Strange as it may seem, there was once a time where the idea of B2B marketing just didn’t exist. So, from that bleak, cold world, how has B2B evolved into the innovative, passion-led industry we know today?
In this episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, David and co-host Jane Morrin, EMEA Director of Marketing at Udemy, take a look at the pivotal moments in the B2B industry’s history, what it could look like in future, and the dramatic changes taking place today.
And who better to ask than the editor-in-chief of B2B Marketing, industry founder, and B2B evangelist (his words, not ours), Joel Harrison?
From pub conversations to a lively, booming industry
The interview is truly inspiring, with deep insights into the foundation of the B2B industry, and its evolution. You’ll hear:
What inspired Joel and co-founder James Farmer to create B2B Marketing
How they built a thriving community around B2B Marketing’s content and events
Why B2B demands a deeper emotional connection than B2C – and why they should remain two separate entities
How two periods of inflection have shaped the industry: the 2008 credit crunch, and this year’s COVID crisis
What Joel loves about the industry – and his biggest pet peeves
How the B2B industry needs to evolve from here, and the importance of greater diversity
Plus, David and Jane share their thoughts on the interview and discuss under-representation in the B2B tech industry, and how 2020 will change the industry forever.
Jane chats about Udemy’s own focus on diversity, and the recent virtual event by Tile’s Jossie Haines on equality and inclusion. (You can still catch up here – it’s well worth a listen.)
The Anonymous Five: small business owner, UK
For this month’s “Anonymous Five”, the face behind the curtain belongs to a small business owner, at a UK-based womenswear company.
They tell us what a nightmare day would look like, and why marketers should take the time to find out where a small business is in their journey – and the specific challenges they’re facing – rather than just assuming the owner is overwhelmed.
Thank you, anonymous business owner, for your time. We’ve donated to the charity of your choice: The Wave Project.
Here’s what you will find in this episode…
1.00 – Jane Morrin chats about changing jobs during a pandemic
5.00 – Our interview with B2B founder, Joel Harrison
24.46 – David and Jane add their thoughts on the evolution of B2B marketing
36.51 – How this year will change the B2B world forever
47:38 – The Anonymous Five: a small business owner
Send us your thoughts, feedback or cute pet photos…
Thank you to Joel Harrison, it was fantastic to share some of your pet peeves, and hear you get so passionate. Also, a big thanks to Jane Morrin for being a wonderful co-host. You’re both stars.
But not all research is the same. To have impact, you need to ensure yours is valuable, credible and substantiated.
As part of our B2B Content Tuesdays webinar series, David put together four steps to help your research-based content pack a punch. Some of them are from our own experience, and some insights we’ve shamelessly stolen from B2B research expert Simon Hayhurst, business consultant at Coleman Parkes, whose brain we were lucky enough to pick for our podcast.
Plus, we’ve summarised David’s chat with marketing consultant Luan Wise, who’s just completed an exciting new research project of her own…
Four steps to better research-based content:
1. Figure out what your audience wants to know – and what no-one else has answered
Whatever research you’re carrying out, it has to be relevant to your audience. Otherwise, no-one will want to spend their valuable time reading it.
Start by considering who your audience are, what content they might be interested in, and where knowledge gaps exist. Is there a particular stat missing they may want to know about, for example?
2. Devise a credible way to answer that question, based on the resources available
Although surveys are sometimes seen as the Holy Grail of B2B research, they’re not the only way to do it.
Once you know what gap your research is filling, think about the best way to get that information. Sure, a survey could work. But so could A/B testing, aggregating publicly available information, crunching your own numbers, or doing qualitative interviews with a small number of highly relevant people.
Bonus tip: when you’re thinking about which questions to ask, keep the end content in mind.
3. Test an attention-grabbing hypothesis
We asked 105 B2B marketers if they agreed with this statement: “If nobody else had to sign off our content, the results would be a lot better.”
Now, we can say that nearly 60% of marketers think their own sign-off processes make their results significantly worse. How’s that for attention grabbing?
4. Slice and dice your results every way you can
Once you’ve finalised your research, there are tons of ways you can atomise the results into smaller content assets. Take key data points and specific stats, and turn them into blog posts, infographics, LinkedIn posts, T-shirts – you name it. Each one leads back to the main report (except the T-shirts).
David talks to B2B marketing consultant Luan Wise about research
David: “Welcome, Luan! I hear you’ve been collecting data for a new research project. Do you mind telling us about your experience?”
Luan: “I’ve been working with Warwick Business School (WBS) on a piece of research, as part of their Marketing Insight Series programme. The programme aims to bridge the gap between academia and the real world.
“Following frequent discussions with lecturers and academics about the world of B2B social media, they suggested we do some research. And because it’s an academic study, I got quizzed on what I wanted to test, what I wanted to find out, and what I wanted to know.
“Our data collection questionnaire is 60 questions long, so it’s a chunky piece of research. But because we have the WBS name behind it, people know it’s an academic piece – and are happy to complete it.”
David: “Before the questions went live, was there a testing process – a control test for instance – or were they just internally reviewed?”
Luan: “Before the WBS would put their name to the research, it had to go through the WBS ethics committee approval process, so the questions were rigorously tested before we put it out. One of the challenges was balancing the non-academic and academic – and that requires a lot of testing – so I asked a few trusted friends to try the questionnaire out before publishing.”
