C. J. Cherryh

Elmore Leonard

So the three sources I suggest you model are your FAQ, the wall by your phone, and your most-clicked links.  (Note here that I said “model”.  Don’t do it literally, just use this to think about what customers are looking for.  But you can actually go there and look if it helps you get started.)

When you put it all together, I call this stuff the “Cocktail Party Questions” mix.  Back when I used to go to cocktail parties (if you’re under 30, ask Grandpa) you’d get a drink in your hand and then walk up to a stranger and say “What do you do?”

No matter what business I was in at the time, people would ask me one of about ten questions. I checked with my friends, and they said that was pretty much true for them, as well.  If you were in printing, they wanted to know about business cards, brochures, stationery…  If you fixed cars, they wanted to know about tune-ups, air-conditioning, transmissions…

S0 think about the places where people ask you questions about “What you do.”  Like on your FAQ, your business phone, or your web site.  Now make a list of the ten most common questions (or areas) that people ask you about.

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You’ve now got the headings for your first ten blog posts, or Twitter tweets, or Facebook updates.  Yes, I know, you can’t get the entire answer in one tweet/blog/post.  Don’t try.  But put this list up next to your computer monitor and use it to guide you as you write for a while.  You’ll get bored with it waaaaaaaaaay before your customers will.

If you like, break each topic up into sub topics — like this:

Topic:  How Often Should I Get A Tune-Up

Difference Between Regular and Fuel-Injected Cars

Different Driving Conditions Require More Maintainence

Using Synthetic Motor Oil To Lengthen  Service Intervals

Why Clean Air and Gas Filters Mean Better Gas Mileage

Do Name Brand Spark Plugs Give Me Better Mileage?

What Happens To My Used Motor Oil?

As you can see, it’s easy to spin off lots and lots of sub-topics from a single area.  And if you write them carefully, most can lead to more business and profits for your company — as well as a better experience for your customer.

But building out content based on issues that customers have with your product is more than just posting answers to “frequently asked questions”.  There’s quite a bit you can do way, way before the sale to help set expectations, qualify customers, and make sure they’re purchasing the right product for the right job.

Start your work by looking through the logs specifically for customers who are upset by something that they product doesn’t do.  That clues us in that somewhere in the process, we need to make sure that we more clearly describe to our potential client what the capabilities are:

• “The BoffoBuffer 2000 can polish wood, steel and plastic.  But IN NO CASE should you attempt to shine up your rodents or farm animals with this device.”
• “We offer three versions of the MagicLintOff — the Mini, the Maxi, and the OMG You Have Llamas Living In Your Living Room. Please be sure to choose the appropriate model.”
• “Love is forever, but batteries are not.  We expect that the Self-Buttering Toaster will give you many happy slices.  But, eventually, after an average of 1000 crunchy pieces of heaven, you’re gonna need four new size D batteries.”

This information needs to be on your web site, in your promotional literature, your packaging, and possible even in a nice little removable label right on the toaster.

After you’ve cleared up the “upset” category, find out about the features people just don’t understand — what is it that your call center has to explain, over and over? Could you include a short description on the web site of how cleaning out the butter well in the toaster is a three-step process?  Could you make a short video that shows how to change the lint paper roller in the MagicLintOff?  How about some sample packets of polishing goo for the BoffoBuffer 2000, and a write-up to show people that good goo makes a difference in their buffing?

The last thing to troll for in your emails and phone calls for are the little nuggets that customers share with you.  Ways to use your product that you never, ever thought of.  And when you find them, trumpet them from the rooftop with a nice photo of the customer and their name.  “Bob P. from Pittsburgh discovered that the BoffoBuffer 2000 would take that nasty white scum off his car headlights, and he didn’t have to pay $200 for a new set!”

You’ll open up all sorts of new areas for your product to be used, and the “personal touch” that this gives your company is great — it’s a trick that’s been used successfully for years.

But it’s always possible to teach your customers how to deal with that problem, or work around it, or at least know it’s coming and not have to be surprised about it in the middle of installing the fuel rods in the reactor!  I’d much rather hear about that brake fade problem before I start heading down the mountain pass.

So don’t just focus on teaching your customers about your product, make sure you collect information on what they want fixed or upgraded.  It could be that many of these issues aren’t issues at all — maybe they don’t fully understand how to use it, or there’s another option, or something that they can do to make life easier.

Maybe you’ve already got a fix or a plug-in ready to go that you can offer.  Or another customer has come up with a great work-around and posted it on a forum.  (Make sure you credit them — nothing worse than stealing work and pretending you did it!)  Where can you find this kind of information?

Focus Groups
You should have regular focus groups scheduled of users (both “new users” and “old pros” that you bring together with a trained facilitator.  Keep your tech types behind the mirrored window, and just let them talk about what they like, and what they don’t like.

