Envisioning The Destination And Route Map Of Your Entrepreneurial Journey

Your Organization's Vision and Mission

A recent, interesting experience had me thinking about a lesson we learnt at the beginning of our entrepreneurial journey - the importance of setting a vision and defining a mission. I believed that, by now, with the many thousand articles and infinite success stories of great vision and mission statements, these concepts were the unwritten rules for any entrepreneurial or established initiative. However, I was in for a shock when one of my clients in asked me to prepare even their vision and mission statements while we worked on their website content! 

Though we specialize in content writing for ecommerce and IT products companies and its sales enablement, this unsettling experience took me back to the basics as I revisited the purpose of defining the goals of an organization, and I share with you a few of my observations. I hope you find them useful.

Our first vision statement was probably our innocent childhood answers to the evergreen question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" The answers varied from the obvious to the ridiculous: "A doctor saving all the poor",  "A pilot travelling across the world in a day", "A cricketer winning the World Cup for my country", or "A superhero swooping down to save a child from a burning house and killing the villainous demon". With almost no training, we were able to successfully define a purpose and set a goal.  Yet, somewhere, in our hurry to grow up, we often ignore these self-taught lessons.

So let's take a quick walk across the basics.

Why have a vision and a mission?

Vision and mission are two essential elements of any entrepreneurial or personal initiative. They give you a sense of direction, set the purpose, and impart a meaning to your aspirations. They motivate you to overcome challenges and steer you through your entrepreneurial journey with focus. Without a vision and mission, you have no dream and you meander around your sea of opportunities with no purpose and disastrous consequences.

Many articles explain the purpose of a vision and mission. These can be referred to before you embark on your journey of defining these essential aspects of your initiative.

What are vision and mission?

A vision is your goal, providing your organization and you the intended destination, leading you into a future state where you visualize the perfect end to the journey. A vision is inspirational and a target worth aiming at. It's short and specific, but not too restrictive. It's simple and ambitious but not too unrealistic. A vision can be set for about a period of 5 to 10 years, after which the organization can set new goals and define a new vision. Yes, visions too can evolve with time.

A mission is all about the present tense - it's about how you can achieve your short-term goals to get to your vision, what the purpose of your work is and your differentiators, who your target audience is, and what immediate effect you desire to achieve from your work. A mission is a map for the entire organization - every single employee and customer is part of the mission. A mission must be easy to remember and imbibe - it must represent the values and approach of every employee of the organization. Many companies widely publish their mission but might keep their vision to themselves.

The net overflows with great examples of vision and mission statements.

How do we go about defining a vision and a mission?

1. Vision is the founding members' goal and purpose when they visualize the entrepreneurial journey. Hence, the vision, at least initially, needs a lot of reflection from the organization's leadership group.

2. The company's vision statement is also a reflection of their core values. So start with defining your core values.

3. Ask yourselves the following questions:

·         Why did you embark on this entrepreneurial journey?

·         Where do you want to see yourselves, say, 7 years from now?

·         What is the ultimate goal of your initiative?

·         What is the biggest change you intend bringing to the lives of the people who would be touched by your service?

·         What is the most desirable outcome of your entrepreneurial journey?

·         What is the biggest differentiator that will set you apart in your field of expertise?

The answer to these questions would lead you to your vision statement - a precise, crisp, challenging, inspiring, and realistic statement that will be the leading beacon for your organization. Of course you will be going through multiple draft and reconsideration stages before you finalize the vision statement - do not rush because this statement positions your presence in the field of your expertise.

1. Defining a mission requires the organization's effort. A mission statement relates to the present situation. It requires every member of the organization to identify with the statement and spend every effort in realizing the mission statement.

2. The mission statement should lead to the vision - there must be an integral connect between the two statements.

3. Ask the following questions:

·         What does your organization do?

·         For whom?

·         What is the most important service your organization provides?

·         How do you work - what are your best known for?

·         What makes you the best in your field of expertise?

·         What would your customers feel after they interact with you every time?

