Year: 2016

How to brief a B2B copywriter

Posted on by The Radix Team

Brief even the world’s greatest copywriter badly, and they won’t deliver what you need.

The words they tap out won’t appeal to the right people. Or talk about the right thing. Or fit where you want to put them.

You might as well scrape them off your homepage and replace them with some significant-looking geometric shapes, or vaguely aspirational go-faster stripes. If they’re for a standalone content piece – like an eBook, or a SlideShare – there’s every chance it’ll end up languishing among the estimated 60+ percent of B2B content that gets created, but never actually used.

And yet… a lot of the briefs a B2B copywriter receives are woefully inadequate.

At a recent Twitter chat, we asked the assembled copywriters (TM pending) to share the biggest issues they have with the briefs they receive. Here are two representative responses:

And these are not lone voices in the wilderness. These are the cries of an army of professionals, desperately wanting to do a good job – so they can earn your repeat business, sure, but also so they can take some genuine pride in their work.

So, how do you brief well, and give a huge boost to both your marketing efforts and your copywriter’s self-esteem?

Here’s my take on the absolute fundamentals.

1. Help us understand who we’re writing for. (The audience.)

You know the kind of person you want to reach:

  • Where they work
  • What they do
  • What keeps them lying awake at night
  • What makes them gaze droolingly into the middle distance
  • What job title they’d ultimately like to call their own
  • What they already know (and don’t know) about your product or service

So, tell your copywriter. It’s a lot easier to be persuasive when you know who you’re talking to.

If you don’t know who your audience is, or you genuinely think your audience is ‘everyone’, you’re talking to a copywriter too early. Instead of rushing to produce content, you should be working to refine your marketing strategy.

In our Twitter chat, Dave Harland ‏@wordmancopy succinctly summarised the kind of brief that’s guaranteed to make a copywriter’s heart sink:

(Even better than telling us about your customers, you could introduce us to them.)

2. Tell us where the audience will read our copy.

That ‘where’ is both physical – on this blog, in an email that follows this template – and metaphorical. If you’re mapping your content to the good old sales and marketing funnel model, or it’s part of a larger campaign, let us know where it’s going to sit.

That way, we can make sure our copy forms a neat, logical journey, and even helps you effectively qualify leads along the way.

3. Explain how you speak, what you want to say, and why your audience should care.

Whether you’re producing a series of thought-leadershippy blog posts, or a thoroughgoing product guide, you’re producing it to engage your audience, and tell them something.

All you need to tell your copywriter is:

  • How you speak – if your company has a tone of voice guide, share it with us now
  • What you want to say – whether it’s ‘Hey, have you thought about how you’ll handle all the data from the Internet of Things?’ or ‘This is how our software helps businesses hire faster’
  • Why our audience should care – which of their challenges, worries and dreams does your message speak to?

4. Tell us what you want the audience to do next.

Thanks to the multiple teams, stakeholders and pressures involved in the creation of most marketing content and campaigns, it’s all too easy for the ‘call to action’ – what you actually what your audience to do after reading the copy – to be finalised very late in the day.

Ideally, however, it’s there from the start, front-and-centre in the brief. That way, your writer can create copy that carefully builds towards it – until taking that next step seems like the only natural thing to do.

5. Lay down the briefing law.

As our Twitter chat revealed, different writers like to be briefed in different ways. You could ask them for their preference. But you’re probably better off covering all bases:

  • Put together a written brief. This needn’t take long. The stuff you’ll want to include – from who the audience is, to how the copy is going to be used – is all stuff you should know already. Putting it in a Word doc will help you nail it down, and highlight any gaps or issues. (And once you’ve written your first brief, you’ve got a template you can use again and again.)
  • Arrange a briefing call. It doesn’t matter how comprehensive your written brief is, a good writer will relish the chance to hear you explain the project—and to ask questions.
  • Arrange further calls, if necessary. Some projects will require your writer to understand and convey complex ideas, others to present genuinely expert advice. If that’s the case, give us a chance to quiz the people with the ideas and/or knowledge. (Often, this means product experts.)

6. Give feedback.

If you’re working with a writer on a series of projects, the feedback you offer becomes a crucial part of the briefing process. Tell us if we met the brief. Tell us if you felt you had to tweak the tone of voice, or cut our hilarious play on words. Tell us if a project has met its targets, and if not, where it’s failed.

This is the kind of information copywriters thrive on. It helps us correct, perfect, and ultimately do an even better job next time.

