Category: Content Marketing

Reviewing B2B copywriting? Steal our 16-point quality checklist

Posted on by The Radix Team

In any industry where quality matters, there are a series of objective tests that a product has to pass before it’s released. But somehow, assessing B2B marketing content still seems to be a highly subjective process.

Maybe there’s a belief that creative work is exempt from objective judgement, or a fear of provoking arguments and resentment among writers and stakeholders. Still, nobody reviewing B2B writing seems to have a clear idea of what good looks like.

And that’s ironic. Because in most other contexts, a simple checklist of definable yes/no tests – making quality a little less subjective – is precisely the thing that prevents disagreement.

At Radix, we challenged the idea that evaluating writing is only ever subjective. So, we created a clear, 16-point QA checklist that’s inspired by the process we follow for all our internal reviews – the ones our content leads do before the client sees the work.

Our QA process helps to safeguard quality, but it also improves consistency across our writing team by highlighting areas for development in both writers’ work and client briefs.

And it works so well that we want to share it with you.

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

(Click the image to open the checklist as a printable PDF)

A 16-point quality check for your B2B content

The questions you can use to guide your reviews are grouped into five tests, reflecting the five key B2B copywriting competencies: accuracy, clarity, authority, empathy, and wizardry.

Test A: Accuracy

Q1: Is the copy free from factual errors?

Readers won’t take your content seriously if it’s littered with factual inaccuracies or (worse) straight-up lies. This is basic integrity.

Q2: Have you screened for typos, grammatical errors, and spelling mistakes?

Writers and marketers are only human, and typing is hard. But your reader may not be forgiving, so take the time to proof thoroughly.

Note: If you’re using the QA checklist to identify issues for development, you’ll need a scoring threshold that separates consistent errors from occasional slips. If you’re interested, our wording is: “Are there two typos or fewer per 500 words AND is the copy free from grammatical and spelling errors (that aren’t obvious typos)?”

Q3: Does the piece meet the technical requirements (word and character count limits, templates, style guide, SEO)?

This might seem niche, but it’ll save a lot of headaches when you come to upload documents into your CMS or pass your copy on to designers. The point to take away is that the copy needs to meet the technical requirements of the format.

Plus, adhering to file-naming conventions makes managing content easier for everyone.

(So far, so good. The first three questions should ensure your copy is error-free. But we’re just getting started…)

Test B: Clarity

Q4: Does the copy have a logical structure that presents a compelling argument?

Usually, a B2B decision-maker isn’t interested in reading meandering walls of copy or navigating subversive storytelling approaches. Your content can be long, but you must take your reader with you. That means you need a strong structure that always makes sense.

Q5: Is the point of the piece obvious – from the start and throughout the narrative?

If you’ve got to the end of the introduction and aren’t sure why you should continue reading, or if the piece completely tails off towards its conclusion, the result is the same: you’ve lost your reader. (And your mark for this question.)

Q6: Is every sentence easy to read?

If you find yourself rereading sentences, tripping over grammar, or referring to Google to understand the language, the piece won’t work. If your reader is a senior decision-maker, time-poor, or reading on a mobile device, that only adds to the pressure to ease the cognitive load.

The “every sentence” part of the question sets an incredibly high bar – B2B tech can be complex – but this is important, so we make no apologies for that.

Test C: Authority

Q7: Is there appropriate use of technical or industry terms that are relevant for the intended audience?

There’s no point claiming expertise if you don’t speak your reader’s language. If the content is for a specialist B2B audience, the writer will likely need to use relevant technical jargon where appropriate. And they’ll need to handle it correctly – too much B2B content sprays industry terms around to mask a lack of confidence, and it always shows.

Q8: Are the claims supported by evidence and specific details?

Talk is cheap, so ensure every claim is specific and appropriately sourced. Don’t just say it’s fast; say how fast. Don’t say a viewpoint is widely acknowledged; link to an example. If there are references to studies or ongoing news stories, ensure the sources cited are the most recent available.

Q9: Is the copy free from waffle, hyperbole, clichés, and overly formal language?

