Category: Client Questions Answered

B2BQ&A 106: How can I make boring B2B subjects more interesting?

Posted on by The Radix Team

This month’s question gets to the heart of what it means to be a B2B copywriter: the tension between our technical subject matter, and the need to be compelling, engaging, and clear.

Dave Briggs, marketing manager at Nash & Co Solicitors, asks: “How can I take a fairly dry – some would say boring – non-sexy service, such as law, which is often laden with jargon, and turn it into something people actually want to read?”

To answer, we needed some serious inspiration. So we put Dave’s question to B2B copywriter and all-round creative firebrand Katherine Wildman of Haydn Grey – and as our guest co-host we called upon the woman behind WeTransfer‘s breezy tone of voice, senior creative copywriter Robyn Collinge.

This episode also includes a writing tip from freelance copywriter Mel Barfield (also known by her alter-ego AllCopyMel) and some more inclusive writing advice from language consultant Ettie Bailey-King.

You can read a full transcript of this episode at the bottom of this page.

Want to make B2B less boring? Here are Katherine’s tips…

Let go of your ego

To see what’s interesting about a subject, we have to really understand it. And often, that means we have to ask the big, dumb questions about what it is, what it does, and why. Making experts answer those questions clearly is a real skill, and it can take a willingness to look more ignorant than you are. (Katherine calls it “applying intelligent naïveté”, and that’s a phrase I’m 100% stealing for my next meeting.)

Meanwhile, Robyn shared that WeTransfer uses a similar approach: ELI5, or “explain it like I’m five“.

People and scenarios

The most exciting part of a product or service is usually the people who use it, and what they use it for. Failing that, it might be what might happen if you don’t use it. Just like Katherine’s dad used to make his insurance work interesting by telling stories about climbing Huddersfield’s mill chimneys, we can hook the reader into what we’re saying more easily if we illustrate it with a narrative.

Voice makes a huge difference

It’s not just about what you say; it’s how you say it. The language we choose can do a lot to set content apart, surprise and entertain the reader, or just make their life easy. In some B2B markets, just saying something clearly is enough to make you stand out. But as Katherine points out, we need to strike a “lovely balance” where we don’t overcomplicate things, but we do still use the right terminology to be taken seriously.

People, posts and resources on this topic

Helpfully, Katherine’s provided us with links to several of the things she mentioned in our chat…

What you’ll find in episode 106…

1:15 – Meet this month’s guest co-host: WeTransfer’s Robyn Collinge

2:30 – Copywriting pro tip: Melanie Barfield on using the Hemingway editor

3:19 – We hear Dave Briggs‘ question, and put it to Katherine Wildman

18:30 – Robyn shares her perspective on making B2B interesting

27:15 – Ettie Bailey-King explains why euphemisms reinforce stigma

Got a question, or a copywriting pro tip?

B2BQ&A is your show, and we’d love to feature you on a future podcast.

Send us a voice memo at [email protected]. And if there are any other thoughts you’d like to share, you can find us on Twitter @radixcom.

How to listen: 

Credits

  • Thank you, Robyn Collinge for co-hosting; we’re glad we could make your podcasting dream a reality.
  • Cheers, Dave Briggs, for the question. I hope you found the answer helpful.
  • Thanks, Katherine Wildman for answering Dave’s question so brilliantly.
  • Last but certainly not least, thanks to AllCopyMel and Ettie Bailey-King for your amazing writing tips.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 106 – How can I make boring B2B subjects more interesting?

Dave Briggs: How can I take a fairly dry, some might say boring, non-sexy service such as law, which is often laden with jargon, and turn it into something that people actually want to read?

Robyn Collinge: That’s a brilliant question. Let’s ask Katherine Wildman from Haydn Grey!

David McGuire: Hello listener; you are extraordinarily Welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is episode 106.

Robyn: In a moment, B2B copywriter Katherine Wildman will share the methods she uses to get to the bottom of what’s interesting about boring and complicated companies. We’ll also get a copywriting tip from Melanie Barfield, and some more inclusive writing advice from Ettie Bailey-King.

David: Before all of that, though, we should introduce ourselves. My name is David McGuire. I’m creative director at Radix Communications, the B2B writing agency, and we have a brilliant guest co-host this month. If you work in marketing, it’s someone whose words you have almost certainly read, basically on a daily basis. It’s WeTransfer’s, senior copywriter Robyn Collinge! Robyn, welcome.

Robyn: Thank you. Hello. I’m unnecessarily excited to be here. At the risk of making my life sound way more put together than it actually is, I mentioned to David that I had just put being on my first podcast and a list of goals for this year. So here I am.

David: That’s amazing. It’s like serendipity. Here we make wishes come true. That’s what we do. Well, would you like to perform your first official duty as guest co-host and let the listener know how they can get in touch with us?

Robyn: Yeah, I can certainly try. So listeners if you have any comments or suggestions you can find Radix on LinkedIn or Twitter @Radixcom… or if you want us to answer your question on a future episode, record a quick voice note and send it by email to [email protected].

David: Done like a pro. Sounds you’ve been doing it for years.

Melanie Barfield: Hi, I’m Melanie Barfield, aka @AllCopyMel. I’m a freelance copywriter. And my copy tip for beginners is to just chuck your copy into the Hemingway editor. It’s at Hemingwayapp.com. And it highlights any issues in different colors like where your sentences are too long, or where you could shorten and simplify your copy to make it more punchy. You can’t take it all as gospel, but it’s a really quick, free, visual way to see at a glance where you could simplify your copy.

Robyn: Thanks, Melanie. That’s a great tip. I’m a bit of a slave to Google Docs myself, but I’ll definitely give it a try. Now who is asking this month’s question?

Dave: My name is Dave Briggs. I’m the marketing manager at Nash & Co Solicitors in Plymouth. And my question is, how can I take a fairly dry and some might say boring, non-sexy service such as law, which is often laden with jargon, and turn it into something that people actually want to read?

Robyn: I love this question because I’m such a huge advocate for writing like you speak. I’ll tell anyone that will listen that one of the biggest misconceptions about writing or like communicating in general is that using unnecessarily long and complex words will make you sound smarter. When in fact, I think it just does the opposite. And it’ll just intimidate and alienate your audience. So I can’t wait to hear from Katherine as she tackles this question.

David: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think as B2B and tech copywriters, ourselves, we spend all this time making dull things interesting and complicated things simple, but maybe we don’t spend enough time breaking down the “how” of that; how we do that in practice. So as you say, to answer Dave’s question, I contacted one of the most creative B2B copywriters, I know, Katherine Wildman at Haydn Grey. And I started by asking her Dave’s question: how do you take a non-sexy, boring subject that’s laden with jargon and turn it into something people actually want to read?

Katherine Wildman: I was thinking about this and my dad was an insurance underwriter, which is about as dry as it gets, isn’t it? But he used to come home from work and tell us stories about climbing up the mill chimneys in Huddersfield where I grew up. And he would only tell us when he’d done that, he wouldn’t tell mum he was about to, but he would tell us, and he would tell us about the people in the mill and the people who worked there. And it was always, always, always about the people that he talked to.

And I think the thing that I approach any project like this with is just a raft of very simple questions. And I saw a great thing on LinkedIn that said, “We don’t ask daft questions; it’s called applying intelligent naivety”. And it’s something…

David: Ooh, I like that.

Katherine: Yeah. Isn’t it lovely? It’s really nice. And people go, like, you know, “Ooh! Aren’t you clever”, which is always nice. And I think it’s about sitting with people in the room and making them, forcing them, to break it down for you. Which means you have to pretend to be far more ignorant than you might be.

Or you might be extraordinarily ignorant. I did a project about cryptocurrency recently. And I had to ask a lot of really basic questions, which is, “But what do you mean? But what do you mean? So what is it? So what? Why does that do that?” And the secret to making people break it down, which I find very hard, is to shut up. And just look like you don’t know what they’re saying, until you understand what they’re saying and don’t pretend to know.

So it’s a question of making sure that you could then take it to another parent in the playground, or to your elderly mom, or your grandma and say, “Oh, I’m doing this project. And what they do is XYZ”, and until you can break it down to XYZ. So it’s not X with the flourish, Y with a flourish, Z with, you know, some little acronyms thrown in; it has to be broken down so that you understand it. And once you understand it, and you can feed it back to them, then you’ve absolutely cracked it.

And then how you then make that glossy and interesting, I think is you, you throw it back to them. And then you sort of get a feel for where they want to go with their tone of voice. So whether they want to be edgy, or they want to be very, very sturdy run of the mill, or perhaps for some people, just the simple fact of breaking it down into Janet-and-John English is enough to make them stand out.

So at that point, I would look at what other companies in the field are doing in the UK and abroad. You’ll find like particularly Australia, New Zealand companies can be really quite wacky where we won’t go that far. But you can see where you could take it and see where you can pitch them in the middle of all the the competition that they’re trying to gain business from or do business alongside, how can you make them stand out?

So then you bring along, you know, the Voicebox kit? Nick’s brilliant kit, where he’s broken down these 11 voices? And you can show…

David: For the for the audience, this Nick Parker’s kit, yeah?

Katherine: Yes, sorry. So Nick Parker’s brilliant Voicebox kit, which, mine is getting ragged around the edges. And Nick has these brilliant examples of how the financial companies write about themselves, how do insurance companies write about themselves, and you can see people’s faces light up in the room where they go, “Oh, so we could do that!”

They’ve never thought that they could do anything other than this “business-focused solutions”, all of the stuff that we wade through every day, and become a little bit more human and a little bit more approachable and a little bit more understandable. And then it makes life easier for everybody. And then and they can choose and you can see you can read the temperature in the room as to where they want to go with it.

And all of a sudden, you’ve got this very dry, turgid, verbose, reams and reams of copy that become like a conversation. And as soon as you’re having conversation, somebody wants to engage with you.

David: Absolutely. And one of the things I was interested is that you were talking very much about how your dad was telling stories about how the, you know, not that so much the insurance but what was being insured and what the insurance meant. Are there kind of… once you’ve got the way that you’re writing about the subject, then there’s the issue of what you write about, right?

Katherine: Yes. So then it’s a question of asking people to paint you a picture. So if they have, for example, policy insurance in place, what happens if something goes horribly wrong? And then what happens if they have this policy in place and how they can sleep at night? It’s all those human emotions where you’re basically wanting to either save people time, save them peace of mind, save the money, make them money? How does their life improve by having this in place?

And again, it’s those Janet-and-John flinty details where somebody can come to it afresh and just read it and understand straightaway what you’re talking about. They’re not having to try and decipher the language. And it just makes it simple and accessible and your work is to break down those horrible pages and pages of words to just go “Actually, what does that actually say?”

And usually, the ratio is usually about sort of six paragraphs to half a paragraph, really. And there’ll be a bit nervous about that, because that’s very bold and scary. But also it saves so much time. Particularly if you’ve then got a messaging framework in place, and then everybody’s lives are just so much easier.

And I think another layer that I would throw on when you’re doing your competitor research is if there’s something where you can look at reviews online. And I know Jo at Copyhackers talks about this, which is mining for voice of customer. So it could be that you’re looking at Trustpilot, it could be that you’re looking at Google ads, it could be that you’re looking at what people are saying about the competitors, and what they do well, can you take that line and apply it to your company?

And ask the people in the room why they come to work every day. What is it that gets them out of bed? What is it that makes them feel like they’re making a difference? Because people in big businesses don’t tend to get asked questions like that, you know, “How did you get here? Why are you here? What makes you, you know, sit on the train for an hour every day again, now, to come and do this? It’s not just so that you can pay the mortgage. What is it that lights your candle about it? And can you share a little bit of that passion?” Because people will have a story to tell. And there’ll be something, there’ll be a nugget, that hand on the door in the doctor’s surgery where they turn round and they just say something and you’ve just got that gold dust, you’ve got that line.

David: Yeah, absolutely. Is there an element with something like commercial law, for example, where you need to use a certain amount of the right language or else people might feel that you’re not taking it seriously, or they might not take you seriously? Because I know, from a stakeholder’s kind of point of view, they’ll go, “If we don’t say the right words that all our competitors are saying…” then you know, the audience… if the audience is already in a world where some jargon is fairly established, is there a balance, there?

Katherine: There’s a lovely balance to be achieved. And as well, Mr. Google needs the words doesn’t he? Mr. Google needs the search words, but I think there’s a way that you can scatter them, rather than drown us in them.

Vikki Ross put a beautiful post on LinkedIn just last night about “You need to be careful where you pitch the language because you’re trying to say something that’s too technical for your audience, you’re going to exclude that audience. And if you say something that’s too simple, they don’t want to be talked down to her or explained to.” So there’s that pitch of where you’re going to be and as well paying heed to Mr. Google, who does need to find this lovely company in the midst of everything. It’s making sure that the people who need the product can get the product.

Catherine Every, again, did a brilliant post about a crypto ad, and you read this ad that she posted on LinkedIn; wouldn’t have a clue. And I think as copywriters we understand quite a lot about quite a lot of things. I looked at this thing, I thought that could be in a foreign language for all I know. But what was so clever and what Catherine highlighted was the people that need to know will know that that’s exactly for them. So it cuts out everybody else. So you’re speaking exactly to your audience.

And that’s again, that’s your audience research. That’s understanding how far down the buyer journey people are. If they’re doing policy three, do they really need to read these documents again? No. Do you need to attach them? Yes. Can you make their lives easier? Yeah, probably very much so. Even if it’s just the way that you lead into, and some people do it, and they’re quite irreverent, you know,”Read this later”.

David: Are there go-to questions or approaches that you have? You know, if you’re trying to pull out what’s interesting in a dull subject?

Katherine: So I always start every project with you get as many people as possible on the call, from the really senior people, to the sales team, to the marketers to everybody.

And my first question is, “So what do you do?” And then the secret is to shut up. And they will all, they’ll wait for everybody else to chip in. And the secret is to shut up until everybody has said every little last thing they could possibly say and then they’ll chip in again. And your thing is to just be quiet.

And then my next question is “So why should I care?” And it’s it gets to be… People say after I’ve drilled down into these, you know, it was like a therapy session. And I’ve had people in tears. I’ve had people resolving longstanding problems that have been going on in the business, but it’s a question of asking “why”.

And then this is another Copyhackers tip, which is “So that… So that… You do that so that…” and it gets people right down into the absolute essence of why they do what they do. And how and for whom. And it’s you just… people come up with things that are really surprising. And it’s a question of until you absolutely understand that you can’t go any further down that particular line, you keep asking.

And for me, the hard thing is to not pretend that I know and to presume, so have confidence that the people that you’re talking to know what they’re doing and why. And you are just there to be the mirror and to ask questions and to get them to tell you about it.

David: It’s that, what was it, intelligent naivety? It’s that thing, isn’t it? That sometimes I think that we have as external writers, we kind of have a licence to be the dumbest person in the room.

Katherine: Totally.

David: If you’re an in-house marketer, saying, “I don’t know what that means”, even if you’re pretending not to know what that means, must feel really painful because you’re undermining your status. Whereas we, you know, we have a licence to say, “What does that mean?” And even more cheekily, we have the licence to ask “So what? Okay, why do I care?” Or when someone goes, “Oh, we’re the best at this”, “Can you prove that?” No, we have to ask rude questions and stupid questions.

Katherine: Absolutely.

David: And that naivety is a superpower.

Katherine: It’s an absolute superpower. You’re absolutely right. And I’ll tag team. I work a lot with an art director, Keith Noble, and he and I will tag team until you’ve absolutely drill down. And if they won’t let me into the nuggets, Keith will try. And by the end of it, we’ve just got to the heart of it. So he’s got his design ideas. I’ve got my writing hook.

But also it’s that scenario thing. And these are all things, like…. the first copywriting book was Andy Maslen’s, “Write to Sell”; it’s the one book I’ll never lend to anybody. It’s full of squiggles, turned over corners, it is… That’s the thing that doesn’t leave the bookshelf. And he does that scenario asking in that. “So what happens if I come to you for this product? What happens if I don’t come to you for this product? What won’t happen if I come to you for this product? What will happen if I come to you for this product?” And by the time you’ve got to the fourth one, they’re telling you all the lines that you need for the website.

