Category: Client Questions Answered

A crash course in B2B blog writing | B2B Content Tuesday

Posted on by The Radix Team

B2B blog writing has changed. Once thought of as filler, or a cheap SEO tactic, blogs are now a cornerstone of B2B content marketing; an efficient, flexible way for B2B marketers to self-publish content of all kinds. But with 4.4 million posts published every day, how do you make yours stand out?

We could talk about blogs all day – so when we were asked to cover the topic in our B2B Content Tuesdays, we jumped at the chance. The only problem was squeezing everything into a short webinar and Q&A. So in this blog, we’ll dive a little deeper, and give you a crash course in writing a great B2B blog post. We’ll also answer some popular blog writing questions.

B2B blog writing: four tricks of the trade

1. Know your audience

Ask yourself: Who is my reader? Or, more importantly, who is NOT my reader?

When you aim your content towards a niche audience, it’s more likely to be relevant and helpful to your target readers. And it’s easier to explain the value you’ll deliver. A broad-brush approach is tempting because it addresses a larger audience, but super-specific content makes a more direct appeal to the community you really want. As a result, it’s more likely to actually get read.

2. Provide clear value for the reader

Ask yourself: What will this audience get from reading? Why would they want to spend their time?

Ideally, every blog post should provide some kind of utility; it could be advice, information or something they can use. It might even be fun. But you need to know what that value is, so you can to make it abundantly clear to your reader too.

For example, we’ve got a blog post that provides a basic blog structure, so you can write more easily and provide that value in a clear, logical way. Pretty useful, eh?

3. Nail the voice and tone

Ask yourself: Would our audience recognise our blog posts a mile off? (Even if you covered up the branding?)

Think about how your blog sounds. If your market is crowded with similar brands saying similar things, one way to differentiate your content is to have a distinct voice – a way of handling language that’s uniquely you. Velocity Partners does a great job of this (a little profanity goes a long way).

Especially where you’re looking to establish subject matter experts within your own business, a bylined blog can allow you to show a bit more character in your writing.

4. Start strong, and prepare the ground

Ask yourself: Have I demonstrated the first three tricks in the first 30 words?

The introduction is the most important part of your blog post – it defines whether the reader will spend their time and often, in social posts, whether they’ll even click.

So, ensure the value of reading is obvious, make it obvious you know your reader inside out, and help the reader get to know your style. In doing so, you lay a solid foundation to build on.

Your B2B blog writing questions answered

Q: How do I make super-technical topics more approachable without inflating word count?

David: “Long blog posts are more common than you think – and there’s a time and place for them. So if it’s realistic that your reader will sit down and read all of it, there’s no problem with 2,000, 3,000, even 5,000-word pieces of content.

“However, I would suggest making it clearly structured and easy to navigate, with clickable links to each section so the reader can scan easily and jump to the bit they need.

“Or, if you want to break it up into accessible chunks, turn the topic into a series of blog posts. These can then be wrapped up into an eBook, so you have a longer asset built of shorter, standalone articles that can be read independently or together.

“And there’s no need to stick with PDFs – other formats can provide granular data about who actually read what. Using something like Turtl can help you break down your reader’s experience – from what, when and where they are reading, to average reading times.”

Q: What is the ‘three-act structure’ in blog writing?

David: “The three-act structure is one of the most basic aspects of storytelling; essentially, each story has to have a beginning, middle and end. Anything that follows the natural shape of a story feels familiar and satisfying.

“You’ll likely follow this structure, so the first 25% should be setting the stage. Something exciting happens, that the hero has to respond to, so about a quarter of the way through, the hero ventures out into a new world.

“In the next half (from 25% to 75%), your hero faces a series of challenges. In most stories, the stakes get higher and higher – and around the 50% mark, there’s usually an “oh shit” moment. The twist usually happens here also, and what you think is the problem turns out not to be. And at this point, it often seems like the hero won’t win.

“Three-quarters of the way through, the hero finds a new plan and fights back. In the last quarter, there’s a do or die moment, the hero usually wins out, and then you go back to see how the hero has changed now as a result of everything that’s happened.

“Although we’re not writing Hollywood movies, our multipurpose blog structure works in much the same way: set the scene and introduce a challenge, explore potential issues and obstacles, then bring it full circle to see what we’ve learned, and suggest next steps.

“I’ve actually written a whole blog post for B2B Marketing about how to use this structure in B2B content, so do check that out if you’d like to know more.”

Q: A lot of blogs I read are quite long, and often there’s very little in the way of obvious structure. Could subheadings be beneficial – and why?

David: “Absolutely. Subheadings are really important when making content scannable and thinking about SEO.

“You can also make them summarise and interpret the content underneath, so if your reader scans down, they’ll still get value – even without reading content fully.

“When writing subheadings for SEO, the questions function in Google searches can be really helpful. You can see what your audience wants to know and make the questions your subhead. Then, if you’re writing a short, pithy answer, you might end up being the first search result Google picks out.”

Q: The subject I’m writing about has so many technical terms. How do I increase or decrease readability scores?

David: “There are three aspects to complexity in content. Technical specificity is only one of them. So, you might need to think about balancing the complexity of your technical terminology by simplifying the language that surrounds it.

