Month: August 2021

Podcast 99: Why we need emotion in B2B

Posted on by Claire Goodfellow

This month’s episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy is all about bringing the emotion back into B2B content.

We’re joined by Paul Cash, CEO and Founder of Rooster Punk – and author of Humanizing B2B – for our feature interview. David and Paul talk about the human side of B2B copywriting, how the focus on the individual who is ultimately reading your content has been lost, and how and why we need to get it back.

B2B Marketing’s Propolis Hive Expert Barbara Stewart makes her co-hosting debut, chatting with David about Paul’s thoughts, and exploring them further from a sales perspective. They cover everything from a bizarre focus group on crisp varieties, to the huge and often overlooked benefit of testimonials.

And, of course, we have another superb copywriting tip for you. This time it’s from none other than last week’s co-host, George Reith, and he’s going to help you get that all-important variety into your writing.

You’ll find a full transcript of our podcast at the end of this post.

Why we should be striving to put the human back into B2B copywriting

Emotion has always been part of B2B marketing. However, as B2B and industrial marketing have moved further into the digital world – and away from in-person contact – emotion has faded into the background.

But selling products based entirely on features and benefits leaves a void where the emotional side once lived. And as B2B brands have become more and more focused on promoting a similar set of sales points, clients and customers are finding new ways to differentiate between them – and emotion is the biggest.

There is evidence to support the fact that clients and customers are increasingly giving weight to the brands that are showing up outside of their products. Brands that exist in a positive, meaningful, and authentic can connect with their clients and customers on an emotional level and create the best relationships.

So, how can you put this into action?

It’s all about inspiring a specific feeling, so establish what you want to convey, and identify the triggers you can use to evoke it. Paul Cash uses psychologist Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion, which breaks emotions down into emotional states and substates, as a planning tool when thinking about how to build that feeling-based connection.

Remember: you don’t want to talk about a feeling, but to create that feeling.

If you can be likeable as well as competent, you can gain an edge over your competition. By creating an emotional connection with your clients and customers, through taking creative risks with your marketing and setting yourself apart from other brands, you can inspire better engagement and loyalty.

In this episode, you’ll find…

00:40 – We welcome our co-host Barbara Stewart to Good Copy, Bad Copy

02:55 – Likeable, as well as competent: our interview with Paul Cash.

16:45 – Barbara and David discuss the interview, Barbara’s experiences with emotion in B2B, and how the buying journey has changed.

30:35 – Copywriting tip of the month: How to keep your writing varied.

Anything you loved in this episode? 

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Tweet us at @radixcom or pop us a message on [email protected]. Or, if you fancy your chances of appearing on the podcast, send a voice memo our way.

How to listen: 

Transcript: Good Copy Bad Copy 99: Why we need emotion in B2B

Speakers:

Paul (clip): We’re really cool. You can be cool too. Come and buy our product.

David: Hello listener and thank you for joining us for Episode 99 of Good Copy Bad Copy the B2B copywriting podcast. It’s so good to have you with us.

Barbara: This month we’re talking about using emotions in your B2B content. And Paul Cash will be telling us why it’s not enough for your B2B brand to be competent. It needs to be likeable too.

David: My name is David McGuire. I’m creative director at Radix Communications which is a B2B tech copywriting agency. And I really am delighted to be joined by a brand-new guest co-host for this episode. It’s B2B marketing’s Propolis Hive Expert for CX, which is easy for me to say. It’s Barbara Stewart. Barbara, welcome.

Barbara: Thanks, David. Thanks so much for having me. I’m very excited too. It’s a topic that’s very much at the heart of my passion. So, thank you.

David: Oh, no, thank you for coming in and agreeing to do it. So, you’re a Propolis Hive Expert, what’s one of them?

Barbara: I am indeed I lead the CX Hive. So, my role is very much to help. There’s approximately 100 currently, different B2B marketers that are in my hive, and they have a multitude of needs and advice and support. And I get to basically, every month, host events to help them understand frameworks, different methodologies, that they can be using such as CX metrics, or how to get buy-in from CEOs. And it’s very much focused on giving them practical advice or listening to each other and learning from each other. So, it’s a lot of fun.

David: How does it feel having to introduce yourself as an expert?

Barbara: I do not like it. I refer to myself as a practitioner. So, I do from strategy to deployment. So, the word expert it’s… yeah, it’s always unsettling. I like to avoid it.

David: They called me an expert. I didn’t say that.

Barbara: Yeah, I didn’t ask for it.

David: I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.

So, could you please perform your first official duty as co-host? And tell the listener how they can get in touch with us?

Barbara: I certainly can. So, listener if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, you can contact the show by email: [email protected] or on Twitter: @Radixcom. Apologies because in Northern Irish, the word Twitter is hard to hear in my accent.

Our guest this month has a lot to say about emotions in B2B marketing, doesn’t he?

David: Yeah, he absolutely does. Paul Cash from Rooster Punk. He’s the author of Humanizing B2B with a Z. And when I saw him speak at Ignite on the importance of likability for B2B brands, I just thought he’d be really ideal for this episode. So, I was delighted when he agreed to chat. And I started by asking him: Well, hasn’t emotion always been part of B2B? What’s changed now?

Paul: So, I don’t think it’s new for sure. But it’s always been on the fringes of B2B marketing – was, as you say, hiding in the background. I think it’s more of a question of how and where it appears, that has changed. So much of historical B2B or industrial marketing was heavily reliant on emotional selling. The good old-fashioned sales rep with his expensive cameras and his company car would win deals based on his ability to charm, win over, and schmooze the traditional B2B buyer. And B2B was a relationship game. And emotion was the primary technique to get a foot in the door and expand from there.

So, I think obviously, the internet SaaS business models, the shift away from sales, obviously trying to cut out costs from the process, the digital customer journey now being everything. Actually, the emotion has gone out of the process, and brands haven’t necessarily filled that void. Instead, they’re doing what they always do, which is sell product, lead on features and benefits, and expect everything to be rosy.

And that, to me, is where the opportunity is. And that’s where we’re seeing this kind of change, as far as I’m concerned.

David: So, what kind of emotional responses does marketing need to pick up with now, that sales would have provided, what kind of emotions do we need to key into?

Paul: Yeah, so I think generally speaking evidence exists to support the fact that brands that show up in a positive, meaningful, and authentic way are the most liked brands. Having a positive outlook, I think, is key. But I think desire, appeal, kudos, stature, confidence, control are all emotional states that B2B buyers and decision-makers are either consciously or subconsciously influenced by.

And on the flip of that, you’ve got fear, which is another powerful emotion that is prevalent in the buyer journey, specifically for B2B. So, you’ve got fear of missing out, the whole FOMO thing; you’ve got fear of being irrelevant as a brand, or even as a marketeer; you’ve got fear of making the wrong decision, you know, the whole loss aversion bias that Rory Sutherland talks about. So, my take is, it’s more about the feeling that I’m trying to induce in a prospect, rather than just an emotion, and I think feelings have a greater context, but they are both the same side of the queen.

