They'rere having trouble enlisting SMEs in creating content, or even reviewing content that the marketing team has developed. This is, I think at least partly because they aren’t approaching the issue with the SME’s interests in mind.

Here’s an expanded idea of what I suggested to this client.

Get the SME’s buy-in right from the concept stage

There are two main reasons to get the SME involved, with their support and commitment, early in the process, right from the concept stage.

One reason is that this way, the concept is likely to be closer to what the SME wants to be known for – which matches their business objectives, and they’re often the best judge of what concerns and issues potential clients are facing.

The other reason is that since they helped develop the concept, they feel more of a sense of ownership in the process and are more likely to cooperate in making the content happen (even if it’s just reviewing a draft prepared by a ghostwriter.

What you don’t want is to write some content and then try to get an SME to “just sign off” on it. They won’t feel it’s theirs, it’s not likely to express their ideas, and the result is that you don’t get their cooperation.

So when you’re thinking of a concept for some content, your first question should be, “Which of our SMEs will want to get involved, because they want to build their practice working in this area?” Better yet, go to one of the SMEs you want to have a higher profile, and ask them, “What kind of work do you really want to do? Let’s generate some content showing your expertise in that topic?”

Get the client involved whenever possible

Why would you want to get a client involved in your content process? That involves reviews by the client, possible rejection, delays and hassle. But it is SO worth it. Here’s why:

Just like getting the author of the content involved early to gain their buy-in, the client is more likely to greenlight the content if they’ve been involved from the start.

A case study, whether it’s something your firm publishes or gets carried by a third-party periodical, will have more credibility if your client co-authors it. And consider also the how-to-work-with type of content – I’ve written several examples of this type of content, and having the client’s perspective was invaluable.

As a business benefit: I find that if the SME and their client are both involved in an interview with a ghost-writer, the SME gains important insights into the client’s view of the process.

Just be sure that the client is aware that they’ll get an opportunity to review the content before publication and make changes as needed – and even kill the story if they want. This reassures them, and this makes them more willing to cooperate.

Get the content published in media that matter

One of the core features of this blog has been the importance of getting your content published in media that are already relied upon and trusted by the people you want to reach.

This helps get the attention of both your SME and your client – particularly if the content is carried in the client’s industry media. This helps them look good in front of their peers, and what’s not to like about that?

I’ve gone into detail about how to do this in several posts, such as this one.

The last post

And speaking of posts, this will be the last post in Your Expertise Edge. It’s been a good four years, and I’ve appreciated the comments, reviews and thanks over the years. Post #1 was in October 2015, so it’s symmetrical that #124 is being written in October 2019.

I’m going to continue publishing thoughts on thought leadership marketing, but on a bigger platform – LinkedIn. Of course, these blog posts have been posted on LinkedIn all the way along, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

I’d like to thank Olga Boyko for her help in giving my thoughts a wider platform – all that Hootsuite stuff I used to know about, but she’s taken care of it. An also Patricia Makori, who’s been proofreading each post and offering the occasional thoughtful comment along the way.

See you on LinkedIn.

This video talks about how you can do that.

So, how can marketers help their Business Development people, and their seller-doers, demonstrate the value your firm offers – particularly when that C-suite seems to be a fortress designed to keep you out? Instead of trying to storm the main gate, find another door. Do this by developing allies among the people already known and trusted by the senior executives your firm needs to reach.

Senior executives can’t do their work alone. They rely on a small army of business advisors – lawyers, accountants, business valuators, tax strategists, and consultants. These people depend, in turn, on other business professionals to make sure that the advice they offer is the best possible.

That’s where you come in, and here’s how.

Develop content intended specifically for those business advisors, helping them do their jobs better. Let’s call them “influencers” because of their ability to get you into the upper echelons of your ideal client organizations.

That being so, start developing content that meets their needs. Do it just as you would for any other target market. I call it “indirect content.” Your “economic buyer” -- the person who approves your firm’s invoices – is not your direct focus, but someone different. What’s more, influencers are often much easier to reach than your elusive C-suite executive.

The power of “indirect content”

This topic came up in a recent back-yard conversation with my neighbor. Here I gained insights in how content can influence purchasing decisions indirectly.

The neighbor, who I’ll call Fatima, told me about her time with a document-management company – in other words, a paper shredder. She talked about the extensive program of content marketing her company developed, about legal matters.

My response was something like, “C’mon, legal content? Why? Paper shredding is sold on the basis of cost, cost and cost, and that’s it.”

Fatima gave me a patient look. She said her company had learned that while the contract for her company’s service was often signed by an office manager, the actual decision was made behind the scenes. Most often, it was the company’s legal counsel. The lawyers got involved, she said, because of their concern about confidentiality. They wanted to be sure that company documents with medical records, credit card numbers and other confidential information were well and truly shredded, and wouldn’t be found blowing down the street.