So it’s… Andy did psychology and you can so tell in the way that he writes because it’s all people. It’s all really quite simple what we do. But fascinating, because it’s all people, same thing. And everything is connected all the way through. So I’m sure you find this as well. You go from project to project to project and people start telling you the same things. You’re like, “I did on the last project. I’ve just learned about this”, because the trends emerge in business, and we just get to kind of sometimes we ride the wave, we’re a little bit ahead of it for people and other times we’re catching up.

So yeah, we do we have licence, licence to thrill.

David: Thanks again, Katherine; that’s a really helpful response to Dave’s question. I’ll put links to Haydn Grey and all the other resources you mentioned in the show notes. Robyn, what stood out for you there?

Robyn: Quite a lot, actually. I really love everything Katherine said. And I think particularly this idea of asking the basic questions, like I’m such an advocate for asking stupid questions, or as Katherine put it, applying intelligent naievety. It’s so good.

David: I’ve been searching for that phrase.

Robyn: I can’t wait to casually drop into my next meeting.

David: Yeah, absolutely. Just just as copywriters you get to be the dumbest person in the room. And I think as we said, it’s just a superpower. That licence to ask that slightly rude question that as grown-up business people were not supposed to ask, right?

Robyn: Yeah. And I think I’m actually really glad you guys spoke about that. Because sometimes I think as a writer, I worry that I come off a bit rude if I’m in meetings with people and briefings and I’m sitting there going, “Yeah, but why? Why is this important? Why should I care?” And so it’s, like, really reassuring to know that other people also sit there and ask these kinds of stupid questions.

David: I genuinely once did a talk where people I, I was speaking at an event and I smuggled I’d got my kids out of school and I smuggled my kids into the event. And I got someone on stage to explain what they do, and they were an accountant. And they’re like “Ah, we do this and that” and I literally put my like five year old daughter in front of him just to go “Why? Why?” until he said something that she could understand like why you do these things. And then I had my son who was slightly older and slightly ruder, and I got him to just kind of keep asking, “So what?”

Robyn: I love that, like getting your kids in there an early age. It’s funny, you should say that as well. Because something we often do that we transfer as like a little exercise, this type of stuff is ELI5. Have you heard of that before?

David: No, no, I haven’t.

Robyn: Erm, so it’s a little acronym, which usually I’m pretty anti-acronym, stands for “Explain it like I’m five”. So I think it comes from like a Reddit thread, where people just kind of go to get simple explanations to like, I guess, concepts or problems or questions. But I guess the clue’s in the name, the idea is that you want to explain something, the way you’d explain it to a five year old or in a way that a five year old would understand.

So like sometimes if we’re getting a brief in about a new tool, or a new feature at WeTransfer, we’ll do it as an exercise with like our product marketing managers and break down this thing, the way that we would explain it so a five year old would understand it.

Or sometimes in my head, I think as well, “Would my grandparents understand this?” Because one of the things about WeTransfer with our free product our audience is so broad, so we have to make sure everyone can kind of understand what we’re talking about. And so yeah, like breaking down functionality and explaining the way you could do a five year old’s a really good kind of thought starter, for when you’re writing copy about things.

David: But that’s the starting point for the copy, if you like, not the finishing point, because obviously, you have a lot, you know, your pro users and your bread and butter users, you know, are going to be kind of, you know, marketers, designers, you know, experts in their job and stuff as well. Right?

Robyn: Yeah. And then we do actually have a slightly different tone of voice for our pro audience, which I really like.

So we have a paid subscription service at WeTransfer, WeTransfer Pro, we also just dropped, WeTransfer Premium as well, where you get unlimited everything. And but yeah, with our kind of pro and premium audience, we know that these kind of small business owners, creatives, they work in agencies, so we’re able to be a bit more kind of tongue-in-cheek sometimes with our copy and really make specific references to the creative industry. Like, we can make jokes about like kerning and pixels.

And we understand it will alienate some people, but the type of people we’re going after will get the reference. And, you know, we can kind of empathise like, “Oh, we know working with clients can sometimes suck, but we’re here to help you!” They’re just these little nuggets that we know this audience will relate to.

David: Absolutely; so much is about kind of knowing your audience. So how do you take it from being easy to understand and being clear, and to actually take it into something that’s engaging and that people actually actively enjoy?

Robyn: Yeah, it’s quite… It’s tricky to kind of put your finger on it sometimes, especially because I started at WeTransfer as the very first copywriter, like four years ago. So I actually got to establish the whole tone of voice and kind of put that together. So it’s largely based on my own personality. You put it into a formula. “Okay, this is how we make it sound appealing” because it’s just kind of, “Okay, how does it sound in my head?” which makes you know, documenting our style guide and stuff difficult.

But I do have like a few go-to methods that aren’t just “Get inside my head and see how I’m talking about it.” I think I can’t remember where I heard at first, so apologies if I’m like misreferencing someone, but I read this idea that copywriting is rarely about writing about products, it’s more writing about problems. And Katherine does kind of touch on that when she talks about finding the human emotion in what you’re writing about finding your brand’s “why”.

Because when you’re writing, I guess a landing page copy or even email copy, something where you’re trying to convert someone, you’re not really writing about what your product is, you should be writing about the problem it’s solving for them. So how is your service or product, making their lives easier? What’s it solving for them? What frustration are you removing from their life? Like how will their lives get progressively worse if they didn’t invest in whatever you’re selling? And that’s kind of something I’d keep in mind. You shouldn’t be writing about your product, you should be framing it as “What’s the problem and how are you the solution?”

And also trying to avoid just saying “we” and “I” and talking about yourself; you should always kind of be writing in the second person. And yeah, using things like “you” and “your” and yeah speaking directly to people.

David: Absolutely. Like I used to… write a lot of work in the public sector. And, you know, there was a lot of kind of very kind of jargon-filled stuff. And, you know, at the time I was writing PR, I was having to get into the newspapers and stuff. I was like, well, fundamentally, why should people care? And usually anything that you as an organisation want to communicate, there’s a reason that you’re communicating it, right? You need to tell somebody, and they need to know, because of something. And actually, it’s the “Why, why are you…”

There are very few things that are actually intrinsically boring, you know, that that actually, it’s how they wrapped up, it’s how they’re presented. But when you get down to it, somebody needs to care about it, because it makes a difference to them. And why do they need to know?

Is that kind of what it comes down to? Who, who you’re talking to? How would they talk about it? And why should they care? If you got those things, you know, then you’re automatically making it a bit more engaging, I think.

Robyn: Yeah. And I think what you’re saying about nothing’s ever boring, it’s… all of the copywriters I know, are just inherently curious people, like they want to get to the bottom of things, you know, we end up in late night Google and Wikipedia rabbit holes, like about some random subject, and I think, kind of getting that passion to translate to whatever you’re writing about is a real skill. And, yeah, quite often, just breaking things down to their simplest format.

And, you know, I had a previous manager who, whenever I’d write copy would just be like, “Okay, but what are you trying to say? What are you trying to say? What, Why? Why should I care? Why should I? Say it in less, like say it in…” and I think he would say like, “Say it in three sentences. Now try and say three words” and really get to the core of what you want to say. I think once you can do that, yeah, you can. You can get people to care about it.

David: Before we wrap up, there’s time for some more inclusive writing advice from Ettie Bailey-King.

Ettie Bailey-King: No euphemisms. Steer clear of euphemisms, coded language, or awkward, anxious workarounds for talking about people’s identities. Just be clear, and specific and accurate. Euphemisms signal discomfort, and they reinforce stigma.

If you’re not sure whether something is considered a euphemism, then you might want to run it by some people from that affected community. Or you could very quickly check on social media and see who’s using that language. Is it being used by people from that community? And are they using it with what looks like energy, enthusiasm and pride? If not, it’s potentially the kind of euphemism that’s used by people outside the community, and just reinforces otherness.

So some examples of euphemism here might be the way that many white people will use the word “diversity” when they actually should be talking about anti racism, or anti white supremacy, or anti oppression. Or the euphemisms might be terms that you might have heard in the past, for example, “handicapped”, which used to be a phrase that was used for disabled people.

Robyn: Thanks Ettie for that tip, and listener, you can hear more inclusive writing advice from Ettie next time. Thanks, also to Katherine and Melanie, for sharing your advice in this episode, and thanks to Dave for the question. Hope you found our answers useful.

David: And thanks to you, Robyn; you’ve been an awesome co-host. Delighted to have been your first podcast experience. I hope it’s not been too traumatic.

Robyn: No, honestly, I’m thrilled. Had a great time.

David: Absolutely come back any time. And remember, listener: it could be your question we answer in a future episode. If you have a question for B2BQ&A to answer, email a voice memo to podcast@radix -communications.com, or find us on social media.

I’ll see you next time for another B2BQ&A. Until then, make good content and remember: no subject is inherently boring, though I did once write about a company who drilled very precise holes in very hard metal and that… yeah, I have to concede that one.

David and Robyn: Bye!

Three reasons why it’s better to write fresh copy than “finesse” your existing content

Posted on by Katy Eddy

As copywriters, we’re often asked to “finesse” or “wordsmith” someone else’s copy. It’s often content that’s been written by one of the business’ subject matter experts (SMEs) or, less frequently, something that another writer or agency has worked on which didn’t quite hit the mark.

Copyediting existing work is a complicated business. It’s rarely as simple as swapping out a few words or tightening up the grammar – which means, most of the time, it’s better to ask your copywriter to start from scratch.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. It’s more efficient to brief a writer than to do it yourself

Often, marketers hope it’ll be quicker or more economical to ask an SME to write up a draft of their piece before passing it onto a copywriter or editor for a quick tune-up to make sure it’s up to scratch.

But that’s rarely the most efficient way to use your time. Finding half an hour in an SME’s busy diary to brief a copywriter is far easier than carving out several hours to write a blog – or days to write an ebook.

There’s another benefit to talking to a copywriter before a single word is written: a briefing call is the perfect opportunity to sound out your ideas with someone who’s trained to ask probing questions. A writer can help your SME dig into the topic, think about it in different ways, and find the best story to tell from a marketing perspective – ideal if your SME is on the technical side of the business.

That leads me onto my next point…

2. Subject matter expertise doesn’t always translate into writing expertise

Just because SMEs know a subject inside out, doesn’t mean they’ll be able to write about it in an engaging way that appeals to your target audience. And why should they? Even if your SME regularly writes technical documentation, writing good marketing copy takes a totally separate skillset.

Writers take your SME’s knowledge and ideas and consolidate them into a compelling story, finding the right hook and the structure that neatly guides readers to the end and the call to action.

Your copywriter will also have experience in conforming to voice and tone guidelines, using the right SEO keywords, and working in templates. They’ll have a good understanding of how to write in a way that appeals to your target personas, and strategies to encourage your audience to click that “get in touch” button.

When it’s written from scratch by a copywriter, your piece will have all the features that make content valuable – from the very beginning. It’s much harder to come along and squeeze keywords into someone else’s draft, for example.

3. It might need much more work than you expect

It’s difficult not to get attached to something you’ve written, especially if you’ve spent hours on it. Which means it can be a nasty surprise when your SME opens up the document after a copywriter has done some “wordsmithing” to find something that looks like a totally different piece.

From the writer’s side, it can be hard to estimate how much editing a piece needs until you’ve had a comprehensive look at it (or even until you’ve started working on it). On rare occasions, it might just need some trimming or the odd sentence rewriting to make it the best it can be. Sometimes, you make a significant edit near the beginning which means you have to make smaller changes throughout.

Or, it might need ripping apart and totally restructuring.

At that point, you’re basically looking at a full rewrite. Some people view a copyedit as a faster or cheaper alternative to a copywriter producing something from scratch – but it doesn’t always end up being the case. If the piece needs a rewrite, you might even need to hop on the phone to discuss gaps in the content, or the new structure. And the project may go through more rounds of amends as you work together to align your SME’s original vision with your marketing goals. So that time you saved by writing the draft in-house is lost anyway.

An experienced writer and a thorough brief usually yields better results

That doesn’t mean we won’t ever copyedit something for a client. Helping an SME work through their ideas and find the best way to communicate them is actually one of my favourite types of project. But that requires a lot of trust between your SME and your writer – and it’s best achieved without a looming deadline.

So how do you know if it’s worth asking for an edit? There are situations where it makes sense. Maybe you have a flagship content piece that needs a new intro and updated stats, but the product sections are all the same. Or maybe you’re repurposing a blog series into a downloadable ebook and you need to smooth the transitions between the sections.

If you’re unsure, it’s worth talking to your copywriter about what they’d recommend. Often, a comprehensive brief is a far more straightforward way to get copy quickly, if that’s what you need. Or, if your SME has already written something, your writer can use it as source material for a fresh piece.

B2BQ&A 105: How do you evaluate B2B content quality?

Posted on by Claire Goodfellow

This month’s question comes from Caroline Robinson who, among many other roles, is the senior editor of the British Cartographic Society’s popular magazine, Maplines.

She wants to know: “What QA/QC processes do other people have for editing content?”

It’s a fantastic question. At Radix, we use a version of this 16-point copywriting quality checklist when editing each other’s work, but we were also super curious to find out what processes others use to ensure the quality of their B2B content.

So we spoke to Laurence Taphouse, Director of Digital Marketing and Content Strategy at Deltek‘s EMEA & APAC Demand Centre, to find out how she ensures consistent quality across so many writers, subjects, and territories.

We also called on the members and experts of B2B Marketing’s Propolis Hive for Brand and Content Strategy and got a detailed response from Scott Stockwell, Propolis Hive Ambassador for Strategy and Evolution. You can hear Scott’s process in full, later in the episode.

This week, our co-host is the luminous Katy Eddy, a Senior Copywriter here at Radix and editor extraordinaire. She recently gave an editing masterclass at a local university, and shares some of her approach.

And we have two excellent copywriting tips this month. Giles Edwards tells us how to keep our content succinct, and we hear the first of a series of tips on creating inclusive copy from language consultant Ettie Bailey-King.

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

Laurence’s top tips for consistent quality

First, Laurence tells us how she achieves consistently high quality across Deltek’s varied content.

A consistent editor

“You need to have a consistent editor; I think it’s crucial,” Laurence explains. “For us, it’s our product marketing team. So when we do editing, it will be me; you always add a constant.”

Include someone with industry acumen

“You need a person who’s got all the industry acumen,” she adds. “Someone who understands their role in the industry, who can make sure the messaging is resonating the way it should be.”

Check – and check again

“Once all that is done, a second pair of eyes can check this is all good,” she concludes. “And then we go back to me for proofreading, making sure there’s no grammatical mistakes or anything like that. Once that is done, we all agree that the content is good to go. And we always follow the same process.”

Scott’s advice from a tech giant

Next, Scott gives us a sneak peak into the content quality process at a bona fide tech giant. And, like Laurence, he reveals that quality control starts much, much earlier than the final edit.

“Assets go through agency production, and then face a rigorous ‘go live’ test before they’re launched,” he tells us. “The ‘go live’ alone has 12 elements that are checked before an asset is signed off, including the brand guidelines, legal requirements, and SEO optimisation, among others.

“Much of this happens within a standard set of tools and apps that all the content team share along with supporting workflows. The squad of marketers working on the campaign… will all have an input into the content being made for the campaign and how it will be deployed. So that quick quality check is a final glimpse at a far more detailed journey that each asset has taken to get there.”

Radix’s Quality Assurance Checklist

At Radix, our content quality checklist consists of 16 questions. We check for accuracy, clarity, authority, empathy, and wizardry to make sure our content is as complete – and as appropriate for its intended audience – as possible.

If you’d like to adapt it for your own purposes, or even steal it wholesale, feel free:

Steal this 16-point quality checklist when editing your B2B content. Click this image to download a printable PDF.

(Click the image to open a printable PDF)

In this episode, you’ll find…

1:10 – We welcome this week’s co-host, Katy Eddy

1:55 – Our first copywriting tip from Giles Edwards on how to keep content succinct

2:10 – We put Caroline Robinson’s question to Laurence Taphouse

15:20 – David shares Scott Stockwell’s thoughts about how to keep quality in your content

17:35 – David and Katy discuss her three-stage content editing process

25:47 – We hear copywriting tips from Ettie Bailey-King about how to keep content inclusive

 

We want to hear from you…

Have you got a question for B2BQ&A? Or a copywriting tip you’d like to share?

