content development Archives - Ketner Group Communications

The Write Way: Writing Tips to Get in the Content Development Zone

Posted on April 17, 2019 | by Greg Earl

As many will say on a Monday when they can’t seem to speak correctly and need their morning coffee, “words are hard.” However, at Ketner Group, content development is an essential part of our DNA so we welcome the challenge. We’re proud to be the stewards of the words, the prose pros and the scribe tribe. When it comes to putting our clients on the map, we use our writing skills to give them a voice and ensure their stories rise above the noise through strategic, engaging content.

Although we fancy ourselves veterans of the craft, the writing process can be tough – especially when it comes to getting started, staying focused and tackling multiple projects in a timely manner. To offer our faithful readers some writing tips for building exceptional content, I asked some of the Ketner Group team for their most effective processes.

Getting Started With a Brain Dump

Sometimes it’s easier to start with an abundance of information and work your way down. As such, when I start a writing project, I dump all of the relevant collateral and resources I can get my hands on into a document and then begin chiseling away. This helps me find the story and craft it into a cohesive and impactful piece.

After including a plethora of information into her document, Mikaela likes to create headline and subheads first (of course, they’re subject to change and most of the time they do) to get a good starting point and a way to stay on track while writing. She also will write a topic sentence for her own reference before she starts digging into the content to help stay on track and prevent getting off topic. Meanwhile, Catherine takes a creative angle to keep things fresh and engaging by starting her intros with a fun theme or quote that will guide her throughout the piece – this process can be seen in full force in her recent Forbes article.

To Outline or Not to Outline

It’s the classic question that we all face in our careers – as certain as death and taxes. Some of us like to develop a full outline initially while others just get writing. In fact, in a poll of the entire KG team, we’re split right in the middle – half of us outlining, half opting not to. Kirsty finds value in it for certain projects, especially while writing a webpage, where she decides what she wants to write in a more visual manner. Once the outline is done, she usually lets it sit for a day or two, allowing her to come back with a fresh mind, and begins fleshing out the content and editing directly from the outline.

Perfect Timing

Many might say, there’s no better time than the present…but that doesn’t always work when we have countless priorities at once. Finding the right moment to begin your writing project isn’t always easy. Some of us write better at different times of the day so it’s important to find what time is right for you. For example, if other projects are getting in the way, make sure you knock those out first and set time aside on days when you aren’t as busy such as Friday afternoons, early mornings or whatever works for you.

While some work better under a strict deadline, setting short term milestones can help others who are having trouble keeping the content development ball rolling and want to avoid being overwhelmed right before a deadline. This includes creating short to-dos with deadlines throughout the week. For example, plan for your outline to be completed by Tuesday, draft on Wednesday, send colleagues for review on Thursday and send to client by Friday.

Background Noise

For those of us who need noise in the background, the most effective way to stay focused is listening to certain types of music. Amanda will often listen to white noise, instrumental music and brown noise. I tend to listen to instrumental music like jazz (John Coltrane’s album “A Love Supreme” is a great one), foreign (groups singing in another language, such as Tinariwen and Shintaro Sakamoto) and anything with a driving rhythm or R&B (lately Solange, Nilüfer Yanya and Blood Orange but William Onyebor, Fela Kuti and Talking Heads are always classics for me).

However, my go-to and most effective song is 45:33 by LCD Soundsystem. The almost 46-minute song, commissioned by Nike for runners, keeps me focused through its ebbs and flows and acts as a timer so I know it’s time to focus for that period of time.

Other Writing Tips from the KG Team:

Eliminate distractions: Close Outlook, Slack, iMessage and put your cell phone away.
Set a timer: Crank out content for a set amount of time (perhaps 30-45 minutes). Then you can allow yourself a 10-15 minute break to check email, scroll through Twitter, grab a snack, etc. before diving back in.
Get a little help: Since sometimes we all lack self-control, I’ll occasionally use the Self Control app to blacklist distracting sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Get outside: Stuck on an idea and can’t figure it out? Step outside, go for a walk and clear your mind for a bit. Finding a friend to join also helps since there’s no process more productive than a good ol’ walk and talk.
Caffeine: As always, the java-heads out there need their coffee. Sitting down with a good cup o’ joe or tea can keep you wide awake and ready for the unpredictable journey of content development.