Here’s the simple truth, and one that few will be honest enough to tell you.

Great copywriters can use their skills in two ways.

If you brief us badly – something the best of us will fight tooth and claw to stop from happening – we’ll reluctantly use our writing prowess to paper over the cracks in our understanding. We’ll produce words that read just fine, whoever’s reading them, and neatly fill some space. But that’s all they’ll do. They won’t hit home with your audience. They won’t make them sit up and take notice – and action.

And we’ll feel bad about it, even though we’ve done a bloody miraculous job under the circumstances.

But if you brief us well, it’s quite literally a different story.

We’ll use our skills to engage the people you’ve told us you want to engage. We’ll have the grounding and the confidence to write with genuine authority, find resonant narratives, and bring the full force of your expertise and our creativity to bear.

We’ll make any organisation look as clever as it is – if not more so – and its products or services look as invaluable as they are. Which is, after all, why you went looking for a great B2B copywriter in the first place.

All I’m saying is this. Let us show you what we can do.

For more B2B content tips…

Subscribe and listen to the Good Copy, Bad Copy podcast.

reddit v Quora: how can you use them in B2B marketing?

Posted on by The Radix Team

reddit calls itself “the front page of the internet”. It’s like a massive global forum that has sub forums for just about anything.

Alexa, as I write this, ranks it as the 9th most popular website in the US and 31st globally.

Quora says its mission is “to share and grow the world’s knowledge.” It’s a huge question-and-answer repository of knowledge. Alexa ranks it as the 127th most popular website in the world.

David McGuire, Radix’s Creative Director, told me he’s heard reddit might be useful for B2B marketing, but the site absolutely terrifies him. Quora? Zero opinion.

Keep on reading to find out what both platforms are like, how you can use them in your B2B content marketing efforts and why you might want to go with one over the other.

As a B2B content marketer, I use both

I’ve been on both sites for four years, so I’m pretty well placed to tell you what they’re like, how you can use them for B2B content marketing (and how you shouldn’t), and why you might go with one over the other.

Full disclosure: I use reddit a lot more than Quora and I was once a moderator of a large subreddit (like an online forum). This is not to say that reddit is better for B2B marketers; I just mainly have a Quora account so I can fully view site content.

The differences between reddit and Quora

reddit is made up of subreddits: communities of users (known as redditors) who discuss a particular topic or post content around a particular topic, with threads and replies. Quora has questions and answers, and a slightly hidden blogging feature.

Subreddits are communities of users on reddit and each subreddit has a particular focus. So /r/Games is about videogames and /r/scifi is about science fiction.

Quora’s topics are groupings of questions about particular subjects. You’ll find topics like Technology Trends or B2B Marketing.

Both platforms have the possibility to help with your content marketing efforts.

But what are the other main differences between the two sites?

(Click on image for a larger view.)

(What’s “astroturfing”? Check out this definition over on TechTarget.)

While there are many similarities between the two platforms, as you can see from this table there are a lot of differences too.

What could a B2B marketer use reddit for? (hint: it’s NOT promoting your own content)

There are many articles, blog posts, that describe how to use reddit to gain web traffic. Almost all of them involve concealing that you’re a marketer while doing this. They say you should embed yourself within reddit and in subreddits relevant to your business in order to build up a reputation as a “genuine poster” and then start to promote your business.

Do not do this.

What those articles don’t really mention is the fact that if you are found out, all that hard work you put into pretending to be genuine will have been for nothing and your brand’s reputation tarnished.

Or, as this article on SocialMediaExaminer points out:

redditors expect extreme transparency and authenticity from advertisers. Spam and hard selling aren’t tolerated and using either tactic will damage your brand’s reputation.

It doesn’t matter how awesome your content is. You can’t approach reddit the same way that you do Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. If you jump in and submit content blindly, you could find yourself banned or your websites blacklisted.

Despite all this, paid-for ads that link to your content are perfectly acceptable. Why? Because you’re being honest that you’re marketing something.

So what should a B2B marketer use reddit for?

Outside of content promotion or starting a subreddit specifically for your brand?

You should use reddit for finding out about part of your audience.

I say part, because the users of reddit are, anecdotally, incredibly skewed towards a particular demographic (white, straight men who are under 40). But for B2B marketers looking to find out more about everyone from end-users to senior decision-makers, there are subreddits on almost anything related to industry and business.