You could be featured on our next podcast. Send us a voice memo at [email protected]. And if there are any other thoughts you’d like to share, you can find us on Twitter @radixcom.

How to listen: 

Credits

  • Firstly, thank you to Katy Eddy for your excellent insight and co-hosting skills.
  • Thanks to Caroline Robinson for your question. It was really interesting to explore.
  • And thank you to Laurence Taphouse for the insights into Deltek’s quality process.
  • Thanks to Scott Stockwell for your brilliant contribution, too.
  • And last but absolutely not least, thanks to Giles Edwards and Ettie Bailey-King for your brilliant copywriting tips.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 105: How do you evaluate B2B content quality?

Caroline Robinson: I would like to know what QA/QC processes other people have for editing content.

Katy Eddy: That’s a great question. Let’s ask Laurence Taphouse from Deltek.

David McGuire: Hello listener, you are extremely welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search of an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is episode 105.

Katy: In a moment, we’ll ask Laurence Taphouse, Deltek’s Director of Digital Marketing and Content Strategy for EMEA and APAC, how she manages content quality, and get copywriting tips from Giles Edwards and Ettie Bailey-King. Plus, we’ll have news of a helpful new resource you can use to check your own B2B content quality. That’s a lot of stuff.

David: That is, it’s a lot, isn’t it? It’s a packed episode, I know. Before all of that, though, some introductions. My name is David McGuire. I’m Creative Director at Radix Communications, the B2B copywriting agency. And this month, our guest co-host is a familiar voice. It’s Radix Senior Copywriter, Katy Eddy. Katy, welcome back.

Katy: Thank you very much. It is good to be back.

David: It’s good to have you here. Before we go ahead and answer this month’s question, would you mind telling the listener how they can get in touch with us?

Katy: Yeah, of course. Listener, if you have any comments or suggestions you can find Radix on LinkedIn or Twitter @radixcom. Or if you want us to answer your question on a future episode, record a quick voice note and send it by email to [email protected].

David: That’s marvellous. Thank you very much.

Giles Edwards: Hello, this is Giles from …Gasp! My tip is: trim the fat. If you can take a word out and nothing is lost, you should.

Katy: Thanks, Giles, for that tip. Now it’s time to hear this month’s question. Who do we have?

Caroline: Hello, Radix Podcast. I’m Caroline Robinson, Marketing and Business Development Manager for Compusult Europe. I am also Senior Editor of Maplines, the membership magazine for the British Cartographic Society. I write and edit in different styles for my work. I would like to know what QA/QC processes other people have editing content. Love the podcast by the way.

David: Thanks, Caroline. That’s a great question. Content quality control is something we’re asked about a lot. And in a minute, Katy will explain how we approach editing here at Radix. First, I put your question to Laurence Taphouse, who’s Director of Digital Marketing and Content Strategy for EMEA and APAC at the global software company, Deltek. Laurence leads on content and digital strategy and works with stakeholders and writers around the globe. So I asked her what processes do you have to ensure that your content meets a high standard.

Laurence Taphouse: The process really starts with our marketing plan, when we decide to put in place a marketing plan to drive demand for some of our products. My role is to really do a content gap analysis. From this content gap analysis, I then decide with different stakeholders what type of content are needed. The type of content that are needed can be different formats to fit some of the digital tactics that we are using to drive demand. And based on that we do a content plan. So the content plan is very much around: “what do I want this content to achieve? Who do I want to read it? What do I want readers to think, feel, or do afterwards?” So if there’s any, you know, call to action? And then once I got all those answers lined up, is “what should this piece look like, really? When is the best time to publish it? What’s the best source of material? What’s the call to action? And then maybe where will the content be published?

Once I’ve got that it’s all started with a creative brief and a content brief and either we use, you know, writers in house or if we use third party writers, the content brief is the key for whomever is going to write the content, understand, you know, the audience to which the content will be targeted to. So normally in the brief you’ll have a synopsis, some key messages, the deadline on when we want the content to be created, the target audience, some of the source materials. Sometimes when we create these brief we also do a call with the writer to make sure that we go through all the detail and source material. So we give the opportunity to the writers to ask questions, and make sure that everyone is on the same page. So once we’ve done that, we are being really clear on the deadlines, any iteration will be done as well for that type of content. Because content is quite subjective. Some people might like it, some people might not like it, depending on the tone, and within the brief, you know, that’s where the standards come into play, to make sure that, you know, you don’t end up having 10 or 15 iterations, just based on the personal opinion, though, which is more… it needs to be around when, you know, you review the content around, “okay, this is for that, the format is that, the best practice is that, and the standard of the company is tone of voice should be that way, the way we address ourselves to the audience should be that way.” So once you’ve got all of that, then you can create this not rigid, but a little bit rigid deadline, where you say, “okay, and say three iteration would be the maximum that will be good for you”.

Then you need to have a consistent editor, I think is crucial. For us it’s our product marketing team. So when you do the editing it will be me. And then I will use some of my peers as well  so I have, you know, other pairs of eyes as well on the content because it’s always great. But you always have a constant, you know, consistent editor, person with … generally a person who’s got all the industry acumen. So they understand their industry, they understand their work so that they make sure that the messaging is resonating, the way it should be resonating.

Once that is done, the second pair of eyes is there to double-check this is all good. And then we go back to me for proofreading, making sure that there’s no, you know, grammatical mistakes or anything like that.

Once that is done, that’s when we, you know, we decide that we’re all in agreement that this is all good. And we follow, you know, always the same process, the briefing, once the briefing is done, the deadline once the deadline is done… We don’t let writers just write right away, we usually ask for an outline. So the writer being an internal writer, or third party writer, we make sure that whatever is in his mind of how he’s going to structure the content. So it could be a blog, or could be a white paper, what is it he’s going to write in each of the different parts – we agreed on this outline. So we know that when he start writing, it should be pretty much what we asked him or her to do, you know, he’s not far off, he’s not going on a tangent, where we’re like, “oh, actually, we didn’t want you to really focus on that part”.

And then once we do all this editing that I was telling you about, and this proofreading and this peer review, where we have multiple pair of eyes, that’s when we go into market. And what we also like to do is to take time and reflect once things are in motion in markets. So how this is engaging? Is it engaging the right way? Could we tweak some of the promotional copy that we are creating?

So it’s not just once it’s launched is gone. There is a constant optimisation of the content. We have standards as well, when it comes to publishing online. It is important that we think about search engine optimisation. So it should not be, you know, the main focus when you write, you don’t want to just use keywords, you know, in the wrong way. It is important when you promote, for example, a blog, you know, to think about your title, to be engaging in your subtitle, you need to detail the backend, your backlinks, you know, if you are talking and referring to other research or content on the web to link that through your blog. So there’s a big best practice that we follow for different type of format content.

David: That sounds really comprehensive. That’s great. Thank you. Obviously, kind of, you work across lots of different geographies, lots of different kinds of locations and kinds of writers and that kind of thing. How easy is it to apply a consistent set of standards across different formats, subjects, locations?

Laurence: Yeah, that’s a really good question. So we normally got standards from our digital team, our corporate team, so you will have standard that you follow. So that process that I just explained to you is a process that everyone will do across the globe. However, there’s something there is very important when you talk to different markets when different languages. This is something that in our email and admin centre is crucial is one. When you write content in English, and you know that this content is going to be translated, you need to make sure that you don’t play with words. Often we like to play with word and we feel like they’re more engaging, if we make a touch of humour or make the title a bit punchier in English. That’s great, but it’s not always translates really well when you wanted to, you know, target another market. Also, you know, the content that we are creating is very thought leadership, is not so much product heavy. So it is quite easily transferable, I would say for other markets, but you always need to have a think of who is the target audience, if the target audience is the same, but the market is less mature, you need to make sure they you know, you got that point across. So, it depends on the type of content, I think content that is very high level, for a specific persona, should be able to work and follow the right standard and the right process that I just explained across the globe, really. If there is something that is more specific, you know, I’m thinking sometimes when we do a piece of content around survey research, or based on dates and key points, it needs to be, you know, obviously updated and to resonate with the other markets. But obviously, the standard of the best practice to make sure that the content looks good, should be able to easily be applied across the globe. Because the importance of knowing what’s good look like, is crucial. Because if not, you will never really make the decision to go into market. Because some people might have another opinion of what good looks like. And you’ve got a different line of businesses, which are hot, because you’ve got the content and marketers who think marketing content, and what marketing good content look like. And you’ve got maybe someone who is more an expert in the product, or maybe an expert in, you know, an engineer in the product, where he feels that they need to talk about something more technical, is actually what good content will be.

David: So when you’re trying to apply those standards, and agree what good looks like, between the marketing team and stakeholders in product or sales or, or wherever, how does that work? How do you reach agreement on what the standards are and what good is?

Laurence: So we do something called RACI. So when we do every piece of content that we do, and that we create, if we need to involve multiple stakeholders, they need to understand their role within the creation of that content. So RACI will be you know, the, are you responsible, are you accountable? Are you going to be just a consultant? Or is it just informative that we’re going to provide you this content? Based on the RACI, we’ll set the standard and the process on the brief. So that’s always on the brief. So the first step, and when we agree on that brief, then people understand what good looks like and what we are aiming for and what the objective is. If you miss that brief, and the brief is not clear, that’s when it gets really hard for everyone to be on the same page on what good look like for specific content or specific campaign.

David: Laurence, that’s brilliant, that’s absolutely everything that we needed from my point of view. Is there anything when you were kind of thinking about the questions and what you prepared, is there anything that I haven’t asked you about, that you feel is important in this?

Laurence: I think often people think that content is, you know, you need to be very creative, you need to be someone who likes to read. And it’s true, when you are content, you need to really like the wording and all of that. But I think when you write marketing content, you need to have also this view of not only writing what you like to write about, but always thinking about the customer, and what they’re going to want to write. So following the process, it looks like really heavy, but once you do it for longer and longer and longer. Yes, it seems completely obvious is like, you know, it’s like if you were going into market without having a marketing plan in place or without having a budget in place. If you don’t have this process in place, then, you know, everything would fall apart. So I would just suggest to everyone who wants to do content, to also have a good eye on you know, digital tactics and format. Content is the oil of the machine of demand. So you need to think about where this content going to go before you start writing. I think it’s crucial.

David: Thanks, Laurence for giving us such a detailed answer to Caroline’s question. We really appreciate your time. Katy, before we hear your approach to editing, I’d like to share a bit of further information on this. I asked the members and experts of B2B Marketing’s Propolis Hive for Brand and Content Strategy, how they approach content QC. And I got quite a detailed response from Scott Stockwell. And I thought it showed some real similarities with Laurence’s answer. Scott says the following:

This feels like one of those, it’s taken me five years to do this in five minutes. If you’re just considering content, that’s something that’s coming off a content production line, then quality assurance could be seen as the quality controller equivalent. A quick look from a trained eye at the finished products, able to spot what passes muster, and what needs to be rejected. As editor-in-chief for EMEA, that’s part of my role: to examine finished assets. But like the tip of the iceberg that doesn’t show all the work that went into designing and fabricating that product, and sourcing the ingredients before any components even set out on their path to becoming a product. Where I work, we have a three by three model, three briefs, three sessions, three outcomes. We have an input brief that researches the market, the customers, the personas within the customers, the local conditions, et cetera. That moves into a content strategy that looks at the high-level customer journey and the touches along the way. The concept brief comes next, and looks at the creative landscape and options for testing at the campaign level. A SWOT analysis examines the creative testing results and implications. And a greenlight meeting looks at what it will take for all the assets in the journey to deliver on the vision for the campaign. A content plan takes the defined campaign deliverables, and looks at all the components needed to create them, which are detailed in an asset brief for each asset. The assets go through agency production, and then face a rigorous ‘go live’ test before they’re launched. The ‘go live’ alone has 12 elements that are checked before an asset is signed off, including the brand guidelines, legal requirements, and SEO optimization among others. Much of this happens within a standard set of tools and apps that all of the content team share along with supporting workflows. The squad of marketers working on the campaign, across discipline and involved throughout and will all have a good view of and input into the content being made for the campaign and how it will be deployed. So that quick quality check is a final glimpse of a far more detailed journey that each asset has taken to get there.

So Katy, now you have insight into content quality control at two tech giants. And to me, it’s striking just how much work goes into getting things right before that final review. Did anything else stand out for you?

Katy: I think firstly, it makes me glad that we’re just the copywriters. The amount of work that goes in, you know, to prep a brief before it reaches us, and everything that happens to it after we’re done with it. That sounds exhausting. It’s really interesting to have that, that little bit of insight into where our little bit of writing and editing that we do slots into a much bigger thing. And it’s yeah, it is a big responsibility to take on, like a little bit of editing journey.

David: Yeah, ‘cause I mean, our review process, I mean, we have a checklist. But that really is, it’s more at the end of that final check – right? – of all the kind of elements that are already in the brief to make sure that everything lines up.

Katy: Yeah, everything we do is as much in line with the brief as we can possibly get it. And the other thing that I thought was really interesting that Laurence picked up on was talking about how you adjust things for different locations and different markets. I’ve been doing a lot of that recently. And it’s a difficult challenge because unless you’re going and you’re talking to every individual person in that market, you don’t necessarily get a full picture of how they like to talk about things and things that you shouldn’t mention for their markets and things like that.

So recently, I did a big project for five regions. And we set up a massive spreadsheet that had all our main talking points in it for UK. And we handed it to the teams in each of the regions and we’re like, what do you need to change? What don’t you want from us because it can be really tiny accuracy, things like stuff that’s hosted in Microsoft Azure here might be in a different cloud provider in Sweden, something like that. But then there’s loads of really tiny things. Kinda like we don’t like… humour. Like, don’t give us puns, don’t come near us with a pun, which you know, you’re pretty safe with me. I’m not a great fan of puns. But yeah, just those little things that I’m so used to editing for stuff for the UK and for the US. And that’s really where my expertise is. So bringing in other people’s knowledge for that is really useful.

David: Yeah. Now, you were talking about that editing process at a local university, recently. You were talking to the students about – you have a particular kind of structure and an approach that you follow when you’re editing someone else’s content. Can you give us a quick summary?

Katy: Yeah, it was a 45-minute talk. So I’ll try and condense it as much as possible

David: We haven’t got quite that long.

Katy: Yeah, the way I approach it, and I’m not sure if this is best practice at Radix but it’s the way I’ve found that most effective. For me, I take three passes at something. And it’s very much based on our quality checklist that you mentioned earlier. So the first pass I do is as a reader, and I don’t think about anything from a writing or editing standpoint. It’s just the really basic, does this make sense? Am I interested the whole way through? Do I want to do whatever I’m being told to do at the end of the piece? And at this point, I don’t do anything to the copy, I won’t start picking things apart. Because there’s no point editing something in paragraph two, if you get to paragraph five, and there’s a massive structural issue, that’s going to negate all of that anyway. So that’s one I’ll just drop the occasional comment on if there’s something I need to come back to.

And my second pass, I tend to look at it as a kind of content editing pass, which is where I start looking at the structure. Is the argument logical? Does it follow through? Does it go off on a weird tangent halfway through? Are there logical leaps where, you know, we haven’t quite explained our thinking. That’s where you start, maybe having to pull bits apart and restructure and move paragraphs around, that kind of thing.

And then, once you’ve done all of that, you come back around for the last pass, which is where you look for the typos, the grammar, the really like nuts and bolts things of copywriting craft, that when you’re writing a massive piece can kind of get away from you a little bit sometimes. And, you know, if you’ve done major edits at the structural point, you might have introduced typos, which aren’t the original writer’s fault at all. So that’ll be my last major pass. And I always give it a quick proof before I send it back to whoever is working on it, that kind of thing. And it’s not always me doing these changes. Sometimes if they’re very small, specific changes to make, I’ll do them myself. But if I’m reviewing somebody else’s work, and there are multiple avenues to go down for how you change something, I’ll bounce it back to them with comments and suggestions that hopefully give them some guide and some rationale, because the really important thing for me is that you always have to have a solid rationale for why you’ve changed something. You never want to give it back to somebody and they look at it, and they have no idea what you’ve done to it and why. Yeah, so for me being very clear and very descriptive of why you’ve made changes, or what changes you want them to make is really important, too.

