Category: Client Questions Answered

B2BQ&A 108: How much B2B content actually gets read?

Posted on by The Radix Team

This episode, we’re answering a question that’s been bothering Irene Triendl:

“How much content actually gets consumed in B2B? So, how much of the stuff that we create is actually read, or watched, or listened to? And how can we use that knowledge to create better content?”

It’s a damned good point. We spend all this time writing blogs, ebooks, white papers and video scripts, but who knows how much of it finds its way to an actual reader?

Katie Colbourne, Senior Manager of Global Demand Generation at Basware, that’s who. So we asked her.

This month’s episode also features a copywriting tip from Katherine Wildman, and Ettie Bailey-King is back with more of her brilliant inclusive writing advice.

Plus, get insights from our co-host, Matt Laybourn, founder of Rockee.io – the first B2B audience feedback platform.

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

Too long; didn’t listen

Katie brings a lot of valuable insight to this month’s podcast episode. If you find yourself without the time to listen, here are some highlights:

  1. Not a lot of people are reading (but that’s OK)

B2B audiences are smaller than B2C ones, meaning you’ll always have fewer readers. But don’t get disheartened, it’s not an entirely bad thing.

The effort to create B2B content isn’t wasted because that small number of people still need to find the answers they’re looking for. And often, the answers they need only occasionally are the most influential in the buying process.

“Your evergreen content is your bread and butter information around your proposition – your solutions, your fact sheets – which aren’t being read every single day, but actually they’re being read when they need to be,” Katie explains.

  1. Monitor metrics that indicate engagement

Keeping track of clicks, views and plays will tell you how far your content is going, and how many people it’s reaching – but it can’t tell you how many people are really engaged.

“By the time somebody lands on a web page, I’d love to tell you 100% of them engage with it and read every single word, and they fill in all the forms you want them to,” says Katie. “But actually, we’re talking sort of 10-to-15% of those people doing something on that page.”

To track engagement it’s important to look at how many people are taking action based on your content – whether that be following links, commenting, sharing, subscribing to a blog or newsletter, booking a meeting or making a purchase.

  1. Get to know your audience

At the end of the day, it’s not about creating content that will go viral, it’s about helping your readers solve their business challenges – and that starts with understanding their pain points.

“If you’re producing content that doesn’t resonate with your audience, in today’s world, then you’re doing something wrong,” Katie adds. “Because I think that’s a massive alert that you’re not listening to your customers and you don’t know your customers.”

Katie says to research your target audience, run focus groups and questionnaires, and read reports about them. It’s the same advice we got last month from Claire Drumond, Head of Marketing for Jira Software and Agile Solutions at Atlassian, when we answered “What content works best for B2B audiences?”

Get a sneak peek at what’s inside…

1:03 – Meet our hosts, David McGuire and Matt Laybourn

4:20 – What’s Katherine Wildman’s favourite short copywriting tip?

5:15 –We ask Katie Colbourne this month’s big question

23:00 – Guest co-host Matt talks useful metrics and analytics?

32:48 – Ettie Bailey-King shares some inclusive writing advice

You provide the question, we’ll deliver the answer

To get your burning B2B questions answered, just 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

  • We’re grateful to Irene Triendl for the great question.
  • And thanks, Katie Colbourne, for sharing your breadth of knowledge.
  • Thanks to Matt Laybourn and his fancy microphone. You were an excellent co-host.
  • And, of course, thanks to both Katherine Wildman and Ettie Bailey-King, for some wonderful copywriting advice.
  • And thank you, for listening.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 108: How much B2B content actually gets read?

Irene Triendl: How much content actually gets consumed in B2B? So, how much of the stuff that we create is actually read, or watched, or listened to? And how can we use that knowledge to create better content?

Matt Laybourn: That’s a really interesting question. Let’s ask Katie Colbourne from Basware.

David McGuire: Hello listener, you are completely welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search of an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is episode 108.

Matt: In a few moments, Katie Colbourne from Basware will tell us how much of the B2B Creative Director at Radix Communications, the B2B writing agency. And we have a super interesting guest co-host this episode. It’s Matt Laybourn from Rockee. Matt, thanks for joining us.

Matt: Thank you, David. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

David: No, absolutely. I think people will actually be quite interested when they hear what Rockee does. It’s a new thing, right? So could you introduce it to us?

Matt: Yeah. So Rockee is an audience feedback platform that is hopefully going to help B2B marketers to make even better content.

David: All right, so how does it do that then?

Matt: Good question. So it’s basically from a bit of a challenge that we found from speaking with different marketing leaders, performance marketers or creators, demand gen marketers, we were all kind of looking at what content does and hypothesising about what the good version of it looks like.

So some of us use Google Analytics, some of us used like, I don’t know, SEM, Rush and SEO tools, some of us are just looking at the amount of leads that come out of it. And all of those essentially are proxies around what content does. Now, what good content is, is in the eye of the beholder. So Rockee is designed to basically ask the people who matter most and that is the people who have actually read that piece of content. So it’s basically a feedback widget at the moment that sits on a website, which is collecting that data, getting insights as to whether the content was useful, helpful, solved problems, all the things that content is supposed to do.

So yeah, early stages, we’re only a beta stage at the moment and taking on a few early users. But yeah, we’re really excited and seeing some really interesting data already.

David: Oh, that sounds very interesting. Sounds like another very interesting data source that marketers will have, and not tell copywriters if anything works.

Matt: That’s the problem. We’ve got to tell the creators, man. We can’t just keep holding that to ourselves and then not putting it into good briefs and actually helping you guys – because the feedback loop is a thing that we hypothesise about as a theory that has never come into action.

David: When we do emails, we get asked to do different headlines and things for A/B testing. And then they never tell us which one worked.

Matt: Wow. Yeah. It’s weirdly reassuring to hear everyone having the same challenge, put it that way. Because you’re like, is someone doing this amazingly that no one told us about.

David: I know that you’re going to have lots to say about this topic, this question that we’re talking about today. But we’ll come on to that. Before that, could you tell the listener how they can get in touch with the show, please?

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. 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 in by email: [email protected].

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

Katherine Wildman: Hello, this is Katherine from Haydn Grey. And my favourite short copywriting tip is to remember that you’re only ever writing to one person at a time. So it’s never about the collective, all of us, some of you – nothing like that. It’s a conversation between me and what’s happening in my head, and the reader and what’s happening in their head. One to one, very intimate, very privileged. So only, only ever write to that one person. Thanks for having me!

Matt: Thanks, Katherine. That’s really great advice. So simple, but so very effective.

David: Yeah, do you know that might actually be my favourite copywriting tip of all time?

Matt: I can see why. It’s time for our big question for this episode, and it comes from Irene Triendl at Say What?

Irene: Hi podcast listeners. I have a question that pretty much bugs me every time I create a content programme for one of my clients, or actually write any content in the B2B space. And it’s how much content actually gets consumed in B2B? So how much of the stuff that we create is actually read, or watched, or listened to?

Especially in B2B, I think we all share that belief that content works, because we assume that when the vendor shares valuable expertise and shares knowledge about their market, they’re able to engage their prospect, and they drive leads because they build authority, they build credibility.

And we know that B2B tech companies invest a lot in content creation, and hope they measure the value of that. Yeah, so I would love to hear from someone who measures this sort of stuff. That’d be super interesting. And ultimately what can we learn from that form for our content practice? And how can we use that knowledge to create better content?

David: There’s a lot to answer there, Irene, but you are absolutely right. As content creators, it can be super easy just to publish and think that job’s done. But actually, what does happen next? And how do we respond to that and learn from it?

Okay, Matt, I know you have lots of thoughts on this. But first, I’d like to hear from Katie Colbourne, who’s Senior Manager for Global Demand Generation at Basware. I started by asking her Irene’s question, essentially, how much of the content we write actually does get read?

Katie Colbourne: So I think that’s a tough question to answer. But my gut would tell me that probably not all of it, or not a lot – surprising as that may sound. Just because first hand from obviously working in the industry for several years now, I know that we spend lots of effort and time producing white papers, research reports, case studies, etc.

But actually, because we’re talking about B2B audiences, they’re quite niche anyway, if you compare that to B2C, and then if you consider conversion rates and engagement, and all of those types of things, by the time you actually get down to the bottom of that funnel, if you want to call it that, I think those numbers are actually quite small.

But what I would say is that I don’t think that’s a bad thing, because I think it does, for the people who are looking for that content, they need to engage with it, they need the case studies for an RFP, or whatever it might be. I think the effort sort of pays off and does that job.

But then you also always have that evergreen content, which I think is always there. It’s kind of your bread and butter information around your proposition: your solutions, your fact sheets, which again, they’re not being read every single day, but actually they’re being read when they need to be. So when you get to certain points, no conversation with prospect, and all of those types of things.

And then I would add one more thing to that. I think if we’re talking about research reports, or anything that’s considered thought leadership, or current affairs, or anything like that, I would always say there’s a naturally a big peak in the way that’s being absorbed and read, but then that will naturally tailor off. And it’s harder to make those types of materials be evergreen content after a certain number of months. So that’s a long answer. Hopefully, that sort of answers that in many ways.

David: I think so. So to summarise, it’s a small audience for a lot of content.

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

David: But that’s okay because potentially it’s a high-value audience or it’s a valuable job that it’s doing when it is used. And also, some of them are like a long, slow burn with a little audience, but stretched out. And some do attract a lot of attention, but those might not be the most valuable pieces in the long term.

Katie: Yeah.

David: Wow. That’s interesting. You mentioned engagement and readership and things like that. In that situation, where you have different kinds of audiences for different kinds of things, what kind of metrics do you think are sensible to define what a B2B piece of content is doing?

Katie: Yeah, so that depends on obviously the piece of content. So if we’re looking at things like blogs, it would be looking at the number of page views that you’ve got, anybody that shared that blog with anybody on Twitter or email, whatever that might be – so they forwarded it on to a colleague. And equally as well, if there are links in that blog, if they’ve clicked on that. So again, it’s not just saying who’s looked at the blog, but actually who’s engaged, digested it, and read it.

If you’re talking about videos, it would obviously be video plays, but importantly, video plays sort of to the end or further on in, so you can see those statistics in most of these video platforms now.

And then I think when you’re talking about things like white papers, or research reports, it would naturally be conversions. And that’s what I was meaning around my comment earlier about, “there’s a small audience,” because by the time somebody lands on a web page, I’d love to tell you 100% of them engage with it and read every single word, and they fill in all the forms you want them to. But actually, we’re talking sort of 10 to 15% of those people doing something on that page. So again, that number is sort of dramatically reduced. So I think those would be the main statistics we would be looking for.

But then also as well, I would be also considering things like blog subscriptions, and newsletter subscriptions. So these are kind of some of those softer metrics. But if somebody’s coming to the site from their own organic searching, or whatever it might be, those are types of things that would indicate an interest there, and that they’ve been they’ve liked the content, and they want to see more and hear more from us.

David: So again, it’s not just the raw number of how many people are reading, it’s actually what those people are doing, and how much it’s kind of affecting, or engaging them, or moving them forward through the process.

Katie: Yeah, because I think, obviously, in the B2C world, you get millions of views on a YouTube video, you can see that when they release movie trailers and things like that, trailers even.

But that’s never going to be the case in B2B. And even if you did get, let’s say, I don’t know, 100,000 views on a video, the propensity of those viewers actually having any intention to buy now or if in a time in the future is so low that actually – that’s fantastic as a vanity metric and obviously, it’s great to sort of say. But if you get 100 viewers that are all engaged, that’s actually much better, in my opinion – just in the context of B2B that is, not B2C obviously.

David: Yeah, absolutely. So, you mentioned 100 really engaged viewers there. And I guess it depends on the brand and a lot of other things. But when you’re looking at the bucket of metrics that you’re looking at for different pieces of content, are there particular numbers, particular benchmarks that kind of give you a rule of thumb that – “yeah, this one!” – what stands out to you as a success? What does that look like when you’re evaluating content?

Katie: So I think if we want to get a general perception of how the content is, what good quality it is, if it’s interesting, engaging, all of these types of things, we would actually be looking across all of the different channels because that gives you I think, a fair representation, rather than just say, looking at people that are coming on to the website.

So are people engaging in it on LinkedIn? Are they engaging with it on Twitter? Are they clicking through from newsletter features? Equally, are our telling us that that was a great piece of content, it helped to start a conversation? So some of those kind of metrics or opinions, if you like, are a mixture of offline as well. If you’re at an event booth, is that the most sort of picked up asset? If you’re presenting on it, similarly, in an event Keynote, are people actively asking questions about it?

So there’s so many ways, I think, to define what a great piece of content is. But I think, again, for us, for me anyway, in my career, it’s always been a piece of content that has enough breath to be repurposed in lots of different ways. So it’s not just the white paper itself, or fact sheet, whatever it is, but actually, it’s something that can be divided up and used across different channels and definitely spread kind of the content from the asset itself.

David: Yeah, one sidebar to that I’m interested in is, you mentioned kind of the offline stuff, things getting picked up at events, people asking questions about it, that kind of stuff. Is it possible to capture that anywhere and include that in your reporting? Or is that all sort of done through word of mouth in your marketing department?

