Knowledgestorm's Intelligent Content Strategy

This blog reviews how organizations that are thriving in the thought leadership business write about what they do. Theirs is state-of-the-art work and hence full of lessons about how other organizations can use words as a competitive weapon.

You can understand then why I was eager to hear Jeff Ramminger speak at the Business Marketing Association meeting this week outside Boston. Jeff is executive vice president of Knowledgestorm, a company that distributes content online for technology vendors. Companies partner with Knowledgestorm to get their messages in front of decision makers who use the Internet to do research in advance of purchase decisions. Knowedgestorm is very successful at what it does and has collected a lot of data on what works and what doesn't work for converting content into awareness, credibility, and qualified sales leads.

Much of what Jeff said is contained in a white paper you can download here, titled: "What Technology Buyers Want You to Know about Online Content". The paper is not copyrighted and can be freely distributed to colleagues. The only restriction is that to read the document you first have to register. The white paper is a summary of a new study, Define What's Valued Online, conducted jointly by Knowledgestorm and the CMO Council. The study surveyed 1,400 decision makers and decision influencers of technology purchases by business organizations.


Here are a couple of key points from the study I want to highlight. The first is that technology buyers dislike hype and puffery about as much as they hate poor communication of the business-value propoosition. These were the two annoyances most frequently cited in response to the question: "What are your pet peeves about online technical content and information sourced from the Internet? (select top three)"

This is interesting because it shows the challenge writers of white papers and case studies confront every day: how to convey the value proposition in a compelling way using language most readers will not perceive as hype -- and there are a number of techniques professional writers employ to do that. By the way, this is also the kind of challenge trade publications pose when inviting companies to contribute technical articles.


The second point is that vendor white papers are the content buyers most frequently use (58.3%) to base purchase decisions. Product literature (51.6%) and vendor case studies (29.6%) also ranked high. I would suspect that one reason vendor-supplied content is relied upon so much is that no one knows more about the technology vendors provide than the vendors who provide it. Readers are apparently willing to discount vendors' obvious self-interest in exchange for information that is highly relevant and (potentially) highly factual. The key is having the writing expertise to ensure your content is perceived that way wihout hype.