral is typically produced by smart people who know all the right marketing formulas and can juggle terms like the “integration of marketing channels” with “streamlining the optimization of sales collateral.” But when you’re done reading this company’s blog/newsletter or collateral, all that’s left is a vague memory of a PowerPoint slide gone boringly wrong.

Solution: Don’t be afraid to lightly ruffle some feathers with your voice. Your view/opinion is never going to appeal to everyone, but if you’re doing things right, you aren’t marketing yourself to everyone, anyway. Also, if you do an honest assessment of your collateral and realize you’re in the Dry Toast category, ask yourself if you’re still fishing for your core competency or audience.

Extra Sauce – All voice, no information
“Then, after I attended the Shiny Happy Convention hosted by Guy I Knowsowell, I parlayed over to the Social Media event of the year. If you weren’t there, you really missed out.” Really, I missed out. Because you reporting on your blog about the event you attended shouldn’t have been all about you. You know.

Solution: Talk to us, not at us. Keep your reader at the forefront of all your communications. If you’re going to write about every industry conference you attend, give us information we can use (not a blow by blow of your itinerary and all the cool people you saw).

French Cuisine #1 – Great design, little to no content
Flash is for advertising firms and art school. Everyone else put it away, now.

Solution: I realize it looks cool, but lets just face facts: Flash loads slow (always), the motion graphics detract from the content, it’s difficult to track (SEO), and sometimes customers and prospective customers already know what information they want and don’t have time for your two-minute splashy intro or your nav-bar to reload. Great design should breathe life into editorial content, not take away from it.

French Cuisine #2 – Great design, little to no content
Without great design, readers may come to your site, get what they want, and get out. Content needs great design or no one will ever notice it. Or if readers do notice it, they most likely won’t navigate beyond what they came to read. Case in point—I am a basketball nerd. Every morning I read Hoopshype.com and ESPN.com. Even though I have been reading Hoopshype for years, I couldn’t tell you who advertises on the site, the names of the regularly appearing columns, or anything about who runs the site—I’m in and I’m out. With ESPN, I read the NBA highlights, view an ad that catches my eye, and before I know it, I’m reading a feature about some champion ping-pong player from Guam. The content may have drawn me there, but it was great navigation and design that made it easy for me to stay.

Solution: Make sure your website looks as good as it reads. The truth is, Hoopshype has far better content than ESPN when it comes to basketball. But while the content delivers, the design doesn’t court me to stay.

Meat and Potatoes – No opinion information
Content that tells people what they already know gives readers the impression that the product is available elsewhere—and it doesn’t matter if they use company A or B. Telling me what you sell, what you charge and that you are the best is the same thing everyone else is doing. And in a contest of best vs. best I’m heading for the hills and looking for offbeat and good (at least they are saying something different and I will stand out amongst the crowd of same-osity). Remember, your clients can blend in safely amongst their peers all by themselves (sans your retainer fee).

Solution: Every brand doesn’t need to be as “voicey” as Jet Blue. But every brand does need a personality. Customers should be able to view an ad or read a piece of collateral and know who it’s from without even having to look at your logo.

Smorgasbord – A little of everything
Ever land on a website and wish you had a digital weed-whacker to knock back all the Social Media/Web 2.0 widgets that clutter the site? Welcome to the work of the “smorgasbord content marketer.” That old “throw everything against the wall and see what sticks” mentality unbelievably employs people for years, but flies in the face of logic when you are in the business of measuring who read what, when, why and how it may lead to a sale.

Solution: Take a look at your site and then your competitors’ sites. Do those
widgets add value? Do they differentiate you from the pack? Or does your site look like a 2008 Jaguar littered with bumper stickers?

When content is your business, story angles are your end caps, voice becomes your packaging and the hunt is always on for more product. Today my inbox got a pleasant surprise with the beta launch of First30days.com. First30Days Founder, Ariane De Bonvoisin, sets out to prove that targeted, free and quality content (sans a sales pitch) does have a place in the market.