David: “That’s a great process to go through, because it makes the final piece, and the end content, really credible and bomb-proof. Did you find that the things that were right ethically were also right for businesses?”
Luan: “Yes, it was really interesting to have that balance of ‘These are the questions that mapped to different studies, what do you think?’ But as a marketer, I have no way to answer that. So hopefully we’ve balanced the academic and non-academic well. And luckily for me as a marketer, I don’t have to do the data analysis – I can just come in and say ‘This means X, I’d advise Y.’
“And the collaboration with WBS is great, because they bring a level of academic credibility to the party that I, as an individual marketer, can’t.”
David: “Without giving away spoilers, have you got the great stories you need from a marketing POV?”
Luan: “We’ve got some great stories. Because the approval process was a long one, we thought we would be releasing it in February originally. Then something happened with the world!
“So when we sent it out, we had to add a disclaimer saying ‘We’d like you to answer this with a pre-coronavirus business mindset’, and include a final question on what had changed for them in the past few weeks.
“And actually, this turned out to be a quick win. What was going to be one white paper, albeit a chunky one, will now be two. The first will be based on the changes the coronavirus has bought about, almost as a teaser, then the second will be bigger and built out with interviews.
“I’ve already got my three key takeaways, and will be writing them up next week – so keep an eye out for when it’s published!”
Thank you, Luan, for your time. You can find out more about WBS Marketing Insight Series here, or watch the webinar in full below.
Here’s a cold, hard fact for you: video content generates more clicks, traffic, shares and sales than written content.
That might be an odd thing to hear from a copywriting agency, and it’s not to dismiss the value of the written word – a good marketing strategy should contain both, of course. But, today, more and more marketers are adopting a video-first approach to their campaigns. And for good reason.
For a lot of people, video is just a more accessible way to consume information quickly. And it’s a habit we’re already familiar with. In fact, it’s estimated that people will spend 100 minutes a day watching online videos by 2021.
There are measurable returns, too. 91% of marketers say video has increased their website traffic. 95% say it has increased understanding of their product or service. A further 96% say it has directly helped them increase sales. And 92% say video gives them a good return on their investment.
However, what I’m telling you isn’t a secret. Right now, video marketers feel the level of noise and competition has increased. So, the challenge isn’t just creating videos that your audience love, but creating videos that stand out in a world of video content.
The big question, then: how the hell do you do that?
Well, all great videos start with a script, and at Radix we’ve spent years perfecting the art of writing video scripts that cut through the noise and speak to your audience. Along the way, we’ve learned there are five things that every B2B video script must contain.
1. The ideal structure
A video can be used for all sorts of reasons in B2B marketing. It can be an advertisement, a case study, an explainer or a deep dive into the specifics of your product. But regardless of the purpose, having the right structure is key to delivering the information with impact.
At Radix, our writers know story structure inside out – whether it’s applying the traditional three-act structure to a case study video, or knowing the best way to frame the story of your product or service, so your audience sits up and takes notice.
The techniques we use can be traced back to Aristotle’s Rhetoric – an ancient exploration of the art of persuasion that’s well worth any writer or marketer exploring.
2. A perfect balance of show and tell
Video is a multi-dimensional format and a good script has to describe what your audience will see and hear at all times.
As with all good writing, the rule of thumb when scripting a video is “show don’t tell”, but knowing how to get that balance right is a fine art.
Just like in films, long chunks of exposition will stand out a mile off, so finding an interesting and visually stimulating way to impart information is at the heart of any good video script.
3. Access points for directors, animators and voice-over artists
The script is just the very first stage in your video process. Once completed it will be passed on to a director or animator whose job is to interpret your script and bring your video to life.
For that reason, it’s important your scriptwriter is able to convey their visual ideas clearly and concisely. A familiarity with screenwriting language is a big plus here.
They probably don’t need to know about contrazooms or lap dissolves, but things like establishing shots and cuts can help make sure that the vision spelled out on the page looks the same on screen.
4. Sharp, succinct timing
By far the biggest challenge in writing a video script is writing to a tight timeframe.
Every second of animation or live video costs money to produce. More to the point, your audience doesn’t want to bed in for a three-hour epic. They want to be told what they need to know as quickly as possible. Each frame needs to pull its weight.
Writing a script that’s simultaneously concise and engaging – and still delivers all the required information – is a skill that comes with experience.
5. An in-depth understanding of your audience
This applies as much to any kind of B2B marketing as it does to video, but knowing the audience you’re speaking to – and what their challenges, wants and needs are – is integral to producing an engaging piece of work.
Before they put pen to paper, your scriptwriter should have a good understanding of the industry your targeted persona works in, where they are in the sales funnel, and what it is they’ll want to take away from watching your piece.
The more direct you can be with these messages, the more likely your video is to result in clicks, shares and conversions.
It sounds like a lot, but we can help
At Radix, we have years of experience writing video scripts for organisations of all sizes in all industries, and for a wide variety of purposes – from five-second social media GIFs to product deep-dives.
B2B blog writing has changed. Once thought of as filler, or a cheap SEO tactic, blogs are now a cornerstone of B2B content marketing; an efficient, flexible way for B2B marketers to self-publish content of all kinds. But with 4.4 million posts published every day, how do you make yours stand out?
We could talk about blogs all day – so when we were asked to cover the topic in our B2B Content Tuesdays, we jumped at the chance. The only problem was squeezing everything into a short webinar and Q&A. So in this blog, we’ll dive a little deeper, and give you a crash course in writing a great B2B blog post. We’ll also answer some popular blog writing questions.