For example, there’s subreddits like /r/sysadmin, /r/engineering and even /r/talesfromtechsupport.

Lurk and listen.

There are no quick fixes and it might take some time to find where you should be listening (the first part of that SME article has good advice on finding relevant subreddits). The benefit of listening is that you might discover ideas for content and ways to flesh out audience personas.

Can you try posting on reddit?

You have to be really careful about posting to reddit and linking to your brand in any way. When reddit advises you to “tread carefully” they really mean it.

If you decide to post, do as SocialMediaExaminer advises:

Submit appropriate content, provide insightful answers, ask questions related to your industry and respond to people who engage with you.

So what do you use Quora for?

Well, you use it to be yourself.

A lot of what you would do with Quora you could do with reddit. But Quora encourages you to be yourself:

Having profiles that are meant to be based on who you are gives Quora an edge that reddit doesn’t: Quora gives you a true public face as a user. This means you can do a lot more, because you can be honest about who you are from the start and build up a reputation that you can use to your brand’s benefit.

Ways to use Quora for B2B marketing

This article from Buffer’s Kevan Lee is an excellent guide on how to set up your Quora profile and how you can use the site as a marketer.

As Kevan suggests, here are just some of the things you can do with Quora:

  • Research a topic your business is interested in
  • Crowdsource content
  • “Re-answer questions you’ve answered in your blog”
  • Discover new content ideas based on questions

But its main strength for marketers is how public-facing it enables you to be, and the transparency that enables.

I’ve previously written on this blog that the impact of being truthful and authentic should never be underestimated; existing and potential customers appreciate it.

Quora is essentially a place where you can build a reputation as a thought leader and gently tie this back to your brand. This includes linking back to your existing content in answers when it’s relevant to do so.

We’ve even seen clients’ contributions to Quora discussions being quoted in the media, so it can be valuable from a PR point of view, as well. (As long as you’re saying something you’d be happy to see quoted!)

What about Quora’s blogging feature?

The blog feature is not nearly as prominent as some other self-publishing platforms, like LinkedIn’s Pulse. However, if you’re looking for somewhere you can atomise and reuse content then it has potential and helps to build up the authority of your Quora profile when people check it out.

reddit v Quora: which do you pick?

Like any online platform, the first part of looking into its marketing benefits is finding out whether your audience is there. If your audience isn’t on reddit or Quora, then you shouldn’t waste your time on the platforms, because they won’t help you bolster your marketing efforts.

But if your audience is on both and you only have time for one?

Then decide if you want a public profile or an anonymous profile.

Public brand building? Choose Quora.

Anonymous information gathering? Go with reddit.

But above all, remember: spam is not your friend.

(I don’t know if David is any less terrified of reddit after reading this post.)

Want more B2B copywriting and content advice?

Check out the Good Copy, Bad Copy podcast.

Header image adapted from “Daily News Golden Gloves Boxing” by Mike Lizzi under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Podcast 36: Pay, gender, location & skills – the state of UK copywriting

Posted on by The Radix Team

Everybody’s talking ‘bout the Pro Copywriters’ Survey – and no wonder: it revealed a 28% gender pay gap in UK copywriting.

But the understandable outcry over the gender pay issue may have drawn attention away from a few other juicy findings in the survey. Stories of a huge London price premium, an all-round lack of training, and a university education apparently harming your earning potential. A hint (if you squint at the stats a certain, determined way) of workaholic Yorkshire writers and lazy Scots.

The survey provoked some (ahem) lively debate around gender, pricing, training and sector specialisms at our recent #b2bcopychat on Twitter (see the Storify below) – so in this, the 36th episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, we thought we’d sprinkle a bit more fuel on the fire.

Radix’s MD, Fiona Campbell-Howes, Content Marketing Manager Emily King and I pick out our personal highlights of the discussion so far, and ask:

  • Which qualifications impress copywriting recruiters – or is it all about experience?
  • Why on earth don’t more copywriters specialise?
  • Does anybody – male or female – really negotiate over pay?
  • Do Yorkshire copywriters really work 40% harder than Scottish counterparts? *
  • Is there any discernible advantage to hiring a copywriter based in London? **

(Fiona may or may not also imply that the best writers all naturally gravitate West. You might think that, Fiona; we couldn’t possibly comment.)

You can listen in the player at the top of the page – or to download the episode, right click here.