So, Fatima’s company demonstrated its understanding of privacy issues and security, by creating content helpful to lawyers concerned with these matters. One area of focus was on new developments in the law regarding privacy.

Moreover, the paper shredding company showed that it “got the message” regarding the need for document confidentiality. It helped them stand out from the competition as being helpful to the people with the most at stake in the purchase decision.

What’s different about the content needs of ‘influencers’?

Many goods and services are sold directly – the decision is made by the end - user. Yet many other sales, such as paper shredding, are influenced by different parties – so your firm’s content strategy may need to include focus on this indirect category.

Influencers may be different from direct purchasers in certain key areas, and your content marketing strategy needs to reflect this. What are their concerns? I’m glad you asked – because it means you’re thinking in terms of “what my audience needs to know,” rather than “what I’m trying to tell them.”

Dependability has value: An influencer is looking for a supplier they can count on. No surprises. This is a characteristic of many people in an influencer–type role – they want to be able to count on your firm for solid performance. It’s even better if the performances can be documented. So, your content needs to demonstrate your reliability, possibly through case studies that show its ability to deliver.

Not cost sensitive: Partly because the ‘influencer’ isn’t the one paying for your service, they tend to be less concerned about cost. On a tradeoff between cost and quality, particularly quality of service, your content should edge towards the ‘quality’ end of that continuum. You might even emphasize your premium aspects – they will give comfort and reassurance to the influencer.

Be able to demonstrate due diligence: The ‘influencer’ may need to be able to point to reasons to select your company. Imagine the influencer can say, “She’s got one of the best-read blogs in her industry, she’s published some excellent white papers, and has authored several thought-leadership articles in major trade media.” All that will give the end customer greater confidence that their interests are being considered.

Influencers want to look good: Now, put yourself in THEIR position. Would you rather have a customer say, “Remember that consultant you recommended? He really knew his stuff, and did a great job.” Or, “It was a total nightmare. Cleaning up his mistakes cost us some serious cash.” The influencer’s reputation is riding on the suppliers they recommend. Your firm’s content needs to reflect your reliability – possibly through videos and articles featuring both you and one of your customers, talking about a project that went well.

Getting your ideas published in THEIR channels

I’ve talked elsewhere about the value of publishing content in media that are already relied upon and trusted by the people you want to reach. It’s the same with influencers. There is a vast array of publications for lawyers, accountants, engineers, business valuators and other professionals.

How to find these media? In many firms, there are people in those professions – in-house legal counsel and accountants in particular. Ask them how they stay in tune with their profession’s news. It could be in print media and their online equivalents, but also many professional associations maintain a website and news feed that needs a constant flow of news relevant to their readers.

She talked with enthusiasm about how wastewater is flowed through the space between a positively-charged anode and a negatively-charged cathode, and the suspended and dissolved solids separate out. And I just love that geeky enthusiasm.

My job was to convey how EC works, but also to go one step further – to describe how it can meet the needs of the client, and persuade them that they should give this technology a closer look. So, my questions were about which situations EC is best for, how it compares to other water treatment methods, and which constituents it’s good for.

My engineer said that EC is on the high end of the cost structure, but that it is really broad-spectrum in terms of the constituents it can handle, and it’s expected to perform well against constituents that aren’t even recognized to be of concern yet. So, the blog post I wrote talked about the “how” of EC, but also the “why” of it.

It’s all the difference between content that “tells” about a topic, but also that persuades the prospective client about something, generally to take a course of action. That might be to send an email asking for more information, to call, to click on a form asking for someone to call, or to download a lead magnet such as a white paper.

That “persuade” function usually goes far beyond facts, to pull at the emotions of the prospective client you’re trying to reach.

“Sell the sizzle, not the steak” is a well-used principle in marketing. But in professional services, there’s not a whole lot of emotion involved. Or is there?

Even if your firm is providing rational, fact-based services such as energy audits, supply-chain management or environmental reviews, emotions are always at work. The prospective client’s emotions are either pushing you towards success in getting the engagement, or away from it.

This is because of another well-known principle in sales – that people buy on emotion, and after the fact, justify on logic. In other words, they buy because of how the purchase makes them feel, and then after they’ve made the choice, will find logical reasons for having made the purchase.

So how do you find the emotional triggers that unlock a decision regarding a dull and dry business professional service?

Your content must address “greed” or “fear” – or both

The key is to understand that your firm’s service is anything but “dull and dry” to those who buy it. In the case of water purification technology, it’s not just around the facts of the decision. There’s emotion too – “Will deciding to take a chance on this new EC technology make me look good, or will it be something I’ll regret?”