David: Yeah, I mean, one of the big traps I guess you can fall into as an editor is “I wouldn’t have written it that way”. Rather than does it meet these criteria, yes or no. I think it’s interesting that when we look at our checklist, we, you know… If you like work our way up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for copywriting, but you know, we start with the detail and work out to the picture, but you start with the big picture, and work backwards. So the total impression back from that to the structure, and then back from that to like, the detailed kind of words and commas and yeah, that kind of thing.

Katy: There’s no point editing the tiny bits if it doesn’t do what it’s meant to do. So if it’s, I mean, I’ve never seen this happen. But if you just look at it, and it’s completely wrong, and it has to go back and be rewritten from scratch, there’s no point spending, you know, 30 minutes fiddling around with semicolons. But yeah, it’s interesting you said that about not making changes just because you would have written it differently. It’s another point I had in my presentation I called editing without ego. Which is –

David: – it’s hard for writers.

Katy: It is hard and especially when you’re a content lead or a senior and you know something really well. You can get really protective over a topic or a client. But that doesn’t mean you’re always right or you always have the best answer or the only answer, so you’ve got to know when to loosen the reins a little bit on those things.

David: Sure. Listener, Katy mentioned the checklist that we use here at Radix to quality check the content we write for clients. I think we refer to it a few times, actually. And I’m delighted to let you know that we’ve actually just published a new updated version of that checklist that you can steal, and adapt and borrow for your own purposes and use it for your own content reviews. If you’d like a copy, just head over to radix-communications.com, and download it. And we’ll also put a link in the show notes.

Ettie Bailey-King: I’m Ettie Bailey-King. I’m an inclusive language consultant. And here are my tips on creating inclusive copy. Number one, ask people. Always ask people how they want to be referred to. For example, don’t think that you can guess somebody’s pronouns based on their appearance. There’s no way of knowing someone’s gender identity just from looking at them. So always check. Secondly, be aware that somebody might be out in the sense of out as having a particular sexual orientation or gender identity in one space, but not in another space. So always check, otherwise, you risk outing someone who might be let’s say out on a social media platform where you happen to follow them, but not out with their work colleagues.

Katy: Thanks, Ettie Bailey-King for that. We actually have a whole bunch of inclusive writing advice from Ettie, and we’ll be including that across our next few episodes. We’d also like to thank Giles Edwards for the tip we heard earlier, Caroline Robinson for this episode’s question. And both Laurence and Scott for answering it so thoughtfully.

David: Caroline, I hope you found the answer that you are looking for. And remember, we’ve published our revised content quality checklist so be sure to grab that, too. And thanks to you, Katy, you’ve been a wonderful co-host as ever.

Katy: Well, thank you for having me back, David. I think this was the one where I felt the most useful. So hopefully, I’ve given people some useful things to think about.

David: Absolutely. Listener remember, it could be your question we answer in a future episode. If you have a question for B2BQ&A to answer, email, a voice memo to [email protected]. Or find us on social media. Thank you, Katy. And thank you, listener. I’ll see you next time for another B2BQ&A. Until then, make good content. And remember, Hemingway may have said write drunk, edit sober, but he didn’t have HR to deal with.

David and Katy: Goodbye!

B2BQ&A 104: How can you keep your B2B content fresh?

Posted on by The Radix Team

Nobody likes B2B content that’s repetitive. It’s boring to write and – more importantly – it’s unlikely to be successful if your audience feels like they’ve heard it all before. But if you often have to write about the same products, services and ideas, keeping your content fresh and compelling is easier said than done.

It’s a problem B2B marketers and content creators face all the time. So we were delighted when Chelsea Groome of Fierce Content gave B2BQ&A the perfect excuse to go in search of an answer, by asking:

“If you’ve been working with a client for a long time and their product hasn’t changed much, how do you keep their content fresh?”

Not to brag, but we think we found the *perfect* expert to respond to this.

When you think of an (essentially) one-product B2B brand that still always has a mountain of relevant and valuable things to say, Xero has to be right up there. And Content Strategy Lead Richard Allardice (or “Dice” to his friends) agreed to dive into what marketers and writers need to keep in mind… with bonus insights from his colleagues Amy Stephens and Sarah Webb.

Joining us as guest co-host this month (and sharing some great insights of her own) is Kate Terry, Head of Demand at Turtl. Kate gives her perspective on personalising content down to granular levels and in using analytics and insights to constantly update and improve content.

We also have the joy of hearing from Claire Goodfellow, a copywriter at Radix, for the copywriting tip of the month. Stay tuned to learn the secret to clear, concise sentences.

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

So, just how do you keep B2B content fresh?

Between Dice, his colleagues, and Kate, there’s plenty of advice in this episode. Here’s a handful of suggestions…

1. Consider the wider landscape

Your product might not change much, but the challenges your target audience face probably do. So think about the wider context: where, how, and why your product is used.

“Your product isn’t the only thing that changes,” says Dice. “The people who use your product will change; what they understand will change; things in the world will change.”

Remember, the information your customers need extends beyond your specific product. So if you’re struggling to keep your content fresh, consider angles that might be indirectly related to your main focus. Use your organisation’s broader sector expertise, and you’ll likely build up a relationship of trust between your audience and your brand.

2. Lose the “publish and done” mindset

With all the work that goes into creating a content piece, it’s easy to get into the habit of publishing, promoting, then moving on to the next one. But often, digital content can be updated after the fact – so even after you’ve published it’s always a live project.

Kate sees Turtl users doing exactly this. She remarks: “We see people doing things like changing the order of the content, changing the title, trying out different tests to see how the changes make an impact on readership.”

Dice goes further, and says every content team of a certain size needs to have someone who is specifically tasked with revisiting each piece, and ensuring it’s always up to date.

3. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

Having said all this, it’s worth remembering you’ll likely get bored of your content before your audience does. Not everything needs to be improved, and not always in the way you might think. So look at the data, and understand what’s working.

“Sometimes the answer is ‘no’,” comments Dice. “Sometimes a feature has not changed, we’ve written it up really well and it works… But things change around that; the context changes. Your company’s style might change, and you might want to weave that back in because otherwise that piece of content is going to start to sound a bit stilted in comparison.”

In this episode, you’ll find…

1:00 – We welcome our co-host Kate Terry, Head of Demand at Turtl

4:00 – We put Chelsea Groome’s question to Dice

22:55 – Kate and David share their highlights and thoughts

28:10 – Our copywriting tip of the month: write succinctly

Have you got a question for B2BQ&A?

We’re here to help! Send us a voice memo at [email protected]. And if there are any other thoughts you’d like to share, you can find us on LinkedIn, or tweet at us: @radixcom.

How to listen

Credits

  • Firstly, thank you to Kate Terry, for all the insight you shared as co-host.
  • Thanks to Chelsea Groome, for your brilliant question.
  • A massive thank you to Dice, Sarah Webb and Amy Stephens for giving us the benefit of your experience.
  • And Claire Goodfellow, thank you for that essential copywriting tip of the month.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 104: How can you keep B2B content fresh?

Chelsea Groome: If you’ve been working with a client for a long time and their product or position hasn’t changed much, how do you keep their content fresh?

Kate Terry: That’s a great question. Let’s ask Dice from Xero.

David McGuire: Hello listener, you are very welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search of an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is episode 104.

Kate: In a moment, we’ll ask Xero’s Content Strategy Lead Richard Allardice, or Dice to his friends how you keep content fresh when you only have one product. And later we’ll get a copywriting tip of the month from junior copywriter, Claire Goodfellow.

David: Before that some introductions, my name is David McGuire. I’m Creative Director at Radix Communications, the B2B writing agency. And this month, our guest co-host is Turtl’s Head of Demand, Kate Terry. Kate, thanks for joining us.

Kate: Hey, David, thanks for having me today. It’s really great to be here.

David: Oh, it’s fantastic to have you here as guest co-host. Lots of change going on a Turtl and kind of new products and surfaces and things, I understand, lots for you to do.

Kate: Yeah, a lot to do. That’s for sure. We’re in kind of high growth mode right now. So we’re really excited about some of the new product developments that have come out and new ways that we can help people make amazing and engaging B2B content. So yeah, lots coming out of Turtl these days, but all good stuff.

David: Yeah, we talk about Turtl a lot on this show. Listener, there’s no kind of affiliate relationship going on, I promise you. But there’s lots of new things there where there’s kind of more like a personalization, kind of ABM type vibe to it now.

Kate: Yeah, that’s right. So what you can do with Turtl is actually personalise your content at scale down to the individual or account level and you can use all of your data and insight and intent data you have, connect that up and turn that into a really automated process. So it’s a huge leap forward if you’re interested in personalising content down to your end user and then getting data back from them on how they’re engaging and kind of getting really granular account insight.

David: Yeah, I mean, anything that contributes to the death of the PDF is okay in my book. Kate, in your first official duty as guest co-host, would you mind telling the listener how they can get in touch with us?

Kate: I’d be delighted. So listener, if you have any comments or suggestions, you can find Radix on LinkedIn or Twitter @radixcom. Or if you want us to answer your question on a future episode, record a quick voice note and send it by email: [email protected]

David: That’s brilliantly done. Thank you very much.

Kate: Right, it’s time to hear this month’s question. So who do we have?

Chelsea: Hello, this is Chelsea Groome from Fierce Content. And my question is, if you’ve been working with a client for a long time, and their product or position hasn’t changed much, how do you keep their content fresh?

David: Thanks, Chelsea. That’s an important question and something copywriters and marketers have to think about a lot. Though, if it’s okay with you we’ll broaden the terms from talking about just clients, so we can help our in-house listeners too. I’m chuffed to say I got my absolute first pick to answer this question. Because when I think of a brand that’s created a mountain of really fresh content around essentially one product, I think of Xero.

So I was knocked out when their Content Strategy Lead, Dice agreed to tell us how they do it. This is a little longer than one of our usual interviews, but he had so much good stuff to say I think you’re going to want to hear it. I started by asking Dice Chelsea’s question: just how do you keep content fresh?

Dice: Yeah, so I spent a bit of time thinking about this, it in some ways does depend on the size of the company, or the size of the client you’re working with. Because one thing that you know, I’ve experience lately working in a bigger place is that to keep something fresh, it needs to be someone’s job. So someone needs to be tasked with looking after that page or that product or keeping across what’s changing needs to be someone’s responsibility.

And that sounds like a really, you know, obvious thing, but a lot of the time, you know, companies I’ve worked with in the past sometimes people don’t do that. They put something out there excited. It goes out into the world, but it’s not someone’s job to look back and say, “How’s that thing going and does it need changing, and does it need improving?” So I think it’s really important to make it someone’s job to own it, be responsible for it and have the clout to be able to change it.

And another really good point that Amy Stephens who’s a Content Strategist on my team made as well, when we were talking about this, is that part of that job needs to be helping your organisation or your company be comfortable with making changes over time.

So sometimes, if you are working with a client or a company, and there’s a lot of approvals, a lot of review needed, that process is really unwieldy, there’s a bit of a reluctance to change it. Now that we’ve said it live, we don’t want to go back over that again. So part of the job of owning it is to prepare your company or client for the fact that things need to change and be flexible and, and adapt to what’s happening out in the world or happening with your product.

And I guess the other part of that is that it’s not just enough to be someone’s job, that someone needs to be watching regularly, you need to be monitoring. And so what are you actually monitoring, before you put it out there, you need to think about what is effectiveness or success going to mean for this particular thing, and what kind of metrics might be looking at, and you actually need to go and look at them, you know, sometimes I think people, you know, rest on their laurels a little bit, put something out there, it’s beautiful in the moment. But don’t watch to see what happens.

The founder of AppSumo, a guy who I follow called Noah Kagan, he talks a lot about this idea of what you track will grow. So it’s not his own idea. It’s one that he adopted from someone else. But the idea is that if you’re looking at it, and you are paying attention to it, and you’re interested in the numbers, then they will grow because you will, you know, take action or do things, even if they’re minor to, to move those things onward. So what you track will grow, and I’d add to that what you track will improve. So if you are looking at it and monitoring it, then it’s going to get better, as long as you are doing your due diligence.

And I think that if it’s a product, that might mean checking in with the team, and forming a relationship with the team, who build the product, so that you can keep each other abreast of, for example, what’s changing with your target audience. So your product isn’t the only thing that changes, the people who are using your product will change, what they understand will change, things in the world will change.

A really good example of that for us, as a UK example, is Making Tax Digital. So that wasn’t a thing X number of years ago, but then it became a big UK government initiative. And it’s highly related to our product. And so we need to be talking about that, and being really up to date with what has been said about Making Tax Digital, because that’s what our target audience need to know in the hearing. And then they need more information about it.

So you need to be looking at it connected to that product team. So you know what changes are coming ahead of time, you don’t want to be behind there. And you need to be connected to your audience, you need to be talking to them and finding out what they are hearing or not understanding, not just to do with your product, but to do with the landscape. You know, what else? What else is entering that information landscape that they might need to know? Or you might need to adapt according to.

David: Yeah, absolutely. So it’s the product, but it’s also the context in how it gets used and who’s using it and what they’re using it for. And those kinds of things on the kind of copy level, if something is not changing that much like, you know, say there’s a feature in Xero, that’s a popular feature, it’s always been there, and it’ll always will. Is that something where you would change, just kind of on the writing, on a copy level, you’d change up how you write about it regularly? Or is it something where you’re kind of refining it, you’re testing and learning? And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and you can kind of you know, afford to talk about the same thing that the same way.

Dice: I think that there’s something really important in the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” thing that you just said. There’s a temptation, I think, when it’s your job to write or refine – or if you’re trying to get work with a client, you know, because you are inherently motivated to get more jobs and do more work – to make change, yeah, to change things and tweak things and carry on.

And I think that impulse is a good one. Because most of the time things can be improved. You know, perfection is hard to achieve. What does perfection even mean? You can improve things but I think that there’s also something that people need to think about is that it doesn’t need to change. Sometimes the answer is no, sometimes it’s a feature that has long acted in the same way, has not changed. We’ve written it up really well and it works.

But you know, like I said, things change around, that the context changes. So your company’s style might change, you might change some things in your style guide, words that you might use or phrases you might use or a proposition or some nicety of language that you might start to use. And you might want to weave that back in. Because otherwise, if you don’t, that piece of content, even if the product stays the same, it’s going to start to sound a bit stilted in comparison to the other stuff.

So what can happen is on a bigger website, the top line pages, the landing pages, the home page, get the latest and greatest sort of brand propositions and feel really fun, if that’s the tone of voice for your company will feel really fresh, out of the deep pages of the product that we built 10 years ago, we generally not specifically Xero, you know, doesn’t have that same tone or the same messaging. And so while the facts or the accuracy might stay the same, the way you talk about it, your tone of voice, and your flow, and your style might need to change as well.

The other thing that happens in a large company is that writers change. So you know, the team of writers or the writer that worked on something a year ago might have changed. And so that’s where, again, this depends on the size of the company, the role of an editor really comes in when you’re looking at your publication, and you’re looking for that evenness.

So I’m the editor, I’m looking at this publication. I often try to think of a website as a publication and you know, having and editor who’s always looking at their publication, and to try and keep it as fresh and interesting. And what have we published before can we bring to the front? What are we trying to push out there that’s new? But you also don’t want to have unevenness, where part of your website is losing connection with what people need, and a part of it is really well connected.

So that might be slightly long-winded answer to your question. But essentially, like I think, yes, you would be careful, you want to just change stuff for the sake of it. And, but you also want to make sure that when new writers come in, and new ideas come in that you actually allow those to come to the surface.

So if a new writer comes in and provides a new perspective on a page, maybe incidentally, “Hey, I’ve just been looking at this page, you’re my colleague, I see that you wrote this a year ago, I think it’s awesome. But I think that, you know, we’re kind of moving to the style of shorter sentences, more clipped. And some of these longer sentences, you know, like, there’s a bit of research out there now that says that people find that kind of hard to read in a digital context. So like, how about we update that based on this new style guide entry we have now which says, we’re trying to aim for sentences of 20 or fewer words.”

