Readers Want to Skim; If Not, They Skip

Very few content creators go into a piece of writing with the notion, “I hope readers skim this piece!” But, in fact, that’s exactly what you want them to do.

The binary isn’t between whether readers will skim your article or read it in its entirety; it’s whether they will skim it or skip it altogether.

And thus becomes one of the primary purposes of developing effective content for marketing purposes: the skim. Facilitate that, and you will earn the readers’ trust, interest and engagement. That initial skim, therefore, becomes the introduction to you, your expertise and the subject matter of the discrete piece of thought leadership. It is the portal into a deeper relationship between the author and reader.

The skim is the invitation to delve deeper. Without it, you’re risking the dreaded skip.

How to Use Skimmability to Further Engage the Reader

People are busy. They are easily distractible. They are being hard-wired by social media and a multimedia universe to have shorter attention spans. You are competing with everything, at every millisecond, for the attention of an audience. Step one is NOT to get the reader to immerse themselves into your chosen topic. Step one, on the contrary, is to get them to skim.

What’s Your Hook?

The first five seconds are critical. Fail to capture the attention of a scrolling or otherwise distracted reader and you will have lost your opportunity to influence that audience member forever. All of that writing, all of that expertise…gone in an instant. The dreaded skip!

There are two primary components to hooking a potential skimmer into your content funnel:

1 – Is your headline engaging?
Your headline has to immediately convey to a particular and distinct audience why your article is important and relevant to them. Why stop the scroll? What will be gained if I do? It needs to resonate with urgency. Anything less is an invitation to skip.

2 – Is your open an invitation to skim, or are you burying the lede?
Too often, writers reflexively withhold the a-ha moment for the dramatic close. The chief takeaway must lead your article, not recap it. If you can’t pay off your headline within the first 10 seconds of the reader’s investment in it, the reader will bounce (skip), and there will be nothing taken away other than a lasting impression that you wasted the readers’s time.

What’s Your Magnet?

A typical reader’s default inclination is to hit the back button. Get back to LinkedIn…delete the email newsletter…move onto another interest or priority. You must construct your article in a way that facilitates deeper investment. The goal here is to convert that initial 25-second investment (The Hook) into a 90-second session.

As a tradeoff for their time and attention, readers will be looking for reasons to linger. Will the problem be solved? Is this piece a mere marketing message disguised as a blog? Are their immediatly actionable insights to be gleaned?

Create visual landmarks that facilitate a skim all the way to the bottom of the piece:

1 – Use headings throughout.
Break up your paragraphs with enticing headers that serve both as visual landmarks for the eyeball to moor to and advance ahead, rather than allowing them to drift off into a homogenous sea of ennui. Headers re-invite a reader to resist waning interest and stay more deeply invested in the article’s value proposition. (They also serve as useful SEO “juice” for the search engine spiders crawling your site.)

2 – Employ bullet points and numbering.
Any presentation of text that doesn’t present as a long-winded paragraph provides another valuable invitation to skim. Remember, your first goal is to earn the skim…not present the argument in full. Bullet points and numbers are additional visual cues to the reader that content is being served up in digestible chunks, allowing the reader to maximize the efficiency of however much time they choose to invest in your piece.

What’s Your Catalyst?

The closing section should pay off the promise your Hook made at the outset. Remember that claim your article made at the open, as to why the piece was important and why the reader should care? Deliver on it in Act III.

1 – List the takeaways.
Give the reader three to five action items to implement right away to start chipping away at the challenge or opportunity your article examines.

2 – Close on a high note.
Believe it not, your final paragraph is more likely to be read by skimmers than much of the middle. Readers want to skip ahead to the big payoff they presume your saving up (the best for last). They figure you’ll summarize the most important points at the end, as we were taught way back in grade school. (Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you said.) Use this opportunity to echo The Hook, provide meaningful guidance on the provided action steps in The Magnet, or to offer the skimmer something next to do, read, watch or consider as The Catalyst to further the relationship.

Now That They’ve Skimmed, Skip Back to the Beginning

If you’ve gotten the reader this far — fully skimmed from top to bottom — it’s highly likely that you have, by then, earned his or her trust, attention, consideration and even intrigue. An effectively skimmable piece of thought leadership will provide that conduit to that next important step in the reader-audience relationship.