Katie: Yeah, again, I think it depends. So obviously, if we’re talking about sales guys sending a prospect a piece of content and then talking about it with them in a follow-up meeting or something, there are various tools you can actually use now to do that, to see if the prospect has engaged with it.

So you can add that to any anecdotes that also come out of the meeting. So there’s tools like Showpad, Brandfolder, all of these types of ones that allow you to see if a prospect has engaged. And that’s just coming from an Outlook email or even a LinkedIn InMail invite, whatever it might be. If it’s at an event or kind of a round table, then I guess, that is more anecdotal. Unless she was sort of capturing contacts at booths for an asset, but I think people tend to veer away from that these days, because it’s such a kind of blocker.

David: Yeah, I suppose even these days when everything is quantified, sometimes you just get a sense of the temperature of the response to something that can’t always be quantified and measured, I guess.

One of the things I wanted to ask is, how common is it that a piece of content really doesn’t deliver? Like, it just doesn’t resonate, nobody’s interested? Like, does that happen a lot? Is that half the time, is that one in 10? How many ones are there that really, really engage the audience? And how many are there where it’s like, crickets? Because there must be some that for whatever reason, just miss right?

Katie: Yeah, trying to think now. Let’s have a think. Do you know what? I think sometimes, and this isn’t any disrespect to you because I know you’re agency side, but – and I’ve been agency side for 10 years – but there have been a number of ideas over the years that we’ve suggested to clients where we suggest it because it’s cool, if you know what I mean.

So it’s actually a good idea that creators are really excited about it. But when you actually deliver that piece of content, the prospects aren’t interested because it’s just a different audience. So I think sometimes, I’d like to say that doesn’t happen as often now, I’m talking sort of years ago, when you’d sort of come up with these ideas, and not do the research.

But I think as long as you know – if you’re close to your audience and your customers, so not just from your own research, so focus groups, questionnaires, whatever it might be, but actually, you’re reading reports about them, like what are their challenges, what are their pain points, then I’d like to think that in today’s world, most of the content that you do write is relevant to somebody, it’s not a complete, sort of, waste of time.

But I think sometimes when we try and do like the bigger ideas in B2B or do those kinds of things that we want to go viral, and again, I am talking years ago now when that was kind of a thing. You know, when clients say, “Oh, can we have something that goes viral?” I think those are the ideas that, actually, they kind of don’t work.

David: But so these days, the less that you’re kind of trying to be cool, the more that you’re plugged into your audience – you might not always get those bits of content that just get a stratospheric response. But similarly, your baseline will be better. There’ll be relatively these days, relatively few pieces of content, then that just don’t resonate at all, because everything kind of has its place for someone. Is that right?

Katie: Yeah. I think that’s a fair summary. I would say that if you’re producing content that doesn’t resonate with your audience, in today’s world, then I think you’re doing something wrong, really. Because I think that’s a massive alert that you’re not listening to your customers and you don’t know your customers.

David: Wow.

Katie: Well, I don’t know, that’s just my opinion. But we –

David: No, no, I think it’s valid.

Katie: Yeah. And also I think there’s less of that in B2B as well, because obviously, budgets are smaller, things like that. So you do have to be really focused on what you’re doing. You have to be constantly thinking about “what is the cost of getting a new customer? How much is this going to convert?” There’s that constant ROI of marketing spend being analysed in B2B and that’s across the board, that’s not just where I am now. That’s always been a thing. So I think you have to deliver.

David: Yeah, absolutely. So the advice then for the listener is really to listen to the audience to avoid a piece of content that really doesn’t get read. Do you have any advice practically on how they can do that? Or which metrics to watch to see if it’s working?

Katie: Yeah, so – well I think before you even do that, I would just really ask yourself, if you think this is going to add value to somebody, and is it interesting?

So I used to do loads of social media training a few years ago and that was the first one we used to always say about posting tweets, LinkedIn posts, whatever. “Is this actually interesting? Would you want to read it?” So I would always start with that question.

And then in regards to actually releasing those answers to your audience, I would do maybe some desk research, see if there’s any latest studies on sort of what are the top challenges, and you’d be looking for sort of industry analysts, research preferably, but even analysts from sort of business publications like The Economist, they’re always good ones to look at to get that broader view.

And then if you have any customers that you can call on, or if you can speak to any of the account managers in your business that are talking to the customers regularly, just ask them what they’re hearing, what are people’s challenges, what are they struggling with, what what’s working for them as well, like, where do they want to sort of keep building on? And then to me, it’s a bit like a jigsaw, you have to sort of fit all of that research together, to come up with a piece of content, hopefully, that works, and engages and delivers.

And I would also look at what’s worked before as well for yourself. So look at your top-performing assets, so views, watches, shares, all of those types of metrics. And then equally as well, I would see what your competition are doing, that’s always really good to be aware of, because whatever they’re focusing on, obviously, I’m not saying copy your competition, but it’s good to be aware of the challenges their customers are seeing too. So I think it’s that rounded picture that you need. They’re very simple in isolation. But when you bring them all together, I think that that really gives you that holistic view for what your audience wants to engage with.

David: That’s amazing. Katie, thank you so much. If the listener wants to hear more from you, get more of your kind of wisdom and insights, where can they find you?

Katie: Yes, so you can obviously connect with me on LinkedIn. Or you can follow my Twitter handle, which is just my full name, Katie Colbourne.

David: That’s perfect.

Katie: I tweet regularly there.

David: Thanks, Katie, you’ve taken Irene’s question in a really interesting direction there. Matt, I know, you’ll be revving your engines wanting to weigh in on this one. So what stood out for you from what Katie had to say?

Matt: There’s loads, loads of really good stuff to go through there. One of the things that actually was really sort of landed for me was around audience size and total addressable market. And I think to answer kind of the overarching question “how much content actually gets seen?” Sometimes very little of it.

And that’s not a bad thing. I completely agree with what Katie’s saying on it, because that one article, that one blog, that was sat somewhere on the website that you wouldn’t expect it to be, might have influenced the most important person in that decision making unit. It might have been the thing that made them go, “You know what, I really want to work with this company.” And that unlocks a huge deal, a huge opportunity for that business, which is absolutely incredible.

So I think we have to be quite smart between some of the metrics we look at and what the relevance is sometimes, because I think we get lost in those comparisons you can see with this YouTube video got 100,000 views, she said that perfectly. Like, it’s not gonna happen in B2B, our market might only be 100,000 people, not all of them are going to watch that video. So it’s so relative.

David: Oh, it might be way fewer than that and sometimes intentionally so. Sometimes you intentionally write a piece that’s for a subset of a subset of a subset of a market. So within a vertical, it’s someone in a particular job role that’s facing a particular challenge, at a particular time.

And that’s why ABM works so well, because the content is so laser-focused on a particular person, facing a particular challenge. And no one looks at ABM content and goes but the audience is really small. That’s the point. So if the size of the audience and the size of the readership is not necessarily that meaningful a metric, what kind of metrics actually are useful in improving content, do you think?

Matt: Yeah, it’s a good point because we rely, as marketers, so much off of quant data. And I feel like such a nerd when I talk like that because I – “was quant or qual data”. And I look at it like that because I look at numbers. But we rely so heavily off of those quiet kind of quant metrics. And the difficulty is sometimes, is ascertaining where the real value in some of those metrics are.

So you’ve got your distribution metrics, just reaching people and having an exposure of your content or your advertising, be it on a website, social media, whatever it is, isn’t necessarily a metric of quality or performance. It just shows your distribution strategy worked, and you found the people. So we can’t measure things like that. But can Katie really came on to it quite nicely, it’s when you start to work into that data, you find some real meaning and value.

So I suppose the next line of metrics you look at are around value and engagement. And those are things like how many people actually viewed the video all the way through? Or how many people scrolled to the bottom of this piece of content, or what the dwell time was on a website, for example? Now you’re starting to get some proxy around that content to say, “oh, do you know what, we’re getting good engagement with it, it’s keeping people entertained or interested”.

And then again, she said it perfectly, the next kind of value is, are people doing things with this content? Are they commenting on it on social media? Are they leaving notes on YouTube videos, or on your LinkedIn posts? Are they sharing it? Are they tagging people in? That shows you’re getting traction, and obviously, we know social media algorithms love that as well.

And then there’s the final metrics, which I think are possibly the most valuable. The first one is obviously has it led to someone going to make a very positive action. So in the content itself, is there a call to action? “We want you to do X or Y, or take a demo,” whatever that might be. That’s a great indicator that content has influenced that person or changed their behaviour

And the other thing that I think is valuable and interesting, and I know has been mentioned on previous podcasts, is their feedback. Is there someone saying, “you know what, I read this, and I really enjoyed it. It helped me solve a problem, it gave me an answer to a challenge I couldn’t face, or I found it incredibly entertaining or amusing”. Those are the kind of the real deep qualitative metrics which we can go, “do you know what, we’re making valuable stuff here. We’re really adding stuff to organisation”. So, a super long answer there but there’s lots of different tools to look at.

David: Yeah. Are there any sort of, when you look at the quant data – see you’ve got me doing it now – when you look at that quantitative data, are there particular benchmarks or rules of thumb within that, where you can kind of say, well, if there’s one piece – if someone’s spent four minutes on something, if someone has spent five minutes on something, if someone has read 80% of it – is there something where it will then correlate with the other qualitative stuff, where you kind of go, alright, if the average read time on this, the average dwell time is beyond a certain amount, we kind of know it’s doing well, or are there so many variables, that you can’t actually get any meaningful rules of thumb out of it?

Matt: Yeah, you’ve just uncovered one of the biggest problems we have, because I don’t think there’s many people doing this well. So I suppose the two metrics I would always consider the most valuable out of quant is essentially, the dwell time, which also in GA4 now is, we’re kind of looking at as engagement rate. And also something called scroll through rate – so how many people have got maybe towards the bottom of the page. But these are still imperfect indicators, they’re proxies.

So as a perfect example of that, to say the best dwell time has got to be relative to the content. So I don’t know how big that piece of content is, unless I’ve got a very fancy spreadsheet or Data Studio report which tells me that blog should take someone five minutes to read therefore we expect a dwell time of five minutes. And to have that data married up with stuff that’s coming out of analytics, there’s only a very small amount of very sophisticated marketers who are doing that to kind of go “we’re really getting high read-through rates and engagement rates of our content”.

But that’s kind of what I mean, there’s a lot of imperfections there as well. Even things like the UX of the website, the layout and structure of how you put that content, has it got too many images in? Is it hard to scroll? There’s so many things, so many variables, as you say, which actually make it not quite as black and white as we need. So I think it’s a challenge we have to be talking about more in content marketing.

David: A thing I hadn’t planned to ask you about actually, but you mentioned there so I’m gonna is GA four. So the new Google Analytics. So engagements in there as a metric, is there stuff in there that’s going to help people make better content, do you think? Or is it too early to say, because I know GA four was a thing that people are just beginning to get their heads around, if they’re even doing that at the moment.

Matt: Yeah, and we’ve got to get onto it quickly, because Google are kicking out the old version of Google Analytics, I think summer of next year. So we have to embrace GA4 now, or similar packages – other providers are available, of course.

But it’s an interesting one, because they’re much more goal focused. And it is essentially a tool that is built around website performance, as opposed to content performance, we have to remember that. So we’re just trying to find the best bits of it to fit into what we do. But because they’ve got engagement rate, which is sort of replacing things like bounce rate as kind of a primary metric. And it’s also bringing into how people are scrolling through a page and how long people are staying on that page. That’s going to be a really meaningful metric.

But it is hopefully going to be easier as well in terms of managing internal attribution of our websites – so how many people read this content, and then went on to make a meaningful action or meaningful engagement. But we call it goals or conversions or events, depending on your setup. It should be a lot easier for that, and understanding what valuable customer journeys look like.

As to how we plan it into our content, in terms of how do we improve our content, that’s still going to be a bit of an interesting one. And I think it needs a bit more exploring, but it’s certainly going to help us understand the information architecture of our websites and how we structure our content, I think that’s going to definitely improve that.

But I suppose the creative element is a little bit of an unknown at this point. And I suppose that’s kind of where my theory is, you still need that qual to get the context behind what good content looks like. Because we’re always sort of gonna guess, from just quant alone, so whoever gets that blend right first is the winner, I think.

David: Matt, thanks. That’s fascinating. I could genuinely talk about this all day. But we only have so many minutes in the podcast. Where can people get in touch with you if they’d like to know more about this stuff?

Matt: Yeah. So best bet, find me on LinkedIn. Just look for Matt Laybourn. There’s not many of me, I’ve got a weird enough name for it. Or check out Rockee.io and yeah, see our new website hopefully launching this week.

David: Wow, amazing. Good luck with that. Perfect. So, before we wrap up, there’s just time for some more inclusive writing advice from Ettie Bailey-King.

Ettie Bailey-King: Avoid generalisations. Generalisations, broad umbrella terms and catch-all terms obscure difference. If you’re talking about asexual people, then just say asexual people, don’t hide under a broad umbrella term like the LGBTQ+ community. Unless of course you are talking about the entire community and then, of course, feel free to use that term. But just be sure that you’re genuinely speaking about the right level of detail here and you’re not trying to sweep people in under a blanket definition of their identities, their wants and their needs.