If you like, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here and we’ll pop up in your fruit-based device on a regular basis. Or alternatively, add our RSS to your podcast player of choice.

Our music is by Industrial and Marine. Bangin’.

* Hint: no.

** Another hint: HELL NO.

Three people your B2B copywriter definitely needs to meet

Posted on by The Radix Team

This is a plea.

It’s on behalf of B2B copywriters everywhere, to you, as a marketer. And quite simply, it’s this:

Let us talk to your people.

Don’t get me wrong; we love it when you’re organised, help us with our research and provide a clear brief for the work you want. But give us direct access to a few people from around your organisation too, and you’ll be rewarded with stronger, more compelling copy.

And let’s be frank: you need better copy. Look at almost any survey of B2B marketers’ top challenges, and you’ll find creative engaging content is there or thereabouts. If you want engagement, this is how you get it.

(By the way, if you’re an agency marketer, the same thing goes for letting your copywriter talk directly to the client.)

Why? because a direct conversation will give us three essential ingredients your briefing document (helpful though it is) usually can’t:

  • It lets us hear how people really talk, and use your sector’s terminology, in the real world – which helps your copy to sound authentic.
  • It gives us an insight into attitudes, and how people think about concepts (the bad as well as the good) – which enables your copy to be honest, and deal with people’s real issues.
  • It presents an opportunity to ask questions, and listen out for angles, ideas and hooks you might have missed – which means your copy might surprise you.

That makes for copy that’s informed, engaging and resonant.

Horrifying thought, isn’t it? Putting an external writer in direct contact with the assortment of oddballs, nerds and outspoken critics who reside in the dark recesses of almost every B2B-focused company. Who knows what impression we might get of them (or they might get of us)?

But relax; we’re B2B copywriters. Talking to geeks, digging into technical subjects, and finding the story in something dusty and dull is simply what we do every day. But more than that, we chose this line of work. We enjoy it, we’re good at it, and crucially we’re on your side.

So your office characters don’t need to be polished before they talk to us; polishing is our job.

And if you want your copy to really speak to your customers in a language they’ll recognise, there are three people above all others you should introduce us to…

1. That “challenging” salesperson

You know the one. They get great results, but they’re impossible to satisfy – always negative about your latest marketing work, dismissive of new product releases and outraged at production lead times. If you squirm inside at the thought of what they might say, they’re the one we need to talk to.

Why we want to talk to them: they’re our quickest way to find out why grass roots customers really buy from you. They’ll also probably be completely blunt about what’s bad about your product or service, where your competitors have an edge, and where they’ve seen marketing materials miss their target audience.

2. Your biggest product geek

Oh yes, the enthusiast. The one who – irrespective of your market research – thinks the new triple widget flangelator is really what you should be promoting, because it could revolutionise the whole flugelbinding process. If they read product catalogues and instruction manuals for fun, they’re perfect.

Why we want to talk to them: this is where your deep content comes from. The actual insights that customers can really use are currently lurking between your expert’s ears, and we’re experienced at mining them out. Also, it helps us to know not just that it’s faster, but *why* it’s made that way.

3. (Deep breath…) your customer

Yes, it’s a bit scary. But as writers we’re acutely aware that when we talk to your customer, we’re holding your baby – so we’re always on our best behaviour. Case studies are a great way to make this happen (while making the customer look clever and feel important to boot), but even helping you on a trade show exhibition stand can do the trick.

Why we want to talk to them: to find out exactly what’s important to people in your sector and – crucially – how they speak in the real world. One we’ve met a typical customer, it’s easier for us to picture them, and write compellingly to that kind of person. (They might also say things to a third party they wouldn’t tell you – giving you extra insights when we report back.)

You need engagement, we need access

For years, B2B marketers’ biggest problem has consistently been producing content that really engages. As external copywriters, the more we can immerse ourselves in your world, the better our chances of picking up on real, current concerns, unearthing fresh insights, and finding the right language to cut through the noise.

Please do continue to give your copywriter a full, detailed brief – but please, trust us talk to your characters too. Often, that’s where the gold is.

Fancy reading B2B copywriting tips and ideas on a regular basis? Our email newsletter is perfect. Try it for yourself…

Podcast 35: Three kinds of B2B marketing content you’re probably missing

Posted on by The Radix Team

As long ago as 2011, Joe Pulizzi pointed out that inbound marketing alone isn’t enough for content marketing to deliver its full value.