No, this is not when the reader calls you and demands to hire you on the spot (typically speaking). This is when the reader has taken enough value away from the initial skim that they begin to read the fuller piece more closely and deeply.

NOTE: This does not mean, necessarily, that the reader will start at the beginning and run through the piece in its entirety. What’s more likely is that the reader will continue to skip around, looking for nuggets of wisdom they missed on the initial skim. This is when full paragraphs get considered, digested and analyzed.

Milk the Skims!

If you’re lucky, the skim begets a read. The read plants a seed. The seed germinates into a reputation. That reputation is what begets consideration down the road when an opportunity arises for you to be on the short list of potential service providers.

But, remember, the alternative to a skim is not a word-for-word deep-dive study…

It’s a skip.

Be honest…you skimmed this article, didn’t you?

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Is Automated Content Truly Thought Leadership, Or Is It Following the Leaders?

In conversations with professional service providers on the topic of thought leadership, there often arises a need to make clear distinctions between thought-leadership marketing and other forms of content marketing.

As an agency, we firmly believe that thought-leadership content is the most effective form of content marketing for providers of sophisticated B2B services, as professionals get sought out and hired for their expertise, and that expertise needs to be consistently available and discoverable if the content creator is going to elevate to the status of thought leader.

Mere “content” for content’s sake is generally not enough to fully allow an individual to differentiate, to establish a credible expert reputation, and to separate oneself from the competitive field of peers and rivals in the increasingly crowded marketplace of ideas. Sure, if you would’ve asked me ten years ago, “Is any content better than no content?” the answer would’ve been a reluctant “sure.” But today, the media are noisier, the voices are more plentiful, and our audiences have never been more distractible.

The good news? Most of the content out there is considered by decision makers to be subpar. There’s your opportunity: to elevate your subject matter expertise into thought leadership, and your thought leadership into new business opportunities. But you likely won’t achieve your aspirations by adding to the content tsunami. You must engage in thought leadership, not just content creation.

So what’s the difference?

Picking up where my partner Jay Harrington left off, who recently posed three questions to attorneys who aspire to become thought leaders on our podcast, The Thought Leadership Project, I have a quick litmus test for you…

Here are three questions to ask honestly of the content you are creating. Evaluate your content and content strategy through this prism, and you’ll be able to self-identify as a thought leader or a content creator.

1 – Does My Content Consistently Serve a Singular Niche Audience?

By definition, generalists are not credible thought leaders. While their expertise domains may be broad and touch on a wide range of issues, it will always be difficult for a generalist to effectively penetrate any single domain with enough authority to garner the reputation as a leading voice, especially when competing against other domain-specific experts in a given arena.

Similar to how patients view their medical providers, we tend to go to general practitioners for shallow but broad medical expertise. But when specialized expertise is required, the stakes become higher, and we seek out leading care providers that have narrow but deep expertise applicable to our very specific and acute needs.

The same goes for the practice of professional services. As the stakes rise, so does the need for specialized expertise and deep understanding of the issues at play. Conveniently, as the stakes rise, so too does the premium, as highly regarded thought leaders are able to command higher fees and avoid the race to the bottom that generalists tend to need to.

Make sure your content strategy is oriented toward a narrowly defined niche audience—the narrower the better. Soon you will be recognized as a true expert…indeed, a thought leader, and not just an author who produces content on a variety of topics relevant to a broad number of industry segments that may or may not apply to any one individual at any given moment.

2 – Does My Content Fully Address the Issues and Questions that My Audience Grapples with Daily?

Remember who you serve (or who you are endeavoring to serve). A common mistake we see among content producers is that they orient their content around themselves—eager to display expertise and authority—but neglect to serve the content consumer.

An example: “News jacking” is a term we in the content business use to describe the tactic of aligning one’s content strategy with what’s currently in the media. For example, consider topics like coronavirus and (in states like Michigan and others) the legalization of recreational marijuana. A common temptation for content creators is to author articles around the attorney’s expertise or track record relevant to these issues in the news. One might cite past successes or highlight specific case law in order to establish the reputation as someone with a firm grasp of the critical issue.

All of this is fine and good, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go far enough. What is too often missing is a deconstruction of the complexities that the content consuming audience is grappling with. Are you answering their questions? Fully? Are you writing or speaking in language that is accessible to potential clients who are not themselves lawyers? Are you providing answers and enlightening analysis, or merely presenting rhetorical questions and highlighting potential pitfalls?