So, for example, if the feeling I want to create is, how do I make a prospect feel 10 feet tall? What emotional triggers do I need to use to induce that feeling? And there’s a brilliant tool by a famous psychologist called Robert Plutchik. And he has this wheel of emotion. And on this wheel of emotion, you’ve got all the main eight states and all these sub emotions. And they’re actually just really good planning tools to think about how you build that emotional and feeling-based connection.

David: By what you’re saying, it’s definitely about invoking the feeling, rather than talking about the feeling, right? From the point of view of when we’re creating the content – we often talk about ‘show don’t tell’.

Paul: Yeah, it’s the subtlety of marketing. Obviously, we’re not in a market stall. We’re not just shouting out: Yeah, we’re really cool. You can be cool too. Come and buy our products. You’ve got to earn the right to talk about products, you’ve got to influence and persuade people. All the usual rules of B2C marketing that, we have this conversation about, are they applicable to B2B? etc.

There’s a lot of really good stuff that B2C have done in their journey that we’re absolutely leveraging, which are really powerful ways to do that: the power of word; video is a fairly new medium in the world of B2B. And so, for the first time ever, we’re able to convey emotion through the power of video or words and music and we’ve only just touched the surface as far as I’m concerned.

David: And so, with the book, the whole concept of humanizing B2B, humanizing with a Z listener, if you want to find the book.

Paul: Yeah, trying to capture the American market.

David: Quite right too. So, what does that actually look like in practice? What does a more human approach to B2B marketing or B2B content look like?

Paul: Yes, I think it’s important to say that when I talk about humanizing B2B, at its heart, I see it as a modern-day philosophy, that actually promotes the human side of marketing as much as the functional side. So, we’re not trying to take away all the good stuff that B2B is known for, we’re just trying to add something to it. And most B2B brands are built on this single dimension of what I call competency.

For example, you make a good product, you scale it, you use automation tools, you’re operationally savvy, you build demand engine, and so forth. And all this comes with the territory of being professional, talking in jargon, using the colour blue, being ordinary, looking like everybody else in your category looks. And hopefully, if you’ve got all that right, you can be the trusted advisor. And all that stuff is so cookie-cutter, playbook-driven, every brand in every category – most of the companies look and feel and talk the same way. And so, it’s definitely lost its edge.

And I think that when I talk about the dimension of likability, as well as the dimension of competency, and I don’t mean likeability as it relates to people, there’s lots of conversation and narrative about that. I’m talking about likability in the absence of people. So, as you mentioned, through your brand, your content, your emails, your website, and so forth, the language, the way you speak, the way you come across, all those things are incredibly important. And that is this digital likeability. And that, to me, is where the game is won or lost.

And with so many buyers whether they’re 60%, 70%, 80%, or 90%, through the buying cycle, before they speak to a sales rep or some form of expert. The opportunity, therefore, to influence people is absolutely huge. And most brands don’t do anything, they still do the tired old, same old stuff. They’re not thinking about how to influence people in that digital journey from an emotional point of view. And I think that’s why B2B is an incredibly exciting place to be right now.

David: So, if the listener is nodding away, thinking great I could definitely want to take a step into this territory with my brand with my content? What kind of tips could you give them, to make their content more emotional, or more human? What can they practically do? And how can they sell that to their stakeholders too?

Paul: I’d look, first of all, at what other B2B brands are doing, not necessarily in your category but generally, which are the brands out there that have taken a decision to try and put a bit more emotion into their brand.

I would also say that I think most B2B agencies are just aching to do more interesting, more creative, more imaginative stuff, you’ve got to take some calculated risks. We are marketeers at the end of the day, we have to balance the demand engine bit, with actually pushing our business and our brands forward. So there needs to be some calculated risk that goes with it all.

And we did a campaign for Sage Pay last year. And it was incredibly difficult to understand the way that the marketing team had been set up and the way they’d conventionally done things. And we had to really shift their mindset to take a very subtle, emotional approach with this campaign called your business, your baby, but seven months after the campaign ad ran, we literally doubled all the marketing KPIs that they’d done the previous year.

So, there’s proof that this stuff works from just a marketing KPI point of view. But again, we did a campaign for KPMG, where the ask of us as an agency was, how do we dial the emotion in our campaign, and we did this pretty big content piece, it was a £1 million investment that KPMG spent, but they saw a £58 million return of close business opportunity off the back of this changing features campaign.

So, if you need a reason to go tell your commercial stakeholders, why you want to experiment and push it – because the growth metrics, increased all the value, increase lifetime value, increase margins, and so forth, are there to be had for the people brave enough to go and make a decision to push on this door. And the book is full of examples of these facts and data points and everything else

David: You mentioned to look at people maybe in other parts of B2B that are doing it well and taking inspiration from them. Apart from the couple that you’ve mentioned, is there anyone else in the space that you see and go, yeah, they’re doing it well, you can take some inspiration there?

Paul: I will say that I’ve always looked at SAP. So, from an enterprise point of view, I think SAP have always done a really good job of being able to humanise what they do. They made a decision to use consumer tactics like employing Clive Owen as being almost like that character, an ambassador for their brand and being able to use him to narrate their story and build that familiarity and likability.

I know that Hewlett Packard have used Christian Slater, again with his wolf campaign. So again, very B2C tactics driven in B2B. But on a lower scale, we’ve worked with brands like Crowdcube, who I think have taken to this whole humanizing notion brilliantly well, and again have seen significant business results off the back of it.

But there’s a brilliant commercial on YouTube for a company called Waze which is using these inflatable signpost dolls that signpost things across America – and it’s just hilarious. It’s a brilliant piece of storytelling, it gets the message across in a really interesting, engaging way.

So, I think there’s loads of good stuff happening in different pockets. And I guess you’re just trying to make it more mainstream. I think that’s the journey we’re on, as B2B marketeers is just for this not to be on the fringes anymore, but to be more mainstream, and the more we see, the more we experiment, the more data points say this stuff works, the more it’ll happen.

David: So why do you think this is so relevant right now, it certainly seems like it’s having a moment. Why do you think it is?

Paul: So, you’re absolutely right, David. It is having a moment. I think B2B marketing in its modern form is on an incredible learning curve. We are 50 years behind B2C in terms of leveraging emotion and positioning brands beyond the functional nature of what they do. But the good news is, we’re catching up fast. Emotion is catching people’s attention it feels like there’s a bit of a perfect storm of opportunity, which is brewing.

And I say that because I think, customers are less loyal than ever. The pandemic has meant people are more open-minded to exploring different vendors, etc. I think marketers are fed up with doing same old, same old, that speeds or feeds marketing, so they’re crying out for some kind of change. They’re also fed up with chasing technology or product differentiators as strategy when it’s easier sometimes to differentiate emotionally.

I think grabbing keeping people’s attention is harder than it has ever been. And we talk about storytelling being something new. But storytellers have got to compete with storytellers these days. It’s incredibly difficult. It’s not just about telling a story; you’ve got to tell a bloody good story.

I think business buyers and decision-makers have generally become a bit more compassionate. I think we’ve seen the millennial buyer. And definitely, as we see senior buyers eek past the age of 40, we tend to be more value-driven less about ourselves more conscious about the planet, and family and life and all those kinds of things like that.