4. The answers to these questions will help you achieve a measurable mission statement. Here too, you will have to work on defining and refining multiple times - especially since it involves buy-in from your employees as well.

5. Ensure that your mission statement is understood and imbibed by every employee.

Now, at least some of the instructions for vision and mission statements do seem to overlap, doesn't it? So, let's try to clarify the concept of vision and mission through some examples:

 Maruti Suzuki

Vision:

To be a leader in the Indian automobile industry creating customer delight and shareholder wealth - a pride of India

Mission:

·         Modernization of the Indian automobile industry

·         Production of fuel-efficient vehicles to conserve scarce resources

·         Market penetration, market development

·         Networking and partnerships

·         Openness and learning

Google

Vision:

To provide access to the world’s information in one click

Mission:

To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful

 Uber

Vision:

Smarter transportation with fewer cars and greater access

Mission:

To connect people with reliable rides through the use of data and technology

Philips

Vision:

To make the world healthier and more sustainable through innovation. Our goal is to improve the lives of 3 billion people a year by 2025. We will be the best place to work for people who share our passion. Together we will deliver superior value for our customers and shareholders.

Mission:

Improving people's lives through meaningful innovation

Walmart

Vision:

To be the best retailer in the hearts and minds of consumers and employees

Mission:

Saving people money so they can live better

How can a content writer help you?

Well, we cannot step into your shoes to build from scratch - but we can definitely guide you craft the vision and mission statements. After you do your brainstorming, do come to us with your thoughts and we will work with you to derive the statements that represent your vision and mission.

So what are you waiting for? Take a step back from your routine work to define the vision and mission statements that best represent your dreams, aspirations, purpose, and differentiators. We'll help you fine tune these statements that will guide your organization to achieve all your ambitious goals.

Good Luck!

For more detail visit @ http://www.addkraft.com/

Business owners should write their own content!

Surprised? So was I!

A haggard business owner promptly responded with these tired words when I introduced myself as a content writer during a recent IT product conclave. I inquired further, intrigued. He explained that he had worked with a few content writers in the past and found that despite their language expertise, they were not able to get what he was looking for - especially the technical details and the values required for technology marketing. Hence his solution was to write content all by himself. Needless to say, I was shocked. But it also opened up many other questions.

1.  Is it a scalable option for business owners to create their own content?

2. Why would business owners consider this option?

3. What are the risks involved when business owners decide to take content in their own hands?

4. So, what's the solution?

Here are some researched answers that could be of help:   

       

As a business owner, you have to be at many places at the same time, multitask, and focus on a million activities from hiring to technology to finance. Your skill sets would be best used to set up the technology-enabled business at the entrepreneurial stage and to scale up when you meet success. In addition, donning the hat of a content writer is definitely not a practical approach or a long-term solution.

But business owners who are pushed to consider this option do quote unsuccessful content experiences. The reasons could vary from rushed decisions while choosing a content writer, incomplete briefing, sketchy content plans, and zero content goals to an inconsistent content approach and poor means of measuring content effectiveness.

The risks involved are plenty.

a. Any new venture starts at the peak - your energy levels; enthusiasm and inspiring ideas are at their best. But when there are a million other details to take care of, your content focus looses steam and your content engagement suffers.

b.  As a business owner, you are the authority on the subject. But with this expertise comes the dilemma of what to convey to your audience and how many experts get caught with detailed technical explanations that their audience cannot and need not relate to. Complicated content will not connect with your audience.

c. Content writers modulate content presentation - from textual paragraphs to visual imagery and videos. This content expertise has to be taken advantage of.

d. Content writing for ecommerce or content writing for web includes the ability to fine-tune - edit and proofread content for language, spelling, and grammar. While many examples exist where business owners write great content, this activity is best trusted with a skilled content writer, else you will have a poor patchwork of hazily collated content.