“The water cooler test is a great way to do this. Imagine you are standing by a water cooler, where your engineers or experts are. They’re talking about a problem – and while they’ll use very specific technical terms, the language they put it in will be simple: ‘The vintage tomographer has broken again. I thought the hazmat switch might be jammed so I tried toggling it, and it still wouldn’t work.’ The specifics are technical, but the rest is very readable.

“The vocabulary that you use is only one part of the equation – you also have to think about sentence structure, and the other words you’re using. Try to avoid nominalised verbs, long or list-heavy sentences, and any complicated words that aren’t essential. There should only be one idea per sentence, so you may want to think about splitting longer sentences into two or three smaller ones.”

Q: When I’m writing content in one language and then translating it, the translated copy isn’t always as clear and effective. Do you have any tips?

David: “This is a hard task to get right, and a lot of it depends on the company you’re working with and the budget you have.

“In some circumstances when we work with companies where the content will be delivered multi-lingually, we’re asked to leave out any figurative language, humour or idioms, because they don’t always translate well. Keeping it factual ensures it can be translated at a lower cost using tools already available – Google Translate for example, or another piece of software.

“Other times, the process is more complicated. I once worked for a company where we would write it in English; it would be translated by a specialist, then reviewed by a subject matter expert in the target language and then edited by a journalist in the target language. It’s not cheap, but the results were great, and you had a lot more freedom with the content.

“Usually, the process is somewhere in between those two extremes. A human translator will likely understand most colloquialisms and can translate them easily. But this kind of translation is often software-assisted, and chargeable by the word, so it’s more about not using too many synonyms to say the same thing, and making sure UX stays streamlined – as other languages often use more letters than English.”

Thanks again to everyone who attended the webinar, and took part in the Q&A. Here’s the full discussion:

Four ways to find original B2B content ideas | B2B Content Tuesday

Posted on by The Radix Team

Few things in B2B marketing are harder than coming up with a genuinely original content idea. In our research report into barriers to great B2B content, just 43% of respondents said even their best content had a clever or original concept.

So it’s probably not surprising that one of the first topics requested in our B2B Content Tuesdays webinar series was “Where’s the best place to find B2B content ideas?”

Here are the four places we look first – or rather, where we see our clients looking; we’re just humble copywriters, after all.

(Later in the article, David answers some more detailed questions, and if you scroll all the way down, you can watch a video of the discussion in full.)

1. Find the real questions, that real people ask you, in the real world

We’re not talking about the neatly formed FAQs that you wish your customers would ask. We’re talking about the nitty-gritty questions they’re actually asking – whether directly, or through other means.

And there’s tonnes of places to look for prompts:

Every client, customer, or prospect conversation

Sounds obvious, we know. But anyone who talks to customers on a regular basis can deliver helpful insights. Just ask them to jot down questions they’re asked regularly, and pass them along.

Search engine data and tools

People don’t filter what they put into search engines. So looking through search keyword data can give you a great understanding of customer intent – and help you find out what people want to know.

Top tip: tools like Answer the Public are a really fun way to do this.

Your own website

If your website has a search box, start tracking the information people are searching for. These are the questions they wish you would answer, but you haven’t.

Forums and social media platforms

Anywhere people are having conversations can give you insight into what they know and what they need to find out (and how you can fill that knowledge gap).

2. Think about what you know, that nobody else does

It might be that you have a stack of data within your organisation that you can interrogate, to provide your customers with insights they never knew they needed.

Or maybe you have internal experts that can predict the next big industry trend, or the outcome of a certain event. Sure, it might not be a definitive answer, but if your expert can guess better than anyone else, you have the authority to discuss the future.

Even if you don’t have all the answers your audience needs, you can turn to external sources. Interviews, reviews, analysis, polls can all help spark new, fresh content ideas. Similarly, crunching publicly available numbers, or carrying out quantitative or qualitative research, will make your content highly shareable.

3. Zoom all the way in

One way to create compelling content, particularly in a crowded subject area, is to zoom right in – on the audience, or the subject.

If a subject has been done to death, try to think about a very close, specific angle that provides genuine insight without regurgitating old information.

Find an aspect that may previously have been one paragraph in a broader blog, then dig right in. This could be addressing a very specific part of your audience: a job role, an attitude, or even a particular challenge some readers may be facing.

4. Find places where your competitors are too afraid to go

What are the things in your sector that nobody wants to talk about? What are the problems, the challenges or the drawbacks that no-one has openly addressed yet?

Maybe it’s pricing, an obstacle, or a rumour that’s been circulating. But find out what the elephant in the room is, then talk about it – it’s a great way to spark cut-through ideas and establish yourself as a brand that’s straight-talking and honest.

(And if you need convincing, we once published a piece on why prices for blog writing needed to increase throughout the industry; it’s brought us leads ever since.)

Finding content ideas: your questions answered

Q: As a writer, where is the best place to find content ideas?

David: “At Radix, we find that the best ideas usually come from two places: the experts in the client’s organisation, and their customer base. But we’re not necessarily going to put ideas on top of what the experts already know; it’s all about teasing the best concepts out of them.”

Q: Beyond Answer the Public, what other social listening tools are useful for finding out what your target market wants to know?