B2B blog writing: four tricks of the trade
1. Know your audience
Ask yourself: Who is my reader? Or, more importantly, who is NOT my reader?
When you aim your content towards a niche audience, it’s more likely to be relevant and helpful to your target readers. And it’s easier to explain the value you’ll deliver. A broad-brush approach is tempting because it addresses a larger audience, but super-specific content makes a more direct appeal to the community you really want. As a result, it’s more likely to actually get read.
2. Provide clear value for the reader
Ask yourself: What will this audience get from reading? Why would they want to spend their time?
Ideally, every blog post should provide some kind of utility; it could be advice, information or something they can use. It might even be fun. But you need to know what that value is, so you can to make it abundantly clear to your reader too.
For example, we’ve got a blog post that provides a basic blog structure, so you can write more easily and provide that value in a clear, logical way. Pretty useful, eh?
3. Nail the voice and tone
Ask yourself: Would our audience recognise our blog posts a mile off? (Even if you covered up the branding?)
Think about how your blog sounds. If your market is crowded with similar brands saying similar things, one way to differentiate your content is to have a distinct voice – a way of handling language that’s uniquely you. Velocity Partners does a great job of this (a little profanity goes a long way).
Especially where you’re looking to establish subject matter experts within your own business, a bylined blog can allow you to show a bit more character in your writing.
4. Start strong, and prepare the ground
Ask yourself: Have I demonstrated the first three tricks in the first 30 words?
The introduction is the most important part of your blog post – it defines whether the reader will spend their time and often, in social posts, whether they’ll even click.
So, ensure the value of reading is obvious, make it obvious you know your reader inside out, and help the reader get to know your style. In doing so, you lay a solid foundation to build on.
Your B2B blog writing questions answered
Q: How do I make super-technical topics more approachable without inflating word count?
David: “Long blog posts are more common than you think – and there’s a time and place for them. So if it’s realistic that your reader will sit down and read all of it, there’s no problem with 2,000, 3,000, even 5,000-word pieces of content.
“However, I would suggest making it clearly structured and easy to navigate, with clickable links to each section so the reader can scan easily and jump to the bit they need.
“Or, if you want to break it up into accessible chunks, turn the topic into a series of blog posts. These can then be wrapped up into an eBook, so you have a longer asset built of shorter, standalone articles that can be read independently or together.
“And there’s no need to stick with PDFs – other formats can provide granular data about who actually read what. Using something like Turtl can help you break down your reader’s experience – from what, when and where they are reading, to average reading times.”
Q: What is the ‘three-act structure’ in blog writing?
David: “The three-act structure is one of the most basic aspects of storytelling; essentially, each story has to have a beginning, middle and end. Anything that follows the natural shape of a story feels familiar and satisfying.
“You’ll likely follow this structure, so the first 25% should be setting the stage. Something exciting happens, that the hero has to respond to, so about a quarter of the way through, the hero ventures out into a new world.
“In the next half (from 25% to 75%), your hero faces a series of challenges. In most stories, the stakes get higher and higher – and around the 50% mark, there’s usually an “oh shit” moment. The twist usually happens here also, and what you think is the problem turns out not to be. And at this point, it often seems like the hero won’t win.
“Three-quarters of the way through, the hero finds a new plan and fights back. In the last quarter, there’s a do or die moment, the hero usually wins out, and then you go back to see how the hero has changed now as a result of everything that’s happened.
“Although we’re not writing Hollywood movies, our multipurpose blog structure works in much the same way: set the scene and introduce a challenge, explore potential issues and obstacles, then bring it full circle to see what we’ve learned, and suggest next steps.
“I’ve actually written a whole blog post for B2B Marketing about how to use this structure in B2B content, so do check that out if you’d like to know more.”
Q: A lot of blogs I read are quite long, and often there’s very little in the way of obvious structure. Could subheadings be beneficial – and why?
David: “Absolutely. Subheadings are really important when making content scannable and thinking about SEO.
“You can also make them summarise and interpret the content underneath, so if your reader scans down, they’ll still get value – even without reading content fully.
“When writing subheadings for SEO, the questions function in Google searches can be really helpful. You can see what your audience wants to know and make the questions your subhead. Then, if you’re writing a short, pithy answer, you might end up being the first search result Google picks out.”
Q: The subject I’m writing about has so many technical terms. How do I increase or decrease readability scores?
David: “There are three aspects to complexity in content. Technical specificity is only one of them. So, you might need to think about balancing the complexity of your technical terminology by simplifying the language that surrounds it.
“The water cooler test is a great way to do this. Imagine you are standing by a water cooler, where your engineers or experts are. They’re talking about a problem – and while they’ll use very specific technical terms, the language they put it in will be simple: ‘The vintage tomographer has broken again. I thought the hazmat switch might be jammed so I tried toggling it, and it still wouldn’t work.’ The specifics are technical, but the rest is very readable.
“The vocabulary that you use is only one part of the equation – you also have to think about sentence structure, and the other words you’re using. Try to avoid nominalised verbs, long or list-heavy sentences, and any complicated words that aren’t essential. There should only be one idea per sentence, so you may want to think about splitting longer sentences into two or three smaller ones.”
Q: When I’m writing content in one language and then translating it, the translated copy isn’t always as clear and effective. Do you have any tips?
