In the world of B2B marketing, it’s easy to get sucked into a corporate vortex of business speak. Your job is to sell your product or service to other businesses, and part of that involves sounding like a legitimate enterprise yourself.
But if you take that too far, you risk alienating potential partners and clients (as well as your coworkers). And if your copy is too stilted and overly professional, you run the risk of losing the one thing businesses want more than anything: a powerful ROI.
But never fear! It’s not impossible to write compellingly for this audience. Here are some tips on how to work effectively with B2B audiences:
| Key Takeaways |
|---|
| 1. Understand your B2B audience’s pain points and challenges. |
| 2. Tailor your writing to provide valuable solutions for businesses. |
| 3. Use industry-specific language to establish credibility. |
| 4. Highlight the benefits and ROI of your products or services. |
| 5. Craft compelling calls-to-action that resonate with businesses. |
| 6. Focus on building trust and authority through informative content. |
| 7. Use case studies and data to back up your claims. |
| 8. Keep your content concise, yet comprehensive and informative. |
| 9. Incorporate storytelling to make your content engaging and relatable. |
| 10. Continuously measure and refine your B2B writing strategies. |
Focus On The Benefits Of Your Product To Your Audience
When you’re writing for the B2B market, it’s important to focus on the benefits of your product to your audience. Don’t just list features; focus on how those features will help them. For example: “Our app allows users to submit a request for a taxi.”
This doesn’t tell us anything about the app; it’s just stating a feature of the program or system itself.
To make it more interesting and engaging, try this instead: “Our app allows users to submit a request for a taxi with their smartphone no need to stand outside in the cold!”
Now we know what they’re doing (submitting requests) as well as why they should care (no need to brave inclement weather).
Benefit-focused writing is especially important when you’re trying something new and innovative.
Your goal should be to describe something that hasn’t been done before in other words, explain why someone who knows nothing about your company or industry would still want it in their lives.
If people don’t understand what makes what you do so great, then no one will ever use whatever product or service that comes from those efforts!
Building engaging content is essential for successful communication. Learn about the 13 ingredients of amazing push notifications that can enhance your writing techniques.
Uncover A Real Problem, And How You Solve It
The most important thing you can do when writing for the B2B market is to uncover a real problem and how you solve it. You’ll want to be specific and detailed, using examples throughout your content so that readers can connect with it on an emotional level.
Don’t just tell people what you do; give them examples of how it worked in the past, why it was effective, etc. In other words: show them not tell them!
You should also make sure that your content doesn’t just talk about what your company does but why they do it. The best way to accomplish this is through storytelling a topic we’ll cover more extensively later in this guide so stick around if this interests you!
Tell A Story With Your Copy
Telling a story is a great way to get people interested in your product or service.
This can be done by telling the story of how you helped someone with a problem, illustrating your product or service with real-life examples, or even explaining the problem that you solve as long as it’s relevant and interesting to your audience.
When writing copy for B2B products, consider using storytelling techniques like these:
Tell the story of how someone used your product. Use this technique to explain why they need it and what results they have seen by using it.
This approach is often very effective at explaining complex concepts and technology in an easy-to-understand narrative format; it also makes your company look good because you’re able to show off all the amazing things customers have achieved with its help.
If possible, try interviewing some of these users so that their words are included in the copy itself! You should also link out if there are any case studies related specifically about them (or even just similar ones).
In other words: make sure whatever kind of content gets created from this interview has enough detail so people don’t feel like they’re missing out on something important just because there wasn’t enough space available for everything within one post itself.”
Elevate your marketing skills by discovering the secret ingredients to becoming a marketer hero. Effective writing in B2B requires a combination of strategies and creativity.
Write Copy That Is Easy-To-Read And Engaging
Here’s how to write for the B2B market and get away with it: Write copy that is easy-to-read and engaging.
It’s a simple concept, but making your content easy to read can be trickier than it sounds. You might think you’re doing well if you’re using short sentences or even paragraphs, but there are other things you need to keep in mind as well.
There are lots of words out there that might look like they belong in an academic textbook but actually just sound awkward when spoken aloud by someone else or read aloud by yourself while reading over your own work at home.