David: “Anywhere people are talking about the subject you want to write about is a good place to look. Some people use tools like Sprout and Mention, which could help – but as a content writer, I don’t use them frequently myself.”

Q: How can I discover relevant customer conversations, without the help of social listening tools?

David: “There’s a simple Google trick. Search around the topic you’re interested in, but include the odd opinion word like ‘frustrating’, ‘annoying’, ‘enjoyed’ or similar. These are the words that will crop up in any chats your customers are having about their views on a topic or brand.

“Pulling on those threads can help you discover forums or social media discussions were people are engaged in conversations about the subject, or even just having a whine – which can be great for sparking content ideas and fuelling persona research.”

Thanks again to everyone who attended the webinar, and took part in the Q&A. Here’s the full discussion:

Four tips to help you write B2B case studies with impact | B2B Content Tuesday

Posted on by The Radix Team

Case studies are among the most powerful tools in your B2B marketing shed. They allow you to put your reader into the shoes of your most successful customers – and prove (rather than just claiming) how fantastic your product or service really is.

So when case studies were requested as a topic in our B2B Content Tuesday Q&A webinar series, we were excited to talk about them.

In this blog, we’ve unpacked four tips from that session, to help you create a compelling, informative and customer-focused case study: from subject matter to narrative and formatting. We’ve even suggested a few questions to ask your customer, so they give you the most human, relatable quotes possible.

We’ve also put together some questions and answers from the live discussion. If you’d like to see the session in full, there’s a video at the bottom of this post.

1. Don’t make your brand the hero

Your customer should always be the hero of your story. You don’t want your potential customers to identify with you; you want them to identify with the customer whose problems you’ve solved.

Instead, present yourself as a trusted guide or friend who helps the hero find their way and complete the quest. Basically, you’re Obi-Wan Kenobi. Maybe even Piglet.

Sharing how you helped the customer achieve the result is important. But remember: it’s “they achieved x by using product y“, not “product y achieved x for them”.

2. Help your reader to learn something of value

Give your readers a strong reason to read by providing clear value. Has the company you’re writing about achieved something that your next customer might want to achieve themselves? Tell the reader how, what the challenges were, or what the journey looked like.

A strong headline will make it obvious to the reader that your case study is helpful. “How this company achieved that” is always a great way to start – it promises value from the off and gives them a clear reason to read.

Boxouts can highlight key lessons from the story and provide them to the reader in easy, bitesize pieces that draw the eye if they’re not going to read in full. This could be something as simple as “Three key lessons this company learned along the way”.

3. Give the reader a figure to identify with

You want your reader to look at the customer at the centre of your case study and think “they’re just like me”. And that reader won’t be a company; they’ll be a human with thoughts and concerns.

The best way to appeal to that human is to talk about individual decision-makers – the real people whose working lives have been changed by your product or service.

But you’ll need to ask them right questions, to draw out the moments, feelings and images the reader can identify with. Here are some of our favourites:

  • Why is this outcome important to your business?
  • Was there a moment when you knew something had to change?
  • Could you tell me a little about your team?
  • When, and why, did you make the decision to buy this product in particular?
  • How much cheaper, faster or more reliable is this product?
  • What was the experience of working with us like?
  • What difference does this make to your job?

4. Make sure your reader can understand in five seconds flat

Ensure your case study is scannable. However well it’s written, most people simply won’t have the time or inclination to sit and read from top to bottom.

The company, challenges, solutions and results all need to be obvious. Use subheadings, bullet points and a standfirst to summarise these points before discussing in detail. And using customer quotes for subheadings is a nice touch – that way you’re summarising the point in your customer’s voice.

And once you’re finished, do the five second test. Give yourself (or a friend/colleague/random person from the street) five or ten seconds to read the story, and see if the critical points are clear.

Q&A: B2B case study questions, answered

Q: Is there a danger in making a case study too simple?

David: “Case studies shouldn’t be difficult to read, but you absolutely do have to speak the language your customers actually use. In the real world, your prospects likely use language that’s technically specific, but in a context that’s easy to understand. If you can do likewise, you can write something with real technical authority without overdoing the cognitive load. Headings should be clear and succinct, to set out the story and information clearly and effectively.”

Q: What do you do when you can’t use a company’s name or quotation?

David: “If you’re not using a company’s name, using their quotation probably won’t be a problem. You won’t be attributing it to them – although do always ask first. It’s also best to be as specific as you can, without giving their identity away or presenting any half-truths, to make it clear the story is obviously true. A case study is always better with all the names included – but the really important part is to help your reader recognise the situation the customer found themselves in at the start of the story.”

Q: Are there any ways to speed up the case study approval process?

David: “Getting in contact with your Account Managers can sometimes give you insight into the client’s internal marketing personnel, and if it’s appropriate you can approach them directly. From a writer’s perspective, it can make the process cleaner if we handle signoff on the customer’s behalf. It’ll save them time, and also gives a chance to build rapport and make any small changes that could help to secure agreement. It’s a good idea for the writer to include an introduction or rationale that explains the approach, choices, and language in the copy. That way, getting it signed off is more likely, because what you’ve written is more contextualised so they’re less likely to disagree.”