And, finally alongside the fact that COVID is jolted people’s thinking, and this fear of being irrelevant in a post-pandemic world is actually scaring people into wanting to look at their brand and do things differently. We’ve also got all this amazing research from Binet and Field and the B2B LinkedIn institute that actually put in some numbers and metrics down. So, I think if you put all that stuff into the mixer, it feels like there’s real momentum, and that moment is happening.

David: If the listener wants to find out more, they want to get in touch with you and ask you stuff, they want to buy the book. Where can they do things like that?

Paul: So, the book is available on Amazon and all good bookstores. I can’t get enough of saying that – it’s my thing.

David: It really is, like you’re actually in shops.

Paul: Exactly. And if £16 is too much, you can get the Kindle version for a bargain busting 99p. You can track me down on LinkedIn, you can go to the agency website, which is roosterpunk.com. There is a specific HumanizingB2B.com website. And if you’re waiting for the audiobook, because I’m a big audio fan, that’s probably another nine months away I’m afraid. Or connect with me on LinkedIn, there’s loads of places to find me.

David: Thank you, Paul, you’ve given us a lot to think about there. And the book plug was expertly done, I must say, we’ll include a link to it in the show notes for you.

Barbara, I know you’re a big advocate of using emotions in B2B. So, what stood out there for you?

Barbara: I think, for me, listening to Paul, it really resonated. Very often when we’re communicating with our B2B potential customers or customers, we tend to see a job title and see that first and foremost, and actually, we’re all just human beings, we all have needs, we don’t differentiate ourselves, we don’t take off one cap and put on another at different moments. So, we are irrational, we are emotional people. Even people in procurement, that’s what they are. They’re emotional. We might not always think that, but they are.

And I think the reality is, we very much have to work out what type of mission that they’re on, how we can support them, and what is the way they want to be supported? Or do they want encouragement to do they want support and understanding that will help us understand how we are best partnering with them.

With B2B and digital, it’s got so complex, we’ve got so many buzzwords now. And I think for a lot of people, they’re still clinging to the past. And digital’s scary, they have this fear that digital stops the relationships that were so valuable. They think that sales reps are going to be eradicated because of automation and digital channels. Sales Reps will always be needed, they are incredibly valuable.

You basically need to focus on crafting the messaging that you can automate in the moments that should be service messaging, and let the sales reps, that the salespeople who are incredibly good at developing relationships, be in those moments that really matter. Driving deeper relationships and understanding how to add value to the customer. For me, that’s the opportunity for B2B marketing. And that was the overriding message the whole way. Listening to Paul, it was like, yes, finally, I’m hearing the magic words.

David: Absolutely. So, do you think the buying journey in B2B has been changing quite a bit? I know people have been saying, for a long time, people are doing more and more and more of their research before they engage with a salesperson.

And I guess COVID has probably kicked that percentage even higher because you can’t go out to events and meet people. So, although, of course, a lot of the time people will buy a product, because they like the salesperson and the salesperson recommended it and that’s the end of it. But do you think there’s an extent to which content is taking over some of the lifting as far as that rapport building, or not so much.

Barbara: I think content has such an important role. I think what content allows us to do is start having a conversation earlier. And start really making sure that what we have to offer and what solutions we can provide our customers with, they’re able to do some of the research beforehand. There is nothing worse than when you’re at the start of a potential journey when you’re doing the awareness and consideration and suddenly someone is telling you the solution when you haven’t worked out what the problem is.

For me content is the opportunity for whenever I’m being a B2B buyer, I’m having to work out exactly what I need, not what someone’s telling me I need and what someone’s gadgets and gizmos and features are telling me but what is the best resolution. And for me, I always go to referrals, I always go and ask people who I know have had a similar problem, or I get into Google fast, and I want to read articles, I want to read the features and functionality. And I want to read people’s blogs and understand how they’re helping customers just like me to solve problems.

So, for me, it’s giving me my automation process, I’m unwilling to speak to a salesperson at that moment. I don’t want to have a demo. I want to just do the research. When I’m ready, and I’m shortlisted, then I want to have a demo, but don’t try and sell to me before I’m ready and content is perfect for doing the pre-sale.

David: And that shortlisting process? Is it fair to say that’s maybe, in B2B, a bit less rational than people give it credit for, a lot of that’s down to how you feel about the company? Right? How you feel about the brand?

Barbara: Absolutely. I think a lot of times we forget how much brand purpose actually plays in in all of this, and especially in B2B. Brand purpose is very, very important in CX and in marketing. And the reality is, sometimes you have a gut feeling about a brand, or a product, or a service and it’s not rational. But that gut feeling is dictating and it’s not price led, it’s not, I have made some decisions where I was like, I really don’t know why I made that decision – but it felt right at the time. And these are not small decisions. And these are B2B purchases on a grand scale.

So, for me, we have to understand that people, when they are coming to consider your solution for what they need, they don’t always understand it. So don’t go and do lots of focus groups. And don’t spend lots of time asking people why they do things and then replicating content for that. What you need to do is understand what’s the job to be done? What are the products and features that they really need to not what you want to sell? And help them understand how your solution solves their problem via testimonials. To me, I don’t understand why everybody runs away from testimonials. I’m like, get them out there. let everybody see how you solve that.

David: Yeah, absolutely. Because a lot of it is testimonials, you’ve got the social proof. It’s a lot about helping people to feel comfortable and to feel safe a lot of the time in B2B. You’re a big fan of behavioural economics. I know. And you gave a really good webinar with Steve Kemish on Propolis. And that plays into that, doesn’t it? The different ways that people make decisions, and whether you make a slow decision or whether you make a snap decision. And actually, a lot of the time in B2B, we might assume it’s one. But really, it’s, it’s the other, right?

Barbara: Absolutely. It’s so easy to get stuck in making assumptions about how people purchase your products. And I think that is so true in B2B, it’s even true in B2C let’s be honest. We dictate we create these journeys and say this is how someone exactly behaves, and it’s not. There are so many intricacies for how we behave. What people forget very frequently, which I love, is as soon as you purchase something there’s social permissibility – you are now at risk of making the wrong decision.

So, you are actually naturally trying to do a natural referral programme with anybody else that you can because the more people that you can sell this exact same product to – it means you were right. So, we actually are at our highest advocacy and referral as soon as you handed money over not once you’ve got the product. You’re actually in a risk pattern, and you want to take that risk away from you, so you want to diversify that risk, which nobody uses referral straightaway.

David: Yeah, and because I suppose the features and benefits, they have their role to play, but again it’s almost post-rationalisation, right? There’s always this thing that the heart is the Oval Office, and the head is the Press Office. And it’s like, you’ve made your mind up and then you have to justify the decision that you’ve already made – to yourself, or to your buying unit, and to the rest of your organisation in B2B.

And I think it probably has a lot more in common with – oh, I bought this more expensive car because they’re more reliable, that’s a better-known brand or something like that – rather than just, I wanted one. But I think a lot of the time it’s the same thing in B2B, it’s in Thinking Fast and Slow, right? It’s type one and type two decision making, is that right?