The concept of First30days is simple.

“Whether you’re starting a new job, getting married, switching to the Mac or have decided to live a green lifestyle, you’ll find the help you need at First30Days. Expert Advice. Helpful Tips. Q&A. Inspirational Stories. Community. And a whole lot more!”

Despite the fact that Ariane just used up 50% of her annual exclamation point allotment, my recent switch to Mac had me immediately hooked—moving emails from PC to Mac has proven to be on par with a string and doorknob tooth-yanking, and I have yet to figure out how to save a file directly to anywhere but the desktop. I’m a prime target for this service.

Some may argue that First30days.com is a rehash of About.com, but by narrowing the subject focus and having the content delivered passively versus actively, the perception is very “Mr. Miyagi” (master this lesson and I will deliver you another). I feel like First30days.com is a “they” and not an “it” and I perceive them to be experts. About.com has historically told me what I already knew or told me in a way that felt like they were talking to a watered-down me.

Do I have concerns that my next 29 days of emails will be full of trite advice that I could have figured out on my own? Sure do. But something tells me First30days.com is onto something. Content doesn’t have to be corporate, overly intellectual or entirely state of the art, but it does have to make the reader feel like they are in a special club and that the information is just for them.

So your CEO approved the budget for you to launch a new content marketing plan. Whether you’ll be hiring an in-house editor, or working with a content management company, there’s a lot to do between now and three months of content from now. Here are 5 tips on how to get organized, because the sooner you get your editor up and running, the sooner you can get back to the 4,000 other marketing projects on your docket.

1-Find your voice and stick with it.

Chances are, your company already has a corporate voice, whether it’s whimsical/friendly (Jet Blue), sharp/modern (Glaceau) or serious/informative (Honeywell). Now it’s your job to ensure all of your collateral maintains that voice, from the corporate blog to the case studies to the cocktail napkins at your next big event. Nothing says “what they heck are they talking about?” like a funny newsletter linked to a dry corporate website.

2-Outline your content plan.

Will you publish four new articles on your site each month, or ten? Will your customers receive four magazines a year, or six? Does your email newsletter go out every Tuesday, or every other Thursday? We’re big on consistency, and so are consumers, so create some rules and stick to them. Even better, make sure everyone in the company receives a copy, so the next time your sales director wants to blast your entire email list about an upcoming trade show, you can hand him a copy of the content calendar and let him know the date of your next opening.

3-Decide who makes the decisions.

Now that you have your content plan, it’s time to start filling in the gaps. At first, everyone from biz dev to IT will want to have a say in the master story list. But by your second month, you may be pulling teeth to get any responses to the next batch of story ideas. Determine up front who needs to give story ideas the green light, and who needs to sign off on final content before you press “publish.”

4-Create or update your style guide.

If you do have one, update it. If you don’t have one, gather those with buy-in and jot down some notes. Are you going to use serial commas? Is the tone of the interviews going to be more conversational or corporate? Will you follow Chicago or AP style, or some combination of the two? Do web addresses get www or http://? What gets bolded and what gets italicized? And what is the naming convention for your various products and services? These may seem like nitpicky things, but when you are in the midst of landing a national account or being acquired, you don’t want to look like an amateur.

5-Build a process for the handling the nitty-gritty.

When it comes to figuring out which file is the one the proofreader approved vs. the one management signed off on, we can tell you that email doesn’t work—which is why we use the online project management system Basecamp. MS Word’s track changes feature is great, but only if you have a system for gathering everyone’s edits on one doc. During important meetings, use a digital recorder to capture all the details, and work with a transcription service to convert it to text. It’ll cost you about a dollar a minute, but will pick up all those little details various members of the team may have missed or forgotten. Create a process and a chain of command and give your editor or writers feedback all at once. Nothing frustrates them more (and risks missing deadlines) than edits from the same organization that go against one another.

BONUS. And finally, our own pet peeve: Just say no to distracting widgets.