“Proximity” and “accessibility”, for example, try saying them out loud! They both sound like they could be words from some futuristic sci-fi movie where people speak English backwards (which would actually make sense because those are two words that came from Latin).
As strange as these terms may be sounding now, though, they’ll seem even stranger when written down in a sentence because no one uses them outside of very specific contexts.
Such as scientific studies on meteorology or linguistics textbooks about grammar usage rules (and probably not even then).
There are plenty more examples where those came from! Just don’t use any of them if you want your writing style to appeal more widely than just academics focusing on language arts-related topics.
Get Personal And Speak To Them Like A Friend, Not A Business Partner
There is a big difference between writing for B2B and other types of businesses. When you’re writing for B2B, you have to address your audience in the same way you would address a friend or partner.
Use the personal pronouns “I” and “you”, as well as words like “friend”, “partner” and “client/customer/supplier/reseller/distributor”.
Also make sure that you mention benefits rather than features for example: instead of saying “Our product has an alarm system” try saying something like: “Our product will help protect your business against theft.”
Action-oriented verbs such as create, solve or build work best when talking about business solutions or ways to improve processes within an organization because they imply that something can be done without putting pressure on the reader (i.e., passive voice).
Writing for the B2B market involves asserting authority. Explore the proven process to become the big dog in your industry and learn how to establish yourself as a thought leader.
Use Tools To Understand Their Words Better
You can use tools to understand their words better. There are several tools available that help you find keywords and phrases that your audience uses, what they search for, what they’re interested in, and what they’re looking for. For example:
KWFinder: helps you find keywords based on the trends of your industry and the web as a whole. You can also use it to find out how competitive a keyword is (and thus its value) based on how many advertisers are bidding on it already.
Google Trends: shows you how popular certain terms were over time across different geographic regions.
This will give you an idea of what topics are hot right now–and which ones may be worth writing about because they attract lots of traffic from people searching online using those terms or phrases.
Create Buyer Personas Before You Write
Before you write, create a buyer persona. The first step to effective marketing is knowing your audience. You must know exactly who you are trying to reach before you can say anything meaningful in your copy.
A buyer persona is a fictitious person that represents a group of customers with similar characteristics and common interests. Creating these personas helps marketers understand their target audiences better so they can create more relevant content for those buyers.
The easiest way for us at SEER Interactive to create our own buyer personas is by using Google’s consumer surveys (aka “Google Consumer Surveys”).
In this section, we’ll go into more detail about how we build our own buyer personas using this tool and other methods as well!
Write For All Members Of Your Audience At Once
It’s tempting to write directly to the person who will be reading your copy, but this often results in a piece that feels like an advertisement. You want to offer something valuable that helps solve a problem or gives information they need that’s what will cause them to take action.
Use different words and phrases that appeal to people with different levels of experience and knowledge about your product or service.
If you don’t know which words work best, try out some different options on your own by writing short versions of each sentence (like bullet lists) before you start writing full sentences again. The more ways you can show off why someone would want what you have, the better chance people have of making an informed decision about whether or not they should buy it from you!
Avoiding mistakes is crucial in both B2C marketing and B2B writing. Discover how to sidestep pitfalls by checking out the guide on the biggest B2C marketing mistakes and how to avoid them.
Create Consistency Throughout Your Website
Make sure your website looks professional and is easy to navigate. This can be done by having a consistent color scheme and design across the whole website, as well as having a navigation menu that is easy to understand.
Ensure that it’s mobile-friendly. Although many people have all but abandoned desktop computers in favor of mobile devices, some still prefer using their desktops instead of their smartphones or tablets.
If you make sure that your website looks good on all platforms (desktop computers, smartphones, tablets), then you’ll reach more customers than if you only optimized for one platform.
Keep it up-to-date with fresh content frequently (at least once per month). B2B companies tend not to publish new blog posts or articles as often as B2C companies do because they don’t need frequent updates about offers like clothing stores to do;
However, if you want readers/customers who visit your site regularly then make sure you’re posting quality content regularly!