Barbara: Absolutely. A lot of people, we don’t know why we think certain things. Now, there aren’t many decisions that are absolutely set in stone, especially when it comes to purchases that you will not change. These are big decisions that impact who you are at your absolute core. The rest, you’re actually making up why you’ve done a lot of it.

I’ve spent a lot of time doing focus groups, which I find highly entertaining. And I remember a very long time ago, doing one for Aldi, understanding new crisp variants, and I literally sat in a room, listening to people post-rationalise why they buy crisps. And I was just like, this is crazy, you walk down an aisle, right? Like, come on, there wasn’t that much to this. And I think from that moment on, I was like, we as human beings don’t always know why we make decisions, a lot of our decisions can be flipped incredibly fast.

And we can do a huge amount of research; we can absolutely be believing that we have the right solution. And then suddenly, either someone can influence us, or somebody can just land with an incredibly simple, valuable value proposition in the last moments, and convert us at rapid pace. And I think everybody’s experienced that – where suddenly you’re almost at the purchasing, and you put something down and lift something up really fast. And then what? And that’s it. That’s it on this tiny little scale, where it’s just the: Oh, there I go.

And I think a lot of times, it’s everybody, with behavioural economics. I’m really interested in the fact that, behavioural economics and CX are fascinating because everybody’s trying to manage and own the whole journey. Let’s plot out the whole journey. Let’s own all these key moments of truth. And I don’t worry about all the key moments, there’s actually probably two or three that are actually the key moments work out what they are, and be in those moments, spend your money where your competitors spreading themselves too thin. And you can hijack the brain and get it to be you as the last decision, because it’s usually the first and the last that are the pieces, all the stuff in between – you can change your mind incredibly rationally.

David: So, in a B2B buying process, what would that look like?

Barbara: Oh, now you’re asking me that the big questions, I think it’s making sure a lot of times when we create content for websites and looking at the sales reps, and the onboarding stage as well, we ensure we spend so much time in that top of funnel. But as we’re coming down, we get lesser and lesser content and less pointed, less sticky. We’ll just start throwing blogs in, we may do a white paper, but actually it’s that bottom funnel. That’s the real key.

Spend your time thinking about: What content do they need in the tiniest of bite sizes? And what are the messages that they need at that final moment? What can you tell them that’s better about the services or the products or what’s going to solve their problems more in those moments? Because that’s the key magic, that absolute top awareness. And for me, bottom funnel, getting those exactly right, focused on what their actual needs are, what their expectations are, show them in those moments how easy the onboarding is because that’s usually the biggest fear. Whoever’s buying, it is nervous that whoever is going to use it isn’t going to use it.

So, show from testimonials from users not from buyers, at that moment show how easy it is. Tell them that the onboarding was automated, and it only took X amount of time, and it saved X amount of money. And then show someone who actually went through the onboarding. I think very often we keep talking about ourselves, instead of showing our customers people just like them, and why they made those decisions.

Before we finish this month’s episode, it’s time for our copywriting tip of the month. This time, it’s from Radix, consultant writer, and last month’s guest co-host, George Reith.

George: My name’s George, I’m a senior copywriter and consultant at Radix. And my favourite copywriting tip is to keep a running record of phrases that you use a lot in your copy. Whether you choose to do that on a piece of paper, digitally, or on lots of post-it notes stuck to your monitor and desk, I find having that list of phrases you use a lot means you can avoid using them too much. I find that helps me keep my copy a bit more varied.

David: Thanks, George. If there’s anybody that I would take advice from on how not to be boring, it’s you. Barbara, does that one resonates with you?

Barbara: Honestly, I love that. I’m going to start doing it and actually understand what my buzzwords are. Because I’m sure my clients are going mad with the number of times I say, certain words that I’m not aware of. So, thank you very much, George, I’m going to let you know how I get on.

David: I want to know what’s on your list.

Barbara: I’m scared, I’m scared.

David: I’m afraid that is about all we have time for this month. Now, listener, it might not have escaped your attention. That next time is our 100th episode. And I have to tell you, it is going to be all change.

We have a slightly new format coming, a shorter running time and a new name for the podcast. So, look out for that. We will still have great guests. We’re starting with Doug Kessler next time. And we’ll keep the same focus on helping you get the most out of your B2B content.

So, if you’re a subscriber and you see a new B2B content podcast appear in September, don’t worry. It’s just us, just a new name and a new theme tune. I really can’t wait for you to hear it. Before then, though. Barbara, could you thank our contributors for this episode and also remind the listener where they can get in touch.

Barbara: Of course, thanks again to Paul Cash for helping us put the human back into B2B. And thanks, George for that wonderful copywriting tip. But most importantly, thank you, the listener for joining us, it’s been a lot of fun. And don’t forget, if you’d like to contact the show, you can do that on email: [email protected] or on Twitter: @Radixcom. And if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, a review would be marvellous.

David: And thank you Barbara for co-hosting. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it. Has it been alright?

Barbara: It’s been wonderful. So much fun.

David: That’s kind of you. Listener, we’ll see you next time with a fresh new format, new name, and Doug Kessler. But until then, remember, science has discovered 27 distinct human emotions, but nobody has ever experienced the desire to enable website notifications.

David and Barbara: Bye.

Acknowledgements and thanks

  • Firstly, a huge Radix thank you to Barbara Stewart. It was wonderful to have you as our co-host for the first time – hopefully, it won’t be the last.
  • Thanks also to Paul Cash, for reminding us about the human side of B2B copy in that fantastic interview. And, of course, showing us all how it’s done with that smooth book plug.
  • And George, thank you for that brilliant copywriting tip of the month.

And for the eagle ‘eared’ listener…

Yes, this was Episode 99 of Good Copy, Bad Copy, which can only mean one thing. Next month we are celebrating our 100th episode! And we’re celebrating in style – with a slightly new format, a shorter running time, and a new name.

So, watch out for that next month, and when you subscribe and see that brand new B2B content podcast appear in September, know that it’s still us – and get ready to hear our exciting new sound.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash

What is long-form B2B content, and why does it work so well?

Posted on by The Radix Team

When you’re building a B2B content strategy, you need a mix of content lengths. Long-form and short-form content are both vital tools, and each has its own specific use.

If you want to present a snack-sized stat to your readers, for example, or to promote a new product or service, you’re likely to use social seeds or a short article, rather than a ten-page white paper. Likewise, tackling a subject like “Everything you need to know about writing a B2B case study” is going to require more than a 280-character tweet.

But there’s no doubt that across the B2B industry – and in content marketing generally – longer content is becoming increasingly popular. According to Orbit Media’s 2021 blogging survey, the word count of a typical post is up 57% since 2014 – from 808 words to 1,269.

So how exactly can we define “long-form content”? Why is it gaining in popularity as an effective marketing tool? And how can you ensure that even your longest pieces still have impact? I took a look at the research – and completed some semi-scientific studies of my own – to find out.

What is long-form B2B content?

For starters, it’s not just lengthy blog posts. Although blogs are still the most popular B2B content format, long-form content can many other formats, including eBooks and whitepapers, guides and tutorials, and webinars and virtual events.