The following article takes the example of website content writing to explain the drawback of business owners writing their content: https://growthhackers.com/posts/business-owners-never-ever-write-copy  

So, what's the solution? Well, you are the expert on what you have to provide to your audience, who your audience is, and how you would want your audience to respond to your content. The content writer is the expert on how your story can be crafted. A healthy interaction will leverage the expertise of both the content writer and the business owner to create great content.

a. Ensure that you spend a lot of time at the ideation stage, working with your content writer to clarify the purpose of the content approach, what your story is, how it will be told, to whom, and when.

b. Ensure that your content writer submits a content plan and calendar.

c. Assess samples before you get started on the assignment - to ensure that the content tone and approach reflect your style.

d. Assess content engagement at every stage and, yes, be ready to change your plans.

e. Finally, trust your content writer's expertise to establish connect with your target audience through well-crafted content.

Content writing for customer engagement is a focused activity, requiring unwavering attention and time. A skilled content writer for an ecommerce business or for a digitally enabled sales is a listener, analyst, planner and visionary who can partner with you, craft your values and build trust with your target audience. The purpose of content is to tell your story skillfully to your audience - you have the story, your skilled content writer has the skill. All you need is an effective collaboration of the two.             

For more detail visit @ http://www.addkraft.com/

https://in.linkedin.com/in/addkraft

http://www.contentwritingforecommerce.com/

Positive Reinforcement: Content Mantra for e-Commerce Companies

"Do well in your exams and we'll get you your favorite bicycle"

"What a wonderful child you are! You cleaned your room all by yourself!"

"Better share your toy with your sister, else we'll give away all your toys"

Yes, we've spent a good part of our childhood being witnesses to many million examples of positive and negative reinforcements. But wait! Look around and you'll see subtle and direct examples of this concept all around you, in infinite forms, even today:

End-of-the-year appraisals and performance incentive

Wear a helmet and avoid being pulled up by the traffic police

Shop at your neighborhood supermarket regularly and get discount coupons

In fact, some reinforcements have such powerful impact on our thought process, preferences, and subconscious mind that they even shape our personalities and influence most of our important life decisions. Given the immense significance of positive and negative reinforcements in all aspects of our lives, how can the e-commerce world be far away? Go to any site and you'll see indirect hints to loud proclamations sending us messages:

                Sign in today and get a discount!

                Book today to win early bird prizes!

The argument on the more effective form of reinforcement - positive or negative - is a never-ending saga, but e-commerce content definitely seems to be leaning towards positive reinforcement. These sites use content to focus on three main aspects of human nature: the need to have a sense of belonging, the need to pamper one's self-esteem, and the need to be recognized. We love to be motivated and to be "stroked". In turn, we often return the favor by making the motivator our favorite person, someone we would want to hang out with and look up to while making decisions. This is the primary advantage of using content with positive reinforcements - your sites will definitely get repeat visitors who will soon turn into dedicated followers.

Let's look at a few examples:

1. Most Indian e-commerce sites are already sharpening their thinking pens, now that the festive season is around the corner. The sites are overflowing with positive reinforcement content - mega sales, out of the world discount, unique designs, and festival countdown to the discount date (the site actually has a stop watch ticking away!) - there is a lot of goodies to look forward to!

2. A footwear site encourages customers to share pictures of their experience wearing their products - out on trekking, at the restaurant, at their office desk, etc. The response is phenomenal since these pictures appear on the home page of the site.

3. A food retail website encourages us to choose our preferred food "box" - combo sets of fruits, vegetables, meat, etc. The site helps us in planning our weekly food plan and promises the luxury of receiving our planned boxes at our doorstep. It ends with the message that it is "the easiest way to eat brilliantly!"

4. A site selling coffee calls itself a "for-giving company" and encourages visitors to be part of a unique social cause -  every time we enjoy delicious coffee we also contribute to a noble cause.

5. A site-selling cookie just says "Yummy" - what better encouragement than this! But it does get better...they also make us the offer of a gift box with the words, "It all sounds sweeter when you say it with our freshly baked cookies"

These are all genuine promises of remarkable experiences we will be taken through when we use their services or products. All these subtle to loud-and-clear messages are examples of great content that aim for our heart and are bang on target. Content writing for ecommerce is about on creating great content with positive reinforcement messages; you will definitely reach your audience much faster and with a much clearer message than with any other form of content.