Matt: Thank you Ettie, that’s really clear, useful advice. And listener, you can hear more inclusive writing advice from Ettie next time. We should also thank Katie Colbourne for answering Irene’s questions so very well. And Katherine Wildman for the writing tip earlier. Plus, of course, thanks Irene Triendl, whose question kicked the whole episode off.

David: And thank you, Matt. You really have been an excellent co-host – no wonder you have a fancy microphone. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Matt: Yeah, very much so thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, hopefully some of this is some valuable stuff for the people out there.

David: Yeah, I’m sure people are nodding along and really beginning to think about this stuff and how they can use it. 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 [email protected]. Or find us on social media.

I’ll see you next time for another B2BQ&A. Until then, make good content and remember, once you’ve experienced excellence, you’ll never again be content with mediocrity. Yeah, actually now I think of it that sounds more like a warning. Oh well.

Matt and David: Goodbye!

B2BQ&A 109: What’s the worst thing about briefing a B2B copywriter?

Posted on by The Radix Team

In an ideal world, a B2B copywriter can read your mind and conjure up the most perfect piece of content you could ever dream of. But here in the real world, there’s briefing to be done.

And in this episode we answer a question from freelance B2B writer (not to mention Radix founder, and original host of this here podcast) Fiona Campbell-Howes, about what happens when briefings go wrong:

“We hear lots on social media about what writers find frustrating about their clients. But I’d be really intrigued to hear things from the client side: what do marketers find frustrating about writers that they work with? And what can we do to make things better for them?”

We put Fiona’s question to Sally Adam, Marketing Director at the cybersecurity company Sophos. And, as you’ll hear, she gave us a brilliant and unflinchingly honest answer. Plus, four anonymous B2B marketers each get their own personal copywriter gripes off their assorted chests.

Also in this episode, Ettie Bailey-King joins us for the final instalment of her inclusive writing advice, and Vikki Ross shares a classic pro tip from copywriting legend David Abbott. And to help us navigate it all, we get fabulous insights and lots of laughs from our guest co-host Harendra “Harry” Kapur (whom you can also find on Twitter here).

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

How can copywriters make life better for B2B marketers?

Let’s be clear: Sally considers copywriters to be “hugely, hugely valuable”. But that doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels. Writers can often give marketers a frustrating time – and usually, it’s when we forget the basics:

Actually listen to the customer

Copywriters are full of knowledge, enthusiasm, and good ideas – and usually that’s a good thing. But if it means you start to make assumptions about the brief, or you’re too keen to show off what you know, that can cause issues.

“The copywriter goes off and puts a load of effort in,” says Sally. “And you’re excitedly waiting for the piece because you’ve got a deadline. But when it comes back, they’re not matching up.”

Check our creative ideas

Often, a copywriter has creative ideas that go beyond the brief. And that can be great. But if you try to spring surprises on the marketer, that can be as bad as not listening in the first place. Instead, a quick call or email can confirm you’re on the right track.

“Do check in,” Sally explains. “Sometimes the answer is ‘No, that’s not relevant here,’ and sometimes it’s ‘Wow, brilliant connection; I hadn’t thought of that myself.’ But as someone who’s doing the briefing, you’d much rather have someone ask that question than go to all the effort of creating a piece that misses the mark.”

Brush up our soft skills

If the brief involves interviewing a customer or senior leader, the writer’s behaviour reflects strongly on the marketer. And impressions really matter.

“I’m putting you in the hands of a valued customer, whose business we really value,” Sally says. “You’re representing me. We can work on the actual copy that comes back, but the experience the interviewee has with the copywriter is not going to change. That can make or break relationships and have a wider business impact.”

We’ve packed a lot into this episode. Here’s where to find it all…

0:59 – Meet the hosts: David McGuire and Harendra Kapur
2:44 – Vikki Ross shares her favourite copywriting tip
3:39 – Radix founder Fiona Campbell-Howes asks this month’s question…
4:39 – …And Sally Adam answers it
15:09 – Harry and David discuss [checks notes] …the Kama Sutra?
21:08 – Four anonymous marketers share their pet copywriting hates
29:58 – Ettie Bailey-King talks person-first and identity-first language

All it takes is a little voice memo

To have your burning B2B question naswered, just 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

  • Thanks, Fiona Campbell-Howes, for the question (and, you know, everything).
  • And thanks to Sally Adam, for answering it in such an honest and insightful way.
  • Thanks too to our four anonymous marketers. Chickens.
  • We’re grateful to Vikki Ross for the pro tip, and especially Ettie Bailey-King for all your inclusive writing advice over the last six months.
  • Cheers, Harry Kapur, for being an excellent co-host. Come back anytime.
  • And thank you, for listening.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 109: What’s the worst thing about briefing a B2B copywriter?

Fiona Campbell-Howes: What do marketers find frustrating about writers that they work with, and what can we do to make things better for them?

Harendra “Harry” Kapur: Oh, can’t wait to get into this one. Let’s ask Sally Adam from Sophos.

David McGuire: Hello listener; you are excessively welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search for an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is episode 109.

Harry: In a few moments, we’re going to hear from Sally Adam, content and marketing leader at Sophos, as well as a few other B2B marketers. And they’re going to be telling us about the most annoying thing about briefing a copywriter, and what we can do about it. We’re also going to hear a copywriting pro tip from Vikki Ross, so good for you. And we will get some inclusive writing advice from Ettie Bailey-King.

David: Before all of that though, who the hell are we? Well, I’m David McGuire, Creative Director at Radix Communications, the B2B tech writing agency. And our guest co-host for this episode is a B2B tech writer, consultant, speaker, all round agent of chaos, Harendra Kapur. Harry, welcome.

Harry: Hey man, thanks for having me on.

David: Hey, how you doing? For the listeners who don’t know, you were Head of Copy at Velocity, and doing your own thing now, right?

Harry: Yeah, just freelancing my little butt round town. That’s kind of what I’ve been up to. And, yeah, it’s gone much better than I thought. Because it’s like, leaving a successful agency with this fancy title and stuff in the middle of a pandemic, maybe recession type of deal. When I did it, it just felt like…

David: Perfectly sensible.

Harry: Yeah, like this could go horribly wrong. And it hasn’t. And I’m very grateful for that. So yeah.

David: I’m glad to hear it’s going well. Couldn’t happen to a nicer chap. But before we get on with this serious business of answering the question for the episode, would you mind doing your first duty as co-host and telling the listener how they can get in touch with us?

Harry: Yeah sure. So listener, if you have comments or suggestions you can find Radix on LinkedIn or Twitter @Radixcom. But if you want us to answer your question on a future episode, then record a quick little voice note and send it by email: [email protected].

David: That’s perfect, thank you very much.

Vikki: Hello, my name is Vikki Ross, and I’m a copywriter. One of my favourite copywriting tips is something David Abbott once said. He was one of the best copywriters in the world, so he knew what he was talking about. He said, “sometimes the best copy is no copy”. I say, that’s absolutely true, that sometimes you need a copywriter to say so. I hope that helps you when you’re writing, or when you’re telling someone why you don’t need to write anything.

Harry: Love that from Vikki. So much of the best stuff a copywriter does on any kind of project is wordless and invisible and choosing not to do something. And so it’s really good of her to call that out because so much of this is about restraint even. But anyway, let’s get to the Q&A part of B2BQ&A. We’ll start with a very familiar voice.

Fiona: Hi, Radix. It’s Fiona Campbell-Howes here, freelance B2B tech content writer. So, we hear lots on social media about what writers find frustrating about their clients. But I’d be really intrigued to hear things from the client side. What do marketers find frustrating about writers that they work with? And what can we do to make things better for them?

David: Hello, Fiona, how lovely to have your voice back on the show. Listener, in case you’re new around these parts, Fiona actually founded Radix and used to co-host this very podcast. And as you’d expect from Fiona, this is such a good question. The only issue is who’d be bold enough to talk to a copywriter about the most annoying things that copywriters do? Well, actually more people than you might think.

To start with, I spoke with Sally Adam, who’s content and product marketing leader at the cybersecurity company Sophos, and I asked her Fiona’s question, what do you find the most frustrating thing when you’re briefing a copywriter?

Sally: I think the most annoying thing is when the copywriter doesn’t listen to what you are looking to achieve with the piece. Usually, you’ve got a lot of goals, or the things you want to do with it. And sometimes you can see the copywriter isn’t really listening and when the piece comes back, you can see it’s a case of, “okay, I had this thing that I knew on this topic that I wanted to write about. And I’ve just written what I wanted to say on this topic rather than what we needed to achieve with this particular piece of work”.

David: Why do you think it is a copywriter would do that? Are they just trying to kind of add value, ironically? Or are they trying to kind of show off how much they know? Or do they think they know better than you?

Sally: I think it’s probably a bit of all of those. Often when you’ve been writing on a topic for a while you build up your own knowledge, your own experience of the topic, and suddenly your mind runs away. And you’re thinking, “okay, actually, I’ve got some experience here. I’ve already done this, I feel comfortable writing about this particular element because I’ve done it before”.

And so there’s a bit of a case of, “okay, this is an area where I’ve got some expertise that I can bring in, or I enjoy writing about that”. But also, I do think there’s a piece of, “okay, this could be helpful, or I can use my knowledge here to extend the piece”. And sometimes that’s great.

What is wonderful with a copywriter is when they’re joining together the different briefs you’ve done over a period of time, and they’re linking up and thinking, “okay, well, we actually did this piece. And that ties in with something she’s mentioned, let me ask her if it’s worth us joining these together, or should I reference them”.

And I love that, when people are piecing the puzzle together and helping extend the story and connect elements. The challenge is when there isn’t the check. And the copywriter goes off and puts a load of effort in and you’re excitedly waiting for the piece because you’ve got a deadline. And when it comes back, they’re not matching up.

David: So the thing there that the copywriters should be doing, but they’re not doing is to check with you. Is that really what you’d like you’d like to happen in that situation?

Sally: Absolutely, yeah. So, play back the brief. And I try and do that myself when I’m getting tasks at work is, play back and make sure I’ve understood correctly what we’re being asked for.

But, and also, as you have other ideas, if you have thoughts of connections, or ways it could go, do check in. As someone who’s doing the briefing, you’d much rather have someone ask that question and say, “is this something we can join in together?” Then them go to all the effort and the time of creating a piece that then is missing the mark.

David: And sometimes I guess people don’t feel like they’re allowed, because they know that you’re busy or whatever. But I suppose in the long run, that will save you time.

Sally: Yeah, absolutely. And I think for us who are briefing, we need to make sure that we give the copywriter the time, we give them those opportunities to ask the questions, because otherwise, we’re putting them in an impossible situation.

So yeah, very much there’s a responsibility on the briefer to support and enable and to allow the person – and to help them also feel good about asking the questions. Sometimes the answer is “no, that’s not relevant here”. And sometimes it’s “wow, brilliant connection. I hadn’t thought of that myself.”

But as with all things, it’s fine to ask the question, and we need to make sure that the copywriter feels comfortable, and isn’t going to be made to feel stupid or anything for asking that question.

David: So do you then find things tend to go better where it’s a written brief, or if it’s a briefing call, or a combination of the two? How do you prefer to work and which gives the most opportunity for that clarification?

Sally: I think both are good. And quite often, it’s good to do both together. So maybe start with a written brief so the copywriter gets a chance to think with a little bit of calm and to maybe formulate some questions that they want to ask, and some initial ideas. And also then give something for everybody to go back to when you’re just wanting to refresh yourself when you’ve been doing a different job, and writing about a different topic.

But having the opportunity to speak and explore in person, and I think explain perhaps in a bit more detail than you would do in an email is also really helpful. But also you have to ask the copywriter what would they prefer because I suspect different copywriters prefer different approaches. Some may prefer to just start with the conversation, some may want to have a really detailed written brief.

David: Can I ask about the amends process, when a piece may be hasn’t hit the mark? Is that something where when you go back with that feedback, do copywriters kind of get defensive at all, or is it kind of alright for them to sort of push back if you or stakeholders have suggested changes?

Sally: I think it’s probably true for copywriting as much as any other job. If somebody is giving you quality feedback that they’ve properly taken the time to consider and to convey back then it is a gift to take.

Now, there’s sometimes feedback that is just a personal opinion. And I think we need to make clear when we’re giving feedback if something is a personal opinion, or if it’s just experience, or if it’s a factual thing. And then maybe sometimes as a copywriter, you’ve got expertise.

Certainly, I’m sure every copywriter’s grammar is better than mine. And so do push back, if it’s an area where you feel you are the expert. But generally, if it’s good and quality, considered feedback, then hopefully it’s something that can help with the final piece.

And probably the longer that you work with an organization, the better you’ll get to know them. You’ll be able to get to know their style, and the type of topics that they cover, and the approach they’re looking for. So in my experience, the longer we work together, the fewer the amends as we go on.

David: Do you find yourself sometimes sort of stuck in the middle between a copywriter and a stakeholder, or stuck between a copywriter and a subject matter expert who are sort of at loggerheads. Sometimes I kind of feel for the marketer being stuck in the middle there. What’s that like?

Sally: That’s where you have to say, “okay, my job, my expertise is to be the person in the middle and to be the person who is representing the audience we want to reach”. And that’s the hat I need to wear, “what is going to resonate with the audience?” And that’s where I can add value between the subject matter expert and the copywriter is going “okay, great. You’ve both got really informed and interesting positions here. But let me play the role of the audience”. And that’s my part in the process, that’s the value that I bring.