Thanks again to everyone who attended the webinar, and took part in the Q&A. Here’s the full discussion:

7 ways to liven up old-school B2B copy

Posted on by The Radix Team

B2B tech copywriting has come a long way over the years. Not just in the technology we write about, but also how we write about it.

In B2B, writing in a snappy, engaging style is an instant, effective way to differentiate your brand. When your text gets to the point, in sentences that are quick and easy to read, it shows you value your reader’s time. It also proves you know your stuff well enough to explain it clearly.

And that’s an opportunity, because many brands still take a formal or “old school” approach to B2B content. A lot of your competitors are making noise, but not much more.

So, what can you do about it?

There are plenty of easy tweaks you can make right now, to give your copy a little more impact and set your brand apart from the old-school crowd.

Let’s take a look.

“Old school” writing wastes readers’ time

For the purposes of this post, “old school” writing is the traditional style of copy that’s been used in B2B marketing for several decades.  You know the stuff: it’s academic, formal, sometimes stuffy, and is often wordy where more concise sentences would do.

There are people who believe there’s more legitimacy in a formal, academic-style – which can be fine in the right format or environment. It’s all about audience and context.

The problem is, reading complicated text takes longer, and B2B decision markers are time poor. People often don’t have the time or attention span to read dry and complicated content.

Research by Prezi suggests that longer content can still hold attention, but people are being more discerning with what they read. This means that it’s more important than ever to make your content as interesting as possible.

Here are seven ideas to get you started.

1. Look outward and focus on challenges

The most effective copy in any format talks about the reader and their challenges – not about you and your capabilities. This is your opportunity to empathise with your audience and offer solutions – and only then bring in your products, services, and expertise.

Instead of talking about what you do and what you can do for your customers, focus on your audience. What do they care about? What challenges do they face?

Moving from a feature-led approach to focusing on the benefits to your reader will ensure your customers aren’t left thinking “so what?”

(In fact, my colleague David created a fantastic short video explaining how this works with web copy.)

2. Be specific

There’s more content being created than ever before and it’s only set to increase. But here’s the problem: there’s also a skills gap, so you’ll find that there’s a tonne of re-hashed topics out there.

You’re unlikely to win customers’ attention with content they’ve already read elsewhere.

The fact is, to break through the sea of content out there you need to say something unique or useful – and a great place to start is by being more specific than your competition. Think about the particular people you want to reach: their challenges, their hopes, their attitude to work. Then ignore the crowd, and write directly to your ideal customer.

Remember: if you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.

3. Be careful with jargon

How much jargon does your audience understand?

If you’re writing for a non-technical business reader, maybe not a lot. And you might want to dial things back a bit to make your content easy to digest.

But if they’re engineers or techies, the likelihood is a lot; potentially, more than you. And in B2B, that’s potentially a bigger worry than blinding your audience with science. You need to speak their language, and if you mishandle industry terms your reader uses every day, you’ll blow your credibility in an instant.

The crucial thing is: make sure you and your audience are on the same page, and understand the same thing by every word you use. Scattering jargon you don’t understand is a bigger risk than using none at all.

4. Get to the point

For me, a long, wandering preamble immediately puts me off reading a piece – and I’ll never get the chance to find out how interesting the subject might be. Because if the language you’re using is boring, the automatic assumption is that the subject matter will be boring too.

And I’m just a B2B copywriter. Imagine how little patience a time-poor B2B decision-maker would have.

That’s why it’s vitally important to get straight to your argument, cut the waffle (remember: more words don’t equal greater value), and inject your own personality into the copy, right from the start.

5. Lose the passive voice

Switching from passive to active voice is one of the most effective ways to give your copy more punch – and give you an edge against your competitors.

Grammarly has some useful advice on how to spot if you’ve written a sentence in the passive. Simply, if you can add “by zombies” after the verb (highlighted in green in the example below) it’s passive.

For example: “the new servers were installed overnight” would become “the new servers were installed by zombies overnight”. The sentence still makes sense, so it’s the passive voice.

(Whereas “the company installed the new servers overnight” wouldn’t make sense as “the company installed by zombies the new servers overnight”. So it’s active voice.)

6. Appeal to emotion (where appropriate)

Most decisions – even in a business context – aren’t made using logic or reason. They’re based on challenge-driven emotions (and then rationalised later).

It’s why using emotive language that taps into people’s challenges is far more effective in selling your products or services than simply setting out bare facts.

One of the best ways to resonate with an audience is to set up a piece of content with relatable challenges that make people say, “these guys genuinely understand my issues and what I’m trying to achieve”. You can tell a compelling story, and offer the immortal copywriters’ phrase “if this sounds familiar…”

Only then should you propose your solutions to these challenges.

7. Use design to your advantage

And finally, no matter how great your copy, it’s worth investing in some decent design work.

If your content looks eye-catching from the off, it will not only be able to shine through the masses of other content out there, but your audience will also be more likely to engage with it.

After all it looks different, and it sounds different. Why wouldn’t they want to find out if the content is different too?

Graduate from the old school – one step at a time

If you think these changes might be a bit much for your stakeholders, remember: you don’t need to make them all at once. Even applying a couple of these tips will have a significant impact on your content, and once you start to see results, it’ll be easier to justify doing more.