For more detail visit @ http://www.contentwritingforecommerce.com/

http://www.addkraft.com/

contact@addkraft.com

DON’T SELL YOUR SAAS PRODUCT - GIFT YOUR AUDIENCE A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE OF THEIR LIFETIME!

Gone are the days when Asian Paints sold just paints! Today they offer a wide range of user experiences for sale through their paints. Customers now choose the experience package they prefer – the shades and hues that match their personality, textures and combinations that support them emotionally in the various rooms of their home, and options to experience an online preview of how their painted homes would look like even before they make a decision. Yes, “user experience” has emerged the winner in the race to gain your buyers’ attention. Technology or product features and benefits are no longer attractive terms to SaaS or technology product marketers. Although a few IT folks tend to take marketing discussions to their technical world, as a marketer, my vote is always for user experience.

A common mistake many start-up IT product companies make is to go overboard trying to convince customers about just their product and the core technology, especially if members from IT team are part of the decision-making panel at the customer’s end. Many a time, such attempts fall flat, unless the new product is game- changing innovation. I present one of our recent experiences when we worked on technology marketing for a SaaS start-up company and were successful when we adopted the user experience strategy. You may appreciate and make a note of our conscious decision to avoid details about technology throughout this experience.

A year back, when we pitched for a SaaS project in the travel & logistics segment, we were using tough technical language and detailed specs – the result was a big flop. CIOs and IT leaders from the travel industry turned the sessions into long-winding sessions questioning the technology used and providing advices about alternate technology solutions based on their whims and fancies, but most of the prospective users chose to stay within their comfortable technology zones. We then decided that trying to sell product and technology would only lead to never-ending discussions. We chose an alternate approach.

Today, a year later, we tasted success with fantastic results on another project. Yes, we are just completing an exciting project for a start-up in the GCC region. The start- up provides a certain set of services and products with a unique concept to a target segment. It has both a b2b and b2c focus, targeting an entire population and a set of business buyers. The backbone of the project is a SaaS framework and its technology is wide encompassing with user-friendly services and apps. After 6 months of go-to-market with this project, as a marketer, I am happy to see positive feedback from the business owners and early adopters.

So what did we change, what lesson did we learn, what magic happened through the course of the year?

We made key changes in our product and service positioning and our marketing communications. We consciously avoided focusing our pitch on the advantages of SaaS or the product and service features. We stayed away from terminology jargons and IT/SaaS lingo, which confuse and create mistrust among the target audience.

We instead moved towards a customer-centric and user-persona-based content marketing. As content specialists, we prepared our content marketing briefs after studying our client’s service/product offering and the user/buyer persona. We prepared our content pitch focusing on user experience – how the experience would improve the users’ quality of life, what benefits would it bring to their lives, the convenience and time-saving features of the service, and how the users can feel pride by being part of the user group. In summary, our marketing content spoke about how this service/product would impact their lives positively and benefit the society.

The framework of the product and service pitch was hence built around end-user experience and positive influences, with just a few mentions of the product features. We realized that there are about 100 million ways of connecting with the buyers and gaining their trust, the buyers, instead of forcefully convincing them with just technology and product talk. We then designed the marketing strategy and UX/UI experience, moved on to go-to-market planning and narrowed down the final list of digital marketing techniques that helped immensely in conveying the client’s value proposition to the end users.

To our surprise, there was hardly any instance of long-drawn technology-relateddiscussions, counter-arguments, or suggestions that often kill an otherwise successful pitch. All the query arrows from the IT members were successfully broken by the much-appreciated imagery of the end-user experience, clear value proposition, and strong content writing that blended business strategy with user persona.