Kind of an abstract example. But all of those things together, yes, you should be looking at them and monitoring them. But the level of change should be based on, you know, a few things, including whether it’ll have any impact and whether it’s actually needed.

David:  One of the things that really strikes me about Xero is that in terms of the content that you cover, the field of subject seems to be really pretty broad, but the audience seems to be really clearly defined. So it feels like almost anything that you might want to know about running a small business successfully, you can find on the Xero website. There’s a lot of small business information on there, obviously, there’s, you know, a lot of partner stuff as well.

Is that kind of a conscious thing to kind of own that space, because a lot of your customers are kind of, you know, owner/managers of businesses, so to kind of be a one stop shop like that?

Dice: Yeah, Xero’s business and accounting software, and it does a lot of stuff. You can add any number of, you know, 1000 things to it, you can integrate, almost, you know, so many things with it. And I think that I guess one of the challenges probably in the early days is when people hear accounting, with it comes with some perceptions for a small business person, genuinely of perhaps fear or concern or you know, or a lack of understanding.

So I think what’s really important if you are trying to help people use or promote or get people to use your product, if it’s an area that people may be a little bit anxious about or unsure about, you need to build up trust and authority you need to help people understand or see or get the feeling that you know what you’re talking about.

And so you’re right on the website, there’s a lot of information about our particular features because it’s a very featured product. There are a lot of things that it does. But the other thing we need to do is to help – we’re going back to that idea of the context of that landscape. The landscape in which we exist as a small business, trying to keep across the records and the finances, and you know, it’s a busy time, there’s a lot going on when you’re running a small business, or if they’re an accountant trying to make sure that they are keeping a record so when it comes to them to do their returns, it’s not, you know, problematic.

And so the landscape is already a complicated one, you’re running a business, it’s a lot going on. And so what we need to be able to do, and the content we provide is to assure people, “Hey, we’ve got some products that can help you out, use this product for X thing, we’ve got that covered. Hey, if you are a small business, and you’re trying to run your business, here’s how we can help you do that, here’s how you can choose a business name or here’s how you start a business in this particular country”. And, you know, with the side benefit that if you use Xero that will actually be easier as well. So it is a conscious thing.

So Xero, like many other companies, you know, take one of these strategies on board, which is to both inform people on their product, promote it, and help people within the wider landscape in which they work.

So really, like that depth of content is about generating trust, it’s also about generating awareness. So I might know about the company Xero, and I might go look for it. But I might not know about Xero, I might just have a problem. So my problem is, when I go to my accountant, at the end of the financial year, with a plastic bag full of receipts, they get a little bit irate with me, and suggested that I do something more digitally and modern focused. And so the problem is, you know, how do I do accounting? Or like, how do I keep my record straight, and so they know their problem, they don’t know that we that we have a solution for it.

So if they are looking for that problem, and then we would like to help them with that problem, we would also like them to know that we are a good solution to their problems. So you know that is why, you know, on a website like Xero’s, and this is not a strategy specific to us. You see that different content because we’re trying to solve the “do you know about a product? What does that product do?” problem or question, answer their question, but also answer the like, the use case question of like, “I have this life or business challenge, can you help me out with that?”

David: And there are so many challenges involved in running… I guess that also – going back to the original question – gives you loads of space to find ideas and find new and interesting and fresh perspectives and things to say.

Dice: Yes, yes. Like I think there are lots of different ways to help people feel assured, or calmer or feel like their financial records are taken care of. But also, it’s also worth saying that there are like really classic common things as well, that don’t really change that much.

For example, in these, when it comes to surprise, anybody starting a small business from a single person operation through to 10,20,30, 40 people, like they’re really really busy, you know, there’s just a lot going on, and they don’t have a lot of time, and that I don’t have a lot of time, it’s not something specific to us or our product, it’s just a, like a business challenge. And a difficult thing, because there’s just so much going on.

And in the beginning, you’re really just winging it, you know, especially if you’re just one person. And so while yes, we can put a different spin on or a fresh angle on being across things and being up to date and being ready for tax time. And we do that regularly. Some problems, or some challenges are kind of evergreen, which is that if you’re a business person, you are time poor. And so that’s kind of like a thematic thread that might go through a lot of content for any company publishing for small businesses, including ours.

And so like you kind of have this sort of like deep themes, and then on top of that, you might have a fresh angle. The latest campaign the New Zealand based one is taking tax out of the sort of too-hard basket, their angle is that, you know, people that get feel like taxes and returns are complicated and too hard. And you know, what we are saying is that doesn’t need to be you know, and so that’s, you know, it’s a fresh angle, but on a classic take, which is: tax is complicated. You are busy. We can help you.

David: Yeah. So you’ve been talking with your team. What other practical tips have you got for the listener about how they could keep their content fresh?

Dice: Sure. Okay, so, a couple of great points from Sarah Webb and Amy Stephens on my team. Amy talked a little bit about not just understanding your target audience but understanding the industry,  you know, the wider industry and what’s happening in that area. So what is changing in terms of the words that are used, what is changing in terms of the language or the themes that are emerging in terms of the technology, and what’s available to people.

So obviously, you need to be aware of that as a business where your business sits in there anyway. But as a person dealing with words, you need to also be listening for what language is changing. So you can appear up to date and modern and fresh, as you say.

Another good point that Sarah and my team made was you have to think about being proactive and reactive. So proactive measures of keeping fresh, going out and finding out industry trends, talking to users, monitoring different sources of data. So this is an interesting one that we could do a whole podcast on, which is, how do I listen or understand what people are saying.

So it’s things like looking in search logs, or looking at surveys or looking at other data that people have created, gathered other research that people have done, to understand what people are thinking, what their mental models are, what they don’t understand. So that’s proactively understanding your audience.

And then there’s some reactive stuff, which is when people write to you or say something to you, or you hear customer feedback. And sometimes that customer feedback depending on the size of the company won’t necessarily come directly to you. So you might need to, you know, ask around, is there a source of customer feedback? Do we do surveys, do we have any NPS data, any NPS feedback that we might make use of that’s really…? You want to get that pipeline of information coming towards you, or go and find it.

And also, in terms of being reactive, or proactive, you need to keep across, if you’re not writing everything on your website, which often is not the case. Or if it’s small, maybe you are, you need to be looking across what’s going on everywhere else and making connections.

So if someone else is running the blog, and you’re working on the feature information, you need to make sure that you are sharing notes, and putting things out accordingly so that you are not publishing disparate information, and that actually, they complement each other, you know, so things appear smooth, so that it makes sense when someone lands one in one place versus another and that as a person goes between them it feels coherent, and created deliberately.

David: That’s awesome. Dice, if people want to get more wisdom from you on content, and copy and more stuff like this, where’s the best place for them to hear from you?

Dice: If you have a question, and you want to reach out to me, feel free to follow me on LinkedIn and drop me a message. Always happy to chat.

David: Thanks, Dice for giving us such a full and well-thought-out answer. And thanks to your colleagues to Sarah and Amy, hello to you. Plus, thanks, Chelsea, of course for asking the question in the first place. Kate, there’s a lot in there. Could you pick out something that stood out for you?

Kate: Yeah, definitely. I really liked everything that Dice was saying. And one thing that I think is particularly interesting is this idea that your product isn’t the only thing that changes, I think it’s weirdly easy to forget that if you’re a team who actually is quite focused on what you’re doing, and what you’re bringing to market, and that’s a great place to be in, especially for myself, in demand working with sales, they’re really interested in what exactly we want to say about our product.

But I think you know, from a marketing and content perspective, it’s really important to remember the context that your audience is in, that the individuals you’re speaking to are in. And I really liked that focus that he had on kind of, you know, understanding the context and keeping up with the changes that are happening in the space that everyone’s operating in.

David: Sure. I mean, so much of it is about defining the space where you’re going to write content and understanding what your clients and your customers and prospects want to know about that you know about, as well, you know. For them, it’s, you know, it’s how to run a small business a lot of the time or, you know, and other elements of that.

And then I get, you know, for Turtl, you know, there’s a lot in there about just kind of the psychology of content, and that stuff that people will find interesting. I think one of the things also that I found interesting about Chelsea’s question is where she was saying, “how do I keep it fresh, I keep writing about the same thing all the time”.

And obviously, if you’re writing about the same thing all day, every day, but somebody is reading, once in a while, maybe the stuff doesn’t get as stale as quickly as you think. And maybe you don’t need to change it as quickly as you think. And that was one of the things that I thought was interesting. We’re always more focused on our stuff being the same all the time than perhaps the audience is.

Kate: I think that’s so true. And it’s again, such as easy mistake to make where because it’s not fresh to you, you assume that it’s not fresh to your reader, when actually, it might be working just as well as it did on day one. So I liked what he said about understanding what you do need to change and you know, reinvent and make sure it’s keeping up to date.

But actually, there’s some things that you might not necessarily need to change. So that kind of links up as well to understanding the data and making sure that you are actually tracking what is still working, what is still engaging people versus what might have dropped off and is no longer really resonating with your audience.

David: For a lot of people, of course, it’s all about the content production. And then you know, when you publish the piece that feels like the end of it, and you know, what Dice was saying about having someone whose job it is to go back and check.

One of the things that can be really interesting that you might have a perspective on is, obviously Turtl is a format that you can keep changing stuff live, after you’ve published it. And I’m kind of interested, do people actually go back and do that? Or do they have this attitude that once it’s done, it’s done and they’re on to the next thing?

Kate: Yes, people definitely go back and change and update and tweak their content. It’s something that we really encourage our customers to do. And it’s something where they’ve never really had access to the data to be able to do that in a meaningful way. So it’s pretty exciting, because it gives you a new way of working where instead of, you know, we like to think about the kind of old school publication mindset versus this more evergreen mindset.

And it actually changes the way you think about content all the way from when you’re creating it down to when you publish it, because if you publish it with the idea that you can go back and update it in mind, you’re going to have more, you know, it just informs how you actually write it, the kind of way that you write it, maybe in a way that you can either go back and regularly update it to keep it fresh, or just recognising it as like a pillar piece of content that you can create other things off the back of.

So what we see is people doing things like changing the order of the content, changing the title, trying out different tests, where they’ll run and see how different changes make an impact on readership and on the different pieces of the content that people engage with.

And even things like images, you know, you can really get as granular as you want to with testing things out. But one of the things we really like to talk about is this evergreen strategy, and how can you actually repurpose the content you already have and make the most of it?

David: Yeah, I think that’s probably a whole different podcast there. But that change in mindset from publication and done, to “this is a thing that’s live and your contents a thing that you have to keep working on”. I think some people… “I’ve not got time to write the stuff that I’ve got to write now, let alone keep it up to date!” But, you know, that’s absolutely the case that now that we’re in the digital world, there’s no reason for it to be one and done, I guess.

Kate: Yeah, exactly. Now it’s time to hear our copywriting tip of the month. So it’s from a Junior Copywriter at Radix, Claire Goodfellow.

Claire Goodfellow: Hi, I’m Claire, a Junior Copywriter at Radix. And my favourite copywriting tip is to use fewer words. Read over your sentences and ask yourself, can I say the same thing in less words? The chances are that if you can, it will make your writing clearer, more readable, and more concise.

Kate: Thanks, Claire. I love that tip. Brevity is so important. And it’s really great advice that I’ll pass along to my team as well.

David: I’m sorry to say that it’s all we have time for this episode – already! Kate, please would you thank this month’s contributors.

Kate: I would love to so thank you to Chelsea for such an awesome question. And of course, to Dice for answering it with help from Sarah and Amy, and thanks to Claire for the great copywriting tip.

David: And thank you, Kate, you’ve been an excellent co-host. It’s like you do this all the time. I hope it hasn’t been too painful.

Kate: Not too painful, no. Thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed it and learned a few great tips to take away as well.

David: Oh, thank you. It’s great to have you here. Listener, remember it could be your question we answer in a future episode. If you have a question for B2BQ&A to answer email a voice memo to [email protected]. Or find us on social media.

I’ll see you next month for another B2BQ&A when we will try to answer the question: how do you measure content quality? Until then, make good content and remember, do one thing every day that scares you. BOO! There; there’s today’s. You’re welcome.

Kate and David: Goodbye!

 

B2BQ&A 103: What was the best B2B content of 2021?

Posted on by The Radix Team

This month’s B2B content question comes not from one of our lovely listeners, but from us here at Radix. And if you’re looking for content marketing inspiration, you’re in the right place – because we asked you: What was the best B2B content of 2021?

In our quest to find the answer, we invited you to vote for your favourites among eleven great content examples, in three semi-final categories:

  • Best short-form or standalone content
  • Best long-form white paper or report
  • Best B2B content programme or hub

The winner of each category went through to the grand final. But who did you vote as your overall champion?

In this podcast, we reveal the results – with expert analysis from our shortlisting panel: Atlassian‘s Content Strategy Lead for Software Teams, Ashley Faus; Nadya Khoja, Head of Content Strategy at Boast.AI; and me, David McGuire, Creative Director here at Radix Communications.

We also hear bonus nominations from the fabulous Doug Kessler, Luan Wise, and John Espirian.

You can listen to the podcast in full now, or read the transcript at the end of this post.

Inspiration and ideas: what can we learn from this year’s best content?

Both Nadya and Ashley had some interesting thoughts to share based on the best content shortlist, which could be useful for anyone planning their content for 2022.

Great content starts with humanity

Content needs to speak to the individual if it’s going to work. “Maybe a few years ago, B2B was focused on clunky data reports and heavy text,” says Nadya. “Not a lot of focus on engagement, or thinking about your audience as an individual human. So it was refreshing to see how creative this content was.”

Ashley agrees: “I feel like the tide is finally starting to shift where people remember that B2B does not mean you’re selling a faceless brand to a faceless brand. There’s humans behind the brands, and humans on the other side of the screen. What we’re seeing with the shortlist this year is, hey, if you’re going to do B2B content, and you want to be competitive, you have to think about those humans behind the screen. Because there’s some pretty stiff competition.”

Credit the audience with some intelligence

In B2B, your reader is often an expert in their job, so recognise that in your content. But that doesn’t mean your content shouldn’t be easy to digest.

Ashley says: “All of these finalists treat their audience like they’re smart. They know they’re not going to trick anybody into buying anything. And so they make it very clear and very easy for the reader to consume content, get educated, and get empowered.”

Copy and visuals need to work together

It’s no longer enough for your content to be just well written, or well designed. Words and images need to work together. “You have to be able to really marry the type of story you’re telling to the design and create that visual narrative,” says Nadya.

This is even the case for traditionally less-visual formats. “You wouldn’t normally think of a white paper or report as having visually engaging elements,” Ashley adds. “But all our finalists in that category were really well designed.”

White papers and reports need a story to tell

As well as presenting factual information, the best long-form content helps the reader by offering a clear narrative structure or angle.

“When you think about white papers,” Nadya suggests, “You think about a faceless, gated piece of content. But the finalists were really interesting; they provided a unique angle on the data, rather than just a bunch of numbers. The purpose of the white paper is really telling that story.”

Don’t overlook the power of a strong title

Without giving away too many spoilers, both our experts recognised the impact of a strong title in the voting. “Having really good copy and an engaging title can do a lot more than really great content alone,” comments Nadya.

Ashley concludes: “There’s a lot to be said for surprising and delighting the audience.”

In this episode, you’ll find…

1:00 – We welcome our guests, Ashley Faus and Nadya Khoja, to B2BQ&A

2:20 – What does this year’s shortlist tell us about the state of B2B content?

4:10 – Best short-form or standalone content

8:10 – Best white paper or research report

12:10 – Best B2B content programme or hub

18:40 – Ashley and Nadya share their key takeaways. What can we learn?

20:30 – The Grand Final: we reveal the best B2B content of 2021, as voted by you

Have you got a question for B2BQ&A?

We can get you the answer!

Send us a voice memo at [email protected]. And if there are any other thoughts you’d like to share, you can find us on LinkedIn, or tweet at us: @radixcom.

