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Content: Serving Up the Same Thing Differently

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By Lisa D. Jenkins

Where I used to live, there’s a thing called Bite-Size. When I moved there, I assumed it was similar to finger steak I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Bite-Size is made with 2-inch hand cut chunks of beef and each restaurant has its own proprietary seasoning and cooking technique. One does a dry rub with batter and deep fry, one marinates and broils, while another seasons and grills. You order it cooked to temperature, just like a steak and depending on where you go, it’s served au jus, with tartar sauce or with ranch.

In a town of 100k or so, there are no less than 10 privately owned restaurants that serve their own version of Bite-Size, and each restaurant’s version has a fiercely loyal customer base. Ask any meat-eater in the valley and they’ll tell you exactly why the Bite-Size they love is the best and why you should try it.

How does that happen with a product that’s basically the same? Easy; every customer has a unique set of taste buds. Even yours.

Content is a lot like Bite-Size.

Regardless of the industry you’re in, the content you publish most likely bears some resemblance to the content your competitors publish. “If that’s true, why should I bother,” I hear you ask. Because it’s the flavor of what you deliver that strikes a chord with your customers and makes them come back for more of what you’ve got.

While you and Competitor X are both publishing content around Widget A, your target customers are not the same. They’re segmented by their very real preferences for things like the language you use, color, brand voice, etc. And they choose who to do business with based on those preferences.

That’s why it’s important not to mimic what others in your industry are doing too closely. You don’t want everyone’s attention, you want the attention of people who are going to stay with you.

Individuality will draw the right people to you.

NorthFace is very down to business, no frills. The phrase high tech – low drag comes to mind. The Husband prefers NorthFace’s delivery and that’s what’s allowed in his Inbox.

NorthFace email newsletter

Moosejaw is all sorts of silly and fun. I giggle every time I see a newsletter from them in my Inbox and it makes me smile to spend my money with someone who understands the importance of humor.

Moosejaw email newsletter

Same basic products, different flavor.

Content strategy isn’t not about making sure you’re posting the same, keep-up-with-the-joneses content everyone else is. It’s about sharing that message with your own voice so that the people you want to attract find it valuable and recognizable.

Call it perspective, call it secret sauce, call it seasoning … how do you prepare and serve up your content to stand apart?

Author’s Bio: Lisa D. Jenkins is a Public Relations professional specializing in Social and Digital Communications for businesses. She has over a decade of experience and work most often with destination organizations or businesses in the travel and tourism industry in the Pacific Northwest. Connect with her on Google+

Would You Hide Behind an E-Mail to Let an Employee Go?

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Many of us have been down that road no employee wants to travel; you are laid off or fired.

In my case, it was the former some six years ago while working for a company in San Diego. What made the action even more difficult to take was how it was handled.

To set the stage for you, I worked as an online editor for a publishing company. My responsibilities had grown during my five-plus years with the company from starting out as a staff writer, to temporary editor during some transitioning, to full-time online editor when all was said and done.

As I was nearing my sixth year of service with the company, I had a Friday that would forever change my life and especially how I would look at employers going forward.

Something Smells Here

On that Friday, I began my day working from home since we were allowed to do that from time to time. Just the day before, I was at my desk in the office working and nothing seemed terribly unusual. The owner of the company and I exchanged usual pleasantries and went on about our work days.

I left the office later that afternoon at my normal time, unbeknownst to me that it would be the last time I would ever set foot in that building again.

The next day (Friday), I started my work assignments online from home when I got an e-mail from my manager. She asked if I was coming in the office that day to which I replied no.

She then e-mailed to ask if I had time to do a conference call with her and the company CEO, something that seemed a little out of the ordinary for a Friday. I was never a Dean’s List student by any means, but I like to think that I make up for that lack of book knowledge by being rather street smart. The bottom line is something smelled here.

I e-mailed the manager back to ask her if something was up and she responded a few minutes later to say that I was being let go.

Okay, I don’t know how you would handle such an event, but about a dozen different emotions ran through my head at that time. The first and foremost one was why was this not done face-to-face the day earlier in the office?

Hiding behind a Computer

As it turns out, the owner of the company had his daughter-in-law (my manager at the time) do his dirty work for him. All the respect I had for that man over a five-year period went out the window in about 30 seconds. At least the way I was raised, you handle your business face-to-face with people, not hide behind a computer screen.

I would go on to find out that the CEO, a man that told me one day to my face his door was always open and I could always talk to him, was the one that orchestrated my dismissal. He also chose to hide behind his computer and not get on the phone with me at the least to give me an explanation of the dismissal. Again, he didn’t owe me that, but his previous words rang rather hollow at that point.