More recently, B2B agencies have been lining up to put the boot into the funnel as a metaphor for your customers’ buying process. Velocity Partners called it a poisonous metaphor, Octopus Group suggested it’s actually more of a pretzel and – possibly most fun of all – Workbrands suggested it’s really a water park.

But still, content marketers seem keen to map their marketing assets to stages of the traditional funnel: TOFU, MOFU and BOFU. What else should we be writing, how should we really see the funnel, and what does it all mean for B2B copywriting?

In this episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, Radix’s MD Fiona Campbell-Howes and I expand on my recent blog post about addressing these missing parts of the funnel, and discuss:

  • Why people are questioning the funnel
  • The importance of PREFU, REFU and POFU content
  • Account-Based Marketing, and what it means for B2B writers
  • Whether anyone would actually want to eat an octopus pretzel
  • … and more.

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

If you like, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here, or alternatively add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.

Our music is by Industrial and Marine …and if you’d like to try an octopus pretzel, there’s a recipe here (full disclosure: it doesn’t actually contain octopus).

Part of our funnel is missing: 3 kinds of asset content marketing forgot

Posted on by The Radix Team

The Funnel is a frankly pathetic metaphor for the way marketers want buyers to move from stranger to prospect to lead to customer to advocate.

Problem is, it’s still how most people plan their marketing content.

As Velocity’s Doug Kessler pointed out in his inimitable way, funnels tend to have gravity on their side, and aren’t, on the whole, particularly leaky. (What goes in the top of a funnel is sure to come out of the end pretty soon… if only sales funnels were so reliable.)

The Funnel model is so limited, in fact, that Workbrands would rather talk about a water park, giving buyers options, routes, support and the chance to ride more than once. Sounds like fun to us.

In truth, The Funnel is a 92-year-old* cockroach that simply refuses to die. Limitations or not, it’s still the model everyone uses. It’s clear, it’s simple and – ahem – it makes for a cracking board game.

And that’s fine(ish).

But when you use The Funnel to plan your marketing content – as a lot of marketers do – you’re bound to miss some fairly important stuff.

TOFU, MOFU and BOFU are only half the story

Let’s recap. It’s common for content marketers planning an editorial calendar to try to cover the whole funnel with lovely content:

TOFU     The top of the funnel. Prospects barely even know who you are, let alone want to buy from you. Your job is to get into their consideration set, get their details and start a conversation.

TOFU tactics include: thought leadership blogs, social media, slideshare rants, infographics

MOFU   The middle of the funnel. The prospect has realised they have a problem, and it’s one you can probably solve. They might be putting together a shortlist of vendors.

MOFU tactics include: ebooks, case studies, workbooks, videos, “how to” blogs

BOFU     The bottom of the funnel – now you’re selling. Assets need to be carefully aligned with sales, and focused towards building a business case, helping prospects through practicalities, and ultimately winning the contract.

BOFU tactics include: whitepapers, checklists, comparison charts, buyers’ guides

All very important, and very useful. But we know the funnel is just part of the content marketing story – the inbound bit – and, like Joe Pulizzi said, that isn’t enough.

If you’re focusing only on TOFU, MOFU and BOFU, you don’t have all the content you need. So let’s meet their charmingly-named cousins…

Say hello to PREFU, REFU and POFU

Most of the people you’ll do business with in the medium to long term are not in your funnel right now. Some have already been through, converted (hurrah), and are customers. Others have just left it… or maybe they’re nowhere near it just yet.

These contacts are where next year’s revenue is coming from. So what kinds of content will you give them now?

PREFU – people who are nowhere near your funnel (yet)

Some companies aren’t in the market for what you’re selling. Maybe they’re not big enough or at that stage of maturity yet. Perhaps they haven’t even noticed the pain that you solve. Could be they simply can’t afford you just now.

They’re not leads – in fact, they’re not even suspects yet. And in a world of limited resources, sales can’t talk to many people in that category… but marketing can.

If you’re interesting (dare I say it, even entertaining) and demonstrably helpful, expert and informed, a little marketing content can go a long way towards building awareness, and a good impression, in the hearts and minds of people on the fringes of your market, who might be customers later.

REFU – or the dark art of staying friends with your ex

As we’ve established, your funnel has holes in it. Lots of them. Face it: it’s more like a funnel-shaped colander. The point is, there are many reasons why a prospect mightn’t turn into a sale.

