Mike Puterbaugh is VP marketing at MindTouch, the leader in the knowledge base social collaboration help and enterprise product. You can follow him on Twitter at @ mputerbaugh23. As a CMO, it is important to understand what smart technology developers and open source leaders have known for years: great product documentation is not foul-marketing and marketing it is pretty darn good at that.
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Today, applications and smarter campaigns dominate headlines and boardrooms. Meanwhile, the documentation has become marketing secret weapon.
The documentation is the language that accompanies a product, often outlining its development, design, technical language and marketing strategy in a clear, definitive.
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Ultimately, good documentation does not include a cost, but rather, a profit. Also, is a godsend SEO. Documentation can indicate how to evolve products and spark cross-functional communication. It can reveal holes the sales funnel that otherwise would have eluded you.
In terms of marketing, documentation, you can put in contact with potential investors and customers. And while most marketers can be asynchronous and speculative, documentation remains reliable and predictable.
That's why you need to start thinking strategic documentation.
Documentation may be the best solution as a source of cables.Integrate documentation into your marketing automation system (or Omniture, Eloqua, Marketo for example) to improve communication about the features and benefits of your product. Unfortunately, many marketers forget or skip this step, despite the minimal work involved.
On the other hand, should the documentation look or read like marketing copy? Of course not. Documentation is definitely not marketing copy. It should be credible and absent the jargon and salesmanship that customers and prospects have come to expect from the type of marketing. Understandable, the documentation must still be able to demonstrate how well your company understands its customers and target market.
In addition, you can discover much of a society based on the documentation. Allows investors and attendees a peek behind the curtain of the company. Expert-buyers and users of products free-use documentation as a gauge for the reliability and the seriousness of the company. Once developers have known this since the dawn of the web.
At one time or another, you probably assume that the documentation contains highly technical language. That may be the case, but not exclusively. Documentation should be granular, but also social and searchable. The best documentation contains both generalist and specialist material, designed to engage each audience expected.
Documentation should be keyword rich, densely connected and expertly structured. Above all, it does not raise red flags that other types of content may.
Keep in mind that fresh, social, collaborative, and thus frequently updated Google Books makes it easier. Making social documentation from the beginning to ensure steady traffic and save maintenance and unnecessary stress.
Scatter keywords throughout the documentation, deliberately and apply filters to connect and tags. Above all, update every so often to make sure the documentation remains current.
The documentation is an incredible good SEO, but too often do not get treated as such. Sometimes marketing will not have a hand in the process of construction. At other times is left unrevised documentation and thus overcome. Documentation of society makes collaboration and better communication between departments. Forging connections between product, marketing, service and support. Therefore, it is convenient for all.
First, documentation, responsibility should probably fall within the duties of the common organisation of the market, because that's where its effect and stops. But regardless of the property or flowcharts, documentation can get your SEO and the product team, speaking in ways that have never before. The same goes for the teams of tech, PR, services and support.
The documentation is also a wonderful way to create a community around your product or service.
Although the documentation is a bad rap for being shaky, realize that actually can present an opportunity for the community and the Congregation. Why not give them more to do, allow them a seat at the table and let you find in the product?
There is a profound scale of engagement that begins with the documentation. Documentation is located at the bottom, forming the foundation of interaction. From it, all the more engagement-interaction flows can span social media, content more monolithic, top-down and finally evolve into email and phone conversations.
The documentation is a company's lifeblood, rarely seen but crucial function and health. Finally, the documentation is a very effective way to identify the needs of customers dissatisfied.
It holds a wealth of information that the product team will drool over, and yet this feedback loop is rarely used. What are the most commented on, for example? Most viewed? The most frequently mentioned?
In addition, the documentation must include analytics--there is no greater understanding of society. Ideally, analytics consist of correct, statistically significant signals that cause and effect, with which it reliably you can make decisions.
Used properly, documentation can make your company a better informed, intuitive operation. Previously, the documentation was thought of as a necessary evil. Or even worse-a black hole that consumed budgets and brain function. But the two most important things have changed since then:
First, we have invested in social software. And documentation can be inherently social. For many companies, is a collaborative-a liaison between internal departments and external audiences. Creating documentation content collaboration drives down costs and make the task less daunting.
Secondly, the documentation can inform other functions and services. Tie-in, integrations and all sorts of APIs means more automation and therefore less long-term work. Ultimately, the documentation should exploit and bring together all the great work that your company is performing elsewhere.
As a com, there is more strategic, high-margin initiative you can take optimal documentation.
It is sexy, but you will earn the respect of your peers, more effective management of the company and a more collaborative team. Why isn't this quarter or year, but it is rather, affecting the competitive advantage and long-term growth.
Images courtesy of iStockphoto, Flickr Nearsoft, AK2 and marciookabe,
This story originally posted at Mashable here.
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