They’re faced with a problem they need to solve, or an opportunity they want to access. In other words, they’re struggling with the most basic of human emotions – what I call “greed” and “fear.”

And as you might expect, here we dive into the question of how content strategy can help you build the profile of your firm. At issue: two motivations for your firm’s blog posts, speeches, white papers, articles and other content.

Here’s the idea, in brief:

• “Greed” content is around getting a benefit – more revenue, a bigger personal bonus, a promotion, a faster regulatory approval, better financing terms, or other advantage.

• “Fear” content is around avoiding a problem – financial losses, an empty bank account, a missed promotion, getting fired, getting fined, spending time in prison or some other downside.

The content you prepare must be built around either or both of those drivers. Unless you consciously think of what problem you’re solving or what opportunity you’re helping them access, your content won’t be effective at moving your prospects to take action.

To do this, you need to get a clear idea of the person you’re addressing in your content – your “avatar” or “persona,” which I’ve addressed in blog post #5. That post discusses how to prepare a mental image of your firm’s ideal client. This includes their industry, profession, education and other factors that help you understand how to appeal to their interests.

Only then, can you understand how your service helps meet the “greed” and “fear” buttons that will make people say “yes” to your service.

So, while your content must address real business opportunities and problems, it must do so in a way that appeals to the deep hopes and fears of people your avatar represents.

Case studies and testimonials help you persuade your prospect

There are two main ways you can use content to reassure prospects that you’re the right person for them: case studies and testimonials.

I’ve discussed case studies twice before:

• In blog post #13, about how case studies work well if they reassure the client of your experience, so you become a ‘safe choice’ (addressing the “fear” issue)
• In blog post #1, on how case studies work best if they make your client look amazing, which addresses what we might call “greed.”

Case studies can become not just a marketing tool, but a welcome source of reassurance for a worried person who’s considering hiring your firm. Case studies show your people’s tenacity, resourcefulness and determination to get the job done right.

Going deeper – putting yourself in your prospect’s position

The points above form some of the building blocks towards marketing materials that consider the deepest needs your prospective clients are feeling, and then meets those needs.

They may be concerned about being able to defend their choice of your firm, as an external supplier, to their superiors.

So, be sure that your professionals’ credentials and experience are listed, but also that they have plentiful recommendations and case studies to show that they have what it takes. Your prospect may also be concerned that you can help her or him look good in the eyes of colleagues and superiors.

The prospect may be risk-averse enough to be worried that if the project goes sideways, she or he will be able to point to your firm’s stellar background and qualifications to demonstrate due diligence as part of the selection process.

Just be sure to think of the decision process from your prospective client’s point of view, and use your content to help provide the reassurance and support they need.

Academic qualifications signal reliability

In many areas of professional practice, having the right academic qualifications are is a big part of being seen as a Qualified Person. Usually, this means a Masters degree, and having a PhD really helps a lot.

The big trend in this field is for online courses offered by a wide range of academic and commercial enterprises. For example, LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) offers courses with a certificate at the end. I use these courses to stay up to date in my profession, and the fact that LinkedIn (usually, not always) can list them on my LinkedIn profile shows that I’m staying current.

Marketers can work with their client-service professionals to find out what skills and online courses would be reassuring to potential clients, and then support members of the firm in getting those qualifications.

From a marketer’s point of view, there’s not much we can do about making sure that all the people we’re marketing have the right academic diplomas on their wall. But we can make sure that those degrees are listed everywhere where it matters – on their CV or resume, their LinkedIn profile, in their official firm biography, and other places. Go further and see if they have published papers as a result of their degree. In many cases, these can be converted to PDF form and presented on their LinkedIn profile.

Academic qualifications are in many competitive situations a minimum standard to do the work, but it’s important to make sure those qualifications are shown to anyone considering hiring the firm’s people.

Professional qualifications open doors

In many jurisdictions, professional bodies are allowed to grant certifications, and from a legal and societal point of view, nobody can carry on those activities without holding those certifications. These apply in engineering, architecture, law and accounting – and increasingly in other disciplines as well, such as the geosciences.

Members need to gain the certification, and in many cases must also undergo a specified amount of continuing education each year.

These qualifications are like academic degrees in that they get someone in the door – one doesn’t get to sign off on engineering drawings without being a professional engineer, for example.

There’s an increasing trend towards corporations issuing their own certifications – Microsoft Certified Professional, for instance. Some of these certifications are worth more than others, but they have value if they’re able to show that a given professional is staying current with their skills.

Again, marketers can’t do much about who has or doesn’t have those qualifications, but they can be sure that those qualifications are listed where necessary. Marketers can also work with members of the firm to determine what certifications (a Project Management Professional – PMP – for example) might help catch the eye of potential clients.