Or, if you’re not confident in your ability to make the break into a clearer, more modern style of content, feel free to get in touch with us. It’s exactly what we do all day, and we’d love to give you some idea of how a fresh approach to your writing might sound.

How to give copywriters better feedback

Posted on by George Reith

Amends are a natural part of the copywriting process. Sometimes it’s because a writer missed something in a brief or didn’t fully grasp the topic. In other cases, new information comes to light halfway through a project, plans shift and change, or a new stakeholder wakes up and wants their say.

Regardless, if you run projects that involve copywriters, you’ll likely have to give them feedback so they can amend their first draft. But not all feedback is created equal.

If you can deliver your comments in a precise, constructive, positive way, you’ll get far better results from your writers – both on that project and in the long term.

Follow these five feedback tips, and you’ll find your writers are better motivated, and better equipped to make the right changes to their drafts.

1. Be specific

Try and be as prescriptive with your feedback as possible. Telling a writer the piece is “generic” or “lacks impact” leaves them guessing what needs to be done.

But if you instead highlight specific phrases you feel need more authority, or give concrete examples of areas that need more detail, your writer will have a much better idea of what you’re looking for.

This isn’t to say you need to hold your writer’s hand. But if you don’t give them a good idea of where changes are needed, they’ll be left guessing – and likely missing the mark once again.

(This is also true of things you do like. If you can highlight specific sections for comment, rather than saying things like “this reads well”, then your writer will be able to carry that feedback into the next piece.)

2. Use positive framing

Just in case you roll your eyes looking at this subhead: yes, we’re all adults working in this industry. So no, you don’t need to sugar-coat our feedback unnecessarily.

But we’re human beings too – and nobody likes re-writing work they’ve already done. A little psychology can help you get a more engaged writer – and a better result.

If you come in with strong negative criticism right from the first round of amends, you’re likely going to put your writer on the back foot and make them feel defensive. And defensive people seldom do their best work.

But what if, instead of saying “you missed out points x, y and z”, you said “can we include points x, y and z?”

Your writer isn’t an idiot – they’ll be able to read between the lines and realise they forgot to put the points in. But they will absolutely appreciate you helping them save face.

A little positive framing can make the world of difference to your copywriter. It will keep them better motivated during the amends process, help them act on the spirit of your comments, and ultimately lead to better changes to your piece – and better content overall. And that’s the real goal, isn’t it?

3. Consolidate your criticism

Maybe you have a lot of stakeholders who need to offer their feedback on a document. Or maybe you come back to a piece a few days later and have additional thoughts. Either way, you should avoid the temptation to send feedback to a writer in bits and pieces.

The average copywriter needs several reference documents at a time (brief, product spec, company website etc), and if you add several different emails to the mix, you’re making their job far harder than it needs to be.

And if the various comments conflict (believe me, they often do), you’re far better placed than the writer to consider which should take precedence. If you don’t want to go to another round of amends, it’s best not to make them guess.

4. Consider what’s possible (and what isn’t)

We’d all love the perfect stat to come falling from the heavens to give every blog a punchy intro. But if no one’s published the study, that stat simply doesn’t exist. And if it doesn’t exist, no amount of desk research will help your copywriter find it (no matter how nicely you ask).

Similarly, your writer might be limited in other ways. If they can’t talk to any subject matter experts, end customers, or other specialists, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to add the extra depth or unique insights you’re asking for. Even an experienced B2B tech writer is only a writer.

So, before you request a change, consider what your writer will realistically be able to do with the time, information and resources available.

5. Build in time for changes

It’s well understood that rushing any creative process leads to poor results. For the first draft at least. Yet, when it comes to amends, there’s always an expectation that they should be done quickly to avoid derailing the project. But just as rushing the initial draft leads to suboptimal copy, editing a document too hastily can also lead to ineffective changes.

The key is to keep amends in mind when first planning out your content delivery schedule. A good rule of thumb is that any writing project will require two rounds of changes – one round for any big tweaks or new additions, and another to sand off the remaining rough edges. So plan for that, and anything else is a bonus.

(That’s also why we allow for two rounds of amends in all our quotes.)

Good content needs a good feedback process

Robert Graves once said, “there is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.”

Were he around today, he would no doubt approve of a great amends process. And once you see the impact changing your feedback can have on the quality of your content, you’ll probably be converted too.

So, take these lessons to heart, and show your copywriter a little kindness during the amends process. They’ll likely be very grateful for it – and deliver you even better copy as a result.

Content SOS: what to do when B2B writing goes wrong

Posted on by Steve George

We’ve all been there. You (or one of your clients) have a great idea for a piece of content, it seems simple enough to create, and you drop it in with the most readily-available resource to bring it to life.

Then it happens. Flop. It’s all gone Pete-flippin’-Tong.

Perhaps it’s gone to the wrong writer – someone without the requisite knowledge of the market or subject area to do the best job first time.

Or maybe you’ve just had a stab at writing it yourself and – much like the shelving unit you were sure you could build on your own – it now hangs loosely from the wall, crying out for some expert attention.

That’s usually the point a marketer will turn to an external professional. And as a result, I find myself rescuing clients’ broken projects more often than any of us would probably care to admit.

So if you’re experiencing a content SOS, read on. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up along the way, to help you get things back on track.