Maybe there were internal changes. Or perhaps the budget got used up. Who knows, they might have even (whisper it quietly) chosen a competitor instead this time. One way or another, the sale isn’t happening – but that doesn’t mean they’ll never be in your market in future. After all, haven’t they shown they’re just the sort of company who might buy from you??

The question now is how to get your brand into prime position next time around – to keep in touch, keep building engagement, and eventually get them back into the funnel once more. That’s where your REFU content comes in.

Effective REFU (Return-to-the-Funnel) content depends on the reason you lost the sale: hints, tips and guides to help when a new incumbent’s honeymoon period ends, or assets to help your contact build a better business case. Use data you’ve collected but, crucially, respect the decision your contact has made – don’t be pushy.

POFU – they’ve bought from you. Well done. What now?

The most neglected bit of content marketing – arguably, any marketing – is what happens after the sale. How do you a turn a one-off customer into a fruitful, long-term relationship – and an ambassador for your brand in turn?

Among all the many kinds of marketing content we’re asked for, almost none is aimed at existing customers – that’s left to account management teams. It doesn’t seem to compute that – just maybe – they need just as much marketing support as sales.

Who’s done the most to prove they’re the kinds of customer who’d buy from you? The people who already have. So keep them happy, help them to make the absolute most of their purchase, broaden their relationship with you, and watch the repeat business, upsell opportunities and referrals roll in.

(If in doubt: dig into your data, and compare leads’ conversion rates by their source. If you’re not more likely to convert a referral than anything else, I’ll buy a hat and eat it.)

POFU (Post-Funnel) content needn’t be rocket science: newsletters, ideas, updates, user guides and events. Build relationships, and an interactive community to foster a sense of belonging… involve your customers in content creation, too.

What works for you?

How do you make sure your content covers all eventualities – and what kinds of content work best? We’d love to hear your PREFU, REFU and POFU ideas (or names for other bits of the funnel we might have missed… do your worst!).

Drop us a line on Twitter.

*Yep, the idea of the sales funnel first appeared in a bond sales book in 1924.

Podcast 34: What it takes to master B2B ads

Posted on by The Radix Team

In 2014, spending on B2B display ads topped $1.5 billion for the biggest 100 B2B US advertisers.

But are B2B brands making the most of their ad copy? Often B2B ads try to say and do too much, making it difficult for audiences to draw any real sense of meaning from their ads.

Where strong, simple messages are needed, B2B ads are often filled with jargon-heavy language that obscures their meaning or leaves you wondering if they even have a message. Like Ryan Wallman, Head of Copy at Wellmark, has said: “obfuscation” in ads and corporate copy is a real problem and something needs to be done about it.

In this episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, I’m joined by David McGuire, Radix’s Creative Director, to discuss the simple steps B2B ads could take to be memorable and relevant.

Listen now to find out:

  • The most common copy mistakes in B2B ads
  • How to write really good B2B ad copy
  • Why B2B video ads succeed where print ads fail
  • The differences between digital display ads and print ads
  • … and more

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Alternatively: add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Good B2B ad examples mentioned in the podcast

Oglivy B2B ad

Advanced Engineering ad by The John Knowles Company

Editorial boards in B2B content marketing: a beginners’ guide

Posted on by The Radix Team

What is an editorial board and why would you want one?

In B2B marketing, editorial boards are an approach to help marketers consistently create content that engages with the needs and interests of their audiences.

The board is a regular meeting between marketing, sales, content creators, senior and sometimes C-level stakeholders – all with an interest in creating content for your organisation. It’s also a great way to field information from people who have regular contact with existing and potential customers, and generally come up with content ideas.

Did you know that 60-70% of B2B content goes unused? Editorial boards are a great way of getting team buy-in and reducing content waste, because both sales and marketing have a hand in creating content.

And if you don’t have a content strategy?

Research has found that 68% of B2B brands don’t have a documented content marketing strategy. They know the value of content, know they need to be creating content on a regular basis, but they don’t have a documented content strategy as such.

We always encourage you to have a documented content strategy. But if you don’t have one: an editorial board is a way to have a governance process in place to make sure content is happening and that it is the right content.