How to listen

Credits

  • Firstly, a big thank you to our expert panellists Ashley Faus and Nadya Khoja, for all your help collating the shortlist, hosting the voting, and sharing your wisdom.
  • Thanks to Doug Kessler, Luan Wise and John Espirian for telling us your favourite B2B content of 2021 – you’ve given us some great inspiration.
  • And last but not least, thank you to everyone who nominated and voted this year! We can’t wait to see what you come up with in 2022.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 103: What was the best B2B content of 2021?

David McGuire: What was the best B2B content of 2021?

Ashley Faus: That’s a great question. Let’s ask the audience!

David: Hello, listener; you are extraordinarily welcome to a special end-of-year edition of B2BQ&A. Usually, this is the podcast that goes in search for an answer to your question about B2B content. But this time, we’re asking the question, you’ve provided an answer, and in the next few minutes, we’ll crown 2021’s best B2B content. We’ll discuss the nominees with two brilliant guests and hear some content nominations from friends of the show. But before all of that, some introductions. My name is David McGuire, I’m Creative Director at Radix Communications, the B2B tech writing agency. And I’m delighted to say that I’m joined by the wonderful panellists who selected the shortlist for this year’s best B2B content. We have Ashley Faus, Atlassian’s Content Strategy Lead for Software Teams. Hi, Ashley.

Ashley: Hey, good to be here. Excited to talk content.

David: And we have the Head of Content Strategy at Boast.ai, Nadya Khoja. Hi, Nadya.

Nadya Khoja: Hey, how’s it going? Excited to be here as well.

David: It’s amazing to have you both here. Thank you so much for dialling in from across the Atlantic and different time zones. I imagine the weather’s very different where you both are at the moment as well. Listener, if you want to have your say on the shortlist, or if there’s any great content you think we’ve missed you can, as always, find Radix Communications on LinkedIn or you can tweet at us @radixcom. Or if you want us to answer your question on a future episode, record a quick voice note and send it by email: [email protected].

Okay, so let’s get on with it. So before we get into the first category, let’s talk about the shortlist overall. This has been another bumper year for B2B content in terms of quantity. All the experienced writers I know have been really busy. But has that translated into quality? What do you think of the shortlist and content in general this year? Nadya?

Nadya: I was pretty impressed by the shortlist of content. I think typically when you think of B2B content, or at least maybe a few years ago, this was more of the case. But a lot of B2B was heavily focused on, you know, the clunky data reports without like, heavy text, not a lot of imagery, not a lot of focus on engagement, or actually, you know, thinking of your audience as an individual human that’s reading it, and it was very targeted towards like, the bigger brand itself. So it was refreshing to see the shortlist and see how creative some of the B2B content and just like the content structuring itself was, a lot of really great stuff came out of that.

David: Sure. And what do you think, Ashley?

Ashley: Yeah, I agree. I feel like the tide is finally starting to shift where people remember that B2B does not mean that you’re selling a faceless brand to a faceless brand. There’s humans behind the brands. There’s humans on the other side of the screen. And so I think that what we’re seeing with the shortlist this year is really starting to show, hey, if you’re going to do B2B content, and you want to be competitive, you have to think about the humans behind the screen. And there’s some pretty stiff competition. And I also think that putting these things into more of a hub, not just oh, here’s one experimental piece of creative content, but it’s really a mindset shift to focus on the audience. I think that’s what this year’s shortlist demonstrates.

David: Amazing. Well, let’s jump in then, to the first of our three semi-finals. It’s the best short-form or standalone piece of B2B content. We had four nominees in this category: Assure Hedge’s blog post, “The Chicken McNuggets’ secret ingredient is not what you think…”, Postmark’s digital comic “Postmark Express: Journey to the Inbox”, Telenet’s interactive piece “Faites le test: Quel type d’entrepreneur êtes-vous en matière de wifi?” and Venngage’s infographic “8 Graphic Design Trends that Will Define 2022”. Ashley, what stood out in this category for you?

Ashley: Oh man, so many things. I actually really enjoyed walking through this category. I think that all of them had really great visuals, they were all connected, even if they were a standalone piece of content in terms of like a blog post, but it was very clear that it was part of a larger strategy. The Assure Hedge blog post, you would never think that, you know, a hedge fund would have an interesting read. And you would also never think that it would be about a chicken nugget. And so I think that the surprise of that was just really delightful. And then obviously serves their audience really well and helps them tell their story about their clients. Same thing with the Postmark Express, like, why would you make a webcomic? How fascinating. And then obviously, Venngage, you know, everything, the infographics really step up the game for data clarity and data storytelling, not just from a design standpoint, but really making it clear.

David: Absolutely. Nadya, was there one or more that stood out to you or anything that you kind of took away from the shortlist?

Nadya: Yeah, I think the really interesting thing about this shortlist is even the one piece that was a blog post didn’t really, like, it was a very unique blog post. And I think when we think of a short-form piece of content, it’s rare that people will create, you know, a comic, for instance, like that’s not the first thing that comes to mind. Quizzes, sure enough. But I think yeah, more interactive, more kind of these smaller snippets of engagement that tell a bigger story, let the audience pull away something that they can draw their own conclusions from is something that came across from this section. Especially, yeah, the chicken nugget piece like a hedge fund talking about that, but even so, it wasn’t really about the recipe behind the chicken nugget, right. They were connecting it back to hedge funds. And I think I referred to this in the past as what I called mashup content. It’s like taking this trendy theme or something that’s a little bit more pop culture and tying it back into an adjacent theme is really useful in content. So I’m not surprised that they stood out in this category, too.

David: Yeah. So I think, you know, Nadya, you might have hinted at it there. But I mean, Ashley, you hosted this semi-final on your LinkedIn feed. We also added in the votes that were emailed direct to Radix. So would you care to confirm that the winner from this semi-final?

Ashley: I believe it was Assure Hedge – the story of the Chicken McNugget.

David: It absolutely was. Congratulations Assure Hedge goes through to the grand final. Now, let’s hear who Doug Kessler of Velocity Partners thought had the best content this year.

Doug Kessler: Favourite piece of b2b content this year. I like to book Ask Your Developer by Jeff Lawson. It’s called Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers. And when in the 21st century hardcover book people don’t think of that as B2B content. But it is and it’s excellent. It’s really well done. I also really like, second is the MailChimp, presents shows they do a whole series of shows that are really well made, and you got to envy that – it’s good shit.

David: Thanks, Doug. All the best to you for the new year. Our second semi-final is for the best long-form white paper or report. This one had three contenders: “Polarised perceptions of corporate health and wellness” by Aetna International, “The Electric Opportunity” by Kalibrate, and “Customer data breaches: when will you find out” by Skurio. Nadya, I know white papers are not always your favourite content. But you kindly agreed to host this poll for us on LinkedIn. I hesitate to ask, but what did you think of the nominees?

Nadya: Um, I was surprised. You know, I feel like when I think about white papers, I think about the faceless gated piece of content that no one is allowed to see unless you give an email, and then you’re really surprised by what you get. Luckily, in this case, at least for me, all of these pieces were ungated so I was able to actually take a look at them. And yeah, I was impressed with a lot of them. I think they were really interesting. And they provided a unique angle on the data rather than just presenting like a bunch of numbers to an audience. Which I think is the purpose of a white paper report is really presenting that angle and telling a bit of a story with the data that you collect. In most cases, these are the purposes behind white papers and reports. I think they all did a good job in doing that. I don’t know what you what your opinions were on them.

David: No, I agree. I’m biased because embarrassingly enough for the nominations, I had nothing to do with it, but I did write one of these. Ashley, can I ask if there are any that stood out for you though?

Ashley: Yeah, I actually thought this category was really strong. I think that you know, first having them on gated so people can actually get the story and speak to the humans I think is huge. This is another shift that I’m seeing in content, which I personally support a lot, which is the shift in mindset that just because somebody fills out a form, they are not necessarily a lead. They are not an MQL if they fill out ten forms, and so instead really empowering the reader by giving them the data in an actionable way. The other thing too, all of them were really well designed. And so it’s funny, you wouldn’t normally think of a white paper definitely, in some cases a report, as having some visually engaging elements. And so yeah, I was really impressed by everything in this category. I was having a hard time picking.

David: Sure. And that was something that we didn’t have to do that our audience did, by emailing us here at Radix and also voting on the poll on Nadya’s LinkedIn. So Nadya, could you confirm the winner for us, please?

Nadya: The winner was Kalibrate’s “The Electric Opportunity”.

David: Yeah, absolutely was, so congratulations to Kalibrate who join Assure Hedge in the final vote. But who did Marketing Consultant and Social Media Specialist Luan Wise think should have won this year?

Luan Wise: Hi, my name is Luan Wise. I’m a Marketing Consultant and specialist in social media, my favourite B2B content this year? Well, I think as the most downloaded app of 2021, Tiktok, it’s taking the world by storm. And at the same time, it’s presenting this whole new challenge to marketers who are questioning how they might get involved, and if they need to get involved. So I’m nominating Tiktok’s own in-app resource, the business Creative Hub, which shares the latest trends, advise best practices, it’s a really good quick cheat sheet for brands to get all the information that they need to build business cases, make decisions, and get inspired.

David: Thanks, Luan, we appreciate the nomination. So we come to our third and last semi-final, the best B2B content program or hub. There were four strong contenders here, the “Animalz blog”, Atlassian’s “Team Playbook”, Canvas web content “What will you design?” and “Realise Your Vision” by Sohonet. Ashley, Atlassian are in this category, of course. So perhaps I’d better ask you first, what stands out for you here?

Ashley: Sure. So I actually, this is another really strong category, I’m very glad I did not have to vote in the semi finals, because this category is great. So obviously, I have been a huge fan of Animalz and the team over there for a while. I think that they write smart content. It’s very intelligent. It has a direct path into sales without being salesy. They educate, they empower their audience. And then that makes you say, man, I need to work with these people. So they’re an agency. So love Animalz, I highly recommend people check out their work. Obviously, Atlassian I am a huge fan of the content that we create. The thing that’s so cool about the Team Playbook is that it’s really meant for teams and everything is actionable. And it’s completely ungated. And so we are very passionate about empowering teams. And so if you go to the Team Playbook, there’s a ton of stuff to help you run better retros, there’s great information about roles and responsibilities and helping teams work better together. So I love that. And then Canva again, I think that their whole experience to go from SEO into templates and then a very smart conversion path into product, without it being overly salesy. I thought they did a great job. I was actually not as big of a fan of the Sohonet hub. It was very…it was visually beautiful. But I was struggling a little bit to kind of see the tie ins that I think the rest had in this category. So again, I think that it’s strong, but I from my perspective, the other three were much stronger.

David: Yeah, I think that’s probably fair. I was personally I think a big fan of the way Sohonet just curated stuff with a very defined target audience and just curated stuff that would just be really really interesting for them. Nadya, what stood out for you about this category?

Nadya: Yeah, it’s funny because I mean, I’ve having been a part of with clients or with teams, rebuilding and redesigning the resources hubs or the content hubs for a lot of different sites, these are usually the ones that are my go to reference points. So I’m not surprised that in this category, I think yeah, I like the Animalz, blog. Animalzs have done such a great job with becoming a thought leader in content, through content. Because I remember when they first kind of were starting out, and they were kind of doing a little bit of guest posting here and there. And then just like kind of exploding into the leaders of how to do content. Same with Atlassian, like I referenced the Atlassian Content Hub and various different products through Atlassian as a resource as well. I have my own, like, my own biases around Canva versus Venngage. So I won’t speak too much to that. But yeah, I think I do agree with you, David on Sohonet. I think that it was extremely, it was very specifically curated, you could tell that they were targeting a really, really specific audience. I mean, I didn’t necessarily I’m not the right audience, for them. But visually appealing, I watched the video was really unique, like really showed the, they’re talking about the soul of a story. And I think they kind of captured that with the video. I think maybe in terms of like the technical element, it would be cool to have like a snippet of that play automatically so that people don’t have to click in and watch it, and they can just see that unfold. So there may be like some technical changes I would have made on there. But this particular page, I wouldn’t, I don’t know if I would call it a content hub, seemed more like a page. So I don’t know if it was in the right category. That just kind of highlighted the different partners are people that they were giving a shout out to. So that’s the one piece where I’m like, I don’t know if it made sense in the same category and if it really competed in the same way.

David: As some of the others. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this poll was fought out on my LinkedIn page, as well as in the Radix inbox, so I can officially congratulate Animalz whose blog has been awarded this year’s best content hub. And congratulations Animalz, you complete our lineup in the Grand Final. Before we move on, and see who won the winner of winners, who did the relentlessly helpful LinkedIn guru, John Espirian back as having the best content this year?

John Espirian: My vote for B2B content of the year would be for Gong, which is a revenue intelligence platform, firmly in the B2B market. And they are non-boring, and they really stand out on LinkedIn through their relatable posts. They do a lot of text only content, which, if you look at a lot of B2B tends to be very image focused or document focused. But this is very much text based. And it really works well. Their engagement is just off the scale, there’s no one particular post that I would pick out. It’s their consistency of presence, and the light heartedness of tone that really gets them a lot of attention and a lot of business. And surprise, surprise, they’ve now got almost 100,000 followers, they’re doing a really good job, and a great example to follow.

David: Thanks, John, and season’s greetings to you. So we have our grand final line up. We have Assure Hedge. We have Kalibrate. And we have Animalz. Voting was underway for a week on LinkedIn. And by email, I can confirm it closed a little while before we recorded this. Before we reveal those results, can I ask each of you for a final thought, something that the listener can learn from the shortlist this year? Nadya, can I come to you first?

Nadya: Yeah, I think there’s probably a few different elements here. Because we’re looking at different parts of content and different functions of content. I think the thing that stood out is, again, design and copy comes back to everything. So a lot of people say like copy is everything. I don’t think that’s it designs, not everything. I think you have to be able to really match and marry the type of story you’re telling to the design and create that visual communication, visual narrative. And that’s really the example behind everything that stood out here across each category. So that’s my takeaway.

David: Absolutely. Ashley for you, what can the listener learn from the shortlist this year?

Ashley: I think that the biggest thing is that all of these finalists treat their audience like the audience is smart. They know that they’re not going to trick anybody into buying anything. And so they make it very clear and very easy for them to consume content, get educated, get empowered, and oh, by the way, if you do need our services, or you do want to buy something from us, it’s very clear how you do that. But they’re not. It’s not a thinly veiled sales pitch. There’s no hard selling in any of the content, it’s basically just saying, we know our stuff so well and we respect you as an audience so much, that we know that when you’re ready, you’ll come to us and we can help you solve your problem. So I think that’s the biggest thing is just respecting the audience, and moving away from such a hard sell for content.

David: Amen to that. Thank you. Thank you so much both for the takeaways there. And for all the help you’ve given us in putting the shortlist and the vote together this year. It’s very much appreciated. So it’s time to reveal the final results. So the combination of the email vote and the LinkedIn poll. I think we could probably agree that all three of the finalists would have been a worthy winner. But this is the bit where they’re on tenterhooks, so according to the audience, in third place, we have Animalz.

Ashley: I’m like.. I thought.. I would have put Animalz as like first or second. Again, Kalibrate was great, but I’m surprised.

Nadya: I’m surprised too

David: Well, it’s comes down to the vote. In second place, we have Kalibrate with “The Electric Opportunity”. Which means that the winner, and this year’s best b2b content as voted for by our audience is…

Assure Hedge with their blog post, “The Chicken McNuggets’ secret ingredient is not what you think…” There you have it. It’s a surprising one. But that’s officially the best content of the year, according to the audience. What do you think? Happy surprised? How do you how’s that make you feel?

Nadya: I’m not surprised that they won. Especially when you give people like a short list of titles, people are going to click – it’s clickbaity, right to so people probably clicked on that first, they probably read it in its entirety, eventually get through the rest of the list. And they’re like, so that’s part of one of the reasons I think that you know, having a really good, really good copy and a really engaging title can do a lot more than just having a really great piece of content.

David: Oh, a title is so important. You know, so much of the of the time of a copywriter should be spent on the title and the first few lines. Ashely, how about how about you?