Thought leaders lead. They demystify the complex. They give—even at the risk of providing “free advice.” Those online searching for solutions will keep searching until they find the answers they seek. Ideally, you want them to stop at your content, not glide over it in a continuing search for the comfort of knowledge.

Yes, you may be providing value at no billable return. But those investments in establishing trust and earning authority will pay compounding dividends in both the short and long term. It’s highly likely your competitors are not providing those answers…but that is precisely what your potential prospects are seeking.

3 – Does My Thought Leadership Meet My Audiences Where They Live, Work and Play?

Are you maximizing the reach and, thereby, the effect of your content? The first consideration you should make is being certain that your content is being published on your law firm’s owned media properties, such as your website/blog and the email alerts distributed to the firm’s database. But that’s only the first consideration. Too often, it’s the last.

Content creators produce content and publish that content on owned channels. Some will go the extra step of making sure that content is significantly leveraged across shared channels, such as social media—both the firm’s and the professional’s individual social media platforms. One might even put practices into place to optimize the visibility and engagement of that content, as we coach and train our clients to do.

But when consumers of content seek out thought leaders and expert voices on topics relevant to their specific and pressing needs, they typically don’t go to marketing channels like websites and newsletters. They tend to seek out well-established, highly regarded niche authorities, such as industry media, trade associations and online content communities that orient their own missions around providing resources and value to the same audiences you might be courting for business.

We urge content creators to seek out and secure publishing (or even syndication!) opportunities on third-party platforms that bring with them gravitas, earned trust and authority, and by extension to your content that they may choose to publish, an implicit third-party endorsement of your bona fides as thought leader. We recently had as guest on our podcast an expert in techniques thought leaders can master to position their content for publication on media platforms, if you’re looking to understand how this is best accomplished.

Be cognizant of where your audiences live, work and play. Know that these are the domains to which they retreat to find answers, seek out solutions, and identify experts. This is where your content needs to live…and when it does, how you establish your reputation as a legitimate thought leader.

The Thought Leadership Formula for Success

These comprise the foundation of our philosophy relative to thought-leadership marketing, as opposed to other forms of content marketing:

• You can’t be credibly regarded as a thought leader until you endeavor to serve a narrowly defined niche audience.

• You won’t earn the trust and affinity of that audience unless you provide true value to them, at no cost: answering their questions, simplifying complexity, and providing expertise and analysis that only thought leaders can offer.

• You won’t optimize the reach nor efficacy of your content if you don’t generate exposure on the platforms on which your niche audience relies to deliver expertise and thought leadership.

All of this is something to think more deeply about, especially in the age of ChatGPT and the like. Google, LinkedIn and other Big Tech are reengineering their algorithms to sniff out and snuff out content created by automation. So are your prospects. People want to “hire the attorney, not the firm,” as the saying goes. And they sure as heck don’t want to hire the artificial intelligence platform that scrapes the internet and regurgitates other people’s ideas.

B2B Prospects Move Themselves Into Market. Here’s Why That’s Important…

If you are in the business of selling expertise, a professional service, or consulting engagements, one of the best ways to earn the confidence of a prospective client is to consistently and convincingly demonstrate domain authority and subject matter expertise.

But the goal is almost never to move a prospect into market. Typically speaking, no amount of marketing can, as the purchases are significant, well-thought-out, thoroughly discussed, and of significant scope and dollar value.

So, if we can’t convince someone to buy from us with marketing, why should we bother? Because of the natural lifecycle of a purchase of professional services.

How Things Work. And How Your Content Will Work for You.

Buyers of sophisticated professional services do not make impulse purchases, as the stakes are often high and the commitment to getting it right rigorous.

As opposed to the lifecycle of commodity purchases, much of your prospect’s “customer journey” is taking place long before that person ever has such a pressing need that he or she is actively shopping for a service provider and vetting candidates.

In fact, it’s often a matter of those shoppers looking for assurances and confidence that they are making the right selection, and this happens one of two primary ways:

1 – Through a referral from a trusted resource (someone who may also be in your marketing plan’s target market)

2 – Banked trust and respect earned over the long-term through the service provider’s (that’s you!) public demonstration of expertise and the ability to get results.

In either case, your best opportunity to earn that referral or respect is to generously share your ideas and insights with the world, so that you earn the reputation of a proven, reliable and expert problem solver.

