ARTICLE

The Green Sheet January 2003

Trying to sell document management products and services often leads to the conclusion that 'there is an education problem.' Prospects are simply not aware of what the product can do for them. This begs the question 'how do you educate prospects to increase sales?' Sales people can do it using customised presentations to prospects, assuming they can overcome initial resistance, but this is expensive. Advertising and press releases have their place but are not meaty enough to get the message across. While free seminars have a limited audience. A solution is expert articles.

Expert articles are articles published in media such as the trade and business press, that are written by experts, rather than Public Relations (PR) people using spin and PR puff. These are articles where you get to the end, feeling that you have learnt something. They are not those that you read half-way through, only to find it turns into an advertisement for a product, and leaves you feeling angry at being deceived and having your time wasted. Unlike advertising, the space in the magazine is free and the typical expert article in an A4 size will be either one or two pages (750 or 1500 words).

So an advantage is that it is a large splash of promotion that is likely to be noticed. You have the space to communicate your expert message to solve the education problem, plus you get the extra credibility of it being editorial. As editorial cannot be bought like advertising, it carries more weight with the reader. Such articles can help increase sales indirectly, like the artillery softening up the enemy for an infantry attack. So when sales people make initial contacts they meet less resistance because the product and the company are already known. Or if the prospect says, 'I've never heard of you,' the salesman can reply, 'Didn't you see our article in The Green Sheet this month then?' In addition, they can add significant value to all your other marketing activities such as advertising and exhibitions.

Direct sales are also possible. A client of ours got the opportunity to tender for a £100,000 contract as a result of a response from an expert article we wrote and placed for them. Apart from benefits to the company, there can also be personal benefits. These may be the result of company benefits being attributed to you that enhances your value to your company. However, they can also promote you personally, which can lead to attractive opportunities from other organisations.

Expert articles can be used for a range of existing sectors where you have customers, as well as opening up new markets. For example, in our work for a document management bureau on COM (Computer Output to Microfilm) we had articles published in the Document Management sector, plus those of Information Management, Business Management and Government. While our work on Backfile Conversion included the Computer sector, Document Management and Finance. Although, this is still a limited indication of the potential, for example, in total, we have had 282 articles published in 54 different UK sectors, and also in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Document management could be applied to all of them. Producing articles in this way becomes more economical, because while each article needs to be tailored to the sector that it appears, it is quicker than producing an original article, as you are not starting from scratch each time. Using such an approach it is possible to get far more coverage than the equivalent cost of advertising. For example, for the COM article we obtained coverage equivalent to £19,450 for a cost of £1,375. I should add that we charge more now and this may not be possible for your situation. On the other hand though, there was scope for even better results..

They can also be used as a feature of the total package you are offering. By offering to mention customers in your articles, you are making a stronger business case for the prospect. This is because they get a company and personal promotional benefit, in addition to the normal benefits of the product or service purchased. The expert article itself can be seen as a business case, which is used to sell the benefits of the product's application to a business, to the company's publics (customers, shareholders, prospects, regulators and so on).

Finally, they do not just have to be used for publishing in magazines. Client articles of ours, for example, have been reprinted by the magazine on their glossy paper and used for handouts at exhibitions and in mailshots. You can also put them in sales information packs and on web sites.

Disadvantages are that, although, the editorial space is free, it still costs time, and hence money, to find and persuade editorial staff to let you use the space for the article. Also, your article may not be published when expected, or not at all for a variety of reasons, some out of everyone's control.. In addition, expert articles are harder to target as precisely as advertising. This is because of the uncertainty of editorial staff even being interested in the article. So whereas with advertising you just buy the space in the targeted publication, with articles you may have to settle with a publication that is somewhat off target. The content is more restricted too. With an advertisement you can say it is the most wonderful product on the market and urge prospects to buy one now, whereas this would not be acceptable in an expert article. There can also be difficulties with exclusiveness. A periodical would often not take kindly to a similar article appearing in a competitor's publication. Nevertheless such difficulties can be managed.

When to use expert articles is not always straightforward. Bear in mind they there is often a couple of months delay for monthly magazines from the time of delivery to the time of publication. You need to allow time creating the articles as well. Ideally expert articles should be integrated with your overall marketing plan but you need allow for some uncertainty of publication. Also, the economies of article creation and placement can conflict with marketing timing. For example, we once had to stop working on the articles for one product because of articles required to support another product launch.

If you can afford it, it is better to budget for producing expert articles on a regular basis over at least 6 months. This is so you get better economies of scale, and the message is re-enforced, assuming just one product. Results will take several months to appear with monthly magazines anyway.. If you have several different or similar products you probably need to think in terms of a year. Otherwise, what can happen is that the variation of products and timing requirements can make the production and placement of articles less economical than with a longer time period and larger budget.

Who does the work is another decision. There are 4 options. You can do it in-house, outsource it, a mixture or as a group. The advantage of the in-house approach is that it can cost less. On the other hand it takes time, you may lack the skills in-house and being so close to the product or service you may reduce your effectiveness. Remember it is not just writing the articles, it is also strategy, planning, marketing them to the media, monitoring and getting the published copies. An outsourcing service, like ours for example, does all this, including coming up with ideas for articles and where they could be placed. You could outsource to a PR agency or buy in a specialist expert article service from information systems consultants like ourselves. We think we have more credibility with editorial staff because they know they will not get PR puff from us. Also, speaking to prospects, a frequent complaint is that they have spent a lot of money with a PR company and had nothing published.. We have a success rate of 80-100%. The mixture option might be that the article was written and marketed in-house and reviewed by an external service. Another possibility is that the outsourced service produces the plan, which is then executed in-house with support from outside. The final option is to be part of a group. Here companies share the cost and promote themselves jointly, for example, under the general theme of document management, micrographics and so on.

There seems little doubt that lack of proper in-depth publicity is holding back parts, if not the whole, of the document management industry. Ken Kopals of ASI was reported in issue 1 of this publication as saying ''Film-based imaging will continue but it needs more press (publicity) ….." Also, organisations find it difficult to make a business case for document management. Expert articles can provide the solution but businesses need to take action to change the situation, rather than just bemoan the education problem. So whether you do it yourself, outsource it, do a bit of both, or do it via a group; get moving, get your message across and get more sales.

Vic Lilley MIMIS is the director of Lilley Information Systems Ltd, an independent consultancy with a specialisation in getting publicity for organisations in the form of expert articles. He is also author of The Business Case for Workflow report, a speaker and a trainer. For further information or comments telephone +44 (0)20 8573 3911, visit www.lilleyinfosys.co.uk or email vlilley@lilleyinfosys.co.uk.