#1) Settle in for a long task

One of the most common misconceptions I come across is that rescuing a piece of content is a lot easier than writing it from scratch. Not only is this incorrect, it’s the kind of thinking that can seriously hinder your content rescue operation.

A quick fix is rarely the best one, and solving this issue properly is going to take time. While yes, sometimes large swathes of the existing content may be reusable, it’s important to recognise the unique challenges posed by a project gone wrong.

There’s a higher level of stakeholder expectation than usual, because this has already gone through a failed attempt – even if that failure wasn’t yours personally.

Meeting that expectation takes time, focus, and dedication to turning this tangled mess into the best piece of content it can be. Chances are, it was rushing that got you here in the first place. Doing it again isn’t going to help you get out.

#2) Conduct a full content autopsy

Before you can fix the problems with your content, you need to understand what those problems are.

The you there is very important. Even if your angry stakeholder or bemused boss has a very clear idea of what they think is wrong with the piece, it’s important that you conduct your own analysis of the problems that conspired to cause its demise.

Often, big problems (think ‘this reads horribly’ or ‘you’ve entirely missed the point’) are caused by a series of much smaller, underlying issues with the piece. It’s on you to sniff those things out.

Inversely, one big misconception could be throwing up lots of false problems with the content. In that case, you need to be able to look past what the person giving the feedback has decided is the big problem, and determine where the piece really went off track.

It’s worth spending some time really breaking down where things went awry, so you can resolve all the problems with the piece at once – rather than treating the most prominent symptoms and hoping that cures the disease.

(And if you’re not sure of the best ways to pinpoint what you don’t like about a piece, check out David’s blog post that details 5 tests your B2B copy needs to pass.)

#3) Rebuild your story

Once you’ve identified what the major (and minor) problems are with the piece, you’ll need to start planning out a revised story or structure for it. This process can vary in difficulty depending on how much you’ve had to edit and cut away.

If you’re truly able to say that the issues are isolated to specific sections of the copy, then great – you’ve probably not got much work to do. However, in my experience, the kind of problems that cause total content failure tend to be pretty insidious.

With all of the bad cut away, you’re likely to end up with a bit of a mess of points that, while objectively correct and of value, don’t stand up on their own without a coherent narrative.

You’ve got to rebuild that narrative. You must find the thread that links the copy you’ve identified as salvageable – filling in the gaps as needed once you’ve done so.

#4) Fill in the blanks (and don’t be afraid to do some serious rewriting)

Personally, once I’ve cut out the irrelevant copy and information from a piece like this, I like to approach it as I would a completely fresh project.

The copy left over acts as a brief, giving me the key points I need to hit – and when paired with feedback on what’s missing, forms a full picture of what this piece actually needs to say, do, and look like.

The key here is looking at the previous content as source material rather than copy you need to keep. All too often I’ve seen writers try to crowbar passages from a failed piece into the revised version. Usually, that’s a mistake; while there’s nothing wrong with those passages per se, keeping them forces the writer to approach their new copy in a specific and limited way.

Much like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, a pre-existing passage clearly defines what can and cannot connect to it. Trying to drop pre-loved copy into a reworked piece puts a burden on your new creation, dictating and shaping what you can write around it.

Inevitably, this pulls the copy in a direction. And problematically – because the existing passages have been lifted from a piece that didn’t work – that direction tends to be the exact one you’re trying to get away from.

(If you’d like to learn a bit more about the differences between copyediting and rewriting, my colleague George explored the subject in detail a couple of years ago.)

There is no quick fix

The one thing I’m really trying to pass on through these tips is that fixing a problem piece of content takes three key things: time, care, and attention. It’s as much as – if not more of – a job than writing something from scratch.

Understanding that, and making your peace with it, really is half the battle.

The problem is, when you face a challenge like this, you’re usually up against the clock. Very few marketers factor an allocation for ‘total first draft failure’ into their project timelines, so it’s easy to feel the squeeze when it comes to turning a rewritten or restructured piece around.

Once you understand the value of investing a decent chunk of time into a thorough rework instead of just slapping on a few plasters and hoping for the best, it’s worth selling that idea to others around you so you’ve got the time to do this right.

If you aren’t given the luxury of that time, though, you do have options. You could always hand it off to some experts that have a lot of experience helping businesses and agencies out of situations like this – and are masters of creating great content within tight turnaround times.

Now if only I knew where you could find that…

9 ways to measure B2B content performance (better than bounce rate)

Posted on by Steve George

As B2B copywriters, we all believe in the value of the content we produce. But when our clients need to prove the effectiveness of what we’ve created, all the belief in the world isn’t going to be of much help. They need to measure content performance.

That’s where analytics comes in. Analytics can prove how effective our content is, tell us what’s working and what’s not, and help refine what we do to get better results.

But analytics isn’t a magic wand that you can wave to instantly understand every aspect of content performance. What you learn will ultimately be decided by what you decide to measure. Choose poorly, and you can end up seriously misinterpreting what you customers want from your content – and your business.

To help us understand how best to measure the success and impact of our B2B content, we recently invited 3WhiteHats analytics consultant Jake Kimpton onto the Good Copy Bad Copy podcast.

In fact, Jake spent a good deal longer with us than we could include in the programme – so here’s a roundup of all the tips he shared on using analytics to work out what content works, and what doesn’t.