To my mind, there is no better way to do that consistently than to create and publish content in the form of thought leadership, be that writing, podcasting, public speaking, or even video production.

For today, let’s focus on the former. I will share with you my formula for structuring written content that will earn the interest of your clients, referral sources and prospects, and ultimately, establish you as the preferred candidate for anyone looking to hire a service provide in your particular domain of expertise…

Keep Reading:

How to Structure An Effective Thought Leadership Article to (Someday) Influence a Purchasing Decision (not Today)

Your Content Has a Half-Life. Plan Accordingly.

In science, half-life is the time required for a quantity to reduce to half of its initial value.

The content you create and publish has a half-life, too. And it seems as though that half-life gets shorter and shorter with each passing day. We keep increasing the pace at which we consume—or ignore—content, to the point nowadays that your content’s half-life can be fleeting.

So what’s the use in spending two weeks to plan, several hours to write, and maybe days to produce and publish a 1,500-world article that may spend only seconds in a busy scroller’s social media feed, or seconds on screen before a declutterer deletes your marketing email that links to your blog?

We are being bombarded with more and more content, at an increasing pace, that as consumers, we are being faced with split-second decisions whether to click a link, commit to a read, or afford minutes to a well-produced video.

Is it worth the time we put into perfecting this polished content? No. And Yes.

Don’t Bother with Perfect. Get to Published.

If the intended audience isn’t willing to spend more than a few seconds with your content, why take hours, days and weeks creating it for them? In the modern media environment, people are looking for quick hits: byte-sized content in the form of short posts, quick videos and instant gratification. Multiple rewrites and reviews of academic articles, expensive post-production and editing of two-minute sizzle-reel videos, and splashy immersive multimedia productions…most of that time and expense is wasted, if the user’s thumb simply scrolls right past it, onto the next post in the feed.

“Don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good [enough],” is the common expression. More and more, I’m advising clients to shorten their time-to-market horizons to match the short game that content consumers are playing. If people are craving for quick hits, give them to them. 

Instead of a perfectly polished 1,500-word article, start with a 700-character LinkedIn post. Instead of expecting browsers to click a link to consume your content, give them the chief takeaways right in that post itself. The article might take hours to create; the post should take fewer than 30 minutes. The former is expected to be perfect; the latter might even have a typo in it! [Gasp!] That’s okay. It’s a different kind of medium, and perfection is not expected.

The name of the (short) game nowadays is to be visible, be ubiquitous, and be relevant. In the time it might take you to plan, write, produce and publish a full-length article, you will have missed as many as 100 micro-moments—opportunities for you to get a kernel of expertise in front of the audience you’re hoping to influence. Don’t waste those opportunities and leave them to your competitors to claim.

Instead of the polished production video, shoot a quick selfie video capturing an idea that comes to mind. Instead of a pre-planned Webinar, hop on a Zoom call with a client or colleague and record a short discussion about a hot topic of interest to your audience.

Not only does this absolve you of the burden of perfection, it allows you to produce more content, more quickly, and to meet your constituents in the moment…literally. Consider the timeline it might take for you to get the “perfect” piece of content produced. How often can you commit to the time, work and attention to get something like that completed? Maybe monthly? At best?

Here’s how I would spend that month instead:

• Start with a weekly post on LinkedIn.

• Once comfortable, accelerate that pace to three posts per week.

• The ultimate goal is one LinkedIn post per day.

In time, you will increase your content “at-bats” from one per month to 30. You don’t have to be a math major to understand the inherent value in that increase in odds.

Don’t Forget the Long Game!

But remember: That fleeting moment in which your content expended its half-life was only one half of the story. Indeed, once the initial moment has passed, your content has only expended half of its initial value! The remaining value looks more like a dinosaur tale, and in most cases, lasts in perpetuity.

Despite everything I advocated above, you cannot only play the short game if you want your thought-leadership content strategy to be fully effective. You must understand the long game as well.

All of those micro-moments are, indeed, fleeting. There is very little permanence to them. What does live forever, however, is that fully produced content published on your owned media platforms: your website, chief among them.