Essentially, it’s any piece of content that educates your audience on a specific topic or answers a specific question – in an in-depth, informative way.

There’s also a lot of debate around how to define “long” word count, with definitions ranging from 700 – 1,200 words. In truth, there’s probably no set figure; it’s more about the role your content plays. But for the sake of this blog, and in deference to science, I’m defining long-form as anything 1,000 words or over. (Even if it is just to make the maths that bit easier in my own research…)

How can long-form content boost your B2B marketing?

According to the research, writing more long-form content could help you boost your online presence and even drive conversion rates. Here’s what the stats tell us:

Fact #1: Long-form content tends to rank higher on search

You’ve probably heard that long-form content ranks higher – but I wanted to know how true that is for B2B. So, I searched 16 common terms and phrases, like “writing a B2B ebook” and “original research for B2B content”, then recorded the word count of the top five results.
Here’s what I discovered:

  • Across all 80 results, 76% were over 1,000 words, and 31% were over 2,000
  • Of the 16 top results, 12 of the posts were over 1,000 words
  • On the longer end of the scale, 13% of the results were over 3,000 words – and just 4% were over 5,000
  • 35% of the 80 results were between 1,500 and 3,000 words

So, it holds true: long-form content does seem to rank higher. But why?

Some studies suggest that it’s easier to grow organic traffic, and employ SEO tactics, as there’s more scope to include keywords or backlinks (more on this in a moment). But there’s also a simpler explanation: it gives you the opportunity to provide something of real, tangible value for your readers, that they’ll enjoy and want to share.

Fact #2: You can provide your customers with greater value – and showcase your subject authority

This year’s CMI B2B benchmarking report found that 83% of B2B marketers who reported high levels of success in 2020 said this was because of the value their content provides.

And long-form content is the perfect vessel for providing that value. It gives you the opportunity to create more in-depth content on a high-value topic or challenge that really matters to your customer – and (as long as it is genuinely helpful) build up a positive association with your brand in the process.

Side bar: When I searched for common B2B phrases, 44% of the top results were ‘How to’ articles (and all bar one were well over 1,000 words). Only 19% were listicles. So format is likely quite important – the value you’re presenting needs to be really obvious. My colleague Katy has written a splendid blog on how to achieve it.

Fact #3: You could get more traffic, more shares, and more backlinks

According to Semrush’s 2020 Content Marketing Survey, super long-form articles with over 7,000 words drive nearly four times more traffic, and 43% more shares, than shorter articles. And while it’s unlikely you’re going to be writing such bulky pieces on the fly, there’s a clear correlation between long-form content and the amount of traffic it creates.

On the other end of the scale, 59% of published content with between 300-600 words isn’t shared at all. And posts between 300-900 words are likely to gain 21% less traffic – and 75% fewer backlinks – than articles of 900-1,200 words.

And when it comes to Google rankings, backlinks are crucial. The top result on Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than the following nine – and the same study found that long-form content generates more backlinks than shorter posts.

So, how can you write long-form content with impact?

Knowing why long-form content works is one thing. Knowing how to write it in an engaging, impactful way is another. Hopefully, these tips will help:

Tailor your content to your audience’s interest

Reading takes time. So you’re asking your (probably very busy) reader to do a lot – especially if your content is above the 2,000-word mark. Make sure you’re rewarding them for that time, and providing information that’s genuinely helpful and tailored to their interests or challenges.

There are plenty of sites to inspire you, and help you cut to the core of whatever conversation is happening in that industry. AnswerThePublic is a great place to start, and BuzzSumo’s content search engine can help you see what articles your customers are already engaging with.

Make sure your content is easy to navigate and read

When you’re writing long-form content, presenting your reader with a wall of words is only going to turn them off. So it’s critical that you make your copy as easy to navigate as possible:

  • Break down sections into smaller, skimmable chunks or bullet out the key points or stats you’re making (see what I did there?)
  • Include headers and subheaders that summarise what’s contained in each section
  • If it’s a really long piece, you can create a content page, so it’s easy for your reader to skip to the parts that most matter to them

In short, make it easy for the reader to see the value of your content upfront, and help them find the information they need quickly.

Use tried-and-tested approaches to make your reader comfortable

Bit boring, I know, but there’s a reason that 44% of the top results were “How To” guides. Sometimes, the tried-and-tested formats just work the best, and are familiar and approachable for you reader.

Update your work regularly

According to Orbit Media, bloggers who go back and update old content are more than twice as likely to report “strong results”.

So even after you’ve written and published your content, go back and update it when necessary.

And remember…

Just because long-form content works, it doesn’t mean that everything you write needs to be over 1,000w. Sometimes, less is more – and padding out work with waffle, just to hit a word count, won’t go unnoticed by your readers.

Got any questions? Just email us at [email protected].

Webinar: How to build a career in B2B copywriting

Posted on by Katy Eddy

If you’re a talented writer who enjoys niche and nerdy subjects, B2B copywriting is one of the rare ways that you can make a good living while writing full time (and learning about lots of weird and wonderful subjects along the way).

This webinar has now taken place, but is available on-demand here.

But how do you get into the sector, what skills do you need, and (most importantly) what is the job really like?

In this short interview, Senior Copywriter Katy Eddy charts her journey in B2B content writing – from her first experiences as a Junior writer, to crafting content for some of the world’s biggest technology brands. Katy is also now helping us to recruit the next generation of B2B writers.

Watch the webinar on-demand here.

Transcript from the webinar

David McGuire – Creative Director, Radix Communications.

Katy Eddy – Senior Copywriter and Content Lead, Radix Communications.

David:  Welcome, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for this short webinar and Q&A interview with Katy.  B2B copywriting, B2B technology copywriting in particular, is one of the few ways, I would say, that you can write full-time, make a pretty decent living, and find out about some weird and wonderful niche subjects in the process. But it’s not a thing necessarily, that people, you know, grow up wanting to do. I certainly didn’t. And, so it can be a thing people fall into, that’s a bit of a mystery. So we thought we’d try and demystify it a bit today for you.

We have an excellent interviewee, I’m building you up now. Katy Eddy joined us just a few years ago as a Junior Copywriter, has made her way right through the system and we will talk about our development process later, but has made her way right through in record time to be a Senior Copywriter, and is now involved in the recruitment process at Radix.

So, there really is no one better to tell you, you know, what it’s like to get into copywriting as a career. And we will talk about that in a moment. I will ask a few questions, but then we’ll head over for some questions of your own if you have those.

We have a chatbox, we have a Q&A box. You can try and raise your hands but I can’t see all of you on here at once. But if you want to click the raise your hand and then you can and I will try my best to stay across all of those things.

So Katy can answer all of your questions for you which doubtless will be more interesting than mine If you want to continue the conversation after this or outside this forum probably the easiest thing you can find us on Twitter or on LinkedIn. @radixcom is the main handle for us. I’m  @McGuireDavid, Katy is @Starlingsky. I haven’t asked her permission to share that, I’m sorry. But first, we will get started just by finding out who’s here from among you as attendees, to get an idea of whether you are people that already know a bit about copywriting or people who are completely new to it. So we will give you a few seconds.

