Know-How Exchange : Strategy

look in in-house content there is some hiding: a company never tell its defect/ shortcomings in an in-house content. it only highlights the achievement and good side of the company. thus in-house content will only give you half truth.


whereas independent research firm will tell you both good side and bad side. thus it gives you a complete picture and not half truth.

so my advice is that you should take independent research content to get a complete picture.

Much like Sage, I fail to understand the debate here, mainly because there isn't one.

So, "only content from independent research firm works", eh? The pseudo-authoritarian edge here because your marketing friend "told" you speaks volumes. Does your friend know this for a fact? Or is it merely opinion disguised as fact?

In the world of marketing, opinions are a dime a dozen. Many of the business people I know write their own content and many of those people generate tens of thousands of dollars every month in solid sales—month after month, year in, year out.

A well-written, intelligently argued, in-house crafted sales letter that's written by an in-house writer who knows his or her audience, and who knows his or her product and its benefits can and will outperform and out pull most independently written "research" pieces of copy any day of the week.

Your marketing friend is both wrong and blinkered in her approach and it's ill-informed, sweeping statements like hers that snuff out the life that's inherent in most in-house content creation departments.

The writers for newspapers and magazines are mostly in-house content producers. Likewise most bloggers. Ditto most industry experts, pundits, and commentators.

Is the content that these people create "not convincing"?

To simply hand all content creation over to independent creators is narrow minded in the extreme, it disconnects the writer from the audience, and it muddies the message.

"If a company writes their own content, it is not convincing."

What utter nonsense!

To connect with the reader, the person writing the content needs to understand the use of the product, they need to understand the way the message is crafted, AND they need to understand the way the message is received and interpreted.

This means the writer needs to think like a client AND like a buyer—something that many independent content creators cannot do because they're not invested—either emotionally or intellectually—in the product, in the company, or in the outcome being sought by the reader.

Not a debate for me either, but for a slightly different (more cynical) reason - research from outside can be bought, so neither one is 100% reliable as true, unbiased information.

Either internal or external could work just fine, when done right. Either could be absolute crap, when done wrong.