There’s no right or wrong when it comes to content development. In fact, the way we see it, if you’re not writing…you’re wrong! At the end of the day, becoming a great writer is all about finding out what works best for you. As such, we hope these writing tips will help you stay focused and in the zone for your next project.

Tips for Developing a Content Strategy

Posted on September 11, 2018 | by Aidan Griffin

Blogs! Social media! Whitepapers! Webinars and email newsletters! These are only some of the content marketing tactics that hold a tremendous amount of potential for getting your business the attention it needs to grow as fast as it deserves.

It can be truly dizzying for marketing teams to crank out the amount of content needed to make an impact. And unless your marketing team requires a fleet of Uber XLs to get to an office happy hour, it’s just not possible to do it all. Yes, PR firms can be terrific allies in developing and executing on your content strategy, but how should you set one up in the first place?

Brand awareness vs. lead generation

An effective content strategy serves two equally valuable and competing (yet complementary) purposes – brand awareness and lead generation – neither of which your marketing can succeed without. It’s finding out how to balance these that takes work. So, take a step back and work from the top down. Define your organization’s unique needs and goals. Ask questions like:

Do our customers know who we are?
Is our pipeline flooded or flowing at a trickle?
Does our sales team close every sale they work on or are we struggling to convert leads?
Do we have a competitor or competitors regularly winning deals over us?

Once you know where you stand, where you’re already succeeding and what gaps you need to address, you can determine the type of information your intended audience would most benefit from. Then, leverage the three overarching channels available to you – owned, earned and paid media – to get it to them.

Owned Media

Think about the advice we’d all give to a friend feeling overwhelmed by a situation, something along the lines of, “you can only control what you can control.” Although sometimes frustrating to take that advice at face value, it’s essential to get the basics right before branching out to more nuanced arenas. Unsurprisingly then, owned media should always be the first and most fundamental element of any content strategy.

Website

To that end, your focus should be on ensuring your website is the rock your content strategy can build off of. It allows you to tell visitors who you are as a company, what you stand for, what you sell and why it’s worth the investment. It has unrivaled power to tell your story how you want it told – everything you want someone to know about your company should live here. You should also have simple components like a ‘Contact Us’ page for lead generation, and any gated whitepapers, case studies, e-books, or webinars can live in perpetuity on your website to generate traffic and leads, long after you publish them. Managing a regularly updated blog is also a key part of becoming a well-rounded brand; it will serve as an outlet for the promotional and thought leadership messaging you want your customers to associate with your business.

Social Media

It’s not exactly a cutting-edge revelation, but social media channels allow you to disseminate any info you want to the people that follow you. All the content you post to your website should be shared on the social channels you run, as this drives traffic to specific landing pages and your site as a whole, further driving lead generation. Just don’t forget to share and engage with the broader community on your social media platforms, as no one likes a “me, me, me” account!

However, it’s also important to note that not every platform is perfect for every brand or audience. We’ll share another post on social media content marketing in a few weeks (and will link to it once it’s live), but we tend to be major fans of LinkedIn for our B2B retail clients, using Twitter and Facebook as complementary outlets. Based on your audience and goals, pick and choose your platforms so you don’t waste time and resources building a community that won’t drive online engagement.

Email

Often left out of the ‘thought leadership’ bucket, but rarely forgotten by traditional marketers, email can play a key role in reaching an audience of customers, prospects, partners and others who care about your company message and sign up to receive information from you. Don’t just use email to sell; use it to inform, engage and entertain whenever possible to maximize its potential and keep your readers from going for an instant ‘delete.’

Earned Media

Along with content strategy and development as a whole, earned media is the bread and butter of our PR firm, and one of the most compelling reasons to work with an agency with a long history in a given market. Earned media provides a major boost to your brand’s visibility, recognition and authority. But using content to earn media attention doesn’t end with press release pitching.