David: “This is a hard task to get right, and a lot of it depends on the company you’re working with and the budget you have.
“In some circumstances when we work with companies where the content will be delivered multi-lingually, we’re asked to leave out any figurative language, humour or idioms, because they don’t always translate well. Keeping it factual ensures it can be translated at a lower cost using tools already available – Google Translate for example, or another piece of software.
“Other times, the process is more complicated. I once worked for a company where we would write it in English; it would be translated by a specialist, then reviewed by a subject matter expert in the target language and then edited by a journalist in the target language. It’s not cheap, but the results were great, and you had a lot more freedom with the content.
“Usually, the process is somewhere in between those two extremes. A human translator will likely understand most colloquialisms and can translate them easily. But this kind of translation is often software-assisted, and chargeable by the word, so it’s more about not using too many synonyms to say the same thing, and making sure UX stays streamlined – as other languages often use more letters than English.”
Thanks again to everyone who attended the webinar, and took part in the Q&A. Here’s the full discussion:
The public sector isn’t like any other B2B audience. The people, the practices, and the motivations are very different – and there are whole ecosystems of sectors within sectors. So how do you avoid creating marketing content that’s tone deaf, and publish something that actually works?
In this special edition of Good Copy, Bad Copy, we go pretty deep to find out. We dive headfirst into the world of B2B public sector content, with not one, not two, but three interviewees, alongside other contributions from leading marketers and anonymous public sector buyers.
First up is Raine Hunt, marketing and communications director for NHS Shared Business Services – a joint venture between the Department of Health and the IT company Sopra Steria. As someone who’s part of the NHS, but also markets to NHS organisations, Raine’s double role gives her a wealth of insights into the biggest challenges you’ll face when creating public sector content.
Later, we’re joined by Hannah Marques and Mike Wilkinson of CACI Ltd, who won the B2B Marketing Award for Best Use of Content Marketing for the emotionally-led “Walk in their Shoes” campaign, addressing the youth justice sector. They talk about the power of content that helps a public sector audience to tell their own compelling story – underpinning emotion with logical, data-backed messages.
We also share valuable contributions from Microsoft public sector marketing lead Shona Wright, and experienced public sector marketer Lynn File.
And last, but by no means least, an anonymous director at an NHS trust spills the beans on which marketing goes straight in the bin, reveals what a bad day at the office looks like, and explains why they hate receiving content that’s aimed at local authorities.
Public sector content: takeaways, tips and advice
Here are just a few of the nuggets we gleaned from our guests in this episode:
There’s no one public sector. Although there’s a loose categorisation, every service is different – and each require a different vocabulary and messaging. Usually, you can’t speak to a local council in the same way you would to a police force. The NHS alone houses dozens of different sub-sectors.
Research, research, research. As with any B2B marketing content, it’s critical to know exactly who your audience is, the challenges they face, and how you can help them do their job. Even within organisations, there’s a world of different job roles, each requiring its own approach.
Use the correct language, correctly. The best public sector content carefully balances emotive content with a rational business case. In both cases, speaking the right language is the key to being taken seriously. But don’t scatter terms willy-nilly, or be glib about challenges you don’t understand. This audience can spot phoney engagement a mile away.
Public vs private sector content: what’s the difference?
Turns out, quite a lot. With a little input from Microsoft’s Shona Wright, and Brand Innovation’s Lynn File, George takes a look at how marketing to the two sectors varies – and where crossovers exist.
Take a listen to find out:
How customer experience expectations are shifting, and how the public sector can keep up
Why the internal processes and timelines in each sector are so different, and how that impacts content creation
What local authorities and organisations can learn from the digital disruption of the retail industry
(He’s also working on a longer article for us about this very topic, so keep an eye out.)
The Anonymous Five: Director, NHS Trust
This month’s “Anonymous Five” interview packs quite a punch. Our hardest-hitting yet, the interview offers a glimpse into the life of a director at an NHS Trust.
They tell us the best (and worst) pieces of marketing aimed at the NHS, explain why “service user” is the least-bad way to describe customers, and provide a humbling glimpse into their worst working days.
Thank you, anonymous director, for your time. We’ve sent a donation to your charity of choice: Refugee Action.
Here’s what you’ll find in episode 87…
2.42 – Raine Hunt offers a unique perspective on marketing inside the NHS
20.01 – Hannah Marques and Mike Wilkinson from CACI Ltd discuss emotion-led content
30.41 – We unpack the key lessons from our interviews
38.07 – George shares top content tips from leading public sector marketers
48.44 – The Anonymous Five: The life of an NHS trust director
Send us your feedback, thoughts, and deepest, darkest secrets…
A massive thank you to our wonderful interviewees, contributors, and anonymous public sector spies for taking the time out of your busy schedules to talk to us. We hope you’re happy with the results.
Few things in B2B marketing are harder than coming up with a genuinely original content idea. In our research report into barriers to great B2B content, just 43% of respondents said even their best content had a clever or original concept.
So it’s probably not surprising that one of the first topics requested in our B2B Content Tuesdays webinar series was “Where’s the best place to find B2B content ideas?”
Here are the four places we look first – or rather, where we see our clients looking; we’re just humble copywriters, after all.
(Later in the article, David answers some more detailed questions, and if you scroll all the way down, you can watch a video of the discussion in full.)