David: How can a copywriter best help you at that stage of the process?

Sally: Perhaps through explaining why they’ve done something in a particular way. If there’s a stakeholder and in our case, quite often a very technical stakeholder, who is saying something, it can be really valuable to have the outsider in terms of the copywriter, share their opinion:

“I don’t know that term, that is not something that is commonly understood, that is really valuable feedback,” or “the reason I structured this particular part in this way is because of ABC”. So yeah, explaining their reasoning because there’s a lot of skill and thought and expertise that goes behind those words. And that also helps communicate and convert to the subject matter expert.

David: So, comments in the margins, that kind of thing that will kind of help you and kind of inform that conversation. Is there anything else that you finally wish that, while you have the ear of copywriters, is there anything else you wish they did differently?

Sally: So copywriters are hugely, hugely valuable. They create wonderful pieces, they turn thoughts and ramblings into coherent stories that really help get across what we’re about. So great copywriters are fabulous.

I think the final thing I’d sort of say is that when we’re briefing a copywriter, particularly for an interview situation, where it’s going to be interviewing, perhaps colleagues, perhaps its customers, perhaps it’s other people in the wider industry, you’re representing me. I’m putting you in front of senior leaders in my organisation, I’m putting you in the hands of my customer, whose business we really value and whose business we really wish to maintain. You are the representation of me.

And I know that is widely understood. But I think it’s probably worth emphasising because I think that’s probably the nervousness from my side, more than anything else. The actual copy that comes back, we can work on that. But the experience that the interviewee has with the copywriter, that’s not going to change. That’s the impression that they’re going to walk away with. And that is, therefore, probably the thing that is most important, because that’s going to make or break other relationships and perhaps will have a wider business impact.

So I’d say just bear in mind you’re representing the person who briefs you, you’re representing their organisation as well. So we’re placing a huge amount of trust in you. And it’s almost always repaid 100-fold, but you are being entrusted with our perspectives and our representation.

David: Thanks, Sally. That is a really helpful and balanced response. And there’s loads of practical input for all the copywriters listening. Harry, I know you’ve got to have some views on this. So what stood out for you there?

Harry: Well, I mean, having managed writers in my life, I know how annoying we can be. But I think Sally’s definitely clocked the most annoying thing about briefing copywriters. And it’s really, when you just don’t listen. I’ve been this guy more times than I’d care to admit.

And I think generally speaking, when a copywriter’s going into a briefing, it’s a moment of high excitement for them on multiple different levels. You might be really nervous about, “I don’t want to say something stupid in front of the smart person”. Or you might be like, “I’m really excited to talk about this brief, because I’ve got some ideas that I want to pitch the client that would fit this brief, and I can’t wait to tell him or whatever”.

And actually, I think, really, the important thing, and you just learn this over the years from doing it time after time, is just put all that stuff aside, and just go into the room, and listen, and just sit there and be a dummy. The other ones in the room is by definition smarter than you. That’s why they’re briefing you, because they know more than you do. And so just like let it in, hear it the way they’re saying it, don’t hear it the way you wish it was.

These are all obviously really hard things to do. And you get better at doing them over time. But I think, really, the big thing is just, enjoy being the dummy. Just chill. Just ask your stupid clarifying question or, test, “I thought this would be a good thing that we could do.” Just say the things that you need to say, because I think, if you spend 20 minutes really doing someone that courtesy of listening to them, they’ll listen back. They’ll be happy to talk to you about the thing. It’s a lot easier that way. But it can be hard and definitely the most annoying thing I think that copywriters can do.

David: Yeah, I mean, I think Katherine Wildman, I think in a previous episode was kind of – shared a tip about intelligent naivety. Which I think is great – actually pretending you’re dumber than you are. Just to be that blank canvas, to represent the audience.

Harry: Yeah, exactly.

David: Which is a really tricky thing to do, particularly in an area like ours, where you’re aware that they’ve hired a specialist B2B writer or a specialist B2B tech writer for a reason. Because they don’t want to have to go right back to zero and so you kind of want to show that you know the area and that there’s a real balance there because you don’t want to cross pollute with too many of your own ideas.

Harry: Exactly.

David: There’s that idea from the – is it from the Kama Sutra? – of the beginner’s mind. I think it applies here. The stuff from your old partners should not colour the stuff with your new partners. I think it’s the same with clients a little bit.

Harry: You’ve got to do a thread on what B2B marketers can learn from the Kama Sutra. Make that happen!

David: You haven’t heard my ebook about that? That’s a whole different podcast series.

Harry: I think really the challenging thing, I think that – in an ideal world, the client and the copywriter, and really any other creative representative involved in the briefing, you’re all trying to shape something together, that fits obviously the client’s vision of reality, and what will pan out and all that stuff, but then also all your own little weird, artistic, “this is a good way to say that”, or whatever your thing might be.

And you’re trying to get to that place where you’re shaping it together. And I think ground zero and that is that when the other person’s briefing you, you hear what they’re saying, even if it isn’t in the words they’re saying. You’re really trying to understand the intent behind the briefing as well.

And so listening, it’s not just sitting there thinking nothing. It’s really paying close attention to what they mean, and what they’re prioritising and all this invisible in-between-the-line stuff, all the good stuff.

David: And being that – Sally was saying that she’s the avatar kind of for the audience, for the reader. That’s really important. All the time, sitting in their seat. It’s so important.

Harry: Correct. Yeah. And there’s obviously at the end of the spectrum, there’s another kind of like, weird little issue that comes up. Which is you can know a client so well, that you have an amazing shorthand with them. And you have these awesome fluid four minute briefing sessions where they just go, “ebook, top of funnel, difficult,” and you go, “I know what you mean”.

And you go ahead and make this thing, and it’s that thing of the avatar for the customer or the prospect, I think is – so much of that is that they don’t have any other context. They don’t know what you’re talking about. They have no – they don’t know where this company is coming from, where the stuff that they’re preaching is coming from, where the best practice advice is coming from, any of that stuff. And so you do have to – you need to be able to both go down to zero and think about it like a smart prospect would be thinking about it, and how they would be approaching it.

David: Absolutely. Sally’s not actually the only person to have answered this question for us. I think we alluded to this earlier. I got a whole bunch of – Sally was the only one that was brave enough to put a name on it – but I did get a whole bunch of anonymous responses as well.

It seems there’s actually quite a lot that annoys marketers about copywriters. So we picked the best few. We’ll play those in and you can tell me what you think just off the top of your head. Okay?

Harry: Cool.

Anonymous marketer #1: I wish B2B copywriters understood that people in B2B are still people. They may not be in their primary role as a consumer when they are reading the copy you’ve written, but we can talk to them as if they are. They’re still humans. They don’t need dozens of fluffy buzzwords to understand a concept or engage with your content. Without dumbing it down or doing your content a disservice, write as a human to another human in a conversational and human way.

Harry: That’s hard to argue with. I mean, I do feel sure that we can be more annoying than that. We can be worse than that. There’s worse things copywriters do.

David: You don’t think that’s the worst thing?

Harry: No, no.

David: Okay, this is the top four.

Harry: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need a good top three. We need to burn this into people’s back’s or something.

David: The thing that’s interesting about this is a – it’s like a B2B tech writer that’s gone native, right? I think every B2B tech writer comes into it, trying to weed out the buzzwords and trying to get away from that stuff. And probably at the end, just the whole career of having to get things signed off. In the end, they just assume that they have to write that way. I think there’s a switch that gets flicked.

Harry: No, definitely, definitely. It’s kind of like an ocean, right? It’s like the national gravity in the space is that – and this is the uncomfortable thing. If you want to efficiently work with many different clients in B2B, actually, the consequence of that might be that there’s a whole lot of buzzword nonsense in your thing, because you just split writing. Your audience is the marketing department paying your bills, and that’s kind of the extent of it. But no, writing for humans, definitely good. I’d love to see a B2B company try to talk to people as if they were cats. I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe – imagine if that works. Imagine if that’s amazing!

David: B2B catnip. You heard it here first. Okay, the next one.

Anonymous marketer #2: My pet hate is briefing an agency that then subs out copywriting to someone who wasn’t in the room.

Harry: Oh, okay, okay, now we’re talking. Now we’re getting into some really good stuff. Because I’d like to say this first as like a very small point of defence on behalf of agencies. Because I’ve been in that situation, I’ve been in every version of that situation. I’ve been the guy outside the room, I’ve been the guy telling the guy inside the room to give it to the guy outside. I’ve been through all permutations of this.

And it can work. I’ve seen this work. There are times when there’s someone who’s outside the room, who you’ve never spoken to, and you didn’t expect them to work on it, and then they do something and it blows your mind. That can happen. And I think actually a lot of the magic you’re paying for with an agency is that possibility that that could happen.

Now that said, this is the worst thing. I hate this one. It’s so irritating, it’s so frustrating to – especially I think when clients really do the agency the kind of courtesy of bringing their best self to the briefing. They’re prepared, they’ve thought about the session, “I’ll explain this, then I’ll explain this and he’ll get it,” you know, whatever. They’ve really thought about doing the briefing well, and then they do the briefing, and then it’s some random who didn’t even clock all the important stuff they we’re talking about in the brief. That’s the worst, it’s so annoying. So really hard.

David: I love it. The worst thing about briefing a copywriter is when the copywriter is not there.

Harry: Yeah! What’s the point of that?

Anonymous marketer #3: When the individual hasn’t understood the client’s tone or style of writing and so returns with the monotone or “off-voice” style. Take more time to review the client’s historic style and tone please.

Harry: Yeah, that’s just basics man. That’s the – it’s basics and you’d hope that every copywriter’s doing this kind of a thing, but I think it’s really good to hear this from the horse’s mouth, from the mouth of someone who’s annoyed and irritated by it.

Because I think, especially with younger writers, I think there’s a part of us that believes that this client doesn’t know what they want. “Once I make this thing, they’ll understand how good it is like, they’ll see it in the finished product, I’ll blow their mind and it’ll be amazing”.

And I think that’s an important part of you to keep, you should always be trying to do that for the client. But really the first audience you need to know, we talked about knowing your audience and stuff, the first audience you have to know is the dude or lady who at 6:17pm on a Friday is saying to her office friends, “no, you guys go to the pub, I’ll catch up with you later,” or whatever. “I’m going to open this document that the stranger has sent me. And I’m just really desperately hoping that what’s in this document isn’t professionally embarrassing to me. It just a little looks like it’s coming from someone who doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about,” or whatever.

And that’s the first hurdle you have to clear as a copywriter. That’s the first person you’ve got to be empathetic to I think, definitely on the B2B side, but I think that’s true on the B2C side as well. Maybe a lot more deferential out there. It’s really annoying. You need to know how the person you’re working for wants to represent themselves and no idea you have is more important than that.

And that’s the first hurdle you have to clear as a copywriter. That’s the first person you’ve got to be empathetic to I think, definitely on the B2B side, but I think that’s true on the B2C side as well. Maybe a lot more deferential out there. It’s really annoying. You need to know how the person you’re working for wants to represent themselves and no idea you have is more important than that.

Anonymous marketer #4: I have experienced two recurring issues. One: not being able to speak the language of the target audience or decision makers. We had a Gen Z copywriter who was writing content directed at senior C suite executives, 50-60-year-old mostly male individuals. This doesn’t necessarily mean jargon but definitely some corporate terminology that CHR or CFOs would relate with: increase revenue, decrease costs in some way or the other.

We had to go through a few rounds and I had to describe our audience in detail for them to do a good job to the whole features instead of benefits angle. Quite a few times content and copy would be about what we provide rather than intelligently talking about the value add and when this was explained most copy was a direct “here are five benefits of ….”, which in my opinion doesn’t really work.

Harry: That sucks. If you keep coming across that’s awful, that’s really bad. I mean, I guess, obviously, all that tells me is that like the most annoying thing is bad copywriting. Nothing beats bad copywriting.

David: I think there’s an element of this and it’s maybe something we should talk about on the show that I know that Leif Kendall at Pro Copywriters has for a while been talking about the idea of “do we need some kind of accreditation for copywriters?” Because at the moment anyone can stick a shingle outside their door and say “I’m a copywriter.” And the more people who do that, who don’t really embrace the craft, the more it undermines the rest of us.

Harry: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it’s a weird one as well, because at least in the years I’ve been doing this… Over the years, you sort of tried to collect as many absolute truths about the craft as you can. And I’ve got an empty bag. I can never find anything that pervades all industries and all contacts and all situations, because B2B, we don’t hang out because we like talking to companies, we hang out because we don’t sell shampoo.

We’re united by what we don’t do. And that’s about the extent of it, like a service company and a SAS company. It’s fundamentally different business models, and the way they approach markets are going to become completely different, the way they talk to people is going to be different. And so it’s hard, but it is a little frustrating when someone has worked with seven bad copywriters in a row and then they go “ah, marketing doesn’t work” or whatever.

And it’s like, “no, you hired bad people.” And I don’t know how to convince them of that. I don’t know how to demonstrate that to someone. Maybe accreditations would be good. But yeah, maybe it’s good that Leif’s talking about this because I really couldn’t think of many people who would take on something like that, but maybe Leif’s the guy though.

