Content Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Trade Press Services

Gated Content: A Right Place and a Right Time

Posted on November 20, 2017 by Gerri Knilans

In today’s marketplace, as much as 80% of B2B content is gated. What does that mean? To gate means that specific contact information is required to access content such as a white paper, article, video, ebook or case study. This information usually consists of a name, email address, company, title and possibly a phone number. We’ve all seen it, and most likely, we’ve given up some of our personal information in exchange for a bit of content. But how does gating affect the success and outreach of the specific content marketing asset, let alone the total marketing strategy? Here are the pros and cons of gating content on your website to help determine your decision.

Content Is King…if

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Gerri Knilans

Creating a company’s marketing materials can be nearly as difficult as developing the strategies for the campaigns the materials are intended to support. What used to be relatively straightforward has become increasingly complex. This is because of two main reasons: 1) the number of marketing channels is expanding; and 2) the marketplace expects more personalized

Secrets of Successful Storytelling

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Gerri Knilans

What do great books, movies and marketing campaigns have in common? A great story. With the plethora of advancing technology—including one that limits our thoughts to 140 characters or less—it’s ironic that the hottest trend in marketing might be the ancient art of storytelling. A great story can entertain, inspire, ignite and even move people

Content is King: Cliché or Not?

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Gerri Knilans

Did you know the phrase, “content is king” was used by Bill Gates way back in the 1990s? Isn’t it interesting that 15 years later, we’re still talking about it as if it’s a new phenomenon? Well it isn’t. In 2015, marketing prognosticators think content will be bigger than ever, which is why companies have to

Advertising gone native

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Gerri Knilans

Don’t you love it when someone takes something old and tries to say it’s brand new? For years, Subaru touted its “hill-holder” clutch as a clever new feature that allowed drivers of its manual transmission vehicles to start off on hills more easily. The truth is, Studebaker invented the hill-holder clutch decades earlier and introduced

The purposes of communication in 2012

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Gerri Knilans

I wonder if anyone truly realizes the vast amount of information available via the Internet. In my experience, it seems that if a thought, idea, event or reference is conceivable, someone has posted it online. Even with the most esoteric topic, hundreds and even thousands of people have written about it. When wise King Solomon

Five reasons to add some color to your writing

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Gerri Knilans

Many of us are still producing printed documents in plain old black and white. Yet, the alternative, color printing is more affordable and available than ever, and at a high quality. There are several benefits to adding color to your documents: 1. Color can provide visual cues that direct the reader’s attention to certain parts

Did the Onion go too far?

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Gerri Knilans

On Thursday, the humor-parody site the Onion posted this status update on Facebook: BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building And then it didn’t post anything for 10 minutes—an eternity in cyberspace after posting a headline like that. If you headed to the Onion’s website, you saw a story about a dozen

What can your company learn from Osama bin Laden’s death?

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Gerri Knilans

Regardless of how you feel about the death of Osama bin Laden earlier this month, there’s no denying that it’s the single largest news story to ever hit in the age of 24-hour cable news and social media. It may sound like an odd question, but what impact does bin Laden’s death have on how

The Perils of Self-Serving Content

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Gerri Knilans

Trade Press Services (TPS) recently worked with a technology client who appeared to be the only provider in the marketplace. This created a professional dilemma. When writing for business publications, our mandate is to provide educational content that will help readers solve problems or perform better on their jobs. It is not to unabashedly promote

Does the Five-Sentence E-mail Work?

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Gerri Knilans

Lynn Gaertner-Johnston recently posted in her Business Writing blog the following question: Does the five-sentence e-mail work? She says that a participant in a business writing program told her that he never produced e-mails longer than the magic five sentence length. To me, this sounds like Twitter, text messaging or other abbreviated, modern forms of

Five lessons from the 2010 election season

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Gerri Knilans

Election day is almost here, and it can’t come soon enough, can it? Democrat, Republican, independent, Whig, Tory…whatever your political preference, we’ve been bombarded by political ads on radio, TV and in print that are only slightly less annoying than they are insulting. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEINBjHHvHE[/youtube] What are the lessons to be learned for communicators, whether you’re

Civil Lawsuits: Newspapers’ New Revenue Stream?

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Gerri Knilans

A recent article in Wired magazine describes a new revenue source for at least one newspaper—legal settlements and court-awarded fines levied against websites that use copyrighted news stories illegally. The article describes how Steve Gibson, founder of Las Vegas-based “Righthaven,” is going after websites that have allegedly stolen content from his first and only client

National media companies get local

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Gerri Knilans

A recent posting by Mitch Winkel on the eMarketer blog discusses a new media trend: going “hyper-local” in an attempt to lure in consumers who have abandoned the traditional newspaper as a source for local news. Hyper-local news is content that covers a very specific, finite geographic area, often a single community or even a

Using humor in business communications

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Gerri Knilans

Why use humor in business communications? Done correctly, humor can add personality and life to an otherwise dull or routine project. Anecdotes, humorous quotations or clever observations can help to win over a reader and make them more receptive to your message. In fact, many business books contain cartoons scattered throughout them designed to reinforce the

Add Video to Your Tool Belt

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Gerri Knilans

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF5cDusxRlQ[/youtube]

What is good writing?

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Gerri Knilans

How do you know if you’re a good writer or if what you’re reading represents good writing? Most people believe that good writing is subjective. They think it is an art, not a science, which is to say that it’s imprecise, follows loose guidelines and is open to interpretation. This approach is in direct contrast

Avoiding Clichés Like the Plague

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Gerri Knilans

William Safire once said, “Avoid clichés like the plague.” That’s humorous yet sound advice, presuming one knows the definition of clichés. According to Weber State University, they are “old coins of language: phrases that once made a striking impression but have since been rubbed smooth by repeated handling.” There are several types of clichés, which

Advertorial content: The Frankenstein of print media

Posted on September 18, 2009 by Gerri Knilans

You may know what “editorial” means (that’s on the opinion page in the newspaper, right?), and you probably know what advertising is (the annoying stuff that interrupts my TV show!) But what the heck is “advertorial”? And why do you care? Advertorial content is the Frankenstein monster of journalism. Part news, part opinion, and part