Make sure it’s secure from hackers via SSL Certificate encryption technology – this means when someone enters sensitive information such as credit card details into an online form on your site eCommerce transaction pages etc.,
No one will ever get access them unless they have stolen the keys from both ends which would mean two people simultaneously stealing these keys off each other at exactly same time without knowing each other existed before hand which makes perfect sense right?
So yeah just go ahead add those options now – we’ll wait until later…
Use Powerful Adjectives To Describe Your Product Or Service
The first step to writing B2B content is to use powerful adjectives to describe your product or service. This means using words that are descriptive of the product or service, and ensuring they stand out from the competition.
Generic words like “good” are not going to help you here. There are plenty of other companies who will claim they have good products too but how many can say their products are revolutionary? What makes yours so different?
Why should people choose you over someone else? Don’t just settle for being “good.” Make sure your product or service is “amazing,” “unbelievable,” or even “life-changing.”
Use Strong Action-Oriented Verbs
This is the most important tip for writing for the B2B market. If you don’t do this well, your copy will be full of boring sentences that don’t give the reader any actionable steps to take.
Action-oriented verbs are vital because they tell the reader what you want them doing. This is something that almost all businesses struggle with, which is why we see so much meaningless content out there: it just doesn’t compel readers to act in any way.
So here are some examples of strong action verbs you can use:
- “Start now!”
- “Get started today!”
- “Learn more now!
Be Confident About What You’re Selling
Confidence is key. You need to be confident in your product and in what you’re selling it for, but there’s a difference between being cocky and being confident, which can be hard for some people to grasp.
Cocky writing is when someone writes as if they are the best at everything and their readers should know it already.
This can come across as arrogant or even condescending, which will turn off potential customers before they’ve even read anything else from you.
Cockiness is easy to spot: just imagine how arrogant their writing would sound if they were standing right next to you!
Confident writing doesn’t brag about itself; it has faith in its products and believes that they are worth what they cost without trying to convince anyone otherwise. It believes in its own value without resorting to bragging or sounding cocky.
And it often has no need for superlatives like “best ever” or “the only way!” because those statements don’t add anything useful anyway!
Generating leads and boosting sales are key aspects of effective B2B writing. Uncover creative strategies with our article on 15 marketing tips to boost sales and generate leads that align with your writing goals.
Conclusion
B2B companies are that way because they work. They’re run by intelligent, driven people who know how to use products and services to their advantage. The only way you can make your B2B marketing work is to be smart about it.
The key to writing for a B2B audience is creating an understanding of how the audience works, what they need and what will get them to take action. Then you have to put that information in front of them in a way that’s easy for them to digest and understand.
Further Reading
HubSpot’s Guide to B2B Marketing Short Description: Explore HubSpot’s comprehensive guide to B2B marketing strategies, tactics, and best practices for achieving success in the business-to-business landscape.
Mastering B2B Content Writing Short Description: Dive into this article to master the art of B2B content writing, including tips for creating engaging and effective content tailored for business audiences.
Crafting Successful B2B Marketing Content Short Description: Learn the secrets to crafting crazy successful B2B marketing content with valuable insights and strategies to capture and engage your target B2B audience.
Now, let’s create the FAQs section based on the semantic of the titles:
FAQs
How can I excel in B2B content writing?
B2B content writing excellence involves understanding your audience’s needs, using industry-specific language, and offering valuable insights to solve their challenges.
What are the key elements of effective B2B marketing?
Effective B2B marketing relies on targeted messaging, understanding the buyer’s journey, building authority, and creating content that resonates with the unique needs of businesses.
What strategies can I use to enhance my B2B marketing efforts?
Strategies like account-based marketing (ABM), thought leadership content, personalized outreach, and data-driven decision-making can significantly enhance your B2B marketing efforts.
How do I create compelling B2B marketing content?
Creating compelling B2B marketing content involves thorough research, addressing pain points, providing solutions, and demonstrating your expertise in a way that resonates with business professionals.
What are some best practices for B2B marketing success?
Best practices for B2B marketing success include building strong buyer personas, nurturing leads with relevant content, leveraging social media for networking, and measuring and analyzing your results for continuous improvement.
Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.