My colleague Adrienne Newcomb wrote a great blog on using bylined articles to secure thought leadership coverage in key trade publications, and we’ve found that case studies, proprietary research reports, and pitching executive commentary on developing trends (great for sharing on social too) can have a big impact on a brand’s ability to get media coverage.

Whatever content you create for your owned channels, think about how you might be able to convince someone else to use it on their own platform. Without reinventing the wheel, you’ve greatly increased the value of a given piece of content.

Paid Media

Paid media can be a terrific option to supplement your owned and earned content strategies but should rarely, if ever, be relied upon to have a strong impact before the brand has developed those initial content foundations. We recommend thinking of paid media as the final exclamation point on a well-executed organic program that helps take successes to new heights. This doesn’t mean you need to have a killer email marketing program in order to promote high-performing blog posts on LinkedIn, but it does mean you shouldn’t be investing heavily in LinkedIn posts that direct back to a useless website. Determine the gap in your growth plan, create enjoyable content people want to engage with, build an audience that cares what you have to say, and use paid to take you over the top. If your foundation is strong, the potential ROI can be huge!

Content is King When It Comes to Bylines

Posted on August 21, 2018 | by Adrienne Newcomb

It’s no secret that Ketner Group Communications takes pride in our content development skills, and when it comes to bylines, we think we shine! While our name may not be on the final product, you can always tell when content is written by someone who understands an industry vs. someone who tried to throw together an article based on their narrow view of that industry. We’re not trying to brag, but we’re often told by editors and clients alike that we “get it.”*

Despite the fact that we “get it,” bylined thought leadership content is not a familiar place for many solution providers. Oftentimes, vendors find it hard to be non-promotional or take a stance on the bigger issues affecting the industry without disparaging others, all while sticking to strict editorial guidelines. So, we’ve put together some recommendations to help solution providers wrap their heads around thought leadership and contributed content.

Focus on Thought Leadership, NOT Product Promotion

We get it – you eat, breathe and live your solution every day, and we have no doubt that you can write 800 words about its capabilities, features and benefits. There is certainly a time and a place for that. But when it comes to bylines, think outside the box and take a position on larger industry issue or trend. Prospects understand that you know your product, but they want to make sure you understand the broader industry context and all the problems and issues they face. For example, instead of writing about your shipping solution, discuss how hot issues such as new tariffs will affect the industry.

Keep Your Friends Close, But Your Frenemies Closer

Some executives think contributed content is the place to call out competitors for their failures and tell potential clients what they’re doing wrong. While that may be okay by some publications’ standards, we caution you to walk a fine line between being controversial and not offending your competitors or potential customers. After all, if you can tear down a competitor, they can do the same about you, and nobody wants the negative press! As far as potential clients go, you don’t want to risk losing a prospect because you crossed a line and slighted the wrong decision maker.

Stick to the Guidelines

Now this seems simple, but as an agency, following editorial guidelines is often where we spend a lot of time going back and forth with clients during the editing process. First and foremost, most publications provide contributors with a word count; for online articles, editors might want all of their stories to adhere to certain read time and, for print, it’s usually a simple space constraint. So, if the editor says the article needs to be 800 words or less, it needs to be 800 words or less, not 1,000 words or less. And remember how we said that bylines should focus on thought leadership, not a product promotion? This isn’t a suggestion on our part, but a requirement set out by the publications that contributed content should be vendor and product neutral. For example, if you sell printers and your article details how great printers are, even if you don’t mention your brand, it can still be considered “promotional.”

Utilize Great Writers

We all know that C-suite leaders and top executives have their plates full; the last thing they have time to do is write an 800-word article. And, to be honest, that’s probably not their cup of tea; if it was, they’d already be doing it! Instead, utilize a great writer on your team or hire a partner to help you write thought-provoking bylines that editors will publish and your target audience will read. Done right, contributed byline articles will position both the author and the company as trusted experts with the potential to help navigate the unique requirements of your business area.

*Please note that due to the promotional nature of this content, it would not be considered “vendor-neutral” by an editor. However, this is our company blog, and as we said above “there is a time and a place” to be promotional, and this is it.

Tag: content development