Consider the other two applications in which your content does some business-development heavy lifting for you:

• matching people’s search criteria

• validating your expertise for website browsers who are approaching a purchasing decision

If you only play the short game, and all of your content lives only in posts, it will be invisible to anyone searching for your expertise online or visiting your website to vet you as a service provider. These are the moments that validate your prior commitment to “the perfect.” Here, prospects will be looking to understand your value, learn your differentiators, and glean your expertise. It’s either a first impression you’re making, or a last-ditch pitch to make the prospect’s short list. Better make it count.

Posts, selfie videos and impromptu Zoom conversations won’t cut it here. 

So you have to do both if you want to be truly effective—the short game AND the long game. The nice thing is, one overlays against the other. 

This is how that long-game content calendar might shake out:

• monthly blog

• monthly newsletter

• quarterly video

• two webinars per year

• one conference, event or symposium per year

Both, Not Either/Or

In tandem, your most effective content calendar will both meet prospects in their micro-moments and maximize the entire lifespan—not just the half-life—of your content’s value…even in perpetuity:

• daily posts on LinkedIn

• weekly impromptu videos, Zoom conversations or podcasts

• monthly blog

• monthly, semi-monthly or weekly email newsletter

• quarterly “sizzle” video

• two webinars per year

• one conference, event or symposium per year

In my experience, most would-be content creators get stuck on the enormity of the task at hand, thinking they need to become prolific content creators of perfectly polished prose. That’s only half of the formula, and it’s not the one I would start with today—especially if I needed to get off of the sidelines and into the game. The long game is the traditional paradigm, and it’s still paramount.

But the short game is happening right now…with or without you. The quicker you check in, the sooner your at-bats will start resulting in singles, doubles, runs scored, and games won. Batter up!

Is LinkedIn a business-development platform?I think it should be.

But I don’t think it should be used as a glorified version of Salesforce. By that, I mean that I don’t think it’s wise to approach LinkedIn as prospecting “CRM” software, wherein you go trawling for leads, playing the spray-and-pray numbers game. 

Instead, I think there’s a more genuine, human approach you can take to the world’s largest business-to-business social network in a way that will almost assuredly result in business-development wins, but will not have you pounding the proverbial pavement, cold calling and knocking on doors.

Don’t Do This

We’ve all been on the receiving end of the blind poke—the LinkedIn version of the cold call. You receive a LinkedIn invitation from someone you’ve never met in the real world, who appears to be a service provider to your industry, rather than a colleague, peer or associate. Sometimes, you ignore the inner voice warning you to ignore the invitation, and you connect with this prospector.

Within minutes, you receive a three-paragraph pitch, offering a “proven system” to generate leads, optimize your website, or a thinly veiled plea to “explore synergies.” Likely, an automated, anonymous pitch triggered by the connection you just agreed to.

How do you respond to such an unsolicited overture from a stranger? Or do you even reply at all? For me, I take no joy in conversing with a robot. Ignore. Or, worse, I immediately undo the connection.

Yes, LinkedIn (Premium) allows you to send unsolicited InMails to people who might want to hire you, but should you? I’d rather you take another, more authentic, and much more effective approach.

Do This Instead

If you’re the type of person who walks into a networking event handing out business cards to strangers and peddling your wares to anyone who gives you a moment of their time, I guess using an online social networking venue to do the same will suit you just fine.

But if you’re like most people, and you prefer to be asked for opinions and opportunities, rather than foist them upon strangers just looking to join a casual conversation, you’ll be able to convert and transfer your typical behaviors and tactics from the real world into the digital realm.

There are better ways to generate conversation, foster engagement and convert connections into relationships…and relationships into opportunities. Consider these alternate, authentic approaches:

• Connect with people you know in real life as a starting point. And send each connection request with a short note contextualizing how you know the invitee and why you’d like to connect with him or her.

• Participate in conversations already happening on other people’s posts—either professionals you know personally or the more popular “influencers” in your industry. As you’re replying, commenting and engaging with real people on the other end of the conversation, extend a connection request with these erstwhile strangers. Now there’s a reason for the invite!

• Spend some time in your timeline, as opposed to only going to LinkedIn to post an article or status update. A few likes, comments and shares on other people’s posts in your feed go a long way toward generating authentic discussion and camaraderie, but they also send signals to the algorithms baked into LinkedIn that make suggestions as to whom you should connect with, what types of content will appear in your feed, but most importantly, who’s streams LinkedIn will serve your content into!

