Content Creation Guide
Getting Started – Your Audience and Your Success
Our Partners are VMUG’s biggest allies in providing the latest news, trends and usage tips to our
worldwide member base of over 100,000 VMware customers. This document will help you make the
most of your VMUG User Conference sessions, webinars, VMUG Voice articles, blog posts, white papers,
videos and chapter engagements.
We’ll cover four types of session content that can help you engage your audience, provide them with
useful information and, in the process, change the way they think about your organization.
The Audience – VMUG members are a potent mix of purchase decision-makers and influencers, 90% of
whom have been using VMware for over 4 years. They want presentations that offer technical deepdives, but are also interested in general overviews of emerging technologies, as well as business
intelligence. VMUG members attend our events and eLearning platforms to find solutions to specific
areas of need, share their expertise and learn from other VMware users. As a member of the VMUG
community, you not only provide solutions to VMware users, you own useful data and intelligence that
can help our members to improve their business performance.
Creating Session Content
The four types of content we recommend are:
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The Case Study: “We can meet your needs – see how we’ve achieved success already”
The How-To: “We care about your success”
The Trend: “You can count on us for results that work in your world”
Emerging Technology: “New problems and new solutions”
All of these content types can be used successfully if they are chosen wisely and rely on real-world data
and objectivity. Remember to base your choice on the information you have available, and the needs of
people in your market as a means to achieve your ultimate communication goal.
Before We Get Started – Tips from our Leaders
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Watch the panel discussion with some of our VMUG UserCon Leaders.
Think about how to capture the most salient points in your session title. What will make a
potential attendee click on your session title to read the abstract?
We get the best feedback (and see the highest attendance) when the session has a customer
who is currently using the product and is willing to discuss their pain points.
Make sure the meat of your content is first. Our attendees are not shy about walking out of
sessions that they think are pure sales pitches. Don’t lose your audience in the first couple
minutes of your session!
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Content Creation Guide
1. The Case Study: “We can meet your needs – see how we’ve achieved success already”
Your company probably already collects case studies, so this should be relatively easy content to
develop. The key to this particular session is to include a customer as a co-presenter. VMUG members
want to hear how their peers solved specific problems. It makes sense, leveraging the experience and
knowledge of fellow VMware users is one of the main reasons they join VMUG.
The goal for your session is to choose a case study that will help your attendees learn something they
can apply. Some steps to cover here include:
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Using data and customer input, describing the original situation faced by your client or customer
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Listing the steps that you followed, including how you resolved problems along the way
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Describing the outcome that your client received
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Outlining the lessons you learned that will benefit the reader
A case study needs to be relevant to your audience’s situation and provide insights that they can use in
their own reality. It works well to show your character (or that of your organization) and demonstrate
your resourcefulness, caring, skill, and diligence in a given situation. It also functions as an illustration
that shows how you’d work with the attendee, if given the opportunity.
2. The How-To: “We care about your success”
While bringing in a client is the ideal situation, we know that schedule conflicts might prohibit that from
happening. The next best thing is a “How To” presentation. A good how-to can embody the best spirit
of content marketing – providing information that helps people accomplish their goals — and positions
you as someone who cares about achieving a good outcome
Leader Insight – One of the most
for your clients.
effective session I’ve ever seen
A how-to is effective only if it’s about something that people
spent 45 minutes talking about the
in your market care about. The key to this type of content is
best practiced “native” way to solve
to solve a problem in a general way. Some steps to prepare
a problem, and then showed how
their solution can do the same
this type of content include:
thing in seconds.
• Choosing a process that you know well, and which
will be relevant to your market
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Writing out the steps involved in achieving the intended outcome
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List the factors and circumstances that are likely to lead to the best outcomes for clients
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For each major factor, describe how clients and your firm can work together to achieve those
best outcomes
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Content Creation Guide
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List the roadblocks and problems that can get in the way, and provide suggestions on how to
deal with them
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Discussing pitfalls and problems, and how to deal with them
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Listing any resources that will be needed
This type of session is meant to highlight the experience of your company, showcasing knowledge and
problem solving ability. It works best when you are a company that provides unique solutions to
problems, as opposed to a product, but in all cases, referencing actual projects will maximize audience
impact.
3. The Trend: “You can count on us for results that work in your world”
Think of a changing situation that is affecting your customers. What are the problems that keep them
up at night? Is there anything else that brings about problems or opportunities – or both? Once you
identify the trend you want to focus on, consider these points:
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What’s causing the trend, and how has the situation developed?
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What is the current situation?
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What are your own views, as an informed observer, about how the trend will develop (listing
your reasons for thinking so)?
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What data and objective intelligence do you have to validate your assertion as a trend?
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What are your recommendations to the reader on how to avoid harm or achieve a benefit?
The “trend” type of content positions you as someone who understands your customers’ world and
cares about helping to provide a good outcome.
4. Emerging technology: “New problems and new solutions”
VMUG members are rabid consumers of new technology. However with new tools come new problems.
With emerging technology content, you have the opportunity to not only discuss the impact of new
technology, but showcase how it can solve a problem.
Good content needs to be developed quickly, and will also become outdated as other market forces join
in reviews, providing solutions, etc. Be prepared to move fast to create content along these lines:
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Describe the technology, give some background on its development and need it was meant to
serve, and use data and customer feedback to validate adoption and usage challenges.
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Content Creation Guide
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Make recommendations on how to avoid problems and/or achieve benefits. This is particularly
effective if you can reference examples.
If you can write engaging emerging technology content, you can probably position it in several different
media channels – and it will get pickup from others. An emerging technology piece positions you as
someone with a finger on the pulse of things that affect your market, and demonstrates your interest in
being supportive of your market’s needs.
And Finally
We hope that these best practices will assist you in developing the most powerful content for VMUG
members. In general, we recommend to always keep in mind that VMUG members are highly engaged
and technical experts, but can lose interest in content that relies on overt sales and marketing claims
with no data or customer reference to support them.
For more information about VMUG, our members and opportunities to deliver content, please contact
Dave Burnell, VMUG Director of Sales at [email protected], or Andy Kraft, VMUG Sales Manager at
[email protected].
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