1. Find the real questions, that real people ask you, in the real world
We’re not talking about the neatly formed FAQs that you wish your customers would ask. We’re talking about the nitty-gritty questions they’re actually asking – whether directly, or through other means.
And there’s tonnes of places to look for prompts:
Every client, customer, or prospect conversation
Sounds obvious, we know. But anyone who talks to customers on a regular basis can deliver helpful insights. Just ask them to jot down questions they’re asked regularly, and pass them along.
Search engine data and tools
People don’t filter what they put into search engines. So looking through search keyword data can give you a great understanding of customer intent – and help you find out what people want to know.
Top tip: tools like Answer the Public are a really fun way to do this.
Your own website
If your website has a search box, start tracking the information people are searching for. These are the questions they wish you would answer, but you haven’t.
Forums and social media platforms
Anywhere people are having conversations can give you insight into what they know and what they need to find out (and how you can fill that knowledge gap).
2. Think about what you know, that nobody else does
It might be that you have a stack of data within your organisation that you can interrogate, to provide your customers with insights they never knew they needed.
Or maybe you have internal experts that can predict the next big industry trend, or the outcome of a certain event. Sure, it might not be a definitive answer, but if your expert can guess better than anyone else, you have the authority to discuss the future.
Even if you don’t have all the answers your audience needs, you can turn to external sources. Interviews, reviews, analysis, polls can all help spark new, fresh content ideas. Similarly, crunching publicly available numbers, or carrying out quantitative or qualitative research, will make your content highly shareable.
3. Zoom all the way in
One way to create compelling content, particularly in a crowded subject area, is to zoom right in – on the audience, or the subject.
If a subject has been done to death, try to think about a very close, specific angle that provides genuine insight without regurgitating old information.
Find an aspect that may previously have been one paragraph in a broader blog, then dig right in. This could be addressing a very specific part of your audience: a job role, an attitude, or even a particular challenge some readers may be facing.
4. Find places where your competitors are too afraid to go
What are the things in your sector that nobody wants to talk about? What are the problems, the challenges or the drawbacks that no-one has openly addressed yet?
Maybe it’s pricing, an obstacle, or a rumour that’s been circulating. But find out what the elephant in the room is, then talk about it – it’s a great way to spark cut-through ideas and establish yourself as a brand that’s straight-talking and honest.
Q: As a writer, where is the best place to find content ideas?
David: “At Radix, we find that the best ideas usually come from two places: the experts in the client’s organisation, and their customer base. But we’re not necessarily going to put ideas on top of what the experts already know; it’s all about teasing the best concepts out of them.”
Q: Beyond Answer the Public, what other social listening tools are useful for finding out what your target market wants to know?
David: “Anywhere people are talking about the subject you want to write about is a good place to look. Some people use tools like Sprout and Mention, which could help – but as a content writer, I don’t use them frequently myself.”
Q: How can I discover relevant customer conversations, without the help of social listening tools?
David: “There’s a simple Google trick. Search around the topic you’re interested in, but include the odd opinion word like ‘frustrating’, ‘annoying’, ‘enjoyed’ or similar. These are the words that will crop up in any chats your customers are having about their views on a topic or brand.
“Pulling on those threads can help you discover forums or social media discussions were people are engaged in conversations about the subject, or even just having a whine – which can be great for sparking content ideas and fuelling persona research.”
Thanks again to everyone who attended the webinar, and took part in the Q&A. Here’s the full discussion:
Hands up everyone who’s written or commissioned a B2B white paper? Great. Now, keep your hand in the air if you were happy with the way it turned out.
Really, 100% happy? And it was downloaded a heap of times, by people who went on to buy your stuff?
OK – well… you can skip this session, head outside, and enjoy the sunshine or moonlight.
Everyone else, eyes forward. I’m not going to waste your time recounting the political origins of the white paper format, or exploring all the studies which testify to its effectiveness as a mid-funnel content asset. You can Google just as well as I can.
Instead, let me lay out what I’ve learnt over a decade of writing white papers for B2B tech brands.
1. You’re a mapmaker (with a not-so-secret agenda)
You know how the B2B buying process is often characterised as a multi-stage journey? Well, your white paper is going to be the map you hand to your prospects shortly after they’ve hit the road.
It’ll describe all the possible destinations, notable shortcuts, and likely hazards ahead, with scrupulous accuracy. But it’ll still – through careful inclusions and omissions – make the correct route unmistakably clear.
Or, if you prefer well-worn jargon to well-worn metaphors: your white paper will educate warm-ish leads, framing the business challenge or opportunity in the context of the solution you’re looking to promote.
However poetic you want to get about it, your white paper’s primary role is to inform and guide.
Remember this, and let it shape:
Your white paper’s content – which should be original, useful, and at least ostensibly objective, drawing on your company’s true fields of expertise
Your white paper’s structure – which may nod to academic literature with summaries, named authors, author bios, diagrams and citations
Your white papers’ voice and tone – which, whatever your broader brand voice, should be clear, concise and confident, like a born teacher. (Not the jaded, abrasive university lecturer I’m apparently channelling today…)
Do all of the above, and your white paper will be a true map: a practical tool that offers its readers genuine value. And along the way, they’ll get to see the landscape from your point of view.
