After my post on testing content BEFORE spending loads of time (or money) writing, I received email and responses from folks requesting examples.
Ask, and ye shall receive!
Aaron Collegeman is the developer behind the WordPress plugin SharePress. He decided to queue up some content tests to run on Facebook and find out which messages generated the most click-throughs.
AND he kindly gave me permission to share ‘em below. Notice that each ad:
has the same headline
uses consistent, benign imagery
uses the same target audience demographics
Given those elements, we know it’s the “pitch” itself being measured.
Each “pitch” has a different hook — from pain (“Tired of waking up in the middle of the night?”) to marketing (“Wish you could drive traffic?”).
The results were intriguing enough to Aaron that he’s doing another round tracking across a longer time frame using the best-performing ad content. Plus he’s thinking about running similar tests on AdWords, too.
From there, he’ll rewrite his product positioning to cater to the highest-clicked content.
Send me a thoughtful, personalized email (I mean, why ME?)
Are explicit about what you want with 15 minutes of my time
Lead with the traction rather than “We’re the X of Y”
Don’t ask me to demo your product or provide my feedback to the idea (because, honestly, it doesn’t matter)
Already have determined that none of 500′s existing portfolio companies compete (or, if they do, how you differ)
I’ll get super stoked IF you:
Clearly prioritize traction
Are passionate about your idea beyond its ideal-revenue-making potential
Aren’t long-winded or arrogant if I ask questions or seek clarification
Talk about the distribution models and partnerships you’re exploring
Send me a post-call thank-you note even if you thought I was a worthless nimrod
Finally, as a social-manners reminder…
I’ll get massively annoyed IF you:
Think “hustling” entitles you to behave like a jerk — e.g., interrupt me, show up late, bash other companies or people, or use my name or others’ names without asking permission
Dismiss me as a necessary-yet-frustrating stepping stone to the people who’ll “get you”
Hey! You can buy this TheVintageCrow necklace on Etsy
While reading today’s post by Seth Godin, I thought about all of the people who’ve hired me to help them “establish a voice” for their company.
Whether they’ve got a startup or are a big-ass organization, “finding my voice” has, in some cases, been a higher priority than “convey to my users what they need to know in order to make a decision.”
When it comes to writing content, I firmly believe that a user doesn’t care what you have to say unless it’s meaningful, helpful, results-oriented, and confident. (Even while writing this, I’m working to achieve this outcome).
So if you approach your content solely as “I want to tell my story,” you risk reaching no one unless your story happens to coincide with that user’s goal — whatever action s/he came to your site to achieve in the first place.
Some of the best examples of writing for the user include Seth Godin himself, who through consistency in publishing valuable content in an easy-to-digest way (both on his blog and in his books) has branded himself as a thought leader.
But for most of us — and especially for startups — remembering that there’s someone on the other end of your website or blog or mobile app is crucial.
Without an almost-obsessive user-oriented focus, your content and UX design can very easily become all about you; What you like. What you want. How you navigate. The language you use.
A thread in my inbox: “We have a lot of ideas on topics to write about that are relevant to our industry. But how should we go about producing content? Hire a copywriter?”
Two primary follow-up questions I’d ask:
Do you want to find the messages that convert users to buyers?
Do you want to establish yourself as an authority on certain topics?
To which you’d likely answer “Both.” But how to achieve each relies on different goals, people, tools, and timelines.
Copywriting for Conversions
To directly convert users to buyers using words alone, I mentioned trying an adwords-based test as a starting point. That 3-step process yields only one thing: a short-list of words or phrases that makes people click.
With that data, you now have a jumping-off point for producing more content like it on a landing page that we can tweak to get conversions up.
But at least you’ll know that content-wise, you’re using the terminology users need to see in order to arrive on the page in the first place.
This route is all about the sprint: finding the individual words that directly drive users to you, then using analytics-based UX design to close the deal. Whee!
People involved:
AdWords Expert (for placing/managing ads)
Copywriter (for coming up with the language to test in ads, status messages, email; then for optimizing the landing page once the most-clicked messages are nailed down)
Social Media or Email Marketing Expert (for testing messages in the best way possible across social media platforms or email)
Visual Designer (for designing the landing page once you’ve got the most-clicked messages nailed down)
UX Designer (for optimizing the landing page to test/iterate for maximum conversions)
Tools involved:
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn ads (for testing clicks; limited by daily ad budgets)
Twitter or Facebook updates (for testing clicks/shares; limited by network)
Email (for testing subject lines to opens, and opens to clicks; limited by list size)
WordPress (for landing pages if w/o a front-end developer)
MixPanel and/or Google Analytics (to track clicks-to-conversions)
Other tools you’d recommend? Tell me!