Experiential qualifications add sizzle

If academic and professional qualifications form the price of admission to the race, it’s the experiential qualifications that add speed and strength in the race itself. It’s about listing difficult challenges faced and beaten, it’s about working on prestigious, high-profile jobs, and it’s about playing a leading role in those projects.

Marketers can add their greatest value here. This includes making sure that CVs are complete as regards project listings, and that they’re updated regularly and whenever a major project gets completed. Records should describe in detail what work each professional did on the project, and how the project was better because of that intervention.

Marketers can make sure that case studies are written in more than a dry, dull tone. Rather, they can be an interesting and fun read – on the three-part format of situation, solution, resolution. “Here’s the problem our client was facing, here’s what we did, and these are the benefits that our client received as a result of our work.”

Social proof: emerging, of growing importance

We’ve entered the world of the “influencer” – someone with a following on social media, whose views are trusted by their followers. I don’t think that the world of fashionista influencers has much sway over the award of contracts for municipal watermains or other professional projects.

But social proof is a big part of building awareness among potential clients, and also reassuring them. In my presentations on LinkedIn, I stress the importance of having a full profile that includes plenty of recommendations. They’re an important aspect of reassurance for a potential client.

I’ve been told by a couple of my clients that they found out about me through my social media profile. And, I expect, the volume of published articles, Twitter postings, LinkedIn updates, Facebook updates, my YouTube channel, my SlideShare channel and other online manifestations convince potential clients that at least I’m serious about my work.

Click here for ideas on how you can help your firm’s professionals generate content that persuades potential clients

Marketers can best help with this by amplifying the firm’s normal communications through social media. This is easy to automate – we use Hootsuite – but it’s an important part of reassurance these days. Marketers can also review the LinkedIn profiles of their firm members and see if there is any way they can be improved – by listing published articles and papers, by listing presentations they’ve given, and those all-important recommendations.

Combined, these four forms of qualifications go a long way to helping your firm’s members compete effectively.

Today’s professional services marketing, by contrast, seems like hard labor

3 tests to see if content creation is strong or weak

Some business professionals have taken to the idea of content generation easily, as we say in my part of the world, “Like a duck to water.” For others, it’s a painful burden.

But increasingly, it’s vital to be able to express one’s ideas in thought leadership form, to demonstrate credibility. If it’s done right, this will help attract potential clients with the kinds of problems that your firm wants to solve. And, it will help demonstrate credibility to existing clients, so they’re more likely to stay clients.

If you’re involved in the marketing of professional services, you need to know if it will be easy to develop a content marketing program for the professionals in your firm – or if you’ll need some help. Later in this post, you’ll find out what that “help” can look like.

So here are three questions you can ask your business professional to see how you can help them build their professional profile.

1. Is writing fun?

Anyone who enjoys doing something, is likely to do it. But if not, that task keeps getting delayed. This applies to writing. Anyone who dislikes writing, is going to keep putting it off and maybe miss a deadline.

2. Is this person’s writing fun for others?

Many business professionals are wonderfully skilled socially, well able to get their ideas across in a spoken presentation or a meeting. But they may have been trained to write in a straightforward, practical manner for the preparation of reports.

While that kind of writing gets the job done in that it conveys ideas, it’s not always attractive to read. Good writing must include using analogies to bridge the gap between the reader’s world and your world, and explanations of concepts and terminology that would not be familiar to the reader.

So, unless your potential author gets many positive comments on their writing, consider finding alternatives like the three kinds of writing professionals described later in this post.

3. Are they an efficient writer?

Good writing takes time. As one of my journalism professors would say, “Good writing isn’t written. It’s rewritten.” Even if someone can write well, if it takes a long time to get to the final version, maybe this isn’t the best use of their time.

Three services to help your firm win at the content game

If your answer’s “no” to those three questions… you may need professional help, and I mean that in a good way.

A ghostwriter: starting ideas from a blank screen

The first type of writing professional is a ghostwriter – someone who writes under someone else’s name. This option may be best if your intended author simply won’t, for whatever reason, get it done without help.

It could be that the author doesn’t like writing, they can’t convey ideas in an attractive way, their writing is to dense and technical for the audience you want to reach, their time is too valuable to spend writing, or you don’t think that they’ll put a high enough priority on getting it done in time.

This is my most frequent way of working with my clients. Usually, someone on a marketing team gets in touch to say that they want me to work with one of their business professionals to write an article, blog post, brochure, landing page or other content. I’ll make an appointment -- in person, by phone, or video link – and do an interview, usually about 40 minutes. Sometimes there’s more than one author. Sometimes I’ll work with a draft text or a speech, or a slide deck.