Ashley: Yeah, I agree with Nadya, I think I think the fact that the title was so quippy and the story was so unexpected. I think the other interesting thing is that because it was very unexpected, like the other two, you can kind of see the thread of what their goals are and how they’re positioning themselves as thought leaders and how that directly ties to business. And so I think that Assure Hedge all the way around. It was just kind of like, oh, this is how interesting. And so I think there’s a lot to be said for surprising and delighting the audience.

David: Absolutely. I don’t think that ever gets old. And there you have it. The best B2B content of 2021 is Azzure Hedge. Huge thanks to you, Ashley and Nadya for your time today and for all that you’ve done to bring all this together. Thanks also to everyone who nominated to everyone who voted and to all the nominees. There’s so much good stuff to learn from in this shortlist. Please remember listener it could be your question that we answer in a future episode.

If you have a question for B2BQ&A to answer, email, a voice memo to [email protected]. Or find us on social media.

David: I’ll see you next month for another B2BQ&A, when we’ll be trying to answer the eternal question: how would you keep your content fresh when you’re writing about the same subject all the time? Until then, make good content, have a wonderful festive season, whatever and however you celebrate, and remember, winning is a bit like old age, it isn’t everything but it’s certainly better than the alternative. Nadya, thank you so much. And goodbye to you.

Nadya: Thank you so much for having me. It was nice to be here. Take care.

David: Absolute pleasure. And thank you to Ashley. Thank you ever so much.

Ashley: Yeah, this was super fun. I’m glad we crowned a winner for this year’s best content.

David: And thank you listener Take care. Bye bye.

B2BQ&A 102: Why is there so little humour in B2B content?

Posted on by The Radix Team

This month’s B2B content question comes from Alistair Ross, who wants to know: “Why is there so little humour in B2B content?”

It’s a fair question. At a time when everyone in B2B is talking about the importance of emotion and brand likeability, content in the sector seems to be getting more and more serious. In fact, 69% of our pals on LinkedIn said there’s less funny content now than there used to be.

To answer Alistair’s question, we’ve enlisted comedian and copywriter Lianna Patch, an expert in using humour to boost conversion rates.

As well as considering why funny content feels so scary, Lianna shares some tips to help you avoid potential pitfalls and get off to a great start.

We also get a perspective from this month’s guest co-host, Radix Senior Copywriter Katy Eddy, and hear a copywriting tip of the month from our Head of Copy, Matt Godfrey – who tells us how to write a great opening line to get readers hooked.

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

Funny B2B content: where should you begin?

If you think about it, there’s a lot about work which is kind of ridiculous. So it’s no wonder Lianna thinks there’s plenty of scope for B2B marketers to use humour to good effect. Helpfully, she shared three tips to help you do it well:

1. Emails are a safe place to start

If you’re experimenting with humour, emails are a good place to begin. It’s a personal space where you’re building a one-to-one relationship with your reader, and gives you the chance to warm things up before reaching for the jokes. First, flex your tone a little – making it friendlier and less formal – so when you introduce humour it feels more natural, and less of a shock.

2. Observational humour works well – especially in B2B

Observational humour is one of the safest styles, because neither you nor the reader are the butt of the joke. Instead, you’re commenting on something you can both observe – whether it’s a pop culture reference, or something about the industry you’re writing for. If you can laugh together at an aspect of the job, it shows you understand how they’re feeling.

3. Don’t make a joke in isolation; help your reader too

Humour can be a powerful way to defuse a difficult situation. But you can’t leave it there, or your reader will feel like the joke’s on them. Instead, end your communication by explaining, very clearly, how you’re going to help. As Lianna puts it: “I know you’ve been waiting a thousand lifetimes for this delivery – so in the meantime, here’s what we can do…”

In this episode, you’ll find…

1:00 – We welcome our co-host, Katy Eddy, to B2BQ&A.

2:40 – We put Alistair Ross’s question to Lianna Patch.

13:20 – Katy and David share best and worst examples of humour in content.

21:20 – Matt Godfrey supplies our copywriting tip of the month.

Have you got a question for B2BQ&A?

We’ll find the answer! Send us a voice memo at [email protected]. And if there are any other thoughts you’d like to share, you can find us on LinkedIn, or tweet at us: @radixcom.

How to listen

Credits

  • Firstly, thank you, Katy, for being a brilliant co-host.
  • Thanks to Alistair Ross of LogicLogicMagic for your thought-provoking question.
  • And Lianna Patch for giving us an excellent answer and lots of useful tips. (Lianna promises to overshare about her personal life on Twitter.)
  • Thanks to Matt Godfrey and his (strangely Australian-sounding) robot twin for that dazzling copywriting tip of the month.
  • And last but not least, thank you to everyone who contributed to the LinkedIn vote and discussion, especially Andrew Last, André Spiteri, and Craig Clarke.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript – B2BQ&A 102: Why is there so little humour in B2B content?

Alistair Ross: Why is there so little humour in B2B content?

Katy Eddy: That’s an excellent question. Let’s ask… Lianna Patch!

David McGuire: Hello, listener, you are very welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search for an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is episode 102.

Katy: In a moment, we’ll ask comedian and copywriter Lianna patch a question from Alistair Ross: why is there so little funny content and B2B? Lianna will also share some pointers to help you use humour well in your own copy. And we’ll hear copywriting tip of the month from Radix’s own head of copy, Matt Godfrey.

David: Well, sort of.

Katy: Kinda.

David: My name is David McGuire. I’m creative director at Radix Communications, the B2B writing agency, and this month, our guest co-host is none other than Radix’s senior copywriter Katy Eddy, and we’re actually in the same room for the first time in what feels like years. Katy, welcome.

Katy: Thank you. Thank you for having me back. Firstly, I’d like to apologise to people for the inevitable echo because we don’t believe in soft furnishings at Radix.

David: No. Yes, as you can hear we’re recording this surrounded by breezeblocks, and minimalist style.

Katy: It’s very fashionable.

David: How are you, Katy?

Katy: I’m very well, thank you it’s nice to be back near people.

David: Yeah, isn’t it?

David: And talking in real life and not having lag in conversations. But now I have no excuse for when my brain shuts down. It’s just all me.

David: I won’t tell anyone if you don’t. So Katy, as guest co-host, would you mind telling the listener how they can get in touch with us?

Katy: I can absolutely do that. Listener, if you have any comments or suggestions you can find Radix on LinkedIn or Twitter @radixcom. Or, if you want us to answer your question on a future episode, record a quick voice note and send it by email: [email protected].

David: Cracking job; thank you very much.

Katy: Right then, let’s get on to this month’s question. Come in Alistair Ross.

Alistair: Hello. I’m Alistair Ross, creative partner at LogicLogicMagic. And my question is, why is there so little humour in B2B content?

David: This is a really well made point Alistair. When we think about the really memorable examples of B2B work, I mean, especially B2B videos, so many of them are funny, but actually, those examples are few and far between. And when I asked on LinkedIn, 69% of respondents said B2B content is more serious now than it used to be. And that comes at a time when people are talking a lot more about emotion in B2B content and the importance of B2B brands being likeable. So it seems a bit well, weird. To get to the bottom of it all. I asked Lianna Patch from Punchline Copy. Lianna is a comedian herself, but also she’s a copywriter and she’s worked on subjects as interesting as accountancy software and legal contracts for business. So I started by asking her Alistair’s question, why is there so little humour in B2B content?

Lianna Patch: I think it’s because people are scared. And there’s a holdover from, you know, business culture of the past, where we’re expected to be very formal and professional. And the definition of what’s professional is still kind of mired in. “Dear Sir, or, Madam, I have this offer for you please, at your earliest convenience reply”. And that’s not how humans talk. Right? So there’s this resistance because it’s scary to try a new thing. It’s scary to be the only one in your industry trying the new thing. But I think the payoff can be incredible.

David: And is that harder to do in B2B, do you think?

Lianna: Only because of the mindset, and because there are more corporate structures and people to get through and permissions to get, you know, if you’re running your own thing, you can decide to change the way you communicate. But if you’re working with 50 other people who also have to be on board, then it’s much slower and often doesn’t happen.

David: Do you think the picture has changed lately?

Lianna: Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I hope that I see a trend toward using it more. I wonder if the pandemic has affected people’s willingness to go out on that limb? Because like everything is on fire all the time. So like maybe we shouldn’t joke, although I think it works to lift the pressure sometimes.

David: So if the listener was tempted to start trying a bit of humour in their B2B content. Do you have tips for them? Where should they start? Because you know all about being funny, right?

Lianna: I hope so. God, I hope so. I’m just an enthusiast, just a casual observer. I always say start in emails, because that’s where you have that one-to-one relationship building opportunity. It’s less risky. And then even within that, you don’t need to start your email like, “Hey, David, knock, knock, who’s there cold email” although I love that, and I would love receiving that. There’s a spectrum, right? You can sort of ratchet up the warmth and the personality. So maybe you switch from saying, Dear David, to Hi, David. Maybe you contract more words from “we do not do this” to “we don’t do this”, which hopefully, you don’t have to say all the time. You know what I’m saying? Like there’s a way to just be friendlier, that’s on its way to actual humour and jokes.

David: So you’re kind of warming them up. And then you’re hitting them with the jokes…

Lianna: Hopefully. And maybe that’s a confidence builder on the end of the person who’s trying it for the first time.

David: Sure. And then are there aspects of B2B that you think are kind of particularly – so emails as a format, good place to start? Are there kinds of aspects of when you’re writing to someone about their job where humour can be particularly helpful?

Lianna: I think so. Especially if you have to deliver bad news, or you have constructive criticism or feedback to deliver, couching that in some sort of humour or observation that makes them feel like we’re in this together, or I know how you might be feeling to get this news. And I get it. And like, hopefully, it doesn’t ruin the rest of your day, or whatever. I think that can help soften things and make people more receptive to receiving bad news or criticism. But you don’t want to joke about them. You don’t want to joke about their ability, like big warning sign, big caveat.

David: Okay, so you don’t make jokes at their expense. But you might joke about the realities that they’re facing as part of their work.

Lianna: Right, right. So this is something that I tend to teach is that observational humour is one of the safest styles of humour. And that’s making a joke about something that we can both observe in our environment, or in pop culture or current events. That brings us closer together, but I’m not the butt of the joke. And you’re not the butt of the joke. So we can safely laugh at it together

David: with you. And presumably, within B2B, the point is that you have to show them how well you understand their job.

Lianna: Right. So like, if you’re, if you’re delivering the bad news that supply chain disruptions have kept your container in port, and you still don’t have, you know, this product for your client, depending on how many times you’ve had to tell them and like how receptive they might be to this. You might say, like, I know, it’s, it’s been 84 years and use that gif from Titanic of the old lady like holding them. “It’s been 84 years…” although that might be too niche. Like, I know, You’ve been waiting forever. And it really feels like this for me. I feel like I’ve lived 1,000 lifetimes just waiting for your container to be offloaded. But in the meantime, here’s what we can do. And here’s some ways that I can help you. So if you’re going to make a joke, in a bad situation like that in a fraught situation, remember that you should end with helping them. Don’t just like, make a joke and leave them there.

David: As you mentioned earlier, for a lot of people in B2B, the problem is going to be getting that stuff past their stakeholders, right, getting that stuff approved and signed off. You got any tips on how they can approach that?

Lianna: They can point to the piles and piles of research, showing the benefits of humour for relationship building information recall, anxiety reduction, you know, ability to see someone who’s making your life harder as a person with their own issues, and not just like a problem. There’s so much research out there pointing to the psychological, social and emotional benefits of humour.

David: So could you give an example that has kind of worked for you in B2B of using humour?

Lianna: Yeah, so I worked for a client called Sprinkler Supply Store, and they wholesale sprinkler parts and landscaping equipment. So I wrote some email series for them, some automated email series. And I think usually in all across all industries, but especially in like B2B and manufacturing, you get someone clicking on in Klaviyo, and just using the default flows that are already set up, but we wanted to do something different and fun. And so we set up an abandoned cart flow, where we talk about one of the guys who works at the company is crying because you haven’t finished checking out and then the second email is like “Kyle is under the desk, now he won’t come out we had to call his mom” and the third email is like, “Look, Kyle’s on his last legs, we need you to finish paying.” And the client gets good feedback on that all the time, people respond to those emails and say like “This brightened my day, this was really funny and unexpected.” And they notice elsewhere in the funnel that I worked on optimising with them, they noticed that microcopy that feels friendly and feels funny and like, hey, a human was here, a human paid attention to this, I will buy from them with more confidence now. Because if they pay this much attention to their checkout flow, someone will be there when I need support.

David: I guess what I see with a lot of brands that use humour to attract certain clients is that by doing that, they’re trying to kind of turn away people that maybe aren’t such a good fit for them. And maybe it’s a good way to find the clients that are the best fit for you and the way that you want to work. Does that sort of make sense?

Lianna: Yeah. When you start to get more comfortable with your sense of humour, and your personality, and how you can bring that into your communication, any disconnect between that and a potential client is probably a red flag. Like, I have no problem with people who want to be very formal about their projects. And like, obviously, I send proposals and we do contracts. And you know, I have an invoicing software like that kind of professional, obviously, very important. But if we’re not able to write each other quick email saying like, “Hey, did you get a chance to look at the document? Yeah, I did. I’m out this week, but I’ll look at it later.” If every email has to be like, “Julieta, upon receipt of your former email…” I have decided that, you know, that it’s not a good fit. And I tend to sort of repel those people before they even get to me on purpose.

David: Is there a challenge where people are maybe nervous because not everyone agrees on what’s funny, right? It’s a very personal thing.

Lianna: Definitely. Yeah. And I think that’s part of the resistance. People are afraid to make a joke because they don’t know if it’s gonna resonate with the other person. And I think getting around that starts with knowing your own sense of humour. And starting to know your own sense of humour involves looking at what you enjoy. What makes you laugh, being mindful in the moment? What shows and comic books and cartoons do you like now? And did you like as a kid, what stand-up comedians do you find really funny, and just get very curious about what it is about them? Maybe it’s the subject matter, maybe it’s the delivery, maybe it’s the sophisticated joke setup, and you just have like an incredibly highbrow intellectual taste and humour. But that will help you connect with what you find funny. So you can bring a little bit of that in at a time, and it feels authentic and not like you’re trying to be someone else.

David: If the listener wants to find out more about you, either your comedy or your copywriting? How can they get in touch with you?

Lianna: They can find me on Twitter @punchlinecopy where I share far too much about my personal life.

David: Don’t we all. Thanks again, Alastair, for your question, and thank you, Lianna. I had an absolute blast talking to you, which is kind of predictable when you think about it. Katy, what stood out for you there?

Katy: I mean, I think for a start, she is very correct in saying that people are scared of it because I personally am terrified. There’s something that feels so risky about putting a joke down on paper and sending it to a client. I feel like an inherent need to defend a joke that I make and over explain it to the point where it stops being funny.

David: Explain a joke, it no longer works.

Katy: Exactly. And it will always get taken out anyway. Because I think, yeah, people are super nervous about it. And with good reason, I think. Well, I think I see more examples of humour going badly than humour going well. And it depends whether you think all publicity is good publicity.

David: Can you think of an example of humour going badly?

Katy: I mean, I always lean on the same thing every time, which is the messages you get when things crash. This isn’t a B2B example, specifically, but it’s something I see a lot when Chrome breaks and you get a little sad face, and you get oops, and I’ve been harping on this literally my entire career at Radix. I hate it. I hate it so much. It makes me so angry, just irrationally angry. And I get it like objectively it’s, you know, it’s designed to diffuse something that’s frustrating to you, but I see red at that point. I’m starting to think that maybe I’m just a bad person that doesn’t like humour. I thought I did. But maybe I don’t.

David: Yeah, I mean, I think like MailChimp do this really well, like there’s a whole guide for MailChimp’s writers about what you do and what you don’t joke about. An error message is, you know that the whole thing is about what is the reader feeling in that moment, if the reader is frustrated and a bit annoyed, making a joke at that moment is maybe not the thing to do. But it’s all situational, about the audience rather than about you, which I think is pretty is pretty clever. I mean, there are good examples, though. I mean, B2B is kind of ripe for that observational stuff that Lianna was talking about, because there is so much about work that is ridiculous.

