July 2009 – Sarah C. Close

Inc.com Bylines

While working with Jobvite, the CMO and the company’s PR firm wanted to build the CEO’s thought leadership presence online through a weekly byline on Inc.com.

Here’s how I delivered:

I met monthly with the CEO and the PR firm to hear his thoughts on four unique topics.
He spoke for an hour across all four topics, after which I transcribed our calls and dove deep to find strong narratives.
I translated his themes into byline pieces and edited them again after his review. We continued this process for over a year.
I was grateful to receive repeated praise from him. He wrote in one email, “I think you are a great writer and not only make my job easier, but also a lot more fun. It feels great to have a ‘partner’ who gets what I am trying to say—and then says it better than I can.”

Read the Bylines

SSB (Affinaquest)

I was hired to write numerous customer stories for SSB (now called Affinaquest).

Here’s how I delivered:

I helped formulate a format and structure for SSB’s success stories to establish consistency.
I transcribed recordings of customer interviews and used those to draft the stories.
I went through several edit and approval rounds to get sign-off from both SSB leadership and their customers.

Read a complete example below.

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vmWare

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Talend

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Talix (Healthcare / Risk Management)

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Trax (Supply Chain / Freight Logistics)

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Jobvite (Talent Acquisition / Recruitment Software)

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Udemy Business

I was hired on retainer to write numerous customer stories for Udemy Business.

Here’s how I delivered:

I familiarized myself with the desired format and structure of Udemy Business’s success stories and provided their customer success manager with a list of critical interview questions, as she preferred to conduct the interviews herself.
I then transcribed recordings of the interviews and used those to draft the stories.
I went through several edit and approval rounds to get sign-off from both UB and their customers.

Read a complete example below.

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Websites

Many of my small business and nonprofit clients have sought me out primarily for website development, which often comes in conjunction with full branding and logo design. To them, the website is the most practical application of their identity, and they often come with big aspirations and asks.

Here’s how I delivered:

I meet with clients at length to understand the business and the preferences around website style, look, layout, and special integrations or functions needed.
I treat website development as a dynamic and interactive process, diving into full-scale staging development in WordPress to get a feel for how things behave and look in real-time, rather than simply by wireframe.
I always teach clients how to use and maintain their websites after launch, never leaving anyone without recourse to learn and evolve over time.

Logos

As most of my logo design clients are small businesses or organizations, I’ve approached logo design with a highly personal touch.

Here’s how I delivered:

I meet with clients at length to understand the business and the preferences around design, brand, and style.
I always offer multiple options and iterations as we work to capture the ideal look.
I ensure logo design is something that can be effectively translated into a full corporate identity and brand, particularly in terms of how it will be displayed, as many small businesses need help understanding concepts like image resolution and color mode.

Executive Posts

Whether clients have needed to elevate thought leadership or communicate critical information to their customers or audiences, I’ve been the voice they turn to for authentic content.

Here’s how I delivered:

I take executive ideas and help flesh them out into highly readable and engaging assets.
I work diligently to map writing styles to an executive’s specific voice and tone.
I write everything from investor letters to LinkedIn articles to customer emails and blog posts.
I help execs and C-suite leaders find the most effective topics to drive thought leadership presence.

Read the Bylines

Emails

I’ve been tasked to write emails for TOFU, BOFU, and everything in between, for dozens of companies across numerous industries, and all in the name of creating demand or moving prospects through the pipe.

Here’s how I delivered:

I craft copy based on input from the company, combined with results from previous campaigns, as well as my expertise about what has worked well in the past for other clients.
I help companies transform dry email copy to more persuasive, concise and relatable language.
I conduct and check A/B tests to identify positive performance metrics and isolate the winning factors that drive clicks and opens.
I ensure CTAs direct readers to the right assets and actions for easy attribution.

Interactive

Our content and community strategy needed energizing ways to keep users actively participating in their own skills development, which meant content needed to have an interactive nature at times.

Here’s how I delivered:

I transformed complex research findings into multi-part quizzes using Jotform, involving conditional logic.
I leveraged built-in functionality and, when needed, sourced and implemented WordPress plugins to help transform static web pages into more exciting and clickable content.
I not only built the foundations of these interactive elements from a technical standpoint, but I also wrote the content for them, which involved deep dives into research and a keen understanding of our brand and audience.