Twitter, Utterz and Sphere—the list goes on and on. Put the clamp down on the umpteen Web 2.0 widgets cluttering your site (or at least take them off your homepage and put them onto your blog—tastefully). When widgets are scattered across your homepage, it looks much too “flavor-of-the-day” and distracts from the overall design of your site. Rarely have we seen it done well (although Liveperson might be an exception). Before downloading the latest “nizzer-keen” content generating widget, ask yourself how its features align with your original content plan and how much control you have over the content it pulls in—you may not want that news about Britney’s latest breakdown on your corporate homepage.

”Every contact with your customer is an opportunity to win or lose,” the ComCenter’s website reads. Based on the time this full-service shared office suite put into their collateral, they aren’t going to win too many.

A few simple pointers for businesses who are concerned about first impressions: Web, wall-art and otherwise.

1.— Website Design

Owner Angle:
Why should I pay $2,000 or $10,000 on a website when I can use a template from an online site and pay $79? My business doesn’t live or die on the web and I am not selling anything. It’s just a big digital business card.

Customer Angle:
A templated website tells customers your business isn’t any different from your competitors. The people who are most likely to research your company are already on the web and (see blog entry) and can spot a template from a million miles away. Sal’s Pizzeria in Brooklyn can’t keep a slice on the pizza tray despite having a take it or leave it attitude. An office building with a 50% vacancy rate probably can’t pull that off.

Take Away:
Don’ t use a template for your website—anyone with a modicum of taste can tell it is a template.

2a.— Bad Taste

Owner Angle:
Art in the lobby gives a sense of professionalism. But real art in the lobby is an investment I’m not willing to make.

Customer Angle:
Fair enough. Certainly, customers don’t expect Picassos to be hanging in the foyer, but there are corporate art firms for a reason. They know what colors, shapes and images work best in corporate settings—and that ten pieces of mismatched “art” on a single wall don’t add up to a peaceful work environment. They also know that chains hanging from the drop ceiling aren’t the best way to hang said “art.”

Take Away:
Hire a professional to select your art. Even those of us who have great taste realize our tastes aren’t everyone else’s taste. And remember that a blank wall has its place, too.

2b. — Bad Artists

Owner Angle:
An on-staff artist could generate some cache. Perhaps we cut him a break on rent, and he cuts us a deal on corporate art.

Customer Angle:
If I don’t smell fresh paint at the foot of the “artist’s” door, something’s fishy; and if I do smell paint when you are showing me a space across the hall, please don’t position it to me as a bonus that I am going to be close to the in-house talent.

Take Away:
Don’t hire an “on-staff artist” for your office building unless you have the cash to hire someone with a brand name or an amazing body of work.

2c. — Bad Art

Owner Angle:
Hey, I’m never here. Who cares what’s on the walls?

Customer Angle:
Good corporate art shouldn’t stand out. It should blend in and do all it can to not feel like a local group art show.

Take Away:
Don’t hire an artist whose art consists of digital prints on canvas with gesso smeared on them to look like brush strokes. This would be like piping Muzak through your office and saying that you had a composer hidden in a broom closet. Don’t do that, either.

3. — Content

Owner Angle:
Somebody internal can write all the copy. How hard could it be? Everyone has Word and spell-check on their computers. It’s just a brochure and some web copy.

Customer Angle:
The reason I am interested in your service is the appearance of professionalism. Why would I want you to answer the phone for me if your collateral is misleading, sloppy and downright incorrect?

Take Away:
Remove exclamation points from your toolset. Spend more time crafting your sentences and less time thinking that five of these!!!!! is going to hammer home your point. While you’re at it, don’ t use semi-colons. Try an em-dash instead. Finally, Don’t Capitalize words for no Reason just to make an Emphasis. OK? Professionalism has no boundaries and you never know what is going to turn off a potential customer. “Save thousands for a better purpose!” HUH?