Bye-bye, bounce rate

According to Jake, there are two big mistakes that a huge number of marketers make when it comes to measuring content success: looking at bounce rates, and obsessing about the average time spent on a page

“Bounce rates in particular are a bit of a trap for marketers”

Firstly, he explains, bounce rates are based on averages, so they don’t give you a clear idea of individual engagement with a given page, which is what we as content creators really want to understand.

Secondly, they assume that a bounce is a bad thing. People look at bounces as deflections, drawing the conclusion that when someone leaves a page, they did so because they didn’t like what they saw. But that’s based on the obviously nonsensical notion that we all stay on websites until we find a piece of content that dissatisfies us – completely ignoring the idea that we might simply leave because we found what we came for.

Jake gave us a great example of this during our interview. “Imagine I’m browsing your website, and I come across a blog I like. I read it myself, I invite a colleague over to my desk to take a look, and I’m totally engaged with it. Then, when I’m done, I close the tab, satisfied with my experience.

“That’s a bounce. It’s an almost perfect content engagement scenario, but it’s read as a bounce.”

And he’s totally right. We perceive bounces as a negative, when really, they may represent the best possible outcomes that our content can drive.

So what should we measure instead? Engagement

The short answer is that we should be measuring the big thing that really matters to us – reader engagement. But you already knew that; it’s why you started looking at average stays on pages in the first place.

The big thing we need to change is how we measure engagement. Jake told us how the team at 3WhiteHats use reasonably simple scripts to measure things like mouse movement and navigation throughout the page to build up a much more reliable picture of who’s really engaged with content. (He assures us it’s easier than it sounds.)

“Ultimately, only you can decide what success looks like for your content” says Jake. “You know what kind of actions you’d like the people reading your content to take afterwards – so often, those are the best things to measure.”

Tracking things as simple as “contact us” links on each page can give you a clear idea of which content is inspiring the right action from your audience. And when paired with detailed information about page navigation habits, you can understand where you’re going wrong if those events are happening less frequently than you’d like.

Eight more ways to measure content performance

During our conversation, Jake provided a lot of practical tips that marketers can use to improve the way they measure content success using Google Analytics. Here are his top eight tips:

  1. Add extra tools to your blogs such as social sharing functions, comment sections and reaction polls that make engagement tangible.
  2. Enable scroll depth monitoring in Google Tag Manager to see how far readers are scrolling through your content before moving on in their journeys.
  3. Use HotJar or a similar tool to heatmap your content pages and see where activity is really happening… and where it’s tailing off.
  4. Make sure you’re adding a suitable number of calls to action in your content so you can clearly see how many people have followed which links for more information.
  5. Track where your newsletter signups have come from so you can determine exactly which piece of content persuaded someone to subscribe to hear more from you.
  6. Keep an eye on your referral traffic to identify when people are actively sharing your content and are genuinely excited about it.
  7. Look at your new vs return user rate for each page so you can gain a better understanding of whether bounces represent dissatisfaction with your content, or if people are simply saving it for later.
  8. Add a data layer for each page that tells Google Analytics what they are so it can better understand when the page is serving its purpose for readers.

Define what ‘good’ looks like – then measure

There’s a common thread between the insights that Jake shared with us: to successfully measure how well our content is performing, we must first define what good performance looks like.

If the ideal outcome of reading a piece of content is that a customer’s problem is solved, a bounce may actually be a sign of great performance. Whatever the action or outcome that you want to drive with your content, there’s a way to measure it. Start with that – not the metrics that are easiest to find.

Interested in learning more? You’ll hear more analytics insights from Jake on episode 67 of Good Copy Bad Copy. And if you want to discuss your own content needs, get in touch with us.

The B2B Content Audio Blog #13: how to run a B2B messaging workshop

Posted on by John Kerrison

Successful B2B marketing requires everyone pulling in the same direction: sales, marketing, product specialists… everyone.

Which is why you can’t properly market your brand unless there’s alignment around your key messaging.

We’re increasingly asked to run messaging workshops to help our clients nail down a core set of wording they can use across all their external communications, sales collateral, and training. And this audio blog explains how these messaging workshops work, and why they’re so valuable to the business as a whole.

Hit “play” now to learn:

  • Who you should invite to your workshop
  • What to do before, during and afterwards
  • The key components of a successful messaging framework

“Looks like we got ourselves a reader…”

If you’d prefer to read Fiona’s original blog post for yourself, here’s What happens in a B2B messaging workshop?

This is the end of this podcast season, so if you’d like to keep hearing from us, you’ll want Good Copy, Bad Copy: the B2B Copywriting Podcast. (The next episode drops next week, revealing the best B2B content of 2018.)

How to listen

You can download the episode here, or stream it in the player at the top of the page.

Alternatively, you could subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this RSS feed here. You can also find us on Spotify.

Get in touch

Want to hear a second season of this audio blog? Let us know. Email [email protected], tweet at us, or leave an iTunes review.

Credits

Audio editing: Bang and Smash

Theme tune: “Chinny Reckon” by the Nye Bevans

We need to talk: the power of a great briefing call

Posted on by The Radix Team

Even though we’re specialist B2B tech copywriters, briefing calls are essential to helping us create truly great content. It’s what adds that magic extra 10% that makes amazing content stand out from the crowd.