Summary:
It’s all about running fast — content tests can be up and iterated upon in a matter of days, discovering the messaging that makes people click immediately thereafter, then building and refining landing pages until the magic content-then-UX formula is discovered.
Then blow’d up.
Copywriting for Thought Leadership
Startups-as-thought-leaders is a great way to:
Get invited to conferences and speak on panels
Create a repository of SEO-friendly landing pages
Be the go-to expert for press
Close deals with customers who need to see papers to say “yes”
Create newsletter fodder (which make for nice investor updates, too)
Direct inquiries to posts that answer common questions
Keep super fans engaged over the long-haul
But if none of these are pressing goals, then your time and energy (and runway) might be better spent on the first approach of finding conversions fast.
This route is all about the marathon: STRATEGICALLY finding the topics people care about, then using consistent production of content on these topics to establish credibility over time.
People involved:
Content Strategist (who likely is also an excellent writer)
Social Media Strategist (to be consistently researching topics)
Product Manager or Business Analyst (to keep posts relevant to business efforts)
Tools involved:
A CMS or blog platform on your domain that isn’t a complete bitch to use and also includes some way for users to share posts easily via social media and email
Email list (for distribution of said posts, either as published or on a specific timetable)
Whatever text editor is preferred (I’d suggest a Google doc if doing collaborative writing) but IA Writer is badass.
Summary:
Building thought leadership over time takes planning, regular research, a confidence in voice and direction, consistent publishing, and — above all else — an audience of users who give a shit about what you’re saying.
But if you (like 37signals or Woot.com) can achieve this goal, it’s gold.
For startups interested in publishing content in a blog or newsletter, “What should I write about that doesn’t seem constantly sales-y” can be a tough question to answer.
I always suggest starting with what users want to read. Whether on Hacker News or LifeHacker or HackyHackensacks — which doesn’t actually exist but I just felt it necessary to use the word Hack again — there seems to constantly be some passionate thread taking everyone’s attention for a day or two until the fervor dies down.
These give-a-shit signals are everywhere. Ferreting them out means listening to people you trust, checking Twitter or Quora a couple times a day, running some content tests as described here, writing paragraph-long posts to test click-throughs, or setting up a bunch of Google Alerts for various topics related to your business.
Once you’ve found a hook, then it’s time to write content related to the topics you’ve heard/learned/watched are sought-after by people who represent your target audience.
Two Personal Case Studies
I used to think that no one would read my blog, but through public speaking and mentoring and consulting I started hearing questions like “Why don’t you publish this stuff?” and orders from people like Paul Singh to “shut up and make the time to blog.”
So I now believe there is a demand for someone with a content/UX/product/startup/gymnast* background to share some of what I know more openly. I write content on these subjects a few times a month at least, then make a decision after the performance of each post whether or not to write more on that topic.
For FastCustomer, it’s all the people who publicly submit horror stories via comments about the terrible customer service they’re experiencing. We have clear indicators that people DO give a shit enough to read us as authorities on the topic of “crappy customer service experts.”
So we’ve asked ourselves if we want to spend the time and money blogging about all the negative customer service stuff that’s happening out there? Do we want to become thought leaders in that highly emotional yet consistently mind-blowingly-frustrated space?
So far the answer is “no,” because we’re actually making people smile by getting them off hold, something mind-blowingly-frustrated. It’s a start.
* The gymnast thing really doesn’t influence things.
Would love your ideas on where to find content topics, too.
The smartest man I know recently asked me: ”What do you think is the optimal ratio of product managers to developers?”
I said 1 product manager to 4 developers, plus or minus 1 developer. Why:
Protecting my 3 developers from the constant flood of awesome ideas is all-consuming.
Protecting myself from distracting my 3 developers with my own OMG YOU GUYS ideas is all-consuming.
From my own (former) ignorance I’ve now learned a product manager shields teams from the sense of urgency that stems from idea excitement.
This gets tougher as more passionate people join the fun.
It’ll be Super Quick!
TRUTH: Both planned and unplanned feature conversations result in epiphanies and magic that propels startups into stardom.
But they also can lead to 5 little words — “It’ll be easy to build!” — that can instantly shift priorities and bum developers out bigtime.
Time estimates have nothing to do with whether something should be built. Any “quick” feature means SOME time, so it’ll take longer to build the original ideas. Which are normally the bigger fish anyway.
I’ve learned this lesson over and over again. Painfully.
What’s the Goal?