4. — Construction

Owner Angle:
Business is business and the rent has to get paid.

Customer Angle:
Why would I want to move next door to a space that is going to have major renovation take place? The whole point for moving into your office suite is to enjoy a professional environment and not worry about interruptions during conference calls. A Sawzall buzzing away next door for three weeks kind of defeats the purpose.

Take Away:
Either offer your prospective tenants a break on rent through the construction phase or don’t rent the spaces out until the construction is complete.

5. — Blog to Nowhere

Owner Angle:
I have no idea what a blog is supposed to be used for, but can we put an advertisement on it?

Customer Angle:
When a customer visits a blog that is all marketing speak and sales pitch, they will most likely close the window and never visit again. A blog is for the customer to learn about you and your expertise or experience in the industry. If all you are going to give the customer is bluster, you may as well put pop-up ads on your site. “You’re the 1 millionth visitor – Click Here>” and revert to phishing scams.

Take Away:
New tools like blogs need to be implemented with a strategy. Simply tossing a blog button on your website doesn’t mean you have a blog. Also, blogs are not for hyping your services and acting as a storage space for your most recent ads.

6 — Overall Message

Owner Angle:
Rent out the units for as much money as I can. That’s my strategy, message and goal.

Customer Angle:
The concept of a ComCenter sounds great. Flexible terms, professional services and a low cost. The overall voice of the ComCenter, from website, to email, to in-person was abysmal. If you are going to deliver an all-in-one sales pitch, don’t tell customers that the lobbies, bathrooms and hallways are available to them at no additional cost. That’s your sales pitch? That’s what differentiates you from your competitors—free hallways?

The all-in-one aspect of the ComCenter feels like a nickel and dime outfit. The furniture that was advertised as included in the rent turned out to be an extra $140 a month, while faxes and printed pages were charged by the page. Internet access was an extra + $90, and the list went on and on. They were, however, going to give me a free email account, a perk that was printed bold red to let me know how important it was.

Take Away:

You are your message: In print, online and in-person.
Your customer transmits and repeats your message: In print, online and in-person, over and over and over.

Here’s an example of how to do the virtual office setup correctly: New York’s community workplace—In Good Company

Behavioral Insider this month reports on where surfers are spending their time. “The disconnect is that consumers spend only about 15% of their time actually searching, and the other 85% of the time surfing or in email,” says Brett Brewer from AdKnowledge.

Last week, Eat Media VP Ian Alexander documented his surfing habits and found out he trusts who he knows and wants to know what they know.

7:30am

The Social Network
-Read email from Facebook, click to Facebook.
-2 friend requests–approve the friends.
-There are no ads on Facebook (which I like).

The General Content
-Surf direct to CNN.
-Browse the content. Get my daily world news fix.
-An advertisement for Lifelock catches my eye.
-Surf to Lifelock.

Relevant Content/Relevant Advertising
-Lifelock is an interesting site promising to secure my identity against hackers and identity thieves. I’m not in the market for it, but I’ll remember it.

The Content Connection
-Surf back to CNN and click on a story about bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed last August. (My partner attended a client conference nearby just few days before the bridge collapsed.

The Coterie
-Read email from Junta42.
-The interesting headlines on Joe’s newsletter always get me to bite.
-Click on Junta blog link–great content as always.
-Joe’s blog gets me thinking of other folks in the industry I like to check in on.

-I surf directly to Webinknow.
-Webinknow, David Meerman Scott’s blog, is edgy and knowledgeable. A great resource.

-Surf directly to Web-strategist, Jeremiah Owyang’s blog. The web-strategist is slanted more towards social networking and sharing information. I always learn something here.

-Surf directly to Church of the Customer.
-Ben McConell and Jackie Huba’s blog is updated frequently and full of great industry insight.