So, Katy, I think I might kick off just kind of by asking you, the audience. A lot of them are copywriters already. So they may well already know. But what does a B2B tech copywriter do?

Katy: Well in the land of Radix. Forgive me if I am sort of explaining terms you already know. Business to business is entirely between two organisations. So we don’t do any of the business to consumer stuff, the stuff you see, you know in ads and magazines and that kind of thing. We write exclusively about business technology.

So, we largely write about the new age of cloud, even though it’s been happening for about a decade now. We’re always waiting for the next big thing. And we were told it was blockchain, but I don’t believe anybody when they say that. We mostly focus on marketing materials, sales enablement, that kind of thing. So as I tend to explain to people in the pub when they look at me blankly, when I tell them, my job role…

David: Has nothing to do with copyright. Yes?

Katy: Yes, I do get asked a lot if it’s copyright law, which I think is probably quite familiar to a lot of you. It’s essentially that we write the kind of stuff that companies like Microsoft use to sell to other companies.

David: Cool. So when you say, the kind of stuff, what sort of formats and subjects do you find yourself writing?

Katy: There are sort of too many to list. I will focus on the ones that I do the most at the moment, which is case studies. So interviewing clients and writing their stories up. They’re always a massive pull for people because they like to see success and imagine themselves in that position.

And I write a lot of white papers and reports. So long-form stuff that is further down the funnel piece. But is good for convincing people once you’ve already got them on the hook. You can get more into detail about your product or your offering. More generally like lots of blogs, tweets, anything you’d use to share longer-form content as well. So email campaigns, that kind of thing.

David: Sure. And what kind of clients? Can you tell us about who you find yourself writing for now?

Katy: So I’m going to describe them in vague terms. And you can name them if we’re allowed to name them. Obviously, there are NDAs involved in a lot of them. Primarily at the moment I write for a company that does a lot of speech recognition and voice biometrics work. I do write for Microsoft, loads of the big business names that companies like Salesforce, they’re a big one for us. Honestly, if you can name a business, we’ve probably written for them at some point. We’ve got well over a hundred that we’ve worked on.

David: Yeah, I think, I think that’s, I think that’s fair. It’s like, you know, most of the big software companies that sell technology to sell to other companies, either we work with them directly, and we also work through their marketing agency. So one way or the other, we will have worked with a lot of them. I think that’s fair.

So when you’re writing for something that might be for Microsoft, one day, you’re writing for something, you know, for a big cybersecurity company, or a speech recognition company, or a Salesforce or something like that another day. Do you find you have to use lots of different writing styles, or in effect, are there a limited number of styles that people actually use?

Katy: I think you have kind of a set of core styles, that each company has their own individual quirks on. So obviously, you have your UK and US that have their own quirks. But yeah, generally, the massive companies in particular, they’ll be very stringent about how you write about their stuff because they can’t have anything that goes out under their name that doesn’t fit with their brand image.

So you do work a lot with style guides and things like that to make sure it’s in line. And internally, so if we take Microsoft, for example, I have built quite an extensive guide, essentially, for all the writers that I work with. To make sure we’re hitting all the very, very specific things that you might not necessarily think about just as you’re writing, but will be picked up when it gets to sort of the review process on the other side.

And you will have to change very quickly in between clients. And that does take a bit of a knack. Occasionally, you do find yourself slipping in a word that you think, Oh, yeah, they would not want to use this or I mean, backspace and move on.

David: Wow, it sounds like it’s a lot of kind of hat switching there. Could you tell us a bit about, you know, what an average day looks like for you? Um, you know, obviously, things are a bit different now, but kind of pre-COVID times or now.

Katy: I think not too much has changed in the way my day operates. Just less obvious face-to-face contact. One of the great things about Radix is, when we are all allowed to be in the same room together, you do have between ten and fifteen writers, depending on where we’re at in terms of recruiting. You have that many people all in the room together, which means you have a lot of kind of informal chats. And you have a lot of very immediate support, which we’ve had to, you know, try and translate into the world of Slack and constant Zoom calling.

Generally speaking, so at Radix, we have our morning meeting, and we run through the diaries. So the diaries, we don’t have to worry about that. We have an account management team, and they’re the people that handle the client-facing stuff. And they’re responsible for squishing everything into our little Outlook calendars, which I don’t envy: it is a skill. And it really is a skill really.

So you’ll set out your day there. And you’ll work out when things need to be shared across the team. So generally speaking, I tend to do maybe three client calls a week at the moment. I do a lot of stuff where I’m left to my own devices because I’m working on big projects. But yeah, generally speaking, maybe four hours of writing. And then we have some review time which is our internal process for checking that everything’s good to send clients. And days tend to be split across that. And with the odd meeting, interspersed, depending on who you need to talk to, and what your projects are.

David: Sure. But it’s a lot of kind of writing time and kind of working with the account managers who you know, do all the stuff about, what we’re going to deliver when, and what we’re going to charge for it. And all of that stuff that you know, freelancers, writers and things would need to look after themselves. That’s kind of mostly done for you and you know, you can kind of focus on the creative bit.

Katy: Yeah, we do have input on how much time we want and how much we need, because I do spend proportionally most of my time writing these days. And I think that that’s something that can be lost. If you’re a freelancer, and you do have to do all the juggling yourself, you end up you know, writing in your evenings and weekends, because when else do you do it.

David: Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, you’re a Senior Copywriter now, as we mentioned, you actually started at Radix? Actually in the scheme of things. I mean, you’ve done this in record time. So only a few years ago you were a Junior Copywriter. So what’s the difference between those two roles?

Katy: It will be five years on September 1 that I’ve been with Radix. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind. And I would say the main difference is when you get to Senior, you’re very much trusted with anything that a client can throw at you.

Even you know, if it comes with and near non-existent brief, you do have that kind of basis of knowledge that you’ve built up working with so many different clients, on so many different projects. So yeah, anything. We expect you to be able to write a tweet, we expect you to be able to write, you know, in the very rare cases that you write a 10,000-word report, but it does happen. We trust you to be able to do anything in that mix.

And I think our founder, Fiona, she always said that she thought it took five years to get really, really good at this job. And I think probably about two and a half years in,  I was like, “I feel like I’m pretty good at this job”.

And then I reached this point, I was like, now is really the point where that experience really does start stacking up, because you have worked for you know, six, say cybersecurity companies over the years. So you learn things from your first one that you then add on for each one. And you can play different bits of knowledge to a new client when they come in. So you’re not it’s very rare that you’re learning a technology from scratch these days because you have a good basis.

There’s a lot of learning that goes on in the first year of being in tech, right?

David: Yeah, I bet. Thinking back, if you kind of cast your memory back all of that way, what kind of skills and experience did you have? You know, people often wonder, I suppose how much you need to know before you get into B2B copywriting? How much skills and experience Did you have before you started as a Junior?

