International Tech Support Company – R.O.I. Content Writing & Copywriting

A content writing localization campaign for an international tech support company became a seismic shift in messaging.

From 6s on the Richter Scale to complete demolitions & reconstructions of company messaging like something from a Godzilla movie, shifts in customers’ messaging often begin organically as extensions of my marketing content writing projects.

For example, although this tech support company initially hired me to create a content writing & copywriting localization campaign in order to penetrate new markets in the northeastern U.S., I had to “save” it from a directionless messaging monster first.

This is an (unconvincing) image of Godzilla from one of the original Godzilla movies. — Saving a company from unclear or directionless messaging is the marketing equivalent of saving a city from a Godzilla attack…the fallout from bad messaging can be measured in the millions. (Conversely, the revenue brought in by good messaging can also be measured in the millions. 😁)

My research revealed critical problems in the company’s messaging that required fixing before any new content writing or copywriting campaigns could be launched.

This is an image of Bryan Cranston from that awful Godzilla movie from the 2010s. — This was Bryan Cranston’s reaction when he realized that ~~he was in a *Godzilla* movie~~ a Godzilla attack was imminent. I had a similar reaction when I saw that the tech support company’s messaging was a customer-killing monster. *PHOTO CREDIT: Legendary Pictures*.

I didn’t have to get very far in my research to notice that the company had a major messaging problem. For example, the first two pages users typically saw on their site, the home page and the IT Managed Services page (both of which I’ve shown redacted below), were about as compelling as the special effects of the original 1950s Godzilla movies.

NOTE: My notes in red are for this site only. Obviously, I was softer with the customer.

This was the home page:

This was the international tech support company's home page. It was full of terrible content writing and cheesy stock images. — The term “commoditized content” immediately came to mind.

This was the IT Managed Services page:

This was the international tech support company's Managed IT Services page. It was also full of terrible content writing and cheesy stock images. — Counting years of experience is great, but counters aren’t great if the KPIs your customers care about most are better when they’re *lower*. I suggested that they get rid of the counter and just show numbers that customers care about most: average hold times, average resolution times, etc. (You don’t want to see those numbers rising in a counter.)

Given the site’s lack of value propositions and directionless messaging, it’s no wonder that it had been converting fewer and fewer customers each year.

Despite the fact that the company has delivered high-quality work for two decades–as evidenced by their impressive customer retention data–, their site was communicating that it was some kind of backroom operation…it looked (and read) comparatively worse and worse as their competitors improved their sites over time.

That’s the tragic irony of good companies hiring commoditized content writers & copywriters: The verbal millworkers’ slipshod work often belies the high-quality work of the companies that hire them.

I had to define their value propositions and overhaul their overall messaging before I could create a new localization campaign. (But instead of writing on a cocktail napkin as per the business stereotype, I wrote on an old black & white notebook.)

This is an image of my messaging ideas, as I wrote them in an old notebook. — This is the “drawing board” I suggested the owners “go back to”. There were cocktails in the room for sure, but there weren’t any cocktail napkins to scribble on.

I showed the owners that, before I could create a localization campaign, I first had to define the company’s overall value proposition, the value propositions for each of the company’s verticals, and–then–the value propositions for each of the verticals in each of the new targeted markets.

It all started with parchando with two Colombian businessmen defining a clear overall value proposition.

After researching the company, the tech support industry, and the competitive marketplace, I created the following value proposition for the company as a whole:

This is the overall value proposition I created for the company. It says: "We offer fast, high-quality, native English tech support at competitive prices because we hire college-educated American and European expats." — One of the many things I love about Latin America is that you don’t have to be as P.C. In the U.S., a company that only hired people from X and Y backgrounds–even if the exclusion were for perfectly-legitimate reasons like it is for this company–, would be “cancelled”.

This company is able to offer high-quality tech support at competitive prices because it’s staffed by college-educated, native English speakers who enjoy a lower cost of living abroad. (Kind of like how I save my customers money by living on the cheap as an American expat. 👍)

So, I designed the content writing & copywriting campaigns to give U.S. companies the piece of mind that the techs who will serve them (at a lower cost) will communicate clearly in native English and resolve technical problems effectively because they’re Americans and Europeans who studied technology at American and European universities.

The verbiage I created for the core page of the NYC financial industry vertical exemplifies this:

This is the core New York Financial Firm page that Seth Mason wrote for the international financial services company. — To put “billions of dollars on the line” in context, a stock from a single company can be traded hundreds of millions of times per day. There’s too much at stake on Wall Street to trust tech support to any offshore company except this one.

In addition to presenting compelling value propositions on the website, I presented them on numerous “one-sheets”, such as this one for the NYC financial vertical:

The “one-sheets”, such this one for the NYC financial services vertical, were dressed up by a graphic designer and made available for download from the company’s website. — Red and black, my two favorite colors for business writing, are also the official colors of the University of Georgia, where I earned my M.B.A.

A little detail about those “little engines that could” called “one-sheets”:

Eventually, all of the “one-sheets”, such the one for the NYC financial services vertical, will be dressed up by a graphic designer and made available for download from their respective core web pages.

My idea behind further distilling the company’s value propositions into downloadable, printable single pages was to give employees who research tech support vendors something tangible to hand directly to their companies’ decision makers.

Additionally, I created the one-sheets as tools that the tech support company’s salespeople can hand directly to decision makers–and refer to–during sales presentations.

(They can also be used to sit cocktail glasses on.)

The NYC financial services one-sheet has helped the sales staff close 3 large deals in a matter of months.

As sales presentation tools, the one-sheets have helped generate hundreds of thousands in gross sales from the NYC financial services vertical thus far (Q4 of 2022).

According to one of the owners, the historic conversion rate of the sales staff has been 30-40% (as defined as sales per meeting, in-person or virtual). Using the one-sheet as their primary sales tool, the same sales staff has converted 3 out of 4 potential customers in the newly-created NYC financial services vertical…in a matter of months.

(He also told me that the 4th company is interested, but they’re hesitant to spend money in this economic environment.)

As Meatloaf once said, ~~two out of three~~ 3 out of 4 “ain’t bad”.

It’s a big accomplishment, actually: At a time when companies are reducing spending in preparation for a recession (and winding down for the year), the sales staff has been able to convert 3 new customers from an immensely-important new market (the financial capital of the world no less).

I can’t say for sure that my one sheet has been making the difference, but it’s worth noting that they were batting .300 in the minors, and now they’re batting .750 in the Big Apple.

But don’t take my word for it. This is a message from ~~a guy who owes me some rounds~~ one of the owners:

This is a WhatsApp message from one of the owners of the company. In it, he says that the company has pitched to 4 financial companies in NYC and has closed 3 deals.

The company’s return on my messaging overhaul & localization campaign will grow into perpetuity.

This is an image of a modern Godzilla superimposed on a stock image of American Dollars. — Campy graphic? Yes! It communicates exactly what this project entailed: The complete destruction of directionless messaging (complete with cheesy stock photos) in favor of a well-planned marketing strategy.

Once the rest of the content is laid out, indexed, printed, etc., there’s no telling how much the company’s return will be: The messaging I created is permanent; the value propositions I created will bring new customers into perpetuity.

I’ll remember to buy cocktail napkins if we hang out again.