I must say here that content writing for technology marketing helped our customers (product owners) significantly. Nailing the final content plan was the central focus for the initial period, where the product management team, digital marketing team, support team, and leadership team were part of the go-to-market content framework evaluation and signoff. Content metrics were monitored with respect to content propagation at each stage – that is, awareness stage, product interest stage,desire-to-buy stage, and so on. Stage-appropriate content was created, published, and communicated to thousands of users, again channeled based on their persona, to deliver the desired results at each stage.

Result The customer

(SaaS product owner) almost immediately began to see positive results when the list of early adopters was surprisingly long. They were attracted by the influence the product would have on their daily life, and not by the Opex or Capex features. The marketing strategy and techniques used were cost effective

since not even one sales person was recruited to meet customers in person. The entire sales funnel was handled by digital processes, CRM strategy, and, yes, backend technology.

The customer is now moving on from the acquiring mode to the retaining mode. They are also expanding to neighboring countries and are known as a solid service provider rather than a technology company.

Role of strategic content writing in this success story

Our technology marketing to convince end users was through content marketing. Our content strategy was to deliver personalized content based on the buyers’ persona. Different personas were tracked through CRM and custom-fit content that conveyed the customer’s story and their value proposition were made available to end users. We created virtual user experiences, developed intrinsic value experiences from the designers of the products, built the content package, and shared them with potential buyers. Creating content strategy and content writing - was key - our technology content writers provided innovative content to engage the audience at every stage of buying cycle.

In summary, we never sold SaaS products and their technology advantages; we just marketed customer experience, and yes, answered our end consumer’s questions about how this product can enrich their lives. This strategy spelled success in our current initiative.

A retrospective note:

A few years back, an interesting advertisement for a car caught my attention. A sales person was shooting a barrage of pointers about all the features of a super luxurious car. At the end of this rather exhausting monolog, all that the buyer wanted to know was, “how much mileage would I get per liter?” The sales person stood stumped! It always pays to know what the buyer is looking for and provide just that experience – this will always establish an immediate connect with your buyer.

Author

Technology marketer at www.addkraft.com

Content Marketing for eCommerce: Answering the Whys and Hows

http://www.contentwritingforecommerce.com/

Content marketing for ecommerce is a specialization that creates relevant context-based content to attract, acquire, and retain ecommerce customers. This field hence has specific requirements that make content creation quite a challenge. Content writers in this field must have a clear understanding of various ecommerce models, digital marketing concepts and buyer analysis. The content strategy for your ecommerce initiative should blend with the business model and ecommerce strategy. These two key aspects are missed by 80% of the ecommerce business ventures. Most ecommerce players believe that investing in technology, a website and basic marketing are key to success. However, customers/visitors are drawn to your site primarily because of the user experience it offers and the quality of the content/information the site provides.

The best length of an ecommerce content

Content is not just a string of words and sentences that fill up space in your site. Every sentence, phrase, or word in a page must have relevance to your brand story and must add value and purpose to your site. A right balance between the quality and quantity of the content is essential to avoid a content-cramped page or an utterly blank space. There is no specific rule for the extent of an ideal ecommerce content – it depends on the context. If relevant, an interested reader might even take time to read 3000 words, provided it is supported with interesting facts, industry-specific details, and textual and graphical data. A flexible approach is always beneficial – the key is to identify instances that require phrases and small descriptions as against those requiring detailed articles and posts.

Modes of representation

There are a million modes of representation when you finalize on the right content. It varies from small but descriptive paragraphs to lists to graphical representations to quotes to clear calls-to-action. Clarity is key and every piece of content in your ecommerce site – product descriptions to user manuals to promotion articles – must be clear in its purpose and message. It is said that your audience generally visit your site seven times before they take that final call – hence ensure that your site’s content provides a consistent, relevant, interesting message through different modes of representation so you can gain the audience’s trust further with every visit.

What questions must your content answer?

Every content that you provide in your ecommerce site must answer the following questions from your audience (of course, there are many more, but these are the important ones):

·         “What is in there for me?”

·         “Is this interesting to me?”

·         “Is this what I am looking for”

·         “Is this new information for me?”

·          “What do I gain by staying in this site for longer?”

