Do you want to get the print media to write about your business?
While advertising in print media has a declining value proposition, it still often has a place in the marketing mix. We don’t recommend relying on it to drive brand awareness or leads, but it’s worth doing as a complimentary or secondary tactic if you’ve already got the basics covered.
Most clients would love to get the print media to write about them. Or they want to submit advertorials which they hope the magazine will run. But most of them take the wrong approach. They want to submit an article that is all about them. “Hey we are wonderful, we do this and that and we’ve won this award and blah blah blah.” In other words, BORING SHIT. First – the magazine probably won’t run it. Second – even if they do, readers won’t read it.
Our approach is to write CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORIES because we think that’s much more enjoyable to read and stands a better chance of engaging the audience.
Think about it – a reader is flicking through a magazine, glancing at headline and photos and deciding which articles to read and which to ignore. Why will they read yours, especially when there are probably articles written by professional journalists who know how to weave an interesting story? You are competing with those stories for their valuable attention. Take it seriously. Write something that is going to be both engaging and valuable and isn’t just a piece of sales collateral.
This is a recent example of something we put together for our client Mobicon Systems in Brisbane. Mobicon manufacture a particular kind of materials handling equipment – a product for moving shipping containers on and off of trucks. Their typical client is a manufacturer who needs to get a container off a truck and into their yard or warehouse so they can fill it or empty it, and then get it back on another truck the next day. We happened to be in Melbourne shooting a video testimonial with one of their clients and used the opportunity to interview the client for the purposes of using it for content marketing. The result is the story ran as a feature article in one of the key trade magazines read by Mobicon’s prospective customers. Ninety-nine percent of the story is about Mobicon’s client and his business success. Of course, the Mobicon plays a small role in helping him run an efficient business and cut costs. The article is also weighted to be about the client – it’s not a simple puff piece about Mobicon. We are genuinely interested in telling the client’s rags to riches story. It’s about them, not you.
So the takeaway is – write success stories about your customers where their success is related to how they use your products or services. It’s a much better approach and you’ll end up.
Mobicon article about Pickering