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How Mandela and a poem can help you gain the trust of your website visitors

How Mandela and a poem can help you gain the trust of your website visitors

By Bhaskar Sarma Leave a Comment

webconversion means trust
Nelson Mandela with Francois Pienaar

It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

You have a website up and running. You see traffic but no one clicks on the buy button or fills up the contact form. They land on a page, have a quick look around and then bounce, never to return.

And it’s doubly frustrating when you know you have a good product that is a proven problem solver.

Do you throw up your hands and become bitter, withdrawn and resentful?

No, you don’t. You get inspired by Nelson Mandela.

How to heal a bitterly divided country

In 1994 Mandela became the first black president of a country bitterly divided along racial lines . He knew that South Africa would be torn apart if reconciliation between the privileged white minority and the oppressed black majority didn’t happen.

As he transformed himself from a rebel to a statesman he decided, in the face of all opposition, to throw his weight behind the Springboks, the national rugby team that most blacks saw as the symbol of apartheid.

He promoted the rugby team as a South African team instead of an Afrikaner or a white team and enlisted the help of the captain Francois Pienaar, a big, blonde son of apartheid.

And against all odds, in the 1995 Rugby World Cup organized in South Africa, the Springboks won. The entire country erupted in celebrations and the slow process of reconciliation began.

White South Africans who had reviled Mandela as a terrorist now accepted him as their president and began to trust that he would give them a fair deal. [Read more…] about How Mandela and a poem can help you gain the trust of your website visitors

Filed Under: Copywriting Tagged With: B2B, blogs, casestudies, conversion, Copywriting, webdesign, whitepapers

How to write a whitepaper without getting Force choked by a Sith Lord

How to write a whitepaper without getting Force choked by a Sith Lord

By Bhaskar Sarma 2 Comments

darth vader whitepaperOn a gloomy day in Coruscant, Darth Vader sat in his office block, breathing more deeply than usual.

The Empire was building a second Death Star and the Emperor wanted him to monitor every phase of the construction.

He was particularly interested in the shield generator for the Death Star which was to be built on the forest moon of Endor.

It was the Death Star’s first line of defence and Darth Vader’s responsibility to make sure that it would do the job.

Knowing the reader

When the news got out about the shield generator trade federations all over the galaxy were excited. The talk went something like this-

Alien #1(manager) – A lot of Imperial credits are riding on this project. Can we bag the contract, team?

Alien #2 (engineering head)- Yes. We have the technology to build this generator and we can whip up the prototype in no time. We are the perfect vendor.

Alien #3 (salesman)- Then get me in touch with the Sith Lord’s office. I am bagging this one. I need to buy that artificial asteroid for my wife.

Alien #1- Brilliant. Prepare a holographic presentation and list out the specs. I will send it to Coruscant.

[Read more…] about How to write a whitepaper without getting Force choked by a Sith Lord

Filed Under: B2B Marketing Tagged With: B2B, content marketing, whitepapers

11 reasons your B2B technology whitepapers are broken

11 reasons your B2B technology whitepapers are broken

By Bhaskar Sarma 4 Comments

why are whitepapers broken?If you are a B2B company and you don’t use whitepapers in your marketing mix you will get your clock cleaned by the competition.

Study after study over the years has consistently shown that whitepapers are one of the most influential marketing collaterals ever.

In fact, the only thing that can beat them in influence is positive word of mouth or personal recommendations.

According to the Eccolo Media 2011 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report

  • 62% of the respondents read whitepapers, second only from product brochures and beating other collateral like case studies.
  • 65% considered whitepapers to be very or extremely influential in purchase decisions, the highest for any content collateral.

This quote from the survey captures, in a nutshell, what exactly is it about whitepapers and B2B technology marketing [Read more…] about 11 reasons your B2B technology whitepapers are broken

Filed Under: Copywriting Tagged With: B2B, content marketing, whitepapers

The Zen of gating B2B content: How, What and When

The Zen of gating B2B content: How, What and When

By Bhaskar Sarma 7 Comments

the zen of content gatingHow many times have you given up on downloading a piece of useful looking content only because it was locked behind a registration form?

I had the same feeling today but figured investigating this topic should be fun, considering everyone had an opinion on it.

This particular form had everything, from reasonable and essential stuff like name and email address to more intimate info like home address and phone number.

As I stared at that form with several required fields the only thing going through my head was this:

“Dude, you will make for a very crappy first date when you ask all these things right after introductions.”

So I did what I usually do when I see content ( say, the schematics of the Death Star) that will help me with my job (Rebel Alliance pilot)…

…but gated behind a form

[Read more…] about The Zen of gating B2B content: How, What and When

Filed Under: Content Marketing Strategy Tagged With: B2B, casestudies, gated content, registration forms, whitepapers

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