·         “Is there any money-saving option or a unique advantage I gain out here?”

To connect with the visitors, you need to first build trust and provide them the assurance that your site is the answer to all their questions.

addkraft – providing content solutions

So how can we help you out? Content writing for ecommerce is our business specialization and our exclusive focus area. We work directly with customers seeking ecommerce content writing services. We work with site/portal developers who look for ecommerce content creation and ecommerce content development, SEO-based content and competitive content for their ecommerce projects. We support our customers in ecommerce content marketing, ecommerce content strategy development, content mapping with UI & UX, content creation for unique contexts, nurturing content ideas from our end and further content development on already existing ideas.

Our approach in content writing for ecommerce involves telling our customer’s story with a laser-focused value proposition to the intended audience. Our compelling stories are complete with riveting headlines and a strong call to action. We understand that attention is key and this is what we deliver – engaging content that will reduce the bounce rates drastically and increase your pages per visit and time spend on site.

So think about it! Do you need a persona-based and context-based engaging content for your ecommerce site – content that will help you connect with your audience and make your ecommerce initiative a success? Well, you are at the right place! Write to us now at contact@addkraft.com; we will definitely engage your audience with our magic pen!

For more detail visit @ http://www.addkraft.com/

http://www.contentwritingforecommerce.com/

A Listener, Analyst, Planner and Visionary–The 4-Stroke Content Writer

Content writing in the field of technology marketing has unique challenges – positioning your business among hundreds of other competitors who have expertise similar to you is by far the biggest hurdle. In addition, you have to determine what your business’ true market value is and how your buyers perceive your services or products.

For more detail visit @ http://www.addkraft.com/a-listener-analyst-planner-and-visionary-the-4-stroke-content-writer/

Technology Marketing and Content Writing Services-Addkraft

Content writing in the field of technology marketing has unique challenges - positioning your business among a hundred other competitors who have expertise similar to you is by far the biggest hurdle. In addition, you have to determine what your business’ true market value is and how your buyers perceive your services or products.

This is where content writing can support technology marketing – by using the written word and supporting imagery to create meaningful connections with the segment of your audience that is interested in your service or product. Since such content is created after a careful assessment of the target audience’s characteristics, likes and dislikes and their problems for which your business provides solutions, this approach ensures that you connect with your audience and build their trust in you.

Content writing as a tool for technology marketing involves telling your target audience your story – your business, your brand, your values, your vision and your culture. This approach helps you reach out to your audience and subtly transition them from an interested reader to a dedicated follower of your business. Building such a trusting relationship requires content that reflects an in-depth knowledge of your business, and more important, compelling, value-based writing skills.

Addkraft believes in creating clear and convincing content that addresses the challenges of technology marketing. We believe in the mantra that “content is the key communicator for creating meaningful connections”. Our content writers, many of whom have more than 15 years of experience, are first listeners and analysers. They then build their content story line that answers the “what, how, and when” questions that your prospective buyer may have. Then, with your approval of the story line, content plan and schedule, they get to work. Their writing reflects a thorough understanding your audience and the solutions your business offers. We understand that change is an inevitable consequence of any initiative – our content writers with a visionary mind are ready to manage change in content plans. Their goal is to help connect you with your audience; their work reflects this purpose.

For More Detail Visit @ http://www.addkraft.com/services/

Content Writing, Content Marketing USA, India – Addkraft

Addkraft content crafters make sure that your content marketing is unique, makes you stand out among your competitors and helps you achieve your marketing goals using a 360-degree approach.

For more detail visit @ http://www.addkraft.com/strategic-content-and-marketing/

Technology Marketing and Content Writing - USA, India

For more detail visit @ http://www.addkraft.com/contact-us/

Addkraft consulting Technology Marketing

http://www.addkraft.com/

Marketing services that covers content management and business lead generation. It covers services such as Content Editing, Content Developing, and Content Creating. Content Crafting, Lead Generation and Demand Generation.

For more detail visit @ http://www.addkraft.com/contact-us/