David: Yep, absolutely. Leif, the ball’s in your court. You make it happen and we will support you.

Harry: Good luck dude!

David: Okay, it is almost time for us to wrap up. But first we do have our final inclusive writing tip from Ettie Bailey-King.

Ettie Bailey-King:  You’ve probably heard people talking about person-first language or identity-first language. So what does this mean?

Person-first language would put somebody’s name first. And they might say “Ettie has depression.” That’s person-first language because the person’s name, or perhaps the pronoun talking about them comes first. You might say “she has depression”. And person-first language is really popular with a wide range of identities, and often marginalised experiences.

In many cases, we want to be referred to using person-first language because it puts the person back in the frame. I’m not defined by my depression, I’m still a real person with a full and rich identity separate from that. But many people actually want identity-first language. So what does identity-first language look like?

Well, that might look like saying, “I’m autistic,” “I’m schizophrenic,” “she’s disabled”. And in some cases, that community of people really, really wants to use identity-first language. It’s really important that we find out what people’s preferences are.

So in the example of autism, many, many autistic people say that they really want their autism to be considered part and parcel of who they are. It is not a separate trivial detail of their identity. It’s absolutely integral. And that’s why many autistic people will really, really want that language to be used.

And if we don’t respect that wish, then were really undermining their right to express themselves and to be taken seriously given their identity. So what’s the lesson that we can draw from this? Well, unfortunately, there isn’t one simple tip as to whether you should always use person first or always use identity first. Brings us back to tip number one, which is that you must always ask.

If you’re looking for a rough rule of thumb, it’s typically the case that identity-first language is popular with people who have physical, motor and sensory disabilities. So for example, many deaf people want to say “I am deaf”, they won’t say “I am a person with deafness”. So you can keep in mind that frequently identity-first language is popular with certain physical motor and sensory disabilities. But you always need to check.

David: That’s actually the last in the series of these tips. Etiie, we are really grateful to you for sending them in. They’ve been so practical and thought provoking over these last few months. And listen, if you want more information on inclusive and anti-oppressive language, you can find Ettie at fightingtalk.uk or on Twitter @ettiebk.

Harry: And of course, we also want to thank Fiona Campbell-Howes for asking the question that kicked this whole thing off. We hope you feel like you were satisfied by the answers that we came across, that we did surface the annoying things about briefing copywriters. And so, of course, we would really like to thank Sally Adam from Sophos for such an honest, thought provoking, good, correct answer, I think, to a difficult question – we appreciate that. And obviously, thank you to everyone who anonymously sent in their comments. And, of course, the great Vikki Ross, for her pro tip.

David: Thank you, Vikki. And thank you, Harry, you have been a fabulous guest co-host once again. I hope you’ll come back again?

Harry: Oh, it’s been my pleasure. I would absolutely love to.

David: Awesome. We’ll look forward to that. In the meantime, if the listener wants to get in touch with you and find out more about the wonderful world of Harry Kapur, where can they do that?

Harry: You can reach me, the quickest way to reach me is probably on my Twitter, which is @rupees1hundred, probably easier to just search my name. But also if you want to work with me, then probably best to find me on LinkedIn.

David: Great, and we’ll put a link in the show notes as well. 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 [email protected]. Or find us on social media. I’ll see you next time for another B2BQ&A. Until then make good content and remember, one day you will die but the content you publish will live forever. Thanks a bunch, Google.

Harry and David: Goodbye!

 

B2BQ&A 110: How can you find the right SEO keywords for niche B2B content?

Posted on by The Radix Team

Researching keywords is relatively easy in a popular B2C market – where data is plentiful and vocabulary is simple. But how do you find search intent in the rarefied world of B2B tech? That’s what Emily King from Bluefruit Software wants to know:

“It’s one thing to know what you call your product or service, but it’s another to know what your potential audience is actually using in their searches. So how do you find this out?”

Such an important question needs a very special guest… so we went straight to the top: Andy Crestodina from Orbit Media. Andy literally wrote the book on SEO and content marketing, and we’re thrilled to have him on the podcast.

And we don’t just have Andy’s sage advice for you. In this month’s episode, we’re joined by guest co-host Ruth Connor, Content Marketing Specialist at B2B Marketing and Propolis. You’ll also hear a copywriting pro tip from UX writer Fiorella Rizzà, and there’s news of an exciting challenge to mark the 10th anniversary of this podcast.

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

Want to find the right keywords for B2B tech? Here are Andy’s five tips:

1. Embrace the B2B niche

Writing for smaller companies that focus on niche B2B tech has opportunities in search that some of the bigger companies might miss.

Andy explains: “If you don’t have super-high domain authority, that’s a benefit because it pushes you towards key phrases that are less popular – but much more targeted. The niche is where the fun is: you can find phrases that a small number of people are searching for, but they’re thrilled when they find you. The click-through and conversion rates are high. It’s an enormous opportunity.

2. Prioritise the bottom of the funnel

Andy recommends targeting the key phrases that indicate strong commercial or transaction intent – the person who has their wallet out, but just needs a bit of help.

“Start by optimising your homepage,” he advises. “That’s the page for which you have the best chance of ranking. Next, optimise your service pages. Those pages have strong intent; the visitor is looking for help – they need a service or a product.”

3. Empathy is the ultimate search marketing skill

Andy suggests the ultimate source of keywords is your own audience.

“If you get asked the same question two or three times you should be answering that question in your content,” he says. “We listen out for the topics that our audience really, really cares about. We put plans in place to publish on those topics. And then, as we’re publishing, we look for keyword opportunities.”

4. Target key phrases for which the best answer is very long and detailed

The number of searches for which the click-through rate is zero keeps growing because Google’s Featured Snippets are so informative.

According to Andy: “We should all be looking for opportunities to write content that is keyword focused, but also where the answer to the question is deep and long with details.”

5. Don’t just rank high; be interesting

The days of fooling search engines with low-quality filler content are long gone. “You’re not doing SEO if you’re not sincerely trying to make one of the top 10 pages on the internet,” Andy proposes. “You have no right to rank if you made another medium-quality piece.”

“But also, as you do this, don’t forget to inject your own voice; say something that’s provocative or counterintuitive. Put people into your articles and include contributor quotes from people with interesting ideas.”

Further reading (and watching)…

Here’s what you can expect in this episode…

1:59 – Ruth Connor explains why the BBC is a role model for content atomisation

5:11 – David McGuire poses Emily King’s question to Andy Crestodina

13:54 – Ruth and David discuss personas and the importance of talking to customers

23:49 – UX writer Fiorelli Rizzà shares a copywriting pro tip

24:15 – David McGuire announces a new challenge to mark our 10th anniversary

Got a question? We’ll find the answer.

To get your burning B2B content questions answered, just 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 Twitter @radixcom.

How to listen: 

Credits

  • Thank you, Andy Crestodina, for sharing so much SEO wisdom.
  • Cheers also to Fiorella Rizzà for this month’s copywriting pro tip.
  • And of course thanks to to Ruth Connor – our excellent guest co-host.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 110 – How can you find the right SEO keywords for niche B2B content?

Emily King: It’s one thing to know what you call your product or service, but it’s another to know what your potential audience is actually using in their searches. So how do you find this out?

Ruth Connor: That’s a brilliant question. Let’s ask Andy Crestodina from Orbit Media.

David McGuire: Hello listener, and welcome back to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search of an answer to your question about B2B content writing. We’re back for a new season, and this is Episode 110.

Ruth: Wow, Episode 110. That feels pretty special.

David: 10 years.

Ruth: That’s incredible. That’s incredible. Well, in a few moments, we’re gonna hear from Andy Crestodina, the CMO and co-founder of Orbit Media studios, and all-round B2B SEO colossus. He’ll take a stab at answering this episode’s question: “Just how can you find the right keywords when you’re working in a super geeky B2B niche?” Or nitch as Americans would say.

David: They do, they do.

Ruth: Plus we’ll hear a copywriting pro tip from Content Designer and UX writer Fiorella Rizzà and we’ll reveal details of a new search to find the best B2B content of all time.

David: Before all that though: Who are we? Well, my name is David McGuire. I’m Creative Director at Radix Communications, a B2B writing agency. And our guest co-host for this episode, I’m delighted to say, is a consultant, B2B tech marketing director, and the resident content marketing expert and trainer for B2B Marketing and Propolis. It’s Ruth Connor! Ruth, welcome.

Ruth: Thank you very much, David, I’m really delighted to be here.

David: As a content marketing expert yourself, where do you find inspiration for content marketing?

Ruth: That’s a great question. And this is something I used to talk a lot about with my team. And we’d always look to actually the BBC and shows like Strictly Come Dancing, Line of Duty, and, more recently, Happy Valley. And that’s because I think the team at the Beeb do a great job of something I’m really passionate about when it comes to content marketing – which is recycling, reusing, and repurposing.

So, taking that big piece of hero content and turning it into loads of different spin-off pieces of content. And I think they do a great job in some of those shows. I think you know you’ve kind of cracked the content marketing nutshell when you find people producing their own content because they’re so passionate about those shows. And I think the last few weeks on social media and Happy Valley just shows the strength of the sentiment for those shows.

David: Wow. So if you’re in search of B2B marketing inspiration for your content, look to Happy Valley, look to Strictly and the way that they atomise things. That’s an amazing thought to start us off on this episode.

Before we get on to answering this episode’s question, though, Ruth, would you mind performing your first official duty as co-host, and telling the listener how they can get in touch with us?

Ruth: I’d love to David. Listener, if you have any comments or suggestions you can find Radix on LinkedIn (radix-communications-ltd) 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 is perfect. Thank you so much.

Ruth: Now it’s time for the B2BQ&A for this episode. And our question comes from a very familiar voice.

Emily: Hi, B2BQ&A. This is Emily King from Bluefruit Software. I just had a question about how to effectively find out which keywords your target audience is using in their searches.

So, it’s one thing to know what you call your product or service, but it’s another to know what your potential audience is actually calling it and what they’re using in their searches. So, how do you find this out?

David: How lovely to hear from you again, Emily. Listener, in case you didn’t know, Emily actually started this podcast almost exactly 10 years ago. And for that, we’re endlessly grateful.

But anyway, let’s get on with Emily’s question, which speaks to a bigger point. How can you make SEO work for you when you’re dealing with niche B2B audiences and subjects? And do you reach a point where talking to your customers is better than doing digital research?

To answer we have an SEO and content marketing expert whom I’ve wanted to have on the podcast for basically as long as I can remember. Orbit Media CMO, Andy Crestodina publishes such helpful well-researched advice on digital content, I just knew he’d have something interesting to say here.

So I asked him Emily’s question: How can you find the right SEO keywords, when you work in a geeky B2B niche?

Andy Crestodina: If you’re in a B2B niche, especially a small one, you actually have big opportunities in search that some of the bigger companies might miss. So, it’s exciting to do SEO in a micro-niche for B2B. Niche companies tend to be smaller, which means in a way they have a bigger challenge because they don’t have super-high domain authority and difficulty ranking.

That actually is a benefit, it just pushes you towards the less competitive, longer tail, less popular – but also much more targeted – key phrases.

So it’s not a problem that you’re a smaller online player when you’re in a niche, when you’re targeting the more specific phrases, you can’t target the big general phrases. But those phrases are not as valuable as it might seem anyway, because you know less about the visitor; the visitor does not have strong intent.

People who search for single words or the business category, very hard to convert them, because they’re less likely to have a specific need to look for a specific answer to need a specific service.

So the niche is really where all the fun is, in B2B keyword research. You can find phrases that a small number of people are searching for, but they’re thrilled when they find you. The click-through rates are high, the conversion rates are high. So, it’s an enormous opportunity.

And it’s something that the big companies will often miss. So there’s plenty of blue ocean in those longer three-, four-, or five-word key phrases that others fail to catch or to target, and that you can really target and win what might just be a trickle of traffic, but they’re very passionate, very engaged visitors.

David: How hard is it to find out among that ocean of key phrases, which are the ones that your audience, in particular, are really interested in?

Andy: Every key phrase equals intent. So when you think about the true story in the life of the person who just typed that on their keyboard – and it’s happening right now, as we speak all over the world – the more specific the key phrase, the more you know about their information needs.

So if you think about keywords as being intent, you can target key phrases and therefore intent, that is at different stages in the person’s process, as they consider options. Some key phrases are simply information intent queries, they’re looking for an answer, they want to solve their problem themselves. They’re not at all interested in buying or becoming a lead event for anything.

Other key phrases indicate strong commercial or transaction intent. They’ve got their wallet out there ready to go, they know they need help, they’ve given up on every other option they need, they need help, they’re raising their hand, they need a service. So I would always prioritise beginning your keyword research and content, content marketing and conversion, copywriting and SEO, with the bottom of the funnel.

Start by targeting the key phrases that indicate the person really needs help. And those are generally going to be not content marketing; typically, they’re like service pages. Start by optimizing your homepage, as that’s the page for which you have the best chance of ranking.

Next, optimize your service pages. Those pages have strong intent, the visitor is looking for help they know they need, they need a service or a product. The problem with using software and tools to do your keyword research for you is that they don’t really know or care what your audience is looking for. They don’t know you; they don’t know them.