Hyperbole fails when it promises the impossible (inflated language makes you less believable). If the writer seems too in love with their thesaurus, they might be making up for lack of relevant knowledge.

“If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.” Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

Test D: Empathy

Q10: Is there evidence that the writer understands the target audience?

This is fundamental to effective B2B marketing content. If the brief failed to define the audience, the writer should’ve pushed back before they even got close to writing.

Q11: Does the piece avoid making assumptions about the audience?

This is a tricky one. When you’ve done your audience research, it’s easy to go too far and lapse into telling the reader what they must think. Some writers will do this without realising, but making ill-advised assumptions only alienates the audience or dilutes the piece’s credibility.

Q12: Are the content and tone appropriate to the audience’s interests, priorities, and knowledge level?

How many B2B content pieces aimed at a particular sector start by defining the market or saying why it’s important? Newsflash: if you work there, you already know.

You need to understand your audience’s knowledge and awareness level. This is partly about the language, of course. But it’s also about being excited by the right things and going beyond features and benefits to understand the real difference a product, service, or idea will make to someone’s working life.

Test E: Wizardry

Q13: Does the piece offer original insight and value to the reader?

Not every piece needs to reinvent the wheel, but it does need to offer tangible value to the reader – and more content pieces fail on this count than any other. It might be new primary research, an original point of view, or a handy 16-point checklist (ahem), but the reader needs to gain something in return for their time.

Q14: Is it written in the right voice?

This is a little easier if you only write for one brand, but still, the piece needs to sound right. If you cover up the branding, is it still clear who’s speaking? Whether you’re writing on behalf of a brand or by-lining to an individual, reading should feel like the client is sitting in your head, dictating it to you.

Q15: Is it engaging and enjoyable to read? And is it likely to incite readers to action?

Place yourself in the reader’s shoes. Does the end arrive quicker than you thought, or does it seem like hard work? Do you naturally want to take the next step, whatever that may be?

What interests this audience may bore you to tears, but if a piece is well written, you should be able to get to the end and say, “Yes, that would work for me if I was a slurry engineer.” If that’s the case, then hey, good stuff.

Q16: And most importantly… Does the piece meet the brief and reflect the right messaging?

After meeting all the points above, it’s important to consider whether the piece reflects the initial brief. If your answer is no, you must take a few steps back and identify where you went wrong.

Even if you’ve produced the most well-written blog post of the year, it won’t be useful to your client – or your campaign – if it doesn’t reflect what you set out to achieve.

If your content scores 16/16, it’s ready to go…

Having reviewed thousands of pieces of content to date (from individual emails to messaging frameworks and entire websites), we find that this checklist works pretty well as a scoring tool.

Your needs might differ; some questions could be more relevant than others. You may also have technical requirements that require greater nuance.

If that’s the case, feel free to download our B2B content scoresheet and make your own version. Maybe you’ll want to change the questions or weight the scoring somehow. Get creative.

But the point is this: asking clear, objective questions makes it much easier to tell whether your content works and reduces the number of arguments you’ll have about preferences. It can help you spot issues and change how you brief, write, and review. And ultimately, it’ll stop you from rushing out weak content.

If it helps to improve the quality of B2B tech content overall, then by all means, steal away. We’ll be delighted.

A checklist to help prepare your subject matter expert for interviews and content feedback

Posted on by The Radix Team

It’s hard to overstate the value that subject matter experts (SMEs) can bring to B2B technology content. When a great copywriter talks to a true SME, they’re able to tease out their niche knowledge, thought-leading opinions, and surprising insights and transform them into content that’s original, engaging, and authoritative.

But for many marketers, looping SMEs into the content creation process is far from easy. In the CMI’s Outlook for 2024 research, 39% of marketers said they have difficulty simply accessing SMEs, while 41% reported issues with workflow/content approval.

Often, the challenges marketers face are a result of their organisations’ complex internal structures and dynamics. We can’t make those things vanish – but we can help you work within them. Over the many years we’ve spent supporting B2B technology marketers, we’ve learned a huge amount about preparing SMEs to become engaged, enthusiastic participants in the content creation process.