Katy: I was pretty much as fresh as they come. I actually, the week that I interviewed for Radix, I had graduated, the Monday of that week – a very rapid turnaround. So I didn’t really have a lot of time to go out and do internships or any of that kind of stuff. So I had some writing experience, obviously, I did an English degree. So I had, you know that basis and in being able to write, but you do actually have to unlearn quite a lot of stuff that you learn, because an academic essay and a white paper really do not share that many features, apart from telling a compelling argument from start to finish, I think is the main thing you learn from that.

But I had done a little bit of work with a lighting designer, so a lady called Eleanor Bell, who is an electrician, and lighting designer who needed a new website. So I had a very tiny amount of knowledge about lighting, because my dad is an electrician, and has been for aeons.

So I had, you know, the very, very basic amount of knowledge, and went into this entirely new world that I had to learn what an ingress protection rating was, and all this kind of stuff. And I wrote her entire website, which was project pages, case studies, that kind of thing. All of her ‘About Me’ copy, that kind of thing. And that was really cool. The main chunk of experience I had before I came into this job. And I think that set me up really nicely because I knew how to attack a completely new subject from scratch.

David: Yeah, I mean, did you know a lot about the tech that we write about? So you said it was a learning curve, was it just, kind of, you picked all of that stuff up really quickly?

Katy: You do have to learn really quickly, I think I know the basics, I think it’s hard to avoid the basics, really, because a lot of it eventually filters down into consumer tech. So things like The Cloud, which is, you know, 90% of people’s messaging. You sort of fundamentally understand that if you’ve ever used Dropbox or something like that in your everyday life. And, you know, I played enough online games to understand the ‘as a service’ model, just about.

So, the basics are definitely there. But then you talk about, you know, hyper-scale cloud computing, and that’s just that’s the level of stuff we don’t you don’t see in the consumer space. So yeah, a very basic understanding that was built on very rapidly. But that’s the benefit of having such a big team of specialists behind you because the knowledge is there.

David: Yeah, we could I guess we’ve kind of skipped ahead a step. So you’ve worked with Eleanor, you were just about to graduate. So what made you go look at Radix and go, Ah, B2B copywriting. That’s for me, I’ll have a go at that.

Katy: So I’d like to say like, I came out of the womb, knowing I wanted to be a B2B copywriter…

David: Didn’t we all!

Katy: But the truth is, you don’t really know it. I think no one talks to you about it during school or university, it’s like you’ve got an English degree…so you’re going to be an English teacher. That’s about what they’ll see. But I, I hit on kind of the jackpot, really, because Elena Bell’s office is in the same building, as Radix’s office.

So I had lunch with some of our account managers in the kind of communal space of the building and it’s just sheer luck that I knew you were there. And I looked at the company, I was like, that’s probably a bit more legit than I am at this point. At this point, I felt like I was very new to it. And then the junior copywriting position went up online. And I spoke to Eleanor a little bit about it. And she was really pushing me to apply because thankfully, she liked the work I’d done.

David: She was very complimentary about you as well, as it goes.

Katy: That’s, that’s good to know. And yeah, I started to look into it a little bit more and kind of educate myself a little bit about copywriting. And realise that it was, you know, a very viable career path because my other plan was to go back to working at HobbyCraft and writing in my spare time. But um, yeah, the idea of being paid to write full time was just, it was too hard to pass up. So I took a shot. And here we are.

David: So let’s talk briefly, and I’m kind of aware that I want to leave time for people to ask questions, if you have questions, do pop them in the Q&A, or in the chat or whatever.

I wanted to talk about kind of that career path. And obviously, you’ve been on a journey from Junior Copywriter, through Copywriter, Content Lead, and now Senior Copywriter. What does that process look like? How long did it kind of take each stage? And how did that kind of work?

Katy: So I think I probably speed ran.

David: Yeah, I think that’s fair.

Katy: Yeah, four and a half years, I think is genuinely the record. But there are other writers snapping my heels now because we have a lot of very good people. I spent about six months as a Junior. And that’s really all learning all the time.

You spend a lot of your early time shadowing other writers to get up to speed on things. Because we don’t expect people to know intuitively how to write a good marketing blog, because it isn’t anything like you know, LiveJournal, is Live Journal still a thing, or am I showing my age a little bit there. It’s not like you know, everyday blogging, you do have to have a very specific set of skills.

So you spend a lot of time doing that. And yeah, running email campaigns, tweets, that kind of stuff like that. The smaller form things that are easier to get to grips with. And then I started as a Copywriter. And that’s when you start moving into the longer stuff, so you have your eBooks and your white papers, that kind of thing.

I spent about a year and a half as a Copywriter. And then you become, you have a little add on, which is the Content Lead, which is essentially you get a client or a set of clients that you’re in charge of. So everything that gets written for that client will come through you for review, which it’s one of the ways that we can expand the team to write on a client while ensuring that everything’s the same level of quality.

And, like you said, in keeping with style guides, and their tone, and their voice, and all that kind of thing. So I have one of our Microsoft agency relationships is one of mine, for example. And I’ve had a few that have moved around, depending on capacity and things like that over the years.

So I’ve got probably three or four that I’m in charge of now. They’re quite chunky clients. And then, yes, I hit Senior Copywriter last year. And like I said, that’s the point where we expect you to be able to survive anything that gets thrown at you, and support everybody, below you as well.

David: And I think one of the things that’s probably quite unusual, I guess, is, you know, going through, you know, these various bands and these kind of grades and things, you know, is that we do have, you know, quite a clear banding about what people need to do across all of these skills at each stage. Was that introduced before, or was that introduced while you were in the process of developing.

Katy: So I think, um, a lot of it was kind of refined as we went through it. So when, when I was hired in 2016, we had me as a Junior, and we had two Copywriters that came in at the same time. And that was when we really started paying attention to giving a really specific structure to how we grow.

I think Radix had been around for about seven years at that point, and we were starting to grow the team. And we were starting to really understand what you need to be able to do to get really good at this job.

So yeah, we have a very set process, but it is quite flexible, depending on what you need support with. So one of the main things that we do in our, our catch-ups every quarter is we identify the bits that we’re hitting and the bits that we need support with. And that’s what we focus on for each person.

David: Cool. We actually have some questions coming in. So let’s take a break out to do those because we’re, you know, we’re zooming through the time. So James asked, What percentage of your time is spent understanding or dissecting briefs set by clients, versus actually writing the copy? In the event that the given brief is limited? Do you end up mapping out your own?

Katy: That’s a really great question. It does vary. Sometimes you will get a very straightforward, very detailed brief. That maps out everything you need. And it’s just a case of looking at it, comparing it to our sort of, we have a bit of a menu of different content types. So sometimes it’s really as simple as just matching it to one of those and that’s about it. And then you can crack on.

Others take a bit more dissecting. So I would say you probably do spend 80% of your time writing. Sometimes clients do need a bit of support to get to where they need to be before you can actually start writing, and then it’s a bit more of a back and forth process. But a lot of our clients do look to us for support in that and they do understand that we probably know better than them about the copywriting requirements.