• Be generous with your content-sharing strategy. Offer help, solutions and expertise—with no expectation of return or benefit. Just like in “the real world,” people will notice. They will bank the impressions you’re consistently making as a resource, an expert, and a thought leader. At some future (appropriate) point, they come looking to make a withdrawal!

• Be yourself. And not an automaton. 

Yes, technology like LinkedIn does make it much easier to prospect at scale, using automation and other shortcuts to make mass-market prospecting seem easier. But just because you can doesn’t always mean you should.

I’m of the belief that real people like connecting with real people. And that by offering value, rather than asking for business, you will genuinely attract people who want to engage with you, as opposed to ignoring your solicitations or deleting you from their connections. 

Without ever having to “sell,” opportunities will find you…as if, by magic.

A Proven Formula for Writers of Thought Leadership Marketing Content

If you are in the business of selling expertise, a professional service, or consulting engagements, one of the best ways to earn the confidence of a prospective client is to consistently and convincingly demonstrate domain authority and subject matter expertise. Buyers of sophisticated professional services do not make impulse purchases, as the stakes are often high and the commitment to getting it right rigorous.

As opposed to the lifecycle of commodity purchases, much of your prospect’s “customer journey” is taking place long before that person ever has such a pressing need that he or she is actively shopping for a service provider and vetting candidates. In fact, it’s often a matter of those shoppers looking for assurances and confidence that they are making the right selection, and this happens one of two primary ways:

1. Through a referral from a trusted resource (someone who may also be in your marketing plan’s target market)

2. Banked trust and respect earned over the long-term through the service provider’s (that’s you!) public demonstration of expertise and the ability to get results.

In either case, your best opportunity to earn that referral or respect is to generously share your ideas and insights with the world, so that you earn the reputation of a proven, reliable and expert problem solver. To my mind, there is no better way to do that consistently than to create and publish content in the form of thought leadership, be that writing, podcasting, public speaking, or even video production.

For today, let’s focus on the former. I will share with you my formula for structuring written content that will earn the interest of your clients, referral sources and prospects, and ultimately, establish you as the preferred candidate for anyone looking to hire a service provide in your particular domain of expertise.

First, Let’s Get Physical

I’m going to only speak briefly here about the importance of having a captivating and inviting headline, as for me, that often comes after I’ve written the article. Until I know exactly what the piece provides the reader, I’m unsure what to promise in the form of a headline that can be paid off through the delivery of the full piece of content.

But I do want to emphasize the importance of the physical structure of the article, specifically in terms of appearance. Be sure to make your content scannable, even though your actual intent and preference is for the reader to consume your each and every word. That’s not how content is consumed anymore. What you want to do is to generate enough interest in that first scan so that your reader will go back and start to dig deeper into every section, until they’ve actually read 80-100% of the article. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but them’s the breaks nowadays, when people’s attention spans have been rewired to even gloss over a long tweet.

But see the subhead I used above? Maybe that caught your eye and told you where to skip ahead to next. Those visual landmarks make longer-form content more perusable, and they keep your scanning reader engaged, at least to a point. And you’ll notice that I chose to get a little pithy with my headline, summoning the Olivia Newton John classic for a little fun with wordplay. That may or may not fit into your particular personality or voice, but if it does, have at it.

OK, Really First: Solve for “WHY”

I typically structure my blog posts and thought leadership articles as three-act plays in the following hierarchy: WHY—>HOW—>WHAT.

The first act is designed to pull the reader in and convince him or her that you have a genuine understanding of people’s pain points, aspirations, challenges or goals, based on your considerable expertise in a given area. If you can show, not tell, the reader why your topic is important, relevant, timely and worthy of attention, you will have achieved the critical first step: reader engagement and a degree (perhaps to a great degree) of trust. This may come in the form of an anecdote, a statistic, a news item or prevalent industry trend, or simply (but not only and always) a position you’re staking out — perhaps even counterintuitively.

Next, Show Me How

Again using the show me don’t tell me approach, my second “act” or article section is typically devoted to how you approach the relevant issue…how you’ve solved this problem or overcome this challenge in the past…how you think differently and insightfully about the pain point or aspiration. You might take a case-study approach here, or actually reveal a bit of your secret formula (just enough so that the reader will want to know more), or provide a guiding philosophy that informs your overall approach. The latter is typically something that seems rather routine for the expert that you are but, for the novice reader, seems innovative and insightful.