Sometimes, what you might think of as a blockbuster key phrase, like “Hey, we rank really high for this, you know, ‘What is the sales tax in this geography?’” Like, great, that person just wanted a quick answer. They’re never going to convert, they’re never going to convert!

David: And is there a role for maybe interviewing or talking to real customers, or maybe even talking to your salespeople to get a view of the questions that real people ask, and how they kind of map to intent?

Andy: The ultimate source of keywords is your audience. And there’s lots of ways to get that. One of them is, of course, talking to people. And if you get asked the same question two or three times you should be answering that question in your content.

But when I do that – and when we all do that (and we all should) – search is not your primary concern. Because once you write this article, you can literally send it to exactly the person who asked you the question.

Who needs Google? – you’re already talking to this person.

So, what we should do is listen for the topics that our audience really, really cares about. Put plans in place to publish on those topics. And then as we’re publishing look for keyword opportunities.

Some will have keyword opportunities; some will not have keyword opportunities. If you write the thing that your audience really loves and wants and you give it to them, but there wasn’t a keyword related to it, you can publish it an adjacent topic that does add the keyword that links to this great piece you made. But yes, I think empathy is the ultimate marketing skill.

There’s other sources of empathy, such as if you have a site search tool, and people are searching for a phrase – that’s a source of empathy. And then sometimes, of course, the keyword research tools, and Google itself will tell you what people are looking for related to your topic or your industry works like a charm.

David: Are there other opportunities or trends with search at the moment that are particularly relevant to B2B tech?

Andy: Well, there’s a risk and a threat in search right now that we should all be aware of, which is, as I alluded to a minute ago, none of us should be targeting phrases for which there’s just a short, simple answer.

The number of searches for which the click-through rate is zero keeps growing because Google gets more informative on its own platform. So we should all be looking for opportunities to write content that is yes, keyword focused, but also, the answer to the question the visitor is asking is deep and long with details, because Google’s search results are so informative. Click-through rates to websites are on the decline.

So, target key phrases which give up the I. Remember years ago, we used to publish glossaries? Remember this SEO strategy? We’re like, “Oh, I’ll make a big glossary and answer, you know, tell everyone with the top…” No, that doesn’t work at all anymore. No traffic at all.

So, target key phrases for which the best answer is very long and detailed and 2000 words and you can’t get it in a Featured Snippet.

David: Any final tips for the audience of B2B tech marketers when they’re thinking about keyword research or optimising their content? While we have a world expert with us, the audience would be upset with me if I didn’t ask.

Andy: The ultimate in the best advice is: when you’re publishing a piece of content related to a search, that you literally make a sincere attempt to create the best page on the internet for that topic.

You’re not doing SEO if you’re not sincerely trying to make one of the top 10 pages on the internet. You have no right to rank if you made another medium-quality piece.

But also, as you do this, don’t forget to inject your own voice; say something that’s provocative or counterintuitive. Inject it into this keyword-focused piece that’s going to touch on all the related topics and semantic SEO and subheads and detail, but put yourself in there and throw in some strong points of view.

Search is, of course, library science. It’s an information retrieval technology. But your reader has a brain with an amygdala and can feel emotion.

So if you want to be memorable, and not just a lovely Wikipedia for your industry, then don’t forget that some of the best results from digital come from differentiated voices, strong points of view, Op-Ed. You know, the counterintuitive prediction or perspective of voice. Put people into your articles and include contributor quotes from people with interesting ideas.

Don’t just rank high, be interesting – and have fun.

David: Andy, thank you so much. If the audience want to hear more from you, more of your points of view and your wisdom, where can they best find you?

Andy: I write an article every two weeks at orbitmedia.com. So orbitmedia.com/blog is where you find the main source of my stuff. I put it all together into a book called Content Chemistry.

And also LinkedIn would be my best social media platform. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. The blue button that says Follow? You can skip that and go down to Connect. You know how that works. But yeah, anyone’s welcome to reach out anytime. I’m happy to help however I can.

David: Thanks, Andy. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard so much clear, valuable advice in just a few minutes.

Ruth, you’re an experienced marketing leader, as well as a content marketing expert in your own right. You must have enjoyed that, right?

Ruth: I thought it was great. I thought it was super helpful. And I think what really kind of my takeaway is: when you’re working in a niche tech sector, some of the more generic pieces of advice you get around keyword research just aren’t that helpful, because they don’t cut the mustard for the space you work in.

But Andy got straight to the point of giving us some really helpful pointers as to how we could get started.

One of the things I do think we should also mention, though, is first off Andy talks about both the fun and opportunity for those B2B marketers working in niche tech sectors. And truthfully everybody needs fun and opportunity in their role. So I thought that was a great starting point from Andy.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And as a marketer yourself, do you find it difficult to know, kind of search terms, and use the research as a starting point for good content? Where do you go to?

Ruth: That’s a great question, and I always start with the customer.

Because I really believe that nothing interesting happens in the office. And what I mean by that is marketing teams need to get out there and speak to their customers, speak to their client-facing colleagues, to maybe sit in on meetings, go to trade shows with them, ask the Client Advisory Board, ask the user group, wherever you can get in front of customers, and get a real sense of how they talk about the challenges or pain points or issues that they face in to really understand the language that they use.

I’m picking up on something that Andy mentioned, I also feel that those conversations and those bits of insights really give you the topics that your audience is passionate about and care about. And I think there’s a lot to be said, for producing really helpful content. And I think if you start by listening to what the customer has got to say, tap into the knowledge and insight of your client-facing teams, really unearth these topics that you can tell the audience care about, I really believe when you come to publication, just like Andy said, you can add in the keywords, you can make it a bit more SEO friendly during the publication stage, but it’s all got to start with some customer insight for me.

David: Yeah, and I love that about going to trade shows! I was here like, the listener can’t see, but I was here with my hands in the air like preach, you know, like, just as a younger marketer and a younger copywriter, working on trade shows, even if I wasn’t doing the selling just supporting was so helpful, because I got to hear the conversations that were happening.

And I suppose from that point of view, it’s not either/or, it’s both/and when you work in such a niche market. It’s using those conversations and what you can glean can help you understand where the search intent is in the keyword report and understand what the keyword report means.

And then the other way around, the keyword report can help you understand the language that people are using to address the problems and the questions and the issues that you’ve heard them talk about, whether it’s on a trade show, or writing case studies is another one that I love, because you get to talk to a customer about their thing, and about their challenge and about their world. Like every case study makes me a better writer.

Ruth: Definitely. And you know, David, I think what you’ve just said picks up on something Andy mentioned as well about every key phrase equals intent, and how you’ve got different key phrases at different stages of the customer journey.

So, for example, if somebody’s right at the start of their customer journey, as content marketers, we tend to focus on producing what we call TOFU content. But this is the kind of content that needs to talk about pain points, challenges, questions – those are the kinds of things we need to be thinking of when we’re thinking about our key phrases and our keywords.

If you’re producing middle-of-the-funnel content, rather, I think that’s when we need to see things that relate more to the solutions that somebody might be searching for.

And then when you get to the bottom of the funnel, that’s where it could be more product focus keywords.

So I think Andy made a really good point about thinking around this premise of every phrase equals intent. And those phrases change depending on where somebody is in their journey.

David: I was interested in what Andy had to say about zero search queries and how that changes the nature of the content that people are producing. Is that something that you see?

Ruth: Actually, I hadn’t really thought about this until I heard this in Andy’s advice. And that got me really thinking about that. And that’s something that I’m definitely going to go away and consider a bit more.

David: Yeah, although AI might change it all, again. If, soon enough, ChatGPT gets pulled into Bing, if Google sorts out Bard, you know, you might have these chatbots answering the questions, instead of a list of search results, perhaps.

Ruth: Yeah, that’s true. Actually hadn’t really thought about it from that context. So that’s really insightful.

David: Anything else that stood out for you?

Ruth: Yeah, one of the things Andy mentioned was about the idea of starting with the bottom-of-the-funnel content first, so bottom-of-the-funnel keyword research, content marketing to support the bottom-of-the-funnel stage.

And I would always, always advocate this as a starting point because, ultimately, a very small number of your target audience are active in the market at any one point in time. And I think you need to be if you’re starting out on your content marketing strategy, or you’re revisiting your content marketing strategy, you will always want to prioritise the most commercial-focused activities first, in my opinion.

I think it wins you friends with the sales team. I think it buys you goodwill from your superiors and your stakeholders to then move back up through the funnel to the different stages. So 100% agree with Andy’s point around starting with the bottom-of-the-funnel content first and then working out through the other layers. So you get, you know, to the top of the funnel.

So yeah, 100% agree with that point.

David: Absolutely. You know, I think when content marketing first became an approach, it was so new and so different, everyone almost kind of the product marketing almost became a dirty word. You know, because that wasn’t what content marketing was about.

But, sometimes, the most helpful thing you can write is about your product for someone who’s at that stage of their buying journey. And absolutely, it needs to be included.

Ruth: What do you think about the persona perspective, in this context, in the sense of Andy talks a lot about mapping it to different stages of the customer journey?

But I also wonder if there’s a case for mapping it to different personas in your buying unit. So you know, for example, you might have a C-suite persona, but then you also might have an end-user persona.

And I guess the same would be true, as the customer journey point too, you probably need to think about the personas that you’re writing for, and think about their journeys that they might go on. So your keywords might be different for the C-suite part of your DMU versus the kind of hands-on end-user DMU.

Or are personas old hat, in your experience now? Have people moved on from them?

David: I don’t know, I must admit, I kind of like an avatar more than a persona, for me.

Ruth: Tell me a bit more about that.

David: I’m fortunate in my career to have had enough lives and to have known enough people and enough clients and whatever, that for most sort of what you might call a persona for most job roles, challenges that people are facing, I can normally think of someone that sort of works in that job.

So I can normally write to a person that I have in mind, rather than a persona. And it’s just a bit more, a bit more real.

And it comes back to the point that you were making right at the beginning around getting out to trade shows and meeting people, you know. Doing case studies, interviews, whatever you can do to meet the customer because you might well meet people that map to those personas and makes that more three-dimensional for you. So you can get from a persona to an avatar. You’re like, “Oh, I’m not, I’m not writing for, you know, the CTO and the automotive sector. I’m writing for Janet.”

Ruth: And I think when you give them a name, and you give them an identity that makes it even more real, and I guess if you can base it on somebody that you’ve actually met in a real-world situation, all the better.

David: Before we finish up this episode, we do have a couple more things to share. First, we have this copywriting pro tip.

Announcer: Copywriting pro tip.

Fiorella Rizzà: Hi, I’m Fiorella Rizzà. I’m a Senior Content Designer. And my writing tip is if you need to read it twice, it’s not good enough.

Ruth: Thanks, Fiorella. It sounds so simple, but it’s so, so effective.

Before we go though, David, I gather you’re looking for some of the best pieces of B2B content ever.

David: Yeah, that’s right. As I mentioned earlier, this is the 10th anniversary of the podcast. So, we thought we’d do something a bit unusual to celebrate. And we’ve set ourselves a challenge to find the best B2B content of all time. I mean, it could be a blog post, a video, ebook, white paper, who knows. But the first stage is: we need to compile a long list of contenders.

So, listener, have a think about content that stuck with you, and please send us a nomination, anything you like on social media, or vote at radix-communications.com.

Speaking of which, Ruth… Do you have a particular favourite you’d like to put forward for the list?

Ruth: I do. You actually, so my favourite piece of content is Vital Stats by Earnest. This got shared with me many moons ago on a content marketing training course at the IDM. And they use this Vital Stats video as an example of a good piece of video content. But as the name suggests, it was also jam-packed with loads of really helpful information around how you could make the case for content marketing in your business. And I went back to the business I was in and I used all the stats in the Vital Stats video to make the case for introducing content marketing in my business at the time.

And frankly, I haven’t looked back.

So, when I went to work in earnest, I actually got to work on I think it was Vital Stats 3, and it was a proper fangirl moment for me, because I loved the first two iterations and now it was my job to help champion Vital Stats 3.

So Vital Stats 1 by Earnest is one of my favourite pieces of content of all time.

David: Amazing. I’m not sure I know it, I think I’ll go and look it up straight away. And we’ll absolutely link to it in the show notes so that the listener can have a have a look, get inspired and send us suggestions of their own as well. Thank you for that.

Ruth, if the listener wants to get in touch with you and chat about content marketing. How can they do that?

Ruth: Oh, you can find me on LinkedIn, drop me a message. I love to have a chat with anybody. Always happy to talk about content marketing and help out wherever I can.

David: Thanks for co-hosting. Also, Ruth, you’re an absolute natural. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Ruth: I’ve had a lot of fun, thank you David for asking me. And I think whilst we’re at it, we should also thank Andy Crestodina for his wisdom and super helpful tips.

And Fiorella Rizzà for that copywriting pro tip because that’s what I think we’ll all remember.

And of course, we must thank Emily King for the question that kicked this whole episode off.

David: Yeah, not to mention kicking off this very podcast. Emily, wherever you are listening. I hope you feel that we’ve done justice to your question.

Remember listener, it could be your question that we answer in a future episode.

Announcer: 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 time for another B2BQ&A. Until then make great content and remember, Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one. I’ve never been shushed by Google though. At least not yet.

B2BQ&A 112: How can B2B content stay consistent when everything changes?