Customer Forums
The cost of running an online forum is almost nothing.  You will need an employee to run herd on it, making sure everyone plays nice.  It also wouldn’t hurt to hand out some swag and free stuff from time to time to the folks who really help others.  But you’ll get a wealth of info.

Shows and Events
Attending and presenting at public events in your industry and mingling with customers is another great place  to collect unfiltered information for your content efforts.  Wear your company shirt, give away some samples or links to a web site and see what people have to say.  Bring an inexpensive video camera and shoot some man-on-the-street interviews you can bring back.

Support/Vendors/Distributors
If you’re a little bit larger, you have a network of people who represent you to the public.  Answering phone calls, stocking shelves, pushing your products out to the world.  They hear things all day long that would be amazingly useful, and they’ve got a vested interest in your success.  Listen.

Why?  It’s because we live in a different kind of a world. Twenty years ago, we all went to Sears when we needed tires for the car.  We walked in the front door (past the washing machines), down the aisle past the Christmas decorations, turned at the ladies slacks, and headed to the auto section.  Then — if we were lucky — we found a guy who’d ask us lots of questions about our car.

Now, people will type something like this into an online search engine:

• Off-road tires Toyota four-wheel
• Cheap used tires for Hyundai beater
• Which tires get the best gas mileage?
• Are there tires that are eco-friendly?

If your site has information that maps to this kind of question (with some or all of the search terms and related information), it’s much more likely that these potential customers will arrive at your business than somewhere else.  And once those customers arrive, if you do a good job of answering the questions and impress the customers with your willingness to share information openly and candidly, it’s very likely they’ll buy from you.

So if you sell tires (0r wedding dresses, or paint, or ammunition) you could just say “WE SELL TO EVERYONE WITH A PULSE” and be done with it. But when people type in search queries like these, you’re going to lose out:

• Wedding outfits for dogs
• House paint that covers blood stains
• Cannonballs for my medieval pot-de-fer

So here’s an exercise for you.  Write the “generic” thing that you sell at the top, and break it down into ten very specific  sub-categories that you could write about for different customers.

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Well, matching yourself up with a customer can be just like dating.  You’re hoping for a long term relationship.  One where each of you thinks warm and happy thoughts about the other, and can’t imagine ever seeing anyone else.  We’re talking totally smitten here.  Infatuated.  Because customers like that are the ones that are customers for life.

Designing your business can be just like that.  Here are two examples, written for a new health club that opened up down the street.  See if you can notice any differences.

Generic Squat ‘N Sweat Now Opens
If you need to lose a few pounds, or a lot of pounds, or if you’re already in shape — our club is for you!  We cater to people in every kind of physical condition, no matter what your fitness goals or exercise needs.  Our trainers know everything there is to know about exercise, weights, nutrition, cardio, vitamins and working out.  They’ve been trained in yoga, boxing, running, tai-chi, mai-tais, tai-bo, boo-boos and tattoos.  All of our equipment is easy to use for everyone, and you’ll never have a problem with any of it because it’s all the best.  Come on in!

Momma And Me Gym
If you’ve had a baby in the last three years, you know how hard it is to get your shape back. Especially when there’s a little one (or two) needing attention all the time.  At M&M Gym, we’ve got you covered.  While you work with one of our female trainers (all moms themselves) your little one spends time in the “mini-gym” daycare space with a certified attendant.  All of our equipment is designed for women, not big sweaty men.  Nobody’s ogling the parts you’re trying to get back in shape, no hairy backs are sweating on the equipment, and all the showers are in private “just for you” changing areas.

Now, you may not be able to completely re-make your business — and that’s fine.  Just define one section of it like a laser beam for a specific market segment. Monday night classes for Japanese Flower arrangements at your floral shop.  Makeup tips on Tuesday afternoons at your Mortuary.  How to rotate tires every Saturday at your Auto Repair Store.

The point here (oh yes, I do have a point) is that people are looking for something specific when they go online.  They won’t type in “exercise” it will be “lose baby weight”.  They won’t type in “car service” it will be “rotate tires”.

And if your content is very, very specific they’ll find you.  Then, they’ll spend some time looking at all the wonderfulness you offer (you are chock full of wonderfulness, right?) and very likely bring some of their money over to your door.  And then come back, again and again.

Just like the dating guy said.

Even if you didn’t have imaginary friends when you were little, it might be good to come up with a few imaginary customers now that you’re a successful business owner.  If you hire an expensive marketing agency they’ll call them “Personas” — “fictional characters created to represent the different user types” that you use to help design and focus your marketing and sales efforts.

Here’s an example from the US Department of Agriculture:

USDA Senior Manager Gatekeepers
Matthew Johnson

Program Staff Director, USDA

Matthew is 51-year-old married father of three children and one grandchild. He has a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics who spends his work time requesting and reviewing research reports, preparing memos and briefs for agency heads, and supervising staff efforts in food safety and inspection. He is focused, goal-oriented within a strong leadership role. One of his concerns is maintaining quality across all output of programs. He is comfortable using a computer and refers to himself as an intermediate Internet user. He is connected via a T1 connection at work and dial-up at home. He uses email extensively and uses the web about 1.5 hours during his work day. He is most likely heard saying: “Can you get me that staff analysis by Tuesday?”