I think that the best ghosts are trained journalists, (which I am, which maybe makes me a bit biased on this point) who are experienced at interviewing a source or sources and preparing a first draft of the text.

Ghostwriting is the most extreme of the three ways to generate content if it’s not something that comes naturally to the named author, because it generally involves starting something from a blank screen.

A copy editor: smoothing out the bumps, making it flow

The second type of intervention can come from a “copy editor,” in which the term “copy” for some obscure reason is a noun referring to what might now be called “text” or “content.”

A copy editor can take a rough draft and work with it to make it flow better. In the work I’ve done as a copy editor, I find that I can add my best value in adding:

• Analogies that act as a bridge to help explain concepts in ways understandable by the reader, who will probably be unfamiliar with the concepts the author has used
• Organization – helping to arrange the ideas in a coherent flow, with headlines and sub-heads
• Explaining terminology that the author has used, which may be unfamiliar to the readers

A proofreader: keeping you looking good

One of the advantages Don Draper had, in continuing to look cool and collected, sat outside his office door. That was a secretary armed with an IBM Selectric typewriter, who would take his scribbled notes and put them in coherent English. In some ways, that secretary was performing the function of the third type of writing professional: a proofreader.

A proofreader takes nearly-completed text and checks it for grammar, spelling, missing words, and common errors: its/it’s, they’re/their, and you’re/your. While grammar-check and spell-check software are improving, they still can’t catch it all. Human intervention is needed.

I walk the talk on that. Every post in this blog gets proofread, by a friend and colleague in Kenya (hi, Patricia), and she’s caught a number of potentially embarrassing glitches over the years.

Don Draper excelled in his world because he relied on the skilled help available from people like Peggy and Joan. You can do the same, by using current information technology to help you work with people anywhere, with the skills you need.

As a result, your firm is more easily able to create content that help show its expertise.

From a content marketing perspective, that means developing content that’s of value to those key clients and then getting that information in front of them, to demonstrate that the firm can produce relevant ideas and results.

Content on your firm’s website and in your own media such as blogs and newsletters can help with this. But it’s also vital that the firm get its ideas published in media that are already known to, and trusted by, people within those key clients.

• Guest posts on blogs that are read by the key clients
• Articles in their business and professional magazines
• Content posted in their LinkedIn groups
• Content posted on the websites of their industry and professional publications

Understanding all four facets of your firm’s key clients

Every client is really four people, in a way – which allows you to reach them through four kinds of media.

To see how this works, let’s say your firm focuses on the problems involved in buying former industrial properties, where the soil may have been contaminated by fuel oil, lubricants or other chemicals that leaked into the soil. Called “brownfields,” these impacted properties must be remediated to meet regulatory standards. You want to reach property developers with the message that your firm can reliably clean up problems at former industrial sites.

There are four possible kinds of niche media reaching your firm’s ideal clients in this corner of the economy.

1. Industrial media

Some specialized media are “industrial” in their orientation, reaching a specific industrial sector such as construction, manufacturing, chemicals and oil refining. You can present these media with information on trends in contaminated site remediation – maybe pointing out how faster and cost-efficient the new technologies can allow for shorter construction schedules.

You’ll need to tailor your message to the needs of the specific industry – a publication for the retail sector, for example, might be interested in contaminants that can come from retail properties, including dry-cleaning shops, where fluids may have leaked into the soil under the establishment. A potential client in the chemical business, by contrast, would need to know about cleanup of contaminants relevant to that industry.

2. Professional or occupational media

Some publications focus on a specific profession such as law, accounting or engineering. If you develop an article for a legal publication, for example, you’ll need to describe the legal liabilities involved in owning contaminated property, and how to manage those legal risks. If you want to reach the financial people within property development companies, focus your content on ways to improve the financial value of brownfields and manage risks, legal or regulatory in nature.

3. Geographic media

Some media focus on specific cities, regions or countries. To reach these geographic areas, look for ways to discuss what’s exclusive to those areas, such as a high water table, or geology that allows contaminants to be spread off the property line due to fractures in the bedrock. Perhaps there are local government incentives to promote the remediation of brownfield properties, so that they can be developed, and your article could discuss those incentives.

4. Issue- or cause-related media

Lastly, there are publications that focus on a certain issue or cause – for example, I’ve helped my clients publish articles in “ReNew Canada,” a magazine focused on infrastructure renewal, as well as “cityminded.org,” an online publication addressing the issues of inner-city development.

Can one person be interested in all those kinds of media? Certainly. Imagine a lawyer who works in property development in New England, with a company focusing on high-rise infill development. If you have a key client that fits those criteria, you can reach that client through all four of those media types.