With an editorial board you can:

  • Generate content ideas
  • Decide on content that fits the brand and audience’s needs
  • Make sure content fits your brand’s themes
  • Check that all of your audience personas are having content tailored to them
  • Get content approved quickly and smoothly
  • Stops random acts of content
  • Review content that is and isn’t working

5 essential steps to running a successful editorial board

Here’s five rules to keep your editorial board in order:

1. Set a time and place

Keep a regular meeting slot for the editorial board. A thirty minute meeting or conference call once every two weeks is how we’ve run editorial boards here at Radix and with clients. You can run it more frequently than this, but any less and you’ll lose the ability to act quickly on ideas and information on how well different pieces of content are performing.

2. Bring your key players

During your meetings, ensure you have:

  • A marketer: so that content ideas can be checked against strategy and message
  • A head of sales or sales representative: they have the customer insight that will let you know what content is missing and what customers want or need
  • A content writer: from the meeting they’ll be able to garner important background information to produce the content

And if they’re available:

  • Senior and C-Level team members

Senior and C-Level team members are great to have on editorial board meetings. They’re the ones with the vision of where the organisation is going and what the customers are looking for at the highest level.

If your business relies heavily on partners, you may also want to bring in your head of alliances, as they’ll have insight to share from the partners who are selling your products.

3. Review content – find out what’s working and what isn’t

It’s really important to stay on track and review created content. You need to make sure it’s doing its job and you’re seeing value from it. The whole aim is to create content that is appreciated and useful – engage the audience so that it gets the results that you need.

An advantage of having these meetings is that you can act quickly on trends that are happening with your content and your customers.

4. Listen to the team

Editorial boards aren’t just for planning: they’re good for idea generation too, enabling participants to bounce ideas around. Ideas spawn ideas and you will end up with a richer variety of content, more so than if it was just one or two people coming up with ideas.

These are people who will have been reading around key topics, talking to customers and heading to events – so they have a lot of relevant current knowledge to draw upon.

5. Have an editorial calendar

An editorial calendar allows everyone involved in the editorial board to see what content ideas are being worked on and when they’re likely to be completed or if any issues have arisen. You can divide up the calendar by theme, so you can easily check if you’re producing content around all of your key themes, or if you’re focusing on one at the expense of others.

The calendar can be put together in something as simple and as easily accessed as a Google Sheet. It should be updated after each meeting and when progress with content has been made.

The calendar should at least show:

  • Content ideas and how they fit to themes and personas
  • What actions are being taken on the ideas
  • Who is writing the content
  • What format it is being written for
  • Due date for completion

A typical editorial board meeting

If this isn’t the first meeting, you look at how the content you’ve previously produced is performing, and then look at the content ideas that you’ve got in your editorial calendar. Based on reports on how content is doing, you can prioritise content ideas accordingly, planning content for the next couple of weeks.

You can also look at anything that’s gotten stuck in the creation process. Ideas can be discussed and everyone can feedback into these ideas and either approve them or not. The calendar is updated after the meeting.

Do you have experience to share?

We’ve used editorial boards to good effect with our clients and for our own marketing, and find they really help to create a regular flow of original, high-quality and relevant content. If you run an editorial board for your organisation or your clients, we’d love to hear your experiences and tips for getting the most from them.  Let us know in the comments.

Advice

Want more B2B content marketing and copywriting insights? Sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Resources

B2B editorial calendar template

Podcast: How to use an editorial board to drive B2B content creation

Editorial Calendars: why you need one and how to make one in Trello

B2B Content Marketing Strategy Checklist

Podcast 33: The changing face of B2B blogging

Posted on by The Radix Team

For B2B brands, blogs are the third most popular content marketing tactic, used by 81% of B2B organisations.

More than 50% of B2B organisations rate business blogs as an effective content marketing tactic, but are brands using blogs to their full potential?

In 2015, Radix saw a huge surge in the number of blog posts requested by clients. These pieces of content are more thought out and detailed compared to briefs from three years ago. The latest studies are showing that longer, more detailed blog posts get more shares and hits, so we expect to see clients commissioning longer blog posts this year.

In this episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, I’m joined by Radix founder Fiona Campbell-Howes to discuss the anatomy of today’s top blog posts.

Listen now to find out:

  • Why the top-performing blog posts are getting (much) longer
  • How platforms like LinkedIn Pulse are affecting business blogging
  • What company blogs mean for website SEO
  • What’s involved in researching and writing B2B blog posts
  • What makes for a more shareable blog post
  • … and more

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Alternatively: add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Related reading

The Anatomy of a Shareable, Linkable & Popular Post: A Study of Our Marketing Blog

Buzzsumo: BuzzFeed’s Most Shared Content Format Is Not What You Think