2. Don’t ask your SME to write your white paper
The person who writes your white paper should understand:
Your marketing objectives
Where the white paper fits into your marketing activities
The technology/trends the paper’s speaking to
Your target audience, and their pain points and ambitions
How your solutions alleviate those pains and support those ambitions
How to use language that resonates with your target audience
How to use language – period
How to structure a long-form content piece
If you have an in-house subject matter expert who can do all of the above – and there are a handful of genuine B2B tech polymaths out there – then congratulations. But good luck finding them the time to craft you 2,500 words.
They’re almost certainly already contributing to a hundred internal projects, in between excelling at their day job and being dialled in to shore-up crucial sales calls.
At Radix, we have been known to “edit” – i.e. review, rewrite and even restructure – white paper copy drafted by our clients’ regular, non-superhuman SMEs. (The ones who’ve mastered the tech but not all the other pieces of the content writing puzzle.)
While we’ve helped create some stellar white papers this way (like the third example here), they often could have been even more stellar if we’d written the copy from scratch. What’s more, they might have been faster and cheaper to produce. An “edit” might seem like a quick job, but if it goes through multiple rounds of amends it can easily take as long as a project that starts with an intelligent conversation and a blank page, and hits the mark first time.
3. If possible, get a professional
So, who should write your white paper?
Let’s say you’ve no writing resource within your marketing team – or you’re the resource, and writing has never been your strongest suit. You can always find a gun for hire. But who?
White papers are one of the more challenging content formats. So you’ll ideally want a content writer with a solid understanding of B2B sales and the B2B marketing machine, as well as a few years of experience writing for your sector.
They should be a decent interviewer – so they can get what they need out of your SME, even if you can only secure half an hour of your expert’s time. They should also have a portfolio of similar pieces that demonstrate their ability to write with clarity and authority.
My advice? Use your professional networks to find a freelancer you can trust. Or, if you’re likely to need an ongoing programme with supporting content, opt for a dedicated white paper writing service like ours.
4. Be as technical as your audience
It’s easy to think of the white paper as the drier, more technical alter ego of the ebook. Drier, maybe. But more technical? Not necessarily.
I’ve written a lot of white papers that educate C-level decision-makers about business challenges and industry trends. I’ve written very few that educate engineers or developers on the inputs and outputs of specific technologies.
Now, I’m sure there are some white paper projects that simply never cross Radix’s threshold; projects that are so technically niche, even our experienced team would struggle to deliver them. But I think there’s another reason highly technical white papers don’t pour onto our doormat.
Over the last few years, I’ve seen many of our clients arrive at the same conclusion: white papers aren’t the best way to reach technical roles. Better to organize a chance for them to get hands-on with those APIs, or to talk, peer-to-peer, with your own engineers.
All of which is to say: don’t fall into the trap of thinking a white paper has to be more technical than other content pieces. Instead, decide who you’re targeting with your white paper. Check that a white paper is the best way to reach them.
And then, the rule is simple – be as technical as they are.
5. Keep a tight grip on the project
It’s common for white paper projects to involve multiple sales, marketing and product stakeholders. Getting a good paper produced on time and on budget means nailing down costs, and booking input calls. Then it means managing everyone’s expectations, and shepherding busy, opinionated humans through any necessary feedback cycles.
The first part of this process shouldn’t be too tough – especially if you’re using a service like ours, that’s always there when you reach out during office hours, ready to quote upfront, and to arrange SME calls on your behalf.
But the second part can be much harder work. It’s all too easy for great copy to be fed into the feedback machine, mangled, expanded, and spat back out with all of its glorious lustre stripped away.
There are a few things you can do to shepherd your content safely through the feedback cycle:
Know exactly what you want the white paper to achieve, and communicate this to all stakeholders, at every opportunity. “Mission creep” is one of the leading killers of white papers that show up DOA.
Provide (or use writers who provide) a rationale for contentious decisions. When you delete the features table your product manager has pasted into the middle of page two, add a comment explaining that, at this stage, your readers are still understanding why they need your tech – instead, let’s link to the data sheet at the very end of the paper?
Remain open to legitimate complaints. Feedback cycles are there for a reason. However rudely someone sticks their finger through a hole in your work, don’t take it personally – acknowledge their wisdom, and make the change. Welcome your stakeholders’ good ideas, and it’ll be much easier to countermand their bad ones.
We have reached our destination
Have you ever noticed how much a long blog post can have in common with a short white paper? Well… I hope you find this little map helpful. Class dismissed.
In this month’s Good Copy, Bad Copy we’re joined by guest co-host Angela Cattin, as we find out just how much behind-the-scenes work it takes to align stakeholders behind an award-winning B2B campaign.
Our interviewee is Mwamba Kasanda, from Barings. In her previous role at Korn Ferry, Mwamba spearheaded the Global Talent Crunch campaign, which managed to bring a new perspective into the crowded space that is “Future of Work” thought leadership. It ended up garnering hundreds of PR features, reaching a business leadership audience, generating millions of dollars in revenue, and winning pretty much all the awards.
But that success is just the last mile in a long, long journey. And Mwamba shares the process she used to secure global stakeholder support for the company’s biggest and most ambitious campaign to date.
Ideas for aligning your stakeholders
The interview is a real eye-opener, with inspiration and ideas for B2B marketers in all kinds of organisations – especially if you’re in a sector with a lot of companies talking about the same subject. You’ll hear:
How Mwamba used a small, preceding campaign as a springboard to the big idea
The challenge – and benefit – of involving stakeholders right from the idea generation phase
Tips for preparing global champions to tell resonant local versions of the same story
The eleventh-hour stakeholder intervention that improved the campaign’s international appeal
When to fight for your idea, and when to compromise
Why data and storytelling are both essential factors in winning stakeholder support
Mwamba’s unusual approach succeeded in elevating the idea from a marketing campaign into an organisation-wide business initiative. And ultimately, this helped colleagues around the world to run with the story, and turn the content into sales.