Tailor your topic to the needs of the publication

It’s important in each case to understand the publication’s orientation, so that you can develop content that is relevant to those the specific readers. This means convincing the editor or manager that you can produce content for those readers.

I recently worked with an engineering firm that offers mechanical integrity inspections as one of its services. This involves having a qualified engineer inspect equipment to see how well it’s holding up to use and safe to operate.

I asked what markets he wanted to reach, he said he’s often brought in by people in the client’s occupational health and safety department – and also people in Operations who are concerned about productivity and reliability. So, I helped this client publish an article in “Uptime” for the Reliability market, and now we’re also working on one in “OHSonline” for the OH&S market.

In each case, I tailored the query letter, and the article itself, to specific needs of those particular readers.

In summary: think beyond the obvious in your selection of print or electronic media for putting your firm’s message in front of its ideal clients.

Your firm’s content should have just one purpose, and that’s to support the sales process of the firm. If it doesn’t do that, don’t prepare that piece of content. Do something that does directly support the sales process.

That’s because the purpose of the marketing program is to help the people who engage with clients and prospects, so that they get into the right meetings. It’s not to maintain a newsletter, keep a Twitter feed going, produce a brochure, run the website, or any of the other tasks that seem to develop. Those are tools, not results. Their purpose is to help build new and continuing work, leading to revenue, for the firm.

As an analogy, imagine that you’re planning a week-long backpacking trip. You’ll need a tent, sleeping bag, clothing, food and a few other items like a flashlight and a water filtration pump. If you’re an experienced back-country hiker, you won’t be taking along anything you won’t need – like a pillow (instead, use a rolled-up coat) or books (you can carry a whole library on your e-reader).

One reason you pack light is that you have to carry everything over every rock on the trail, for a week.

In the same way, you need to consider your work as a marketer, and relentlessly prune away everything that doesn’t meet the overall objective, which is to support the sales effort of your firm. Three ways to do that:

What are the problems and opportunities facing your firm’s market?

The content you produce must address the real issues your firm’s prospects and clients are facing. In other words, their pain points and their opportunities. So, think of what that could be. Maybe there’s a new environmental regulation that will force your firm’s clients to invest in new technologies – and your firm can help with that. Maybe there’s been a change in the building code that will require new measures be taken around stormwater management.

To learn about those pain points and opportunities, one of your best sources of information is the people in your firm who frequently have contact with prospects and clients – likely, people in BD as well as the senior people in the firm. They will likely be delighted if you approach them with something like, “I want to be sure that our firm’s content matches the clients’ situations. What issues does our firm solve for them?”

From my experience, the mid-career professionals may be not as good at isolating the problems that their clients are facing. Mid-career people are justifiably concerned mostly about technical excellence – following the right workflow. They haven’t necessarily started thinking about the “why” involved – as in, why the client is asking them to do this kind of work.

Generally, your client isn’t particularly interested in the work itself; they’re concerned about making a problem disappear. For example, many of my clients work in environmental compliance – they help their clients meet regulations. The client’s concern is around getting an “approved” stamp on their project application. So, they may want to know about how to do that, and your firm’s senior people are most able to answer those questions.

Look through their business and trade media to see what topics seem to be trending – their magazines, association websites, blogs and LinkedIn groups. Check the speaker lineups at their conferences and industry luncheons.

In short: be sure that your firm’s content addresses real, current issues and concerns.

Which formats would the prospective client prefer?

There are many possible formats for your firm’s content – a slide show, a video, a newsletter, an article in their professional website or trade magazine, a white paper or an info-graphic. It could be in some physical form like a book, printout, or USB key, or electronic.

Again, you should ask your firm’s client-facing professionals what works best for them. Early in the sales cycle, electronic content might be best, as prospective clients are at the information-gathering stage. Later, it perhaps should be in physical form, for use in a face-to-face meeting to seal the deal.

How can you get your firm’s content in front of decision-makers?

Having good content in the right format is part of the puzzle -- but it’s not the whole puzzle unless you’re able to get your firm’s relevant, appropriate content in front of the right eyeballs. That means choosing appropriate delivery methods.

In some cases, that might mean getting the content into media already relied upon and trusted by prospects and clients. In others, it might mean putting into a format that can be e-mailed to people your firm wants to reach. In others, it should be in a slide deck that your firm’ BD people can bring up on their tablets and show in a face-to-face meeting with a client.

To understand this, you need to know the actual sales process followed by the people who meet with clients. The best way to do this is to ask them what they find most appropriate.

So, ask yourself:

• What procedures can you put in place to make sure that your firm’s content meets the needs of the sales process?

• Which of the types of content your firm produces should be discontinued, because they’re just “the way we’ve always done it?”

• How can you be sure that the formats you use for content are appropriate to the needs of the sales process?