Posted on by The Radix Team

As Greek philosopher Heraclitus pointed out, change is the only constant. So, how can B2B marketers ensure their content stays up-to-date and relevant to customers when technology and markets never stand still?

We’ll find out in this episode of B2BQ&A, where we answer a question posed by Kate Terry, Head of Demand Generation at Unily.

Specifically, Kate asked:

“How do you keep up with content when your products and business keep evolving into new markets?”

To tackle Kate’s question, we welcome to the podcast two experts with a wealth of experience in content marketing. Our special interview guest is Jason Miller, Head of Brand and Content at Tyk, and our guest co-host is Diane Wiredu, B2B messaging strategist and founder of Lion Words.

Along with Radix’s George Reith, our guests explore how your messaging can stay consistent when everything else is changing.

In this episode, you’ll also learn an essential copywriting pro tip from Ettie Bailey-King, founder of Fighting Talk Communications and consultant for inclusive and accessible content.

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

Need consistency in your B2B content? Here are 5 key takeaways from the podcast:

1. Have a core piece of evergreen content

Jason suggests having a core of 80% of content; what he calls “big rock content”. According to Jason, “Your core content is based around the subject area you want to own and should answer the number one question in your customers’ minds. The remaining 20% of little rock content you can set aside for experimentation to try out ideas.”

2. Treat your content like a best-selling book

There’s a reason our most trusted and respected textbooks remain popular for years: they’re updated so they stay relevant through change. Jason’s tip is to treat your core content the same way, by giving it a fresh coat of paint every now and again. But Jason doesn’t think we need to reinvent the wheel. Simplify, get back to basics, answer questions, and, above all, be helpful.

3. Don’t give up if content doesn’t perform

If you trust the reasons for creating a piece of content, you should give it every opportunity to work. For Jason’s team, that could mean tweaking the format, the targeting, or the approach. “Every piece of content that me or my team has ever created at any org has always been created for a purpose rooted in data… So if we put it out there, and it doesn’t perform, we don’t give up.”

4. Change brings a chance for genuine thought leadership

“Every time there’s a change… there’s an opportunity to answer the biggest questions,” says Jason. “As soon as we see that… we go after the big questions with some blog and video content. But then we go to our leadership and we say, ‘What does this mean?’”

5. Curate a group of trusted advisors

Jason also recommends leaning on trusted advisors for guidance during times of change. But he’s always cautious when new voices come on the scene. “There’s no shortage of experts and opinions out there,” he says. “It’s how you curate them, and how you build trust or trust those folks to keep you in a good place.”

Want some further reading? Here are the sources Jason mentioned:

Here’s what you can expect in this episode…

3:46 – George poses Kate Terry’s question to Jason Miller.

17:24 – Co-host Diane Wiredu shares her thoughts on Jason’s insights.

21:40 – Diane and George discuss the changes that generative AI could bring.

28:13 – Ettie Bailey-King shares her copywriting pro tip.

Got a question? We’ll find the answer.

To get your burning B2B content questions answered, just send us a voice memo at [email protected]. And if there are any other thoughts you’d like to share, you can connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter: @radixcom.

How to listen: 

Credits

  • We’d like to thank Jason Miller, for sharing so much content wisdom.
  • Cheers to Kate Terry for such a thought provoking question.
  • Special mention goes to Ettie Bailey-King for sharing a great copywriting pro tip.
  • And heartfelt gratitude to Diane Wiredu – our excellent guest co-host.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 112 – How to keep on top of your B2B content when your product keeps changing?

Kate Terry: How do you keep up with content when your product and business keep evolving into new markets?

Diane Wiredu: That’s a great question. Let’s ask Jason Miller from Tyk.

George Reith: Hello, listener, and welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search of an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is Episode 112.

Diane: Change is something of a constant in the world of B2B. But when your organisation, its products, and even the entire industry you work in, are constantly changing, how do you make sure your content stays up-to-date and relevant?

Well, in a few moments, content marketing guru Jason Miller will answer that very question, posed by Kate Terry from Unily. Plus, we’ll hear a copywriting pro tip from Ettie Bailey-King.

George: But first, we should introduce ourselves. It’s been a long time since I hosted the Radix podcast. But if you’re a longtime listener, you might remember my dulcet tones.

I’m George Reith, Senior Copywriter at Radix Communications, the B2B writing agency. And today I’m delighted to be joined by Diane Wiredu founder and messaging strategist at Lion Words. Diane, thank you so much for joining us.

Diane: Thank you for having me, I’m excited to help you host.

George: Oh, it’s such a pleasure. And Diane, I hope you don’t mind, but I had a quick look at your LinkedIn and I saw that you’ve done all sorts of things over the years from messaging strategy to translation and everything in between. How do you manage it all?

Diane: There’s been an evolution over the years; many pivots and many sorts of changes in positioning. But, right now I am exclusively focussed on messaging strategy for B2B and B2B Tech – and SaaS in particular.

But, my journey has been quite a linear one, I think. My background was in translation and languages. And I moved into copywriting and the world of copywriting. And from there kind of into the more strategic side of how you actually build a kind of messaging framework that can inform your copy and content.

George: It’s great to hear actually about your own transformation. Considering the theme of today’s episode is very much about change, it sounds like you’ve had a fair few of your own over your career. So, I think you’re well-placed to co-host this one.

Diane: I think so too, yeah.

George: Cool. So, before we get into the meat of it and start answering this episode’s question… Diane, would you mind telling the listener how they can get in touch with the show?

Diane: Sure thing. Listener, if you have any comments or suggestions you can find Radix on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Voiceover: @radixcom.

Diane: Or, if you want us to answer your question on a future episode, record a quick voice note and send it by email.

Voiceover: [email protected].

George: Thanks very much.

Diane: Now it’s time for our B2BQ&A for this episode. It comes from Unily’s Head of Demand Generation, Kate Terry.

Kate Terry: How do you keep up with content when your product and business keep evolving into new markets?

George: Thanks for your question, Kate.

It’s a thought that’s probably immensely common across the B2B marketing world – we have new technologies constantly coming into play and threatening to change the game. But it’s not just external changes to watch out for. Even changes a company makes to its own products and messaging can risk existing content falling out of vogue very quickly.

So, how do you keep ahead of change and ensure your marketing content stays relevant? To find out, I spoke with Jason Miller – the head of brand and content at Tyk.

If you’ve not come across Tyk before, they offer a full lifecycle API management gateway. So that means the things that businesses use to connect one thing to another. And when you’ve got lots of connections going on, loads of different components keep changing, they have to keep changing, too.

So, I sat down with him and asked how he’s handled industry and technology changes across his illustrious career in B2B marketing. And I asked him Kate’s question directly, “How do you keep up with content and keep it clear, sharp and consistent when your product and business keep changing?”

Jason Miller: So, you know, it’s a great question. I think I would go back to say, “Everything changed, but nothing changed.” Right?

So, even from my days at Marketo, or LinkedIn, or Microsoft, the core fundamentals of the content strategy that I believed in, and that I believe still works to this day, are still there.

You have your core content which is answering the number one question in a customer and prospect’s minds. And, you know, it’s based around what sort of conversation you want to own. That’s sort of what we call the big rock content. And that big rock content’s a stake in the ground – what conversations do you want to own? So that’s your core, that’s always-on stuff, right? I’d say that’s about 75–80% of your content strategy.

Then that 20% is where we put in sort of this intelligent risk content, which is the blog stuff, video stuff. And that’s based on not only, you know, extrapolating, slicing and dicing the big rock content, keeping that always-on strategy. But it’s also carving out some space for experimentation and going after new conversations. Or finding if there’s an appetite for a direction that you want to take that conversation.

So yeah, when you have that big rock, and you have the blog, and you have those two pieces moving, I think that’s core and critical to any piece, any content strategy. And anyone who says anything different? You know, you have to dive into how much can you repurpose and how much value can you extract out of every piece of content? That’s number one.

Number two: is that piece of content necessary?

Number three: how do you activate that content effectively, outside of just checking boxes and pushing it out, and moving on to the next thing?

So, I think it doesn’t matter if your business is changing, or the conversation’s shifting, or if the products evolving, which it obviously should be. It’s a matter of: do you have a core piece of evergreen content that you can evolve with it, that you can put a fresh coat of paint on?

And you treat it like a best-selling book. I mean, you look at something like a classic like The New Rules of PR and Marketing by the great David Meerman Scott, or Ann Handley’s Everybody Writes. These are classic books, essential books, and each year they do a new version of it. Why can’t you just think of your content like that?

So, I’d say that’s worked for the past 10 years, and it continues to work. The channels, the activation strategies aren’t going to change. But again, I don’t think we need to spend too much time trying to reinvent the wheel. Simplify, get back to basics, answer questions, be helpful, and put in those intelligent risks.

George: Just wondering if someone’s listening to that and thinking, “Well, how do I get back to basics? How do I discover like, what is my big rock for my brand?” How’s the best way to go about that?

Jason: There’s no question about what topics we should be creating for our audiences. All the data is out there; from the various numbers of free and paid tools, you can find out within a second, right? So, that’s the data; that approach of what people are searching on.

There’s also the element of what are they not searching on, that value that you provide, that you can put an answer to, or put something out there, or an innovative solution, right?

So, there’s a balance between intent search data, which is core and which should always be on. You should always be looking at and adjusting accordingly. Obviously, that’s going to shift around AI and ChatGPT, and wherever Google goes with this.

But at the end of the day, it’s still pulling from the best of the best of authoritative content. And that’s what we should be trying to address with the best content we can, written with opinions and fact-checked and researched and providing some sort of direction instead of just answering the question.

But, again, it’s as simple as: “What’s the number one question that someone would type into a search engine or type in ChatGPT, that you want to be the best answer for? The most creative answer for? The most helpful answer for? And how do you build on that?”

And the big rock is the core, and every piece of content that comes out of that derivative piece of content – video, podcasts, whatever it may be – just links back and supports that. So, you can own that conversation.

There’s a wealth of content that we know that it’s the content apocalypse, or whatever, I think Mark Schaefer calls it Content Shock. Well, you know, we’re probably on the verge of content shock 3.0 with all the AI-generated stuff coming out. The difference here is, everybody wants to be better storytellers; everybody wants to be more creative.

But we discovered very quickly, and I saw this at Microsoft, I saw this at LinkedIn, that it’s very difficult to tell a very compelling story that stands out and tie it back to the product. We thought it’s super easy. Everybody’s a storyteller, Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well, it’s hard. And it’s hard to get people to pay attention not because of the attention spans, but because of all the crap that’s out there that’s inundating them. And everyone’s looking for a shortcut to going viral or a shortcut to get engagement.

And if you look at it, you take a step back, and you look at creativity. And creativity has been associated with arts and design, and I think if you take a look at how creativity can be applied to B2B, B2C marketing, whatever, creativity is about finding unique solutions, unique ways to address very complex problems. And the more constraints you have, the more elegant that solution can be.

So, I think if you take that storytelling angle, and you bring in this new definition of creativity, or this revised definition of creativity, and apply that to really good informative content – add opinions, add personality – that’s the piece that we’re missing. That’s the piece that’s going to stand out.

That’s the element that I think we’re missing, and we talk about it so much, but every time a brand gets up to bat and takes a big swing… they seem to get cold feet. And they don’t want to take a risk and they play it safe, and then it gets lost. And that’s what drives me crazy.

George: I’m just wondering if we could talk a little bit about sort of how you guys are navigating that journey and putting that unique value into your content to sort of stave off the change side that we’ve been talking about.

Jason: Out of all the roles I’ve ever had, I think this is the most challenging, but also the most rewarding. I don’t want that to sound cheesy, but marketing to a very technical audience – they don’t like to be marketed to they don’t like the fluff and the snake oil,  they like to solve problems. And they like to get to the core, and they like straight talking.

So, it’s almost like everyone should take lessons from marketing to this technical crowd – developers, CIOs, CTOs, architects – because it is challenging, and you have to be real. And they can see through all this fluff and BS.

So, Tyk is an open-source gateway, full lifecycle API management platform, we do lots of different things. But what we’re seeing in the market, and it’s really interesting and I think it’s called a once-in-a-marketing-lifetime opportunity, you’re seeing category creation happen right before your eyes.

APIs are becoming much more mainstream, they used to be very technical, just for developers and architects. But now everyone needs to understand the basics of how you can use APIs to grow and monetise your products, right? So, we’re seeing new audiences come into this very technical world and there’s an opportunity to not only educate them, and build trust with them, but also to create a new category.

It’s always about, you know, educating and building trust. And I think that’s why you’ve seen sort of branding, making a comeback. Now we’re figuring out that no one’s going to click on anything unless they know who you are, and they trust you. And I think that’s the importance of the brand coming around. Brand storytelling, creativity, content, social, all of this is coming back to becoming the most critical piece to moving forward. It’s the only thing we have left, I think in terms of marketing effectively, and in an authentic manner.

George: I’d love to hear from you, Jason, some more like small-scale stories of like, you know, when you’ve been working with Tyk, or even before, when you were with LinkedIn, and Microsoft, you know, were there specific situations where you had a piece of content and something happened that changed it? And you thought, “Okay, we’ve got to go back and do something else with this.”

Or maybe the opposite, where the other people thought something had to be changed, and you were like, “No, no, no, this has got to stay the same.”