To begin with, I’d limit your work to about four “made up” people — that represent a cross-section of your customer base, each mapping to a large segment of your market.

For example — if you had a landscaping business — it might look like this:

Monica Homeowner, working mother, 1 acre yard, doesn’t have time…

Fred Architect, designs housing projects, specifies landscape services…

Susan Realtor, manages rental properties, hires vendors…

Bob Nursery Store Owner, sells retail to homeowners, often asked…

Once you’ve got some stock photos to put with these descriptions, put them up on the wall at your desk and use them every time you write copy or develop any kind of content, and write directly to one of these people.  You’ll find that your descriptions and voice come much more naturally, and it’s like talking to a friend rather than a huge bunch of people.

After you’ve done this for a while, you can add or change your list of personas, or even create “sub-personas” if you find that one segment of your business has grown.  You’ll also be able to share these out with your staff and vendors — “No, that’s just not something that Bob would respond to — let’s go back over what we know is important to him.”

In one sense, you’re doing the same thing that an actor does as they prepare for a part.  You slip on the character and prepare to react to a situation as the person actually would in the role, rather than what you yourself might do.  The more that you do this, the better you get at submerging your own personal preferences and feelings and getting in tune with what your customers and prospects need.

And that’s what makes your cash register ring.

Most folks begin by collecting everything they know about their subject.  For example, if they have a duck farm, they start by collecting every single thing they know about ducks — how to feed them, where they shit, how to collect the eggs, what happens then they get sick, how to keep them from eating your flowers — it goes on and on and on.

And once you’ve collected all this crap, you feel obligated to use it.  (“We spent all this time getting all this stuff together, dammit!  So our customers can just damn well wade through it!)

While the “Steinbeck” school of content was popular at one time, it has fallen out of favor.  Nowadays, people are looking for just the bits they need (and want) to know.  And they will determine what that is, not you, buttercup. So that’s why we do it backwards.

We start with defining how we’re going to measure if our content “product” is successful. (Yup, you can measure content.  What a concept!)  One simple way you may have seen are those little check boxes in online help that say “Did this answer your question?”

You might also have a metric of how many customers purchased your widget after reading about it on your web page.  Or how many visitors stayed on your site for ten minutes or more, reading about how your AutoMaticBabyWash machine eliminated diapers and kept those little rumps clean and sweet smelling.

But you must have some kind of measurement in place before you write a single word, or begin to gather any information at all.  Because it will make your job so much easier and more effective.

Let’s go back to the example of the duck farm.  If the measurement is “Number Of Web Site Visitors Who Book A Personal Visit To The Duck Farm”:

• We know we don’t want to talk about duck shit
• We know we have to talk about how easy it is to find
• We know we need photos of happy people visiting
• We know we need pictures of cuddly little ducklings
• We know we don’t want to talk about sick ducks

So we’ve just made our job much, much easier.  And we’ve also made it much, much easier to show our boss how well we’re doing our job. “Look, Mr. Cranston — we booked 200 people to come to visit the farm this week, and all because of the content on the website!”

Maybe you won’t have to keep wearing that big “Quacky The Duck” suit all weekend, now.

• “My life insurance is from a very solid, well-established company that people can depend upon.  Many other companies don’t have the same kind of history of good investments, careful choices, and avoidance of risk that BigLifeCo brings to the table.”
• “Flying is flying — getting your family from point A to point B for their vacation.  And at CheapSkateAir we specialize in just that.  Our prices are the lowest in the industry, because we watch every penny. We don’t provide pillows, or movies, or food of any kind.  There are no reserved seats, no air conditioning, no silly little magazines or even seatbacks.  All they’re looking for is the best price, and we’ve got it.”
• “Children’s birthday parties are supposed to be the most fantastic time in their lives — and we at the MagicFairyTaleCastle are equipped to make that come true.  Our packages start at $5,000 for a basic party with 20 children — and that includes ponies, a magician, engraved party favors and videos of every minute of every activity.  Your child will love to watch his party over and over from his crib, cooing softly at the wonderful memories.“

While it’s entirely possible that your ideas on what’s important are an exact match to what your customers are looking for, I’ve found that’s seldom the case.  Most often (and I include myself in this, sadly) we value some parts of our business that our customers really don’t “get”, and completely miss things that customers really want.

Ask ten of your target customers to complete this exercise.

When I think about buying/engaging with XXXX business, the five things I find most important are:

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(Examples: Low price, high quality, ease of use, my friends use it/recommended it, long-term reliability, advertising, risk, danger, value for the price, guarantee, ability to return, free shipping/delivery, customer service/support, dealer nearby, franchise/chain.)