Here are four steps marketers can use to win in the content-generation challenge:

1. Identify professionals who will deliver

In finding professionals to generate content, many marketers start at the top – with the names of people who are the firm’s current “eminence grises” or senior thought-leaders, the Big Names that bring in the clients. The Managing Partner says, “I want you to work with Nadine A. and Jefferson B.; they’re our rainmakers.”

The problem with this approach is that Nadine A. and Jefferson B. already have all the work they care to do; maybe they are coasting on their earlier work climbing their professional pyramids, and don’t feel the need to work with Marketing. Appeals to their team spirit may fall on hard ground.

So, look further down your firm’s organizational pyramid. You want people who are hungry – still trying to make a name for themselves. I find that mid-career people are the best choice – they need what marketers offer. Sometimes, these are people who have just recently graduated from a technical function within the firm, into something more involved in managing projects and business development. They’re thinking less in terms of “the function I perform,” and more around “The problems I help clients solve.” They want to build a name for themselves.

So, look for people who already working on their profile, through giving speeches, writing a blog that actually stays current, giving conference papers, going to networking events. Sometimes you can tell from their LinkedIn profiles, who’s demonstrating hunger to grow.

Let’s say you find someone who’s an up-and-comer, already run off her feet with client work and managing her team, but who is still hungry enough and wants to be famous. Let’s call her Angela C.

2. Make it easy for professionals to generate content

Getting Angela’s cooperation is not about ‘carrot and stick,” it’s “carrot and carrot.” No stick involved, no stick needed. One ‘carrot’ is the increased personal profile Angela will get. Here, you can utilize the current workplace value which says that business professionals’ main loyalty is to their profession and their work, not to their employer. Professionals like Angela need to build their own professional profile if they’re to move ahead in their careers. So use that need, pointing out, yes, “It’s for your own good.”

The other ‘carrot’ is, that as a marketing person, you can make sure it doesn’t take a lot of their time. You can do this through finding ways to lighten their load, and in my experience, one of the best ways is through commissioning a ghostwriter, either on staff or freelance, to work with Angela to turn her ideas into words on a screen. My experience is that a good ghostwriter can, in a half-hour interview, get enough from an Angela to develop an article of at least 1000 words.

But you can’t find a freelancer experienced in your technology? Even better. You don’t want a ghost who’s going to use a lot of Angela’s jargon, assuming that potential clients will understand all the acronyms Angela uses. You want someone who will ask Angela, “What do you mean by that?” Angela may well roll her eyes at the questions, but if the article used those terms without being defined or explained, the reader would get lost and frustrated, and click away.

You may be able to leverage other writing or content Angela has developed – a project description, for example, can be a great basis for a case study article, slide show or video.

3. Help members of the firm to reach their goals

By focusing your work on keeners like Angela, you will develop a track record of success. Other members of the firm will want some of what you’re doing for Angela, eventually including heavy hitters like Nadine and Jefferson.

It helps if you use media that they find of value. Some business professionals want to look good to their peers, so helping them get published in their professional magazines and journals, as well as in professional association websites and authoritative third-party blogs, will make their eyes light up. Then, you can reposition that content for use in client-facing media such as industrial publications and industry-specific websites.

Make it easy for Angela by finding publications, whether in print or online, that go to the markets she wants to reach. Present the article idea to the editor before the article gets written and obtain the editor’s buy-in to the idea. That way, you can go to Angela and say, “Hospital Operations Today” (or whatever market Angela is pursuing) has asked for this article, and they’ve given us a deadline a month from today. But don’t worry, we’ve got a freelance ghostwriter lined up to help you get this done.”

Some business professionals, maybe with a hidden left-brain theatrical flair, might like the idea of starring in videos or audio recordings. It’s easy to make this happen, as I discussed in a previous article on podcasting. If that’s what they want, that’s what they provide.

Some “Angelas” like the idea of public speaking, so you can find ways to set up some speaking engagements. Record the presentation in video and audio, and have that presentation transcribed and turned into text content.

Just find what your “Angela” is looking for, and then help her make it happen – in a way that meets the marketing objectives of the firm too.

4. Cultivate an ongoing crop of content

Leveraging content across several media and platforms helps to continue the flow. For example, during an interview for a print article you could have a recording of the conversation made, to produce an audio file that can be sent to third-party websites, who are often eager for content that’s in any form other than text.

I find that content can be kept ongoing if is presented as a series rather than a one-off. Many topics naturally divide themselves into threes, and often you can get better impact from three shorter articles rather than one longer one. A potential client may miss one or more of the articles, and provided you’ve embedded links to the earlier articles, they can access the content if they’re interested.