Multi-Platform & UGC

Our highly engaging content strategy followed the research we had conducted to understand the learning preferences of today’s B2B sellers. We knew we needed a mix of content channels while also offering community members the ability to elevate their own personal brands through user-generated (or user-inspired) content.

Here’s how I delivered:

I created numerous articles and blog posts that mixed content types to keep users engaged, from short written pieces to video clips and multi-part learning courses.
I translated ideas submitted in our community forum into complete UGC articles, ghostwritten for our members so they could share and continue to generate awareness.
I scripted numerous animated video series for an external vendor to produce and, using a variety of video tools, also edited Zoom calls and other webinars into targeted clips that moved users through our designated content challenges within the community.
I created a branded video template for easy scalability of our video clip process using Canva.

User Journeys / Personas

Part of creating the content strategy and assets for this hub involved deeply understanding who our audience would be and the distinct pathways we wanted them to follow while engaging on the site.

Here’s how I delivered:

I helped create user personas to outline the different types of people who would be accessing the site.
Based on those personas, I developed a set of content journeys to indicate how we wanted people to progress from non-member to member and ultimately to customer champion.
I helped strategize the most effective content pathways that would engage these personas while working closely with our community director to better understand our members and their needs.

Website Development

Our team was tasked to develop a complete community platform as part of our strategy following the launch of a new sales technology category. However, while a platform vendor had been selected to cover the member/logged-in side of this community, this solution wouldn’t allow us to provide ungated access to our content. We knew we needed to build a companion content hub to the community where we could house content related to our category that would also drive users to join the community and participate as members—and we needed to do it fast and at little to no added expense.

Here’s how I delivered:

I sourced and recommended a pre-built WordPress theme that fit our needs for flexible development and low cost.
Based on loose design wireframes, I built the structure of the website, added plugins for more robust functionality, and customized the entire content taxonomy, including custom post types and categories.
I developed the site for maximum SEO reach and with highly specific user content journeys that would drive rapid membership increase without blocking easy access to content.
I worked closely with branding and design to ensure an engaging, consistent UX.

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Executive Engagement Research

To boost awareness of a new sales technology category, we wanted to center a campaign around the importance of executive engagement in sealing high-value deals. We landed on a research-driven content strategy that could both educate sellers on the art of executive selling while also providing tactical and interactive tools.

Here’s how I delivered:

A tight budget limited our survey plans to a specific platform called Wynter that—while excellent at message testing—was not quite designed for our needs. No worries. With a little creativity, I orchestrated the research questions to fit Wynter’s parameters without compromising on feedback. I then crafted a tailored webpage for survey flow, and we launched to five distinct executive groups, raking in 150 invaluable responses.
After building a robust spreadsheet for data crunching, I tapped into GPT4 to dissect and juxtapose feedback from all five exec audiences and all five survey sections.
Once I knew the depth of information we had at hand and the results we had discovered, I created a content asset plan that not would not only unveil our insights but also furnish our community with hands-on tools, articles , templates and data dashboards.
I used Jotform to build a quiz that would walk sellers through research findings while also assessing how prepared they are to engage with specific C-suite roles. Check it out live here.
In just 5 months, from ideation to the initial content launch, we had a wealth of material. And the best part? This treasure trove promises to fuel demand gen, SEO, and community growth strategies for many more months.

Sales Metrics That Matter

Databooks-2022-State-of-Sales-Leadership-Survey

As part of a product-market analysis, we conducted a survey of enterprise sales leaders to determine which KPIs they felt most critical to gauging their teams’ performance and efficiency.

Here’s how I delivered:

I analyzed the data to reveal insights we could repurpose as top-of-funnel thought leadership.
I created copy for an infographic, blog post, and socials.
These insights later helped fuel our work to launch a new B2B sales technology category.

Sales Gap Study

Before launching a new B2B sales tech category, we wanted to bring in solid data to back our messaging. We devised multiple surveys covering around a thousand buyers and sellers with the goal of spotlighting shifting B2B dynamics and identifying where sellers might be missing the mark.

Here’s how I delivered:

I crafted the survey questions and used Centiment for deployment.
When responses were in, I analyzed the quantitative data to uncover pivotal insights. I created an initial analysis document that served as a catalyst for finalizing our insights.
In addition to integrating key stats into our launch materials, website and sales decks, we also built content assets for use in demand gen campaigns.

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