It’s our opportunity to talk to your experts – the people who live and breathe your story and what you’re selling. And it’s also your chance to provide us with extra nuggets of information we may not have had otherwise.

The result is a piece of copy that reads like the writer is indeed an expert in their field, which means a more interesting read, more captivated readers, and hopefully, more business coming your way.

Briefing calls take time and money. Can I avoid one?

The short answer is yes, of course. In many cases, there’s nothing wrong with writing a piece of copy without having a call first. Indeed, much of our regular work for long-standing clients and campaigns just needs a written brief.

But if you really want your content to be original and add value – especially if it’s a bigger project, or a subject uniquely discussed by your business – a briefing call can make the difference between good and great.

Often, once we start probing on a call, new themes and ideas emerge that maybe wouldn’t have seen the light of day otherwise. And it gives us a fresh, original angle that tells the reader something they didn’t already know, that’ll be of genuine use.

So, what do I (the client) get out of it?

Quite simply, it’s your chance to ensure we’re on the right track, and that we’ve got all those tasty nuggets of information that’ll help the finished piece cut through the noise and be heard.

We love to collaborate closely with our clients – it’s how we read between the lines, and ensure you get the copy back that you envisaged in the first place.

Especially for larger projects or projects with multiple stakeholders, there’s inevitably going to be lots of input which needs addressing. Close collaboration and communication keeps everything on-track.

What does it mean for a long-term relationship?

If we’re talking to you regularly, either on the phone or face-to-face, we’ll almost certainly build up a fantastic working relationship with you.

Simply, we’ll be able to understand the ins and outs of your solutions and how you make your customers’ lives easier. What’s more, our product knowledge will quickly grow, so it’s almost like having an in-house writer in your team.

Over time, briefing becomes quicker. And we become more able to suggest ideas and perspectives of our own to keep your content fresh.

Briefing calls: your ticket to truly well-written copy

If you like the sound of the way we work, take a look at some of our previous client work to see our capabilities.

Who should write your B2B copy? Hiring freelancers vs using an agency vs doing it yourself

Posted on by George Reith

At this very moment, a triple-threat brawl is breaking out in meeting rooms across the globe.

With huge campaigns looming on the horizon, the world’s marketing teams need to answer an important question: “Who on Earth is going to write this thing?”

Who indeed?

In most cases, there are three contenders:

  • Someone in your organisation
  • A freelance copywriter
  • A copywriting agency

Each option comes with a very different set of pros and cons. Stick around, and you can see how they weigh in – and which one should win for different project types.

The DIY approach

Doing it yourself (or at the very least, getting someone within your organisation to do it) is a very attractive prospect. After all, you and your people already know your business inside out, you (hopefully) know what you want to say, and not spending money is, well, ideal.

There is a huge downside here though. Controversial opinion alert: not everyone is a writer. I know, shocking.

Yes, most of us can write. But writing something that’s compelling, exciting, and readable – and will convince readers to take action – is a totally different skillset.

There’s a small chance one of your product experts is a genuine polymath, who can write marketing copy with the best of us. But that introduces another problem: good writing takes time. For every hour that technical expert spends writing a blog, ebook, or press release, it’s one less hour they have to do the parts of their job that only they can.

Simply put, the do-it-yourself approach to writing is a useful fall-back if you’ve in-house writing skills, team members with available hours, and – frankly –  no spare time or budget to hire an external writer.

DIY copywriting: pros

  • Saves time as there’s no need to brief an external writer
  • Saves budget as your people are already on the payroll

DIY copywriting: cons

  • The copy might not be especially compelling unless you have writing skills in-house
  • Takes up valuable time your people could be using elsewhere

Finding a freelancer

If your in-house teams aren’t comfortable taking on the writing, freelancers can be a very useful resource.

Offering deep expertise in specific areas, and often charging less than their agency counterparts, freelancers can offer a strong balance between quality and price.

But as the old saying goes, you can have something quick, cheap or good – pick two.

While a good freelance writer will, of course, do their best to get things done efficiently, they are only one person. Diary clashes, long wait times and delays aren’t uncommon – especially if it’s a large project. And the better a freelancer is, the busier they’ll be – making it even harder to find time with them.

And because your eggs are in one basket, you also increase your risk. If it turns out the writer isn’t a good fit for the job, or something unavoidable comes up that takes them off the project, you have to start the briefing process all over again with someone else.

If you’re taking on a job that has roomy deadlines, or if you want to bring in external skills and knowledge while still keeping costs low, freelancers can be a really good fit. But if deadlines are tight, if there’s a lot of writing to do (say, a website or ABM campaign), or if it’s a high-profile project where you can’t risk anything going wrong, you may want to go with a copywriting agency.

Freelance B2B copywriter: pros

  • May offer deep knowledge in particular areas of expertise
  • Can often be cheaper than going to an agency

Freelance B2B copywriter: cons

  • Need to book projects in early, especially for highly sought-after freelancers
  • Can have long turnaround times for larger projects, or if your freelancer has a lot of work on the go
  • Risk of having to brief someone else if something comes up and your freelancer isn’t able to complete the job

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