The Customer (Dis)Service
-Read email from hosting provider (about a complaint I lodged).
-Surf to hosting provider to look for another contact address (they only have a form).
-Surf Google and start searching for a new hosting provider.
-Write down a few hosting providers to research later.
-Read email from a Local Professional Group I am a member of. The newsletter is poorly designed, has pixilated images, and no unsubscribe. Very unprofessional.
-Send them an email to point out these problems.

The Content Connection
-Read email from LinkedIn.
-Click on advertisement for Booksurge.com (they want my email before they tell me what they do; I click away from the site). A second check today shows a new homepage. Booksurge is owned by Amazon who also owns Alexa.
-Surf directly to Alexa. I want to know how many sites an average individual looks at per day. They don’t have the information on their site. I email them.

The Content Connection
-Read email from Biz Report.
-Surf to the site. Content is very report-centric, new apps, studies, etc.
-I follow a link to a free whitepaper on Social Marketing, they want my name, address and answers to a few questions before I get to see the whitepaper. In a few seconds I am reading the whitepaper. It is a tad pedestrian but well designed. This proves why I don’t normally like squeeze marketing ploys—the payoff is rarely worth my email address.

The Social Network
-Read email blast from a friend’s little brother’s band.
-Surf to their MySpace page.
-Surf to Google, search for “We the Kings.”
-Select YouTube link, which features over 30 videos of the band (the most viewed video had over 700,000 hits). If you think the kids are on to something, you are correct. If you think this social networking is a fad, chew on this. The lead songwriter of We The Kings just got a big check and procured the majority of his fans online. Thanks to YouTube, MySpace and exposure on other social networking sites, you can now hear their songs on the television show One Tree Hill. Talent + web presence and content marketing = success.

8:03am

Morning Surfing Summary
-Email is a launch pad for my web surfing.
-I go back to sites with content that interests or informs me.
-I am apt to follow links off sites that have content which interests or informs me.
-Bad customer service (via email) leads to lack of confidence.
-Your customers aren’t randomly searching for you.
-Getting your customers to trust you and your content is key.
-Social Network sites generate buzz, create business and make 24-year-olds rich.

After the wheel caught on and people realized they could get where they were going in a tenth of the time, they didn’t wake up and say, “Nahhh, let’s go back to walking.” The same can be said about content marketing.

Five years ago, a small number of people would have Googled your company before doing business with you. Today, anyone interested in your products or services is most likely going to see what’s been written about you on the web before, or after visiting your site. They are no longer interested in just your pitch.

What customers are really interested in is what additional information you bring to them. They want assurance that you, as a brand, are trustworthy and knowledgeable.

They want to know:

• What your customers say about you.
• If you’re up on the latest trends and news in your field.
• Where you stack up among your peers or in your industry.

Why is this important?

Here’s the big hammer (or the new wheel): Content marketing is not a trend. In another year, customers are not going to say, “No, I didn’t Google them. Who does that anymore?”

Instead, the companies focused on content marketing will be racking up sales while you are left wondering what the heck happened. Earlier this week during an Author Teleseminars, teleseminar, Seth Godin revealed, “Content marketing is the only marketing left.”

That’s it folks, that’s your new office—when people type your company’s name into a search engine, your bottom line is dependent on what returns, period. Wake up tomorrow, take half your marketing budget and spend it amping up your product, take the other half and dive into content marketing. It’s either that, shut down Google, or find a big wad of investment capital and pray for the best.

Here’s a few upcoming events to get you up to speed on Content Marketing:

CUSTOM CONTENT CONFERENCE

When:
March 9-11, 2008

Where:
Marriott New Orleans
555 Canal Street in the French Quarter

What:
The conference will bring together marketers, advertisers, and custom publishers. Attend and network while debating and exchanging ideas for leveraging custom content in today’s digital marketplace.

Register:

Register here

ONLINE MARKETING SUMMIT 2008

When:
February 21-23

Where:
Sheraton’s Harbor Bay International Flagship hotel in San Diego

What:
Session will Feature Speakers from Microsoft, LinkedIn, Cisco,
SEMPO, and National Public Radio

Register:

Register here