The Anonymous Five: SME IT Director
This month also sees an outsourced IT director tackling the “Anonymous Five” – our semi-regular feature giving you a quick window into the minds of the real people behind key B2B marketing personas.
The subject, who works with small and medium-sized businesses, opens up about their ambitions, which content they actually read, and whether cybersecurity can ever be anything more positive than an annoying pain in the bum.
(Thanks, anonymous IT director, for your time. We’ve made a donation to your nominated charity: Pregnancy Sickness Support.)
Here’s what you’ll hear in episode 86…
2.25 – Angela shares how different tech companies are responding to COVID
5.33 – How Mwamba and Man Bites Dog gave “The Future of Work” a human angle
8.16 – Winning stakeholder support though involvement in the idea generation phase
11.40 – The stakeholder conversation that inspired a key campaign improvement
17.17 – Building on a smaller campaign to secure support for the big idea
25.15 – Mwamba’s key tips for winning stakeholder engagement
29.10 – Creating a global “Champion’s Pack” with instructions and a social contract
32.34 – Angela shares her own perspective on global stakeholders and storytelling
44.34 – The Anonymous Five: an IT director talks technical content and cybersecurity
Mwamba Kasanda is now Global Head of Client Communications at Barings. Mwamba, thanks for sharing your stakeholder engagement process in such detail. We’re certain our listeners will be inspired.
Angela Cattin provides specialist marketing support for B2B technology businesses – including interim marketing leadership – through Interalia Marketing. If you’d like to chat, you can find her on LinkedIn. Thanks, Angela, for being an awesome co-host.
Podcast editing and music, as ever, by the masterful talents of Bang and Smash.
In this blog, we’ve put together our top three tips to help you reduce unnecessary complexity, and answered some of the great questions we were asked during the live session about readability tools.
(And if you’d like to watch the discussion in full, you’ll find the video at the foot of this page.)
Three tips for simplifying complex B2B content:
Tip 1: Complexity and jargon are not the same thing
Understanding the difference between jargon and complexity is vital. Jargon is the technical language your audience uses every day in their jobs. But complexity can also include the overly long sentences or unnecessary buzzwords that creep in with technical specifics. And that’s the stuff you can do without.
Look out for passive voice, nominalised verbs or anything that could be considered marketing waffle.
And “use” is almost always better than “utilise”.
Tip 2: The water-cooler test
Imagine you are reading your copy, out loud, to a single reader in your target market. Does it make you cringe? Are you being patronising? Or feel like you should be explaining something?
Try running it through the water-cooler test (patent pending):
Two IT engineers (or whoever you’re writing for) are conversing by a water cooler. The language they use will be absolutely specific to what they do, and they’ll use the correct technical terms. But they won’t surround it with any really complicated stuff – or speak in a way that you need a degree to understand.
(They might well say something like: “This is the third time the nozzle-alignment flangelator has corrupted this morning. I think the embedded system needs an update.” They certainly won’t say: “I am experiencing significant downtime as a result of nozzle-alignment flangelator’s sub-optimal reliability. Surely we must acquire and implement an automated embedded system update solution without undue delay.”)
Ask yourself: can you imagine what you’ve written being said over the water-cooler?
Tip 3: Readability algorithms are helpful – but not the be-all and end-all
From Flesch-Kincaid to Gunning fog, each readability measure has its own nuances and measures different things. Indeed, tools like Readable will let you grade a piece of text against several scoring methods at once.
As a general rule, the more complex a topic is, the harder you should work to make the copy easy to read and understand. Because readability algorithms tend to measure combinations of word difficulty and sentence length, they can help you to retain this balance – forcing you to make your prose simpler to compensate as jargon increases.
Having an objective readability score can also help you to avoid disagreements over your copy’s style.
If you don’t write for a living, it can be easy to think that complicated writing is somehow “better” content – although in fact it’s quite the opposite. Using a readability measure can help you move away from subjective conversations about writing style towards concrete, objective criteria.
Remember, though, that calculations based on word count and difficulty are still a fairly crude measure of our content’s quality. Algorithms can be a useful guide, but don’t be too slavish about aiming for a particular number.
Q&A: Measuring readability in B2B content
Q: What readability scoring model is best for B2B?
David: “Flesch-Kincaid grade level is quite simple and user-friendly. However, the way it’s aligned to an educational grade system might prove confusing for some stakeholders.
“For example, I’ve seen pieces of content about managed IT services, that have a Flesch-Kincaid readability level of 21 – that’s incredibly difficult, post-doctorate level text for an eBook on managed services. But if you talk about it in those terms to a stakeholder, they may point out that your audience do have doctorates, and assume it’s fine. In fact, they might decide anything less is “dumbing down”.
“But the truth is, most of the content we read at work is much, much more readable than that. Broadsheet newspapers have a Flesch-Kincaid grade of around 9, and they’re hardly simplistic.
“In that case, a model that gives you a readability score rather than a grade level could be more useful.”
Q: What readability score should B2B content aim for as a general rule?