Lastly, Give Me the What

I typically conclude each piece with some specific, prescriptive action items that the reader can consider and even begin to implement right away, so that you’re not just leaving the reader hanging. Remember, you are going to have to pay off the promise of your alluring headline and opening. Simply providing an articulation of a problem without offering a solution is not a service to the reader — it’s simply a complaint, and a tease.

This final section may come under the header of something like “Three Steps You Can Take Immediately to Overcome Your Recruiting and Retention Challenges in a Tight Labor Market.” Then you might bullet-point this list out, again for easy consumption and to give the reader another visual landmark as to where to direct his or her attention. Don’t be overly concerned about giving your best ideas away “for free.” In almost every scenario, your target market doesn’t want to handle this problem, in an area of expertise largely foreign to them, by themselves. They are going to hire it out to an expert. What you want is to be that expert — not your competition.

Closing Time

When executed over the long term, each deposit of thought leadership that you invest will be “banked” by your clients, prospects and referral sources. At some naturally occurring future moment in time, when a matter arises that you are strong candidate to address, you will have made enough incremental investments that will pay off to genuinely earn you the position of the natural and obvious solution or service provider.

In many cases, when your prospect is at the point of need and ready to hire someone, there will be no short list of candidates to vet and for you to compete with. That short list will be you.

And last but not least, if you can come up with some clever way to conclude the piece to leave a memorable last impression on your reader and future client prospect, go for it.

And if not…

If you want to design a successful marketing program, watch the movie “Memento.”

Here’s how that would work…

(If you’ve never seen the Christopher Nolan classic, Memento is a story that is told in reverse chronology. The first scene of the movie is actually the final event in the story. The second scene depicts the events that immediately preceded the first scene, or final chapter. The third scene depicts the events that immediately preceded that. And so on it goes, all the way to the final scene, which depicts the first event in the storyline — the one that kicked off the chain of events, told backwards, from back to front.)

Here’s how and why you should apply that same reverse chronology approach to reverse-engineer a successful, data-driven marketing strategy of your own:

What happens immediately prior to a sale, sign-up or conversion?

• Typically, you’ve presented a quote, proposal, bid or budget estimate for a prospect’s consideration.

What happens immediately prior to that presentment of quote or contract?

• Typically, a prospect has asked for, or agreed to, your submission of the proposal.

What happens immediately before that?

• Typically, you present your capabilities, differentiation and value proposition to the prospect for consideration.

What happens immediately before that?

• Likely, you’ve taken a series of meetings or phone calls with the prospect to assess need, discover the problem, and determine whether there is a match between what you offer and what the prospect needs solved or accomplished.

What happens immediately before that?

• The prospect discovers you and expresses some level of interest or intent to see if you can help them.

This is where things get important, and how it can shape your strategy, for better or for worse…

How did this prospect discover you?

Did they find you on Google? Then your marketing strategy should focus on search engine marketing and SEO.

Did they respond to your outbound overture in, say, an email or newsletter? Focus your efforts on email marketing.

Were they influenced by some form of advertising? Where and how? Apply your budget and resources to more of the same.

Were they referred to you, by an existing client or trusted colleague? Or have they long been part of your network and ecosystem, and only reached out when they had a problem that required your services?

If the latter is true, as it is for most of my clients, then you need to engage in more of the kinds of activities that foster referrals and earn trust and authority over time and ongoing.

In the B2B space, generally speaking this means sharing your ideas and expertise with the world so that you can demonstrate capability and influence future referrals and inbound requests for your services.

Specifically, I’m referring to thought-leadership content and storytelling. For these types of buyers, you need to take a show-me-don’t-tell-me approach to demonstrating expertise and earning trust. It simply can’t be bought on the cheap or in the moment.

Whatever the customer journey looks like for you, map it from forward to back, and pick your ideal client as the hero in the journey. 

For once you get to the beginning of the story, and can say with confidence what the first chapter is that sets the rest of the story in motion, you can confidently replicate that story arch and start to tell it over and over again…from the front to back.

You’ll engage in more of the sorts of activities that set the story’s wheels in motion, thereby making sure you get more final scenes that end the way you want the movie to end.

So map the story backward, so you can force the story forward with greater frequency and to greater effect.

That’s how Memento so brilliantly works, and that’s how effective marketing programs are designed.