Katy: Oh, yeah. So silly. And I think, with the exception of a few, probably executive level, people who take it very seriously, I think it’s universally accepted that business structures and things we do on a daily basis, are very silly.

David: You just need to want to point it out. Right?

Katy: Exactly. Like you need someone who’s probably braver than I am to point out that we’re all just sitting at our little computers writing our little emails.

David: One of the best examples of humour I’ve seen lately, in a B2B context is like the Apple thing that they did last year that was shortlisted for the best content of the year. The one that like this whole working from home thing. And, you know, they kind of just exaggerated how ridiculous everything was now everyone was kind of working from home, but not doing it in a way that was anyway, kind of making a light of the pandemic, I think it was quite skilfully done. So when you’re writing a piece of content, and you’re thinking of putting something in funny, is that coming from you? And then you’re explaining to the client, or is the client pushing you to be more funny?

Katy: I think usually, if a client is telling me to be funny, I will do absolutely everything in my power to tell them not to be funny. I feel like if they come to me expecting to try and be funny, it’s not gonna end well. I do. Only with clients, I know really well. And I’ve spent a lot of time like, stewing in their brand voice, I think, then you get, you get a sense of what you’re able to joke about, and the kind of jokes that would fit with their tone.

David: I have this theory that puns specifically – humour, I have time for – puns specifically, I think are a nightmare in B2B. Because most of the time, we’re writing for people that have spent more time in that industry than we have. And so they’ve seen all the puns, like if you’re someone like us, and you write for this industry, that industry, the other industry a little bit at a time a pun might seem really fun to you. But like if you’re an OEM in the air conditioning industry, how many times do you think you’ve seen puns with the word “cool”? That’s a cool solution. Yep. You know, or I see so many things aimed at the automotive industry, that are always switching gear or puns with drive, you know, drive results? Like do you not think that they’ve seen all of that already? I think that’s always the slight worry that I have. Is it the like, it’s old hat already for the audience.

Katy: Yeah, I kind of think about it, in the same way as I experienced in retail, when I was younger, when something wouldn’t scan properly. And the other person is like, oh, it’s free. And, and you know, that’s very hilarious. Well done, congratulations. But also, you’re probably the eighth person, probably on the same product that doesn’t have a proper barcode on it, asking me that question. And, I mean, in that case, you’re paid to laugh. But when you’re trying to sell to somebody, or you know, convince them to come to your company, they’re just gonna roll their eyes is so hard, like, there’ll be a physical creaking noise.

David: So we think probably observational humour about how ridiculous work is, is good. And it helps you as a B2B brand to show someone how well you understand their job. Puns may be less so

Katy: Maybe, definitely not. Thank you.

David: So I actually wanted to get to the bottom of this idea about whether there’s less humour in B2B than they used to be ‘cause I kind of feel like all the good examples that I know apart from the apple one are kind of four or five years old. So I asked our friends on LinkedIn 69% said there’s less funny content now than there used to be. Andrew Last at Harvard says it’s definitely becoming rarer, which is a shame because it has so much impact. Andre Spiteri says they’re still some funny stuff, but sadly, again becoming rarer, while Craig Clark at Marketreach says they’re actively trying to encourage people to try it. Recently, I’ve spoken with a marketer at a B2B tech company that’s well known for its humour. And even there, they are deliberately trying to move away from it. I mean, is that a trend that you see things are more serious than they were?

Katy: I’ve definitely seen less of out in the world. I think, for me, personally, I’m in the fortunate position where I’m starting to bed into clients that I’ve worked with for four or five years, they’re trusting me a little bit to have a bit of fun. Yeah, I’m currently working on a project which is targeting UK health providers. And I think there’s a good opportunity there to tap into a little bit of their gallows humour, but not too much of it. I don’t want to be stepping on toes.

David: So if there’s less funny content, then maybe that is an opportunity. Either way, thanks to everyone who took part in the discussion, you lovely, lovely people.

Katy: Now it’s time to hear our copywriting tip of the month. Radix’s Head of Copy, Matt Godfrey is far too shy to record his actual voice. So we had to get a computer to read his tip for him.

Robo Matt: When you’ve finished writing a piece, delete your first sentence. Too much B2B content opens with unnecessary exposition, especially considering we’re typically writing for an expert audience so by deleting your first sentence, or even your first paragraph, there’s a good chance you’ll have a much stronger opening that will hook readers in rather than telling them stuff they already know.

David: Thank you for that Robo Matt. It’s good advice, especially in B2B. Katy, is that trick that works for you?

Katy: Yeah, absolutely. I think. I mean, for me, I’m a very aggressive self-editor. So it’s not just the first line or the first paragraph that goes. It’s often the first 300 words that I have written, but, yeah, it’s about acknowledging how much of your writing is working yourself up to the point that really matters, I think, and, you know, culling what is extraneous.

David: Anything that enables us to delete in today’s fast moving, competitive digital landscape, comma,

Katy: Yeah, no one needs any of that. No one.

David: Well, I’m sorry to say that is all we have time for this episode. Katy, please, would you thank this month’s contributors.

Katy: Huge thanks to Alistair Ross for asking such a thought provoking question and to Lianna for answering it so excellently. And also thanks to Matt’s robot twin for the copywriting tip, and to everyone who took part in our LinkedIn poll and discussion.

David: And thanks to you, Katy, awesome as ever, and lovely to see you in person, of course. And even if the room is a bit echoey nice to actually do this the proper way. Listener remember, it could be your question that we answer in a future episode. If you have a question for B2BQ&A to answer, email and voice memo to [email protected]. Or find us on social media. I’ll see you next month for a special B2BQ&A when we’ll be trying to answer the contentious question: what has been this year’s best B2B content? Until then, make good content and remember a day without laughter is a day wasted. If you spent the day laughing on a zoom call, well make your own mind up

David and Katy: Goodbye!

 

 

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].

A quick guide to ebooks and white papers | B2B Content Tuesday

Posted on by The Radix Team

White papers and ebooks are a staple in every B2B content marketer’s repertoire. And although the two formats serve slightly different purposes, the terms are often used interchangeably. Our senior writer John Kerrison  memorably dubbed them “the content version of Nick Nolte and Gary Busey” – distinctly different, yet often confused.

(If you want to find out more about these formats, we’ve written a few pieces about their differences, how to write them, and where they should fit in your content marketing strategy.)

But with a host of new content formats emerging – from new PDF alternatives like Turtl to longer, more interactive blog posts – the role of ebooks and white papers are changing. Although still strong, they’re possibly not the catch-all choice they once were. And that has implications for content creators.

So, as part of our B2B Content Tuesdays webinar series, David shared his top tips for writing white papers and ebooks for today’s readers – highlighting what they expect, how to deliver it, and a few critical questions to ask yourself before you publish. Then he answered some popular questions on ebook and white paper writing.

You can watch the session in full at the bottom of this page, or read this summary…

A modern ebook, for a modern age

Once the prettiest sibling of the long content formats, the ebook is changing somewhat as new formats emerge. Attention is harder to come by – so to lock your readers in, you need to demonstrate clear value, right away.

The title and subheader will do a lot of that heavy lifting. If you introduce the value right from the off, it’s more likely the right reader will engage. They can see exactly what they will get from the resource, so will be happier to spend their precious time reading it.

The introduction is also a crucial time to build rapport with your reader. As formats become more interactive and engaging, there’s no room for stuffy writing (not that there ever was). Instead, stick to snappy, clear copy, which shows you understand their challenges and clearly sets out how they will benefit from investing their time.

As you continue, don’t make your sections daunting. Instead, move quickly through sections of around 300 words, perhaps across two pages, leaving room for the designer to implement boxouts, quotes and even videos.

Every section should be easily scannable and follow a linear story. After all, your reader may not have the time to commit to fully reading it. With clear sections – and headers that provide summaries and interpretations of the contents – even the quickest of flick-throughs can be valuable.

And if you can, think of each section as a story in its own right, which can be atomised into smaller content pieces. A big ebook, for example, could be the foundation for three or four spinoff promotional blogs. And rich media can be linked in and out – spreading across the internet a whole lot faster than a denser block of ebook copy.

The new rules of writing white papers

White papers have never been a format known for bold design choices, so they haven’t changed as significantly with the rise of new content formats. However, as content marketing has become increasingly popular, there’s a deluge of white papers out there now – many of them gated, and many not delivering value.

This combination has created a lack of trust for many readers. After all, no-one wants to sit down to read an in-depth piece, only to find it’s just repurposed desk research, or purely focused on selling them something.

So, you need to make it clear what your reader will learn from your white paper: the problem it will solve, and how it will help them to do that. Start by being clear and upfront, addressing a specific person, and their particular real-world challenge.

Then, make the information you’re offering easily accessible. Traditionally, white papers include plenty of statistics, advice and information, but this needs to be easy to get to – not hidden halfway down a paragraph. Once again, using informative, clear subheaders is vital, summarising rather than describing the content.

However, not all traditions are helpful. Where white papers are typically written in a very formal, academic way, this can turn your readers off. Although you may be writing about complicated technical specifics, there’s no reason for your writing to be overly complex.

Using the technical jargon of your reader – their language, if you like – is important, but using simple sentence structure, preferring the active voice, and avoiding buzzwords will make your content infinitely more enjoyable to read, and that’s never a bad thing. We’ve even written a whole blog about it.

And finally, three key questions to ask yourself:

What does my reader need?

Think about your reader. What do they need? What challenges are they facing? Are you being targeted and realistic about who your audience is? Will they have the time?

Is this the right format?

Take the time to consider your options. Will this be printed, or viewed online? Are you able to break down the information into scannable pieces? Can it be atomised into smaller chunks?

Am I providing value?

Make sure you’re producing something genuinely helpful, that delivers results. Can they find this out anywhere else? Do you need more research or subject matter expertise? What sections are most important – and what do you need to measure? Is it readable? Has it been reviewed thoroughly?

Your ebook and white paper questions answered

Q: How do I measure the success of my white paper or ebook?

David: “As a writer, finding out how successful your copy is can be a challenge. At that stage of the funnel, a lot of what we hear from clients is anecdotal. They’ll mention when the leads start coming through, or the white paper starts to play an active role in the sales process, as a conversation starter.

“There are likely plenty of other ways to measure how successful your work is though. If you have any suggestions, tweet us at @Radixcom – and be sure to use the #b2btuesdays hashtag.”

Q: How important is it that readers read the whole white paper?

David: “Let’s be brutally honest: even for a professional white paper writer, you’re unlikely to get people to read every word. But, from a writer’s perspective, being realistic about that fact is a really important part of the process, and a guide to how you should structure the piece.

“For example, because most readers will just skim through, your headers should help deliver the message. Subheadings shouldn’t just say ‘Conclusions’ or ‘Objectives’ – they should actually summarise the information.

“Then, your reader can get through the logical narrative quickly. Even without reading all the text, they can still find the resource valuable. You’re telling the story in the headers, then the dense stuff that makes up the content really acts as supporting information for each stage of the story.”

Q: Can you recommend any other platforms similar to Turtl?

David: “Turtl has been a real eye-opener. We used it ourselves for the Barriers to Great B2B Content survey we created earlier this year, and it was great – the process was really easy. I definitely recommend looking into it if your budget will allow it. And they’re lovely, helpful people.

“As for other platforms, SlideShare can still be useful. Embedding them on LinkedIn – portrait rather than landscape – can give your readers something to flick through with a clear narrative story.

“Velocity Partners have a content format called Velocity String, which I believe is HTML5. Again, it shows the importance of giving the reader a chance to navigate interactively through the story, and get the data about what they do.”

Thanks again to everyone who attended the webinar, and took part in the Q&A. You can watch the full discussion here:

 

And if that doesn’t fully sate your needs, there’s more. We’ve created a playlist of all our B2B Content Tuesdays webinar recordings on YouTube.

How to find the right voice and tone for your B2B content | B2B Content Tuesday

Posted on by The Radix Team

Whatever B2B content you’re creating, whether its a technical white paper or a chatty video script, you’ll likely find yourself making decisions around “tone of voice”.

But at Radix, we think “tone of voice” is a bit of a misleading concept. Because voice and tone are actually two separate (but related) concepts.

After all, your brand’s voice might be approachable, friendly or even fun. But it’s unlikely you’ll be cracking jokes in a legal contract. Nor would you pop a zinger in a letter of apology. (I mean, you could, but the outcome might not be fantastic.)

A clear personality is important. But brands that stick too rigidly to one “tone of voice” for all their content run the risk of sounding insensitive, monotone, or oblivious to the reader’s needs at key moments.

We went into more detail in our B2B Content Tuesdays webinar series – sharing how voice and tone relate to each other, with some tips to help you find an appropriate voice for your own B2B content. Here are some of the highlights – and you’ll find a video of the full discussion at the bottom of this post.

So, what is the difference between voice and tone?

There’s a clear way to define the two:

Your voice is how you express your brand’s personality to the world. Not necessarily information about your company history, but how you want to make customers feel about you. You voice is your character; it doesn’t change.

Your tone is how you talk to your reader once you’ve taken account of their situation, their state of mind and the intent of the content – so it’s going to change depending on the context.

Think about it like this: when you go to the pub, you’ll chat to your friends a certain way. And when you’re in a meeting with your boss the next morning, you’ll likely adopt a more professional manner – but you’re not going to develop a new regional accent. You are still you; your voice hasn’t changed. Only your tone has.

Three tips for finding your B2B voice

1. Get specific about your character

“We want to sound human.”

When we run our voice and tone messaging workshop, this phrase comes up a lot. But with nearly eight billion people in the world, it’s annoyingly vague.

So, think about the specific character your brand would play a story – and in this case, the story of your customer. Are you the loyal companion or the cheerleader? Are you the warrior fighting alongside them on the battlefield? Or maybe you’re the know-it-all – the unashamedly clever one your customers can’t live without.

2. Lean on your thesaurus

“We want to sound professional, but friendly – an approachable expert.”

This is another one we hear all the time. But what does “approachable expert” even mean? Arguably, Sir David Attenborough and Gok Wan both fall under that umbrella, but there’s a world of difference between how they sound.

This requires you to be specific in a different way. Think about what kind of professional you want to be: skilled, competent, experienced, methodical or something else. And there’s a multitude of ways to be friendly – are you chummy, neighbourly, cordial or helpful?

3. Opposites don’t attract; they confuse

“We want to sound reliable, but exciting.”

Values like these sit at opposite ends of the spectrum, which means it’s hard for your brand to convincingly evoke both emotions at once. You need to prioritise one over the other.

Drilling into what you think about your brand is critical. That’s why we’ve put together a prototype “voice wheel” to help…

The Radix voice wheel

Radix voice wheelThe voice wheel is a visual aid we’ve developed to provoke discussion in workshops and help marketers to make clearer choices about brand voice.

It works similarly to a colour wheel. Each word is subtly different from its neighbour – and it’s hard to embody two words that sit opposite each other.

The wheel can broadly be divided into four quadrants. The top-left reflects how you behave, the top-right suggests new ideas, the bottom-left is related to your trust and track record, while the bottom-right is knowledge-based strengths.

It should help you make some of the harder choices, and focus on what you want your brand’s voice to be (and, just as importantly, not to be). It works best when you use it as a team.

Here are a couple of exercises to try:

  1. Quickly circle three or four words that reflect how people might feel about your company. Then, compare results. Look for ones you agree on, ones where your views oppose, or any particular groupings that highlight a certain theme.
  2. Where there are some areas you’re not sure about, pick two word-pairs, and decide which quadrant your brand comes under. For example, if you highlight “methodical” and “inspirational”, as well as “informative” and “hands-on”, use those as X and Y axes, and ask where each person in the discussion would place you, and why.

(If you’d like a copy of the voice wheel prototype, feel free to get in touch.)

Here’s the webinar and discussion in full; thanks to everyone who attended. You can catch up on all our other B2B Content Tuesday sessions on our YouTube channel.

How original research can boost your B2B content | B2B Content Tuesday

Posted on by The Radix Team

As Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media notes, B2B research is the “one kind of content that crushes almost anything else you can publish.” Truly, words to live by.

At Radix, we can attest to this. Our Barriers to Great B2B Content survey of 105 B2B marketers is easily our most popular piece of content of the last year – followed by our Best B2B Content awards.

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.