Jason: Here’s the thing. Every piece of content that me or my team has ever created at any org has always been created for a purpose rooted in data, right? So if we put it out there, and it doesn’t perform, we don’t give up, and I think that’s the difference, right?

So, we either change the title, we change the copy, we change the creative. I think you keep going, if you know it’s rooted in data, and you know, there’s an appetite for it, I think you need to give it two or three shots.

So, even at LinkedIn, and even at Tyk, we’ve released the same piece of content two or three times, tweaked it, changed the creative, changed the targeting, changed the approach, changed the format.

So, I do see a lot of marketers just being forced into launching and moving on – if it fails, it fails. And I think anything that you create, anything that you bring your team together to put some blood, sweat, and tears into, you need to give it every opportunity.

I’d say after the third time, maybe if you got it wrong, by the third time…

George: Three strikes and you’re out sort of thing, right?

I guess there’s changes that are sort of internal like, say, if you guys at Tyk decide to release a new product set or something like that, you know, that’s a change that you guys are starting and you know, I guess you’d want to create new content around a new product or solution, you’ve released that type of thing.

And there’s obviously change that gets sort of forced upon you by external factors. So, like your market changes, or like, I don’t know, ChatGPT. Suddenly, everybody thinks it’s going to change how your industry operates, and you’re almost reacting to change that’s happening externally.

Do they hit differently for you as a content marketer? Is there a different approach you would take for those different types of changes?

Jason: I think with every time there’s a change, it’s an opportunity, right? There’s an opportunity to answer the biggest questions, but also be a bit of a thought leader. Again, I think these are words that are tossed around way too loosely. But you know, you answer the questions, and you tie it back to how your platform or your solution can help solve that answer or ease that pain. But the biggest opportunities around getting the experts in your company to form an opinion on what this means for that. Right?

So, what does ChatGPT mean for developers or mean for the API world? You know, we have a very outspoken, very opinionated CEO in Martin Buhr, and James Hirst, our co-founders. And so as soon as we see that, as a content team, we go after the big questions with some blog content, video content. But then we go to our leadership and we say, “What does this mean? People need to know what this means?” And they’re looking for someone to take that conversation and share hopefully some good news, but also some things to be maybe cautious about.

So, I don’t see that enough. And I think that’s the biggest opportunity.

George: If you could share one piece of advice for somebody that was in a situation where they were seeing change and were a bit frightened by it. As a content marketer, you know, if you could give them one tip to kind of change their perspective, what would you say to them?

Jason: I mean, the biggest tip for me when I first heard about AI, and I talk a lot about creativity, AI creativity and it’s something I’ve been talking about quite a bit. Was I concerned? Of course.

But here’s the thing, if you have your network of trusted sort of advisors, right – and I know my go-tos right, they’re the Doug Kesslers, the Jay Acunzos, the Ann Handleys – if you have that in place, and these are the folks that you trust in your feed, and that you go to these folks, and this is, again, goes back to that opportunity of that opinion, what does this all mean by a trusted leader who’s got the expertise?

If you have that in place, and you do your own research on the side, those two coming together will alleviate any sort of anxiety or challenge because you have the trusted advisors and you have your own research, and you can form your own opinion.

The part that frightens me is that people just take these text-based posts at face value because they’ve gotten 600 shares or whatever, and they don’t look at where it’s coming from, and they don’t look at the intent on where it’s coming from. Right?

Again, and this goes back to every good marketer, every good content marketer every like, even as a photographer as a creative, who are your 10 to 12 sources, that you have an individual feed or you subscribe to the newsletters, and these are the ones that you trust in, believe in, that you’ve built up over time. There’s always some new ones coming in, but just see where they’re coming from. And make sure that they’re coming from a place of good intent, and not trying to take advantage of the situation, right?

So, it’s your responsibility – there’s no shortage of experts and opinions out there, it’s how you curate them, and how you build trust or trust those folks to keep you in a good place.

George: Thanks, Jason, for your insightful response to a very tricky question. It’s interesting to hear that yes, there are plenty of ways savvy marketers can create content that stands the test of time, and resists change.

So, Diane, what stood out for you there?

Diane: Yeah, I think it was a really great answer, actually. There were a few different parts that stood out to me.

One, the key thing about having, big rock content, right? And also this idea of, if you have evergreen content that you can just slap a fresh coat of paint on.

I think that’s a really great place to start. Because when it comes to content, there’s a lot of talk about creation, and not as much talk about repurposing, re-igniting, I guess, redistributing, looking at one piece that you have, and actually looking for different angles, different points of views, different ways to share them, and kind of elaborate on those.

So, I think that that was a really great place to start in probably the same place, I would have started with my answer as well.

George: Yeah, absolutely. I think it ties in with something he said at the end, that actually really stood out for me, which is: if you know an idea is good, you kind of need to give it a few tries. He mentioned this idea of like he might try something two or three times and you know, you might put it out there and it doesn’t get the engagement you expect. But you know, the idea is good.

So you’ve tweaked the PPC adverts that link through to whatever piece you’ve produced something like that, you tweak a few things and give it another try, because you kind of have that confidence in it.

And, I think that kind of goes back to what you were saying about, you know, almost you can give something a new lease of life by repackaging it and give it that second chance that it might deserve to kind of actually break through and well, go viral – I say in sort of quotation marks – as much as anything in B2B goes viral.

I’m curious about how you felt when I was interviewing Jason. I almost hoped we were doing good justice to Kate’s question, because I think it’s such an interesting idea of all these different forms of change. But I kind of love that Jason almost just took it to a different angle and was like, “You know, what, don’t worry about change. What’s evergreen is you need to tell a good story.” Like, “Forget about change, don’t worry about that. You’ve got to focus on making your content just really good to read.”

And so I thought it was quite an interesting way to tackle that and think about, you know, becoming better storytellers. And how hard that is. I mean, well, it resonated with me from a writing perspective. I don’t know how you felt about that, Diane.

Diane: Yeah, I do think that was a really great point as well. And I think that coming from that angle, it’s almost like kind of “Disregard the idea of change. So, I know that’s your question, but let’s put it to the side for a minute.”

And really thinking about not just the quality and actually really great storytelling, but one thing that I think is incredibly important is this idea of having a strong point of view at the core of thought leadership, which is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot. And it’s like, well, the phrase does begin with “thought”. So you do have to have a really strong thought on something and some kind of opinion.

And, you know, it doesn’t always have to be based around change, I think that a really interesting way of looking at how you approach content in times of change is, well, all of these trends are happening, and there’s a lot of change happening around you, what are you constant about? And that might also be a different way of looking at things.

I know that in the work that I do with my clients, helping them create a messaging strategy. One of the key things that we work on is, you know, what is your point of view? What is your point of view about the changing landscape and about the industry in which you operate?

Because there’s often a huge shift happening, and your customers and prospects are often coming to you to help them kind of solve a problem. And so, what is it that you stand for? And I think that’s also a really great way of looking at building out evergreen content and different ways to approach that theme or that topic that you can own.

George: Absolutely. It’s really interesting to hear about your experiences from the sort of strategy and messaging side with your own clients, and how these same topics apply really whatever sort of area of the marketing piece you come in from, it all has the same sort of foundational requirements to meet something that’s really good and will stand the test of time.

I’m also wondering, I know this wasn’t necessarily directly what Kate was getting at with the question, but it struck me that, at one point, Jason and I wound up talking quite a bit about ChatGPT. Because you know, I think that the generative AI technology that’s coming in does pose a really fundamental change; maybe one of the biggest changes potentially, we’ve seen for a lot of industries in a long time.

And again, I think the idea that a lot of these technologies, all they can do is sort of repackage things that are already out there and that they’ve been trained on, right?

So, the idea that you can counter that by just having your own unique perspective as a human is quite a sort of empowering way, I think of looking at a new technology that I imagine a lot of marketers are sort of finding a bit scary that this stuff can come out and produce stuff that sounds like real copy.

I don’t know if you’ve sort of had to play around with any of these technologies, Diane, and have your own perspective on that sort of change coming in.

Diane: I think I’m most interested in using AI from a process-oriented perspective to bring operational efficiencies into the way that I work. Definitely, in terms of maybe summarising, synthesising data, and helping me find themes.

But, particularly because a lot of the work that I do is based on the company’s strategy, based on interviewing founders, really kind of human-to-human understanding your perspective and your point of view, and brainstorming and workshopping, and all that kind of stuff. So I’m not too worried about AI from that perspective, but I do see that it can bring a lot of value in other areas.

Jason was talking about, you know, if you’ve got a question, if you’ve got to answer a question, or you’re going to type a question into a search engine, and then kind of spew an answer… If that’s the type of content you’re producing, then you really need to add another layer on top.

George: And I think, you know, Jason made a really good point as well about how that change with generative AI, and also lots of other changes, they do create that sort of opportunity, like you said, to have a unique thought that positions you as a thought leader and leads into thought leadership content.

Speaking of which, one final thing Jason said, that really jumped out to me that I’d love to discuss with you is this idea of him saying that when there’s change happening in your industry, and it’s kind of scary, what do you do? And he suggested turning to these people that you trust, voices in your industry that you know will have a good thought about it.

I’m just wondering, do you have any particular people that you trust as a sort of trusted voice within the industry? What kind of things would you recommend for people looking for those trusted sources of information?

Diane: Yeah, I think this was a really great point. And I think it really depends on your industry, the industry in which you’re operating, and whether you’re looking for voices who operate in that industry, or who have this sort of same role as you. You know, marketers follow marketers, or CEOs and leadership, also following other leaders to hear how kind of how they’re addressing the challenges in their org. Or whether you’re sort of trying to listen to, you know, top voices within tech or AI.

One thing that I think I’ve fallen into the trap of is living in a bit of a vacuum. You know, marketers like to talk to other marketers, and sometimes you go on LinkedIn, and we’re just marketing to each other. And I’m trying to kind of expand my network now and really connect with and follow and listen to podcasts. really out of my realm of expertise, and I think that we don’t talk about that enough.

And so I would perhaps suggest that as well. I want to be up to date on what is happening and so I’m also kind of connecting with and following people on LinkedIn who are kind of top voices in those arenas.

So I would say play around, look through your network, and then sort of branch out. If you’re listening to the same podcasts and reading the same newsletters, I would say ask around beyond your industry and also beyond your role in the org.

George: It’s interesting, what you mentioned about sort of slowly branching out as well because I think when people think about building a network, they think it’s something they can just snap their fingers and have hundreds of people they’ll turn to for trusted information.

But, I know speaking to both you and Jason – people who’ve done all sorts of things in their careers – I imagine it’s a slow process. You slowly start to branch out and see who’s trustworthy, who has the best thoughts about things, who’s covering the latest topics, and you’re building that up piece by piece.

Diane: Listening to or reading thoughts from people who have big followings is great. But bear in mind that often the bigger your following is because you’re sometimes putting out a bit more generic content that is more palatable to the masses. And so I also think it’s worth connecting with – and listening to – underrepresented voices as well.

So, don’t always just go out there and say, “Okay, which are the top 10 marketing leaders, thought leaders, which are the top five marketing podcasts?” Also listen to some of those that are not being spoken about, and that aren’t at the top of everyone’s list, because there are a lot of people doing brilliant things. And I think that diversity of voices and diversity of thought is also incredibly important when it comes to content and improving your own thought process.

George: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. It’s a really great idea.

So, Diane, in the interview with Jason, he had this really interesting idea, this model of big rock content that stays the same; little rock content that doesn’t. And I’m wondering if you’ve had any strategies when you’ve been working with your clients to kind of establish those big rock things that don’t change and kind of still stand up and help you create content, even if things are changing and that content’s still relevant?

Diane: Yeah, it definitely is. I think that this links really nicely to an element that I work on with my clients when helping them build out a messaging strategy. And that’s the concept of having key messaging pillars.

So, if you’re creating key messaging pillars at the company level, so these things that you own in your customers’ minds and your prospects’ minds, a few topics, or themes or ideas that you can completely own and go after, that you want to be remembered for. It makes, obviously, creating content around these things a lot easier. And I think that once you have those as well, it’s easier to kind of stay rooted and stay grounded in one thing, even if there are trends consistently changing.

So I think that we talk a little bit in content about having content pillars, and it’s the same as sort of the messaging in your company strategy – you should also have very clear messaging pillars so that everything that you produce from copy and content is also kind of grounded and revolves around those themes.

George: Before we wrap this episode up, it’s time for our copywriting pro tip.

Voiceover: Copywriting pro tip

Ettie Bailey-King: Constantly ask, “What’s in it for me?” to get in your reader’s mindset.

Diane:  Thanks, Ettie, that’s an amazing piece of advice for writing and probably many other professions as well. I know I use this daily in my work.

George: As do I. Well, with that then, we’ve reached the end of today’s episode. So, Diane, thank you so much for co-hosting again, it’s been a real pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you.

Diane: Thanks for having me. We should also thank Jason Miller for answering our question, Ettie for the pro tip, and of course, Kate Terry for asking the question that prompted today’s episode.

George: Thanks to everyone that contributed to today’s episode. Remember, listener, next time, it could be your question that we answer.

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

George: We’ll be back soon for another B2BQ&A. Until then, take it easy and remember change is the only constant although the need for good storytelling is pretty constant too.

Diane and George: Goodbye.

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!