OK, so now I know that deciding factors don’t really include the cool new UX I thought of, my emotion, or estimated implementation time.
Deciding factors include things like:
A customer is paying for this feature and the money is already in the bank
Our servers are crashing thanks to massive demand for our product
We get 50 emails a day all asking for the exact same feature
One way we’re trying to hone in on this at FastCustomer is with a Pain/Promise Matrix. It’s a Google spreadsheet I made. It looks like this:
Each month, my co-founder and I add all of the things we want. We then rank each of those things according to how much pain we’re in by NOT having it already, and how much promise we assume it holds.
So what inevitably ends up happening is that we make decisions based on how the idea relates to the business. We then consider how the highest-ranked ideas could be tested without any code.
Only the highest-pain, highest-potential ideas get tested and, if successful, are then prioritized in Pivotal to actually be built.
And until that point, zero developers are distracted.
Lately, I’ve been looking at content through the lean lens. For copywriting, this means testing for messages that make users click before writing a ton of content.
If we know that a single user clicked because of something she read, then we know she was intrigued.
If a bunch of users like her do the same, then we’ve got an indicator that we’re onto a powerful key message.
And clicks are an awesome starting point for generating truly compelling content — especially for us startups, where clicks-to-conversions-to-repeat-usage is nirvana.
So I wondered, what’s the purpose of traditional marketing content?
Marketing Content = Branding
Marketing content keeps words like “synergy” and “leverage” alive. Ok, this isn’t true.
Marketing content enables established companies to brand their voice … primarily because they already are established companies. They play with words, secure their spots as “thought leaders,” and continually reinforce their credibility as a provider of the product or service you might’ve purchased from them already.
Take woot.com, whose content never fails to be hilarious, or Seth Godin, whose content never fails to be honest or insightful. Their marketing content is so consistent that you probably don’t even have to think twice when you buy from them.
Marketing content also enables companies to reinvent themselves. Take Chrystler, which axed its old-fart messaging and blew minds in 2011 with this badass messaging:
But if you’re a startup, you’re probably more concerned with actually just inventing yourself. Also because it’s Step One to conquering the entire universe.
That’s where lean content can help.
Lean Content = Growth
I’m now regularly applying lean principles to content development in my own work with FastCustomer. Seriously, the hardest part has been putting aside my creative journalistic ego. The laser-focus it gives the rest of our efforts is incredible.
I’m also advocating this approach while mentoring via 500 Startups. (Holla!) For example, SafeShepherd was ready to do blogger outreach, but they didn’t yet know which messages were making users come to their site in the first place. This is SO COMMON, but it renders any press or user-acquisition attempts fairly crap-shoot-ish. Which is a bummer, because it’s just not as smart as it can be.
So, lean content is all about writing in smarter ways — by testing messages to find what makes people click.
After all, discovering that hook — for users, press, investors, or buyers — is crucial to our growth as startups. It’s that golden “a-ha!” moment that makes people DO something. Because they instantly *get it.*
Without it, we’re just using words and hoping people understand. Then writing more if they don’t.
3 Steps to Test Your Messaging
Spend 1 hour writing 5+ different sentences that reference a pain your target user probably has. Don’t include product features; keep it user focused. (e.g., “Hate waiting on hold for customer service?” or “Never wait on hold for Comcast again!”)
Run Facebook and/or Google ads using those messages. Use innocuous artwork, and send people to any landing page of your choosing. (Remember, this effort is about CLICKS as a precursor to better conversions later. So don’t fret about making landing pages match perfectly.)
Find out which messages generated the most clicks after a day or two. Feel awesome you now have data on messaging that intrigues users to take a single, important action.
Now you can confidently use the highest-clicked messaging as a starting point for your content (e.g., landing pages, blog posts, emails, tweets, facebook posts, press outreach) to entice more eyeballs.
And this is where an awesome copywriter can truly blow things up.
Yesterday I gave my first-ever virtual seminar thanks to Adam Churchill, Jared Spool, Sean Carmichael, Brian Christensen, and others on the radass team at UIE.
It’s an odd feeling to know you’re talking to an audience of hundreds but you’re sitting in your house, wearing expandable pants that you bought from Target two years ago, dealing with the impatient cat in your lap, longing to sip the coffee that’s cooling on your desk, and advancing your slides in a browser while talking incessantly into a headset.
In any case, the recording is available on the UIE website, and I’ll be scheduling a follow-up podcast shortly to address some of the awesome questions I received during the presentation.
Thanks to all who attended/listened and put up with my known-to-be-occasionally-too-nasaly-midwestern accent.
