By Bob Decker
I was recently invited by the marcom manager at one of the world’s best established sensor manufacturers to have a Zoom conversation with his team about contributed articles for trade magazines, which is the topic of a marcom brief I put together several months ago.
“What I’m interested in hearing you talk about isn’t so much about how to do contributed articles, but why,” he said. “It would be useful for my team to have your insights on why contributed articles are worthwhile.”
This set me thinking in a new direction, the result was a conversation that covered a lot of different ground from the marcom brief I'd written a few months earlier. At some point I'll revise that document and make it available here, but for now wanted to share with you a few insights that people thought were valuable.
1. Contributed articles are most useful at the top of the sales / marketing funnel.
They take time to read. They tend to address general questions about various technologies rather than "Whose product should I buy right now?" So it's unrealistic to expect that someone will read your article and then place an order five minutes later. That said, articles (and many other types of long form content) are a great way to let customer know that 1) you're in a given business, 2) you have expertise that can help them solve a problem now or at some point in the future, and 3) you know how to be helpful.
2. A corollary to the preceding point is that contributed articles are best used to promote products that are still relatively new but that have been around long enough that you know well how they'll work in the real world and hopefully you can give some real examples of how they're solving problems for your customers.
Using a contributed article specifically to promote a new product usually isn't a great idea since most publications don't want free editorial to be used this way and you'll be compelled to refer to your new solution in cryptic language that stops short of identifying what it is and where to buy it. Of course, a contributed article doesn't absolutely need to talk about a specific product at all to build your credibility as someone who understands what challenges your customers are facing.
3. Paid contributed articles that are indistinguishable from the unpaid kind, i.e. which don't have ADVERTORIAL warnings plastered all over them, are a thing to be open-minded about.
While you may not want to pay for magazine "coverage," that might be the only choice depending on your industry or which geographical market you're targeting. Besides the guarantee that something will actually get published where you want it to be, paid editorial provides the incentive to get the darn article written. You'll be given a firm deadline by the magazine and if you miss it, you lose the money you paid to get it published.
I could go on and on about this topic! But what I'd really like is to talk with you directly about how Redpines can help you create and promote several types of long-form content, including contributed articles. To request a call, just E-mail me at bob.decker[at]redpinesgroup.com, or go ahead and dial 415 409-0233.