And there are some clients who will just send you a sentence and you run with it. And that’s sometimes that’s a blessing and sometimes trending towards a curse. It depends on how easy it is to research. But yeah, we don’t expect a Junior to look at a one sentence brief and be able to run with it. We will give it to one of the Seniors to kind of pick apart, and make sure they’ve got enough structure to work from. But I do really enjoy that there are some clients who say, “We want to write a blog about this… go!”. There’s one in particular that we do a lot of desk research for. And we’ve been able to research things like, what happens to ugly fruit around the world, and how that’s repurposed, and things like that. And that’s the real niche stuff that you can have a little bit of a jolly with, which I really enjoy.

David: I want to skip on to the fact that you’re now part of you’ve been through the whole process. And you’re now part of recruiting for the next Junior Copywriter. Interested know what you’re looking for? And as part of that, we have a question from David, who says, he’s a physics graduate, who became a journalist 30 years ago has worked a fair bit on business magazines. copywriting experiences is limited unless you count added to advertorial supplements is very good at writing interviews and case studies. He says I’m in my early 50s, were my age be a hindrance when it comes to getting a foothold in B2B copywriting?

Katy: I mean, I think absolutely not. I mean, I know I probably, a bit rich coming from someone who started at 21. But the thing we’re really interested in is, the stuff that you mentioned, the stuff that shows that you can adapt quickly, and you can learn the ropes quickly and that you have skills that are transferable.

Because the thing is, when we have people apply for the job, we just asked for a writing sample. And to be honest, we don’t really care too much what that sample is. Just as long as it’s good. That’s the main thing I submitted. I submitted three pieces. I submitted the introduction to my dissertation, I submitted a review of a video game. And another one of my essays, I think. And none of that was anything close. I submitted some of my stuff from Eleanor’s website as well. Yeah, nothing close to B2B tech copywriting. But obviously, there’s stuff that’s recognizable in it, even if it’s not exactly that.

David: Yeah, I think a lot of it is about kind of getting that complicated stuff and making that really, really simple and that kind of thing. Yes, we are getting towards the end of our time. I think we will be wrapping up very, very soon.

But we have a couple more questions. Anthony wants to know about whether to change to a limited company rather than being a sole trader? I’d say Anthony, that’s something probably I have more experience than Katy. So if you want to find me on LinkedIn, David McGuire and ask me that on LinkedIn, I’m happy to chat about that, because I have some experience of that.

And Sayed wants to ask about writing for a US audience versus writing for a UK audience. Do the voice and tone differ between the two things? Because it is the thing where, you know, we have to write for people around the world, right?

Katy: Yeah, I think in terms of voice and tone, I don’t think they necessarily differ between the UK and the US. I think that just tends to be a company to company thing. The funny thing about writing in US and UK is there are a lot of very tiny things like toward or towards, that you don’t think about. It’s not the obvious doesn’t have a ‘u’ in it or not. Which I do spend a lot of time thinking about and picking out of people’s copy, I think they hate me for it. But that’s one of the main things I think.

Where you do experience more difference is where you’re writing for primarily non-English speaking countries. So things that are going to be in English for people who have it as a second language or stuff that’s going to be translated because a lot of the turns of phrase that you use quite naturally in the UK in the US just do not translate well. And particularly when we write for German translation, you tend to have to write quite economical copy, because words are just so much longer. It’s stuff like that you don’t always think about to start with I think that’s the main thing like not dropping in super-specific Cornish idioms that no one’s going to understand.

David: We haven’t mentioned that we’re based in Cornwall, but we are and it’s beautiful. Tamar –there’s a Cornish name – Tamar says, “Is there scope to enter the field at a higher level coming from a B2B tech marketing background? Writing all company copy rather than from scratch as a Junior?”

Katy: Yes, for sure. I think we’ve recruited copywriters that come in at a higher level and kind of have, maybe not necessarily the copywriting experience. But do you have the grounding in marketing or tech, that means you can get up to speed quickly? You can come in with one of those skills, then we can help fill in the other, I think that’s the main thing.

David: As long as you can write. If you can write well, and succinctly and stuff, that’s pretty non-negotiable, I think. We’ve had a good set of questions. And you’ve gone into lots of detail for us, Katy. So thank you very much.

I’m aware that there were other questions, we’re over time. But just to finish up, was there one more question that you wanted to address around, whether it’s good and bad things about the job, or what you’re looking for in the next writer, or what you wish you’d known at the start of your time at Radix that you know now.

Katy: I think it’s a bit of a cop out, say, I’d like to have known everything about B2B copywriting before I started being a B2B Copywriter. I think I’d like to talk a little bit about what we were looking for. We are actively recruiting for a Junior at the moment.

David: We are. Spoiler alert: yes…

Katy: That’s right. You can apply. Like you said, the main thing is, we just need to know that you can write. So honestly, your CV is kind of secondary, because we’re looking at your cover letter, and we’re looking at your writing sample. And it’s very easy to see from those if people have a knack.

And we know that people get nervous. And we know it’s not, you know, writing covering letters is not a natural skill for everybody. But we can, we can see in that if you’ve got, I guess, like the spark that we can, we can turn to B2B copy.

And I think enthusiasm is enormous. You do have to be a person that is really keen to learn about things. And to be a little sponge for highly technical information. We’re not technical writers, but we do write about technical subjects. So you do need to have, you know, a base understanding. I will say like, when I was a Junior, there were times where I was on the phone to a client and they’d mentioned a term and I would just have to sneaky Google it, while they were talking.

That does happen because you do talk to people who have PhDs in this stuff, and they will always be the best source of information. So don’t expect to have to learn absolutely everything you can trust the client to give you that information. But yeah, being really keen to learn is really important and just keen to work in a big group of very lovely, very talented people. I think that’s the main thing that we’re looking for.

David: Lovely, I was waiting for the “But…”

Katy: No “But…”. Just a big room full of nerds.

David: They’re all nerds. Lovely, talented, supportive nerds is definitely what our team looks like. Other agencies may vary. Other agencies in fairness, you’ll probably be able to earn more, but they will probably expect longer hours and you might not be quite as fluffy as employers as we, but who knows.

Katy: They rarely have waterside offices as well. Oh, yes. Yeah, we saw dolphins.

David: We had literal dolphins in the river outside our office it’s true. And they came at lunchtime, which I thought was really considerate of them. Anyway. We are, I’m afraid out of time, and there’s so much more that we could talk about, you know, development and review and the quality assurance process.

But, Katy, I’m so grateful to you for agreeing to do this and to talk to these fine people.

Katy: Thank you so much

David: And thanks all of you as well, who have come along and submitted your questions, got in contact with us, and spent your time with us. I really do appreciate it. As we say, if you are interested in B2B copywriting as a career, we are currently recruiting for a Junior Copywriter.

But to Tamar’s point, we are always looking, for good writers with potential who may well come in or also at a more senior level, we have a careers page on the Radix website that can tell you a bit more about that as well. So if you have any questions, do contact us: [email protected]. You can find us on Twitter @Radixcom, or Radix Communications on LinkedIn.

Very happy to chat and answer any more questions in those forums. But as for now, we are thoroughly over time, I’m afraid. So we’ll have to call it to a halt there. Thank you very much, Katy. And thanks, everyone, for coming.