The key success factor in getting someone like Angela to generate content is to point out the value to her personally, and then make it as easy for her as possible, by offloading as much of the work as you can. That’s the “carrot and carrot” approach to marketing.

I’ve dealt with this topic in previous blog posts, but the idea is so important that I’m now writing about it again, using a case study. This matters because if your firm wants to expand, and the marketing team can help with that, you’ll get better cooperation from the rest of the firm.

This involves some technical information that probably doesn’t relate to you, but it’s a parable that you can apply to your own situation.

It involves a consultant we’ll call “Janet,” who advises her clients on a rather narrow field, generally called “thickened tailings,” or “paste.” Tailings are the sand-like waste product of the mining sector, produced when the mill grinds the ore into small enough fragments that the target mineral can be extracted.

These tailings can be harmful to the environment if the trace metals and salts in them are left exposed to the air. One way to immobilize or hold in place the tailings is by mixing them with chemical reagents to produce paste, which has a consistency like toothpaste. Once the paste dries, it hardens so that the environmentally-damaging materials are locked away safely.

Janet had been managing paste projects for the mining sector for years, but the mining sector is a boom and bust industry, and was in deep “bust” mode. It was hard to sell paste projects when mines were closing, and starts of new projects being delayed.

So Janet found an opportunity in a totally different industry segment – coal-fired power generation. This industry, along with the airborne contaminants and greenhouse gasses it emits, produces a huge solid-waste problem in the form of coal ash. Janet thought that there was good opportunity to be found in immobilizing coal ash in the same way that tailings are immobilized, through paste technology.

The idea had already been tried, but it was at that uncomfortable in-between stage between having a few success stories written up in technical journals, and being applied large-scale by power companies.

Approaching a narrowly-focused publication

In order to reach the intended market – managers of coal-fired power plants in the United States – we first had to find a vehicle, and we did it in a narrowly-focused publication that’s read by the power sector. Specifically, the coal-fired power sector.

One problem – this publication is even narrower in focus than that, focusing on what is called “beneficial use” of coal ash. “Beneficial” in this case means making the ash more valuable; something that can be sold for profit, rather than being just a cost to be managed. I went into the concept of “fear” versus “greed” in Blog post #24. If you take a look through that post, you’ll understand that an article for this publication would have to take what is normally a “fear” concept (threat of regulatory sanction if the coal ash were not disposed of properly) and turning it into “greed” – changing the waste product into a resource.

As it happens, there are already quite a few uses for coal combustion residuals such as turning the gypsum in the material into construction drywall, and for mixing into concrete as a replacement for some of the sand.

But “paste” applications of CCR would be quite different, a whole new use for the term “beneficial” that the editor might not have considered before.

Look for applications that are close to the planned use

My next step was to prepare a concept for an article that would be of interest to the readers of this narrowly focused but exactly-on-market publication. This included convincing the editor that a wider definition of “beneficial” was warranted – beyond physical products that could be shipped in a rail car, like gypsum for wallboard, or raw materials for concrete.

In this, we were working with the news-business principle that a story must have aspects that hit close to home for the intended readers.

This included another application from the coal sector -- a project I helped Janet to write about, ten years before. The story was about the underground workings from a mine that had closed in the 1960s. The town that had serviced the mine was transiting into a high-profile tourism and vacation-home destination. However, its new future was clouded by the old coal mine workings, which were gradually collapsing deep underground, which would have imperiled the foundations of buildings on the surface.

Janet’s group had injected paste into the underground voids to fill them up, so construction could proceed safely – a shining if unorthodox example of how to improve a product for beneficial re-use, in this case a development property.

We also found examples of coal ash being processed into paste, proof of the idea that the application worked in coal ash as it did in hard-rock mine tailings.

This article, successfully published, helped Janet showcase her abilities to solve problems in a new sector of the economy.

Looking for early-stage adopters

You won’t be able to convince all of your firm’s members with this type of approach, but you may convince some of them.

Many consultants think that their clients are interested in trying out new ideas. That’s rarely the case. Clients want ideas that have been thoroughly tested and tried out by someone else. But there are some people who, by their nature, are more interested than others in innovation.

That is the spirit I was looking for in this case. Thickened mine tailings can be stacked to create artificial landforms, just as municipal solid waste is often stacked to form amenities like golf courses and ski hills. So in this article proposal, I talked about an expanded definition of “beneficial” use for coal ash -- re-creating the surface of the paste mass for other purposes including parkland, golf courses or residential development.

Learning from other sectors, industries, or cultures is never easy. But I like to compare this to a Star Trek concept – the Federation and the Klingons. There’s distrust between the two groups, but they do learn from each other. There’s technology transfer, but also transfer of ideas.

Marketers can show their clients about technologies that work in other applications, through good content strategy. If you can do this, you may well live long and prosper.