Clients and customers need to know that you’ve got a firm understanding of trends that will affect them, and that your solutions will help them deal with a future that may be different from today.

San Francisco-based engineering firm TYLin asked me to help them show their abilities to meet the future needs of public transit agencies. So I chose a publication, “Passenger Transport,” by the influential American Public Transportation Association, and presented an article on trends in public transit. The editor asked us to go ahead, and I interviewed TYLin’s Vice President and Managing Principal for their Mobility Systems Division, to ghost-write a first draft of the publication. After she reviewed my first draft and made corrections, we sent it to the editor and got it published along with some futuristic images of public transportation systems.

This article positions TYLin as an authority in its subject matter and able to help its clients “future-proof” their transit systems.

See a copy of the article here

Landfill leachate treatment is a big business at the many landfills around the world. Rochem Americas, the California-based wing of the Hamburg-based company, wanted to get their message in front of the leaders of landfills all across North America. In particular, they wanted to show how their technology can deal with PFAS, a hazardous material found in virtually all landfills and therefore, their leachate.

This meant getting an article published in MSW management, the SWANA partner publication. But many editors, such as those at this publication, are reluctant to publish articles by equipment vendors, because they are often just a disguised sales pitch saying “Buy our box, it’s better.”

So I worked with the then-President of Rochem Americas, to use his long experience with the solid waste sector, to ghost-write an article that discussed the history of leachate treatment, the various technologies available, including Reverse Osmosis, which Rochem uses. Front and center in the article – and its headline – was the Rochem technology’s abilities to deal with PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that are becoming of increasing concern to the general public, environmental regulators, and landfill operators.

This article, which included text and several pictures of Rochem’s installations, covered four pages of the publication. Periodicals like this routinely charge $10,000 per page for advertising, giving this article the equivalent value of some $40,000. And, an article is more likely to be heeded than an advertisement.

See a copy of the article that was published

Golder, a global geotechnical and environmental firm now part of WSP, had a big opportunity in 2019 and wanted to grab it with both hands.

The “opportunity” was new regulations in the Province of Ontario, Canada, on excess soil. This is soil pulled from construction sites, and much of this was being disposed of in environmentally questionable ways. O. Reg. 406/19 was intended to bring discipline and higher environmental standards to this aspect of the construction industry.

To support this, Golder commissioned Thought Leadership Resources to develop some thought leadership content that would position Golder as a leading authority on the new legislation. I interviewed several of Golder’s professionals, and ghost-wrote 11 blog posts on various aspects of the new legislation.

These posts were distributed online and through social media, and combined into an e-book.

In Golder’s words: “The campaign was a huge success resulting in 50 leads, 25 client presentations, 6 projects, 40 qualified leads and approximately $500K in revenue, and has been featured firmwide as a case study.”

“GET THE DIRT!” won an Award of Merit from the Society for Marketing Professional Services in 2020.

See an example of a blog post written for this series