David: “That really depends on your audience. For example, you might think about how many of your readers will engage on mobile, or have English as a second language.
“But in the areas of B2B tech where we work, I commonly see Flesh-Kincaid grade levels of 15 and more. Some sectors, like consultancy, are higher still. So if you want B2B content that is more readable than most, but without ever appearing simple, a Flesch-Kincaid grade of around 10 or 11 will help you to stand out. At that level, you can include pretty much all the technical detail you need, without overcomplicating things.”
Q: What tools can I use to judge the readability for microcopy?
David: “Unfortunately, most of the algorithms need 100 words or more to provide you with a reliable answer, as otherwise one long sentence could throw it off.
“But there are a few that could be useful for judging its readability: take a look at Readable and Hemingway.
“And for conversational interfaces, or chatbots, you could take a look at the XKCD comic site. They have a text editor that will keep you to the 1,000 most common words in the English language. It’s surprising how much you can write within that limit.”
Thanks again to everyone who attended the webinar, and took part in the Q&A. Here’s the full discussion:
Case studies are among the most powerful tools in your B2B marketing shed. They allow you to put your reader into the shoes of your most successful customers – and prove (rather than just claiming) how fantastic your product or service really is.
So when case studies were requested as a topic in our B2B Content Tuesday Q&A webinar series, we were excited to talk about them.
In this blog, we’ve unpacked four tips from that session, to help you create a compelling, informative and customer-focused case study: from subject matter to narrative and formatting. We’ve even suggested a few questions to ask your customer, so they give you the most human, relatable quotes possible.
We’ve also put together some questions and answers from the live discussion. If you’d like to see the session in full, there’s a video at the bottom of this post.
1. Don’t make your brand the hero
Your customer should always be the hero of your story. You don’t want your potential customers to identify with you; you want them to identify with the customer whose problems you’ve solved.
Instead, present yourself as a trusted guide or friend who helps the hero find their way and complete the quest. Basically, you’re Obi-Wan Kenobi. Maybe even Piglet.
Sharing how you helped the customer achieve the result is important. But remember: it’s “they achieved x by using product y“, not “product y achieved x for them”.
2. Help your reader to learn something of value
Give your readers a strong reason to read by providing clear value. Has the company you’re writing about achieved something that your next customer might want to achieve themselves? Tell the reader how, what the challenges were, or what the journey looked like.
A strong headline will make it obvious to the reader that your case study is helpful. “How this company achieved that” is always a great way to start – it promises value from the off and gives them a clear reason to read.
Boxouts can highlight key lessons from the story and provide them to the reader in easy, bitesize pieces that draw the eye if they’re not going to read in full. This could be something as simple as “Three key lessons this company learned along the way”.
3. Give the reader a figure to identify with
You want your reader to look at the customer at the centre of your case study and think “they’re just like me”. And that reader won’t be a company; they’ll be a human with thoughts and concerns.
The best way to appeal to that human is to talk about individual decision-makers – the real people whose working lives have been changed by your product or service.
But you’ll need to ask them right questions, to draw out the moments, feelings and images the reader can identify with. Here are some of our favourites:
Why is this outcome important to your business?
Was there a moment when you knew something had to change?
Could you tell me a little about your team?
When, and why, did you make the decision to buy this product in particular?
How much cheaper, faster or more reliable is this product?
What was the experience of working with us like?
What difference does this make to your job?
4. Make sure your reader can understand in five seconds flat
Ensure your case study is scannable. However well it’s written, most people simply won’t have the time or inclination to sit and read from top to bottom.
The company, challenges, solutions and results all need to be obvious. Use subheadings, bullet points and a standfirst to summarise these points before discussing in detail. And using customer quotes for subheadings is a nice touch – that way you’re summarising the point in your customer’s voice.
And once you’re finished, do the five second test. Give yourself (or a friend/colleague/random person from the street) five or ten seconds to read the story, and see if the critical points are clear.
Q&A: B2B case study questions, answered
Q: Is there a danger in making a case study too simple?
David: “Case studies shouldn’t be difficult to read, but you absolutely do have to speak the language your customers actually use. In the real world, your prospects likely use language that’s technically specific, but in a context that’s easy to understand. If you can do likewise, you can write something with real technical authority without overdoing the cognitive load. Headings should be clear and succinct, to set out the story and information clearly and effectively.”
Q: What do you do when you can’t use a company’s name or quotation?
David: “If you’re not using a company’s name, using their quotation probably won’t be a problem. You won’t be attributing it to them – although do always ask first. It’s also best to be as specific as you can, without giving their identity away or presenting any half-truths, to make it clear the story is obviously true. A case study is always better with all the names included – but the really important part is to help your reader recognise the situation the customer found themselves in at the start of the story.”
Q: Are there any ways to speed up the case study approval process?
David: “Getting in contact with your Account Managers can sometimes give you insight into the client’s internal marketing personnel, and if it’s appropriate you can approach them directly. From a writer’s perspective, it can make the process cleaner if we handle signoff on the customer’s behalf. It’ll save them time, and also gives a chance to build rapport and make any small changes that could help to secure agreement. It’s a good idea for the writer to include an introduction or rationale that explains the approach, choices, and language in the copy. That way, getting it signed off is more likely, because what you’ve written is more contextualised so they’re less likely to disagree.”
Thanks again to everyone who attended the webinar, and took part in the Q&A. Here’s the full discussion:
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