In 23 years of employment, I have come across some very good companies to work for and one or two that were not so good.

In a sense, what happened that Friday morning over a computer screen altered my outlook to a degree on employers forever.

One thing that will never change, I will always give 100 percent to any person that is kind enough to take me on and ask me to work for them; to do anything less is not the way I roll or how I was raised.

Secondly, however, I will never get as attached to a company as I did to that one six years ago.

The people at that company that I thought were my friends, the ones I traveled to conferences with, the ones I went to ballgames with, etc. dropped me like the plague when I got laid off. While they certainly were under no obligations to stay in touch with me, it really opened my eyes as to who your true friends are in such a scenario.

Years later I am happily employed with another company and coming up on a year anniversary.

What happened six years was a good learning experience,  one that will always make me look twice at people.

Some would say doing that is unhealthy and unfair to others – I see it as a way to never put myself in that position again of thinking those I worked with were any more than that – co-workers.

So, what are the ways you have been laid off or fired in the past?

Photo credit: ehow.co.uk

Dave Thomas, who writes on subjects such as VoIP phone service and credit card processing writes extensively for SanDiego-based Business.com.

3 Email Subject Lines Lies that Lose My Business

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Give Me a Thief Before a Liar

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I don’t like liars.

My mother used to say,

Give me a thief before a liar, because then I’ll know what he took.

I don’t like people who say things to purposefully mislead my thinking.
If you want me to read what you send me, then do the honest work that will get my attention.

Don’t lie to me.
It will backfire every time.

3 Email Subject Lines Lies that Lose My Business

Sometimes I wonder who’s teaching the folks who write email subject lines that if they trick us into opening the email, that we’ll be so excited about what’s inside we’ll forget that the subject line was a lie. Here are three lies that come in subject lines, that had the emails had other subject lines I might have considered what was offered.

A Special Offer for Only Our Best Customers

One big company likes to use this one. The first time it came to me. I thought I might find something special, but I clicked through to find an ordinary sale — a sale with prices available to anyone who visited their site. I didn’t feel so special. It made me feel like they thought I was stupid. No sale!!

A Partnership Opportunity

They send an email saying if we’re interested in a partnership, we should respond. Then. they’ll send details. Even the smallest research reveals that what they want is someone to write blog posts for $5.00/each. That’s less of a partnership than working a register in the food service industry.

And then my favorite …

Following Up

To received an email with this subject line, from someone who’s never contacted me is an outright lie. Not only will I not do business with the person who sent it, but I’ve on occasion been moved to call her to tell her why.

A lie might get me to open your email, but it won’t get my business.
It will make you unforgettable as someone I don’t want to do business with.
It’s clever in the same way as shooting yourself in the foot is.

Do you know other email subject line lies?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Net Neutrality 9-02-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Comcast Provides Preview of Net Non-Neutrality

. . . I have to wonder if a recent gripe from a Comcast cable modem customer, plus a story I read in this morning’s newspaper about Comcast blacklisting The Well, might be providing a sneak preview of what one of the biggest players has in store for us all.

A reader who is a Comcast broadband customer had a disturbing experience recently. “I’m at a total loss about how to handle this situation,” the reader wrote. “An e-mail to me from a friend got bounced apparently by Comcast. He resent it to my G-Mail account so I could see it. It said that his message was “Blocked for abuse. Please send blacklist removal requests to blacklist_comcastnet@cable.comcast.com’ among other stuff. So apparently there exists a Comcast blacklist that I cannot control that stops e-mails and that requires my correspondents to ask to be permitted to send me messages.”

[ . . . ]

Yes, there’s no question that all of this is far more easily explained by the remarkable incompetence Comcast has long displayed (see Comcast Seems Clueless About Blacklists) in the e-mail arena than some malevolent plot. This is a company that has never been able to properly support its own broadband customers, much less innocent third parties impacted by its random actions. But that’s just the point. Is there any reason to believe that non net-neutrality would make Comcast any better at handling such issues? . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

10 + 1 Things to Make Me Love Your Business Email

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Does Your Email Make People Crazy?

power writing at work

How many emails are in your in-box?

How long does it take you to find one you might want?

Do you think about that when you write an email? I’d be delighted if you would.

You may think that email is easy, but I have to tell you. I’m writing this post for a reason. In the last few weeks I’ve gotten some emails that have really concerned me with how folks are doing email business.

Here’s a quote from one:

Dear Liz,

I don’t know you. I’ve never read your blog. Would you come look at mine and see whether I can be an SOB?

I didn’t love that email.

But that’s a gross point. I’ve also picked up some finer points of managing and sending email to business associates that I bet that even you might not have run into. [Read more…]