Methodology

The focus of our work is the creation of custom content, which means content that has the point of view of the sponsor, whether that point of view is blatant and clearly articulated or far more subtly expressed. It always depends upon the goals of the client, so a major part of our methodology is to have an initial conversation with the client to clearly understand your objectives. If you want a thought-leadership piece, perhaps your company won’t even be mentioned at all and your point of view will be subliminal to the overall theme of the article. In that initial conversation we will help you articulate your goals so that the resulting content will reflect what you want. We will also tell you our pricing, which is dependent upon the length of the article(s), the number of articles and the complexity. Generally, you will find that, given the high quality of our work, our rates are surprisingly reasonable – lower than many independent freelancers – and we are fair in offering volume discounts for repeat customers.

One of the important lessons we’ve learned through the years is that most clients want the content-creation process to be as hassle-free as possible. If creating custom content is going to be difficult or contentious, if you have to worry about the results or worry about deadlines, or worry that the messaging will miss the boat, you may as well either do it yourself or not do it at all. One of our strengths is our ability to get it right the first time. We will make sure we understand what you want and, if you hire us for writing, you will get a clean first draft that will be really, really close to what you are looking for. In fact, for most of our clients, the first draft is a revelation in that it almost always exceeds expectations.

Even with a clean first draft, however, there is always at least one more iteration, sometimes several more than that. We don’t charge extra if there are a lot of revisions, no matter what the reasons. With custom content there tends to be a lot of cat herding and a lot of opining from stakeholders. We understand that. Our methodology is to work with you to get the content exactly as you want it – but to do it quickly. We always turn around revisions within just a day or two and we e are also capable of doing first drafts in a matter of just several days, if necessary. Speed is one of our core competencies.

Here’s what an engagement might look like: You hire us to write a series of White Papers for a new product launch, marketing campaign or vertical market strategy. We will talk to your marketing team to find out your goals and objectives. If you know exactly what you want, how many white papers, the precise topics, we will either create outlines or go right to first drafts. If you want our input on topics, we will create headlines and outlines for client approval. In some cases, we will want to talk to product marketing managers or others within the organization who have a stake in the outcome of the content. But we generally try to do that in a single conversation. Again, the goal is to be as hassle-free as possible. If it is a customer Case Study, then we will se up a time to talk directly to the customer.

After the initial conversations we will write a first draft, usually within one to three weeks depending upon the length and complexity of the assignment. We are highly knowledgeable about almost every IT subject so we don’t need a lot of hand-holding. We will turn in a clean, professional first draft, usually in Word. From there we will work with you on revisions, if necessary. Once everyone is pleased with the content, we can turn over the design of the piece to our own professional designers, or we can turn over the final content to your design team. We have no real preference on the design aspect. If you want us to review the final designed version, we are happy to do that as well. The entire methodology from beginning to end is designed to be as simple as possible, while delivering the highest quality results.