We’ve distilled all that wisdom into a short checklist. Download it to discover:

  • How to select and onboard a new SME
  • How to prep them for an input call
  • How to keep their feedback flowing (and your project rolling forward)

“SMEs are always bouncing from one thing to the next, so setting expectations and boundaries is essential. They need to clearly understand the purpose and outcome of the piece, what you need them to do before and after the call, and the deadline – these things are often forgotten.”

– Senior marketer for a global B2B technology enterprise

What’s the big idea?

Posted on by Steve George

Great content starts with a big idea. It’s the thing you want to say that nobody else has the experience, authority, or guts to talk about. It’s your unique perspective on the world you operate in. It’s your story.

The trouble is, when you’re operating in a crowded market – like, say, B2B tech – that angle isn’t always easy to find. You might have plenty to talk about, but still you may find you’re lacking that all-important hook that’s going to differentiate you from the crowd.

Similarly, you may find that you just don’t know enough about what others are saying and talking about to see where your unique opinions, viewpoints and messages lie.

But fear not. I’ve helped quite a few B2B tech companies find and develop their big idea, and I’m going to share some tips to help you do the same.

What do you think you do better than anyone else?

You might have a perfectly rehearsed elevator pitch for what your organisation does, and hopefully you understand which elements of your messaging resonate best with your target customers. But when it comes down to it, what’s the one thing your business really does best?

It’s a far more difficult question to answer than many people expect. It forces you to really get to the essence of what you do differently – and often, once you get there, the answer appears far less exceptional or exciting than you really want it to be.

Think about a huge global tech company for example. They’re built on a history of innovation, but today the cloud services they provide look pretty similar to the offerings of their competitors. It may transpire that the one thing they do better than the rest of their market is guiding and serving customers.

Every marketer in that company wishes with every fibre of their being that their tech was in some way superior to that of their competitors. But in this case, it’s not. There’s no unique story there. The thing they can really speak about with authority is the value of guidance and customer service – a concept that to most won’t seem very exciting at first glance.

But ultimately, the thing you do best is going to form the basis of your big content idea – assuming your customers actually agree with it.

What do your customers think you do better than anyone else?

New research from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs shows 58% of B2B content marketers don’t talk to customers when they’re planning. That’s crazy.

When it comes to planning and creating content, interviewing your customers is one of the most valuable things a copywriter like me can do. Often, the positive thoughts and feelings they have to share about your products or services are remarkably different from what you’ll find in your sales team’s pitches.

Customers have a unique perspective on what it really is that your business does differently, because they see the context of your market – and they choose you. So if you’re struggling to find your own unique story to tell, it’s worth talking to them directly.

And similarly, if you think you’ve found your own big story to tell, you’re going to want to run it past some existing customers to make sure it rings true, before you push ahead with building a content program around it.

What are your competitors saying?

Once you’ve built a balanced picture of what you do best, your head will hopefully start filling with exciting ideas for stories and content you could create. But before you push that button, it’s worth checking out what your competitors are saying.

Maybe they’re not saying anything particularly special or inspiring, but its important to understand the nuances of the conversation, so you can stand out.

Firstly, it’s important for ensuring that what you want to say truly is unique. Secondly, it’s going to give you an idea of the sorts of myths and misconceptions that others are perpetuating that you may want to dispel as part of your big idea.

Where is your business (and your market) heading?

Looking at what’s happening today is important, but your big idea is going to fuel your content plans for (hopefully) months to come. The things you do right now may form the basis for it, but to some degree it also needs to be future-facing.

Do you anticipate major changes in your market over the coming years? Is your product strategy likely to change for any reason in the coming months? And if the answer to either of those questions is yes, why is that?

If you’ve identified changes that your business needs to react to, you’ve also identified valuable topics that you can start discussing in your content today – these are your best opportunities to own a significant conversation in your market.

Big ideas push you towards your best content

Whatever your big idea turns out to be – whether it’s a tough truth your market doesn’t discuss, or a big change that you think is going to impact your market or your customers – having one is going to help you build better content.

At the most basic level, coming up with a big idea forces you to think critically about which subjects are really worth discussing in depth. It keeps you away from creating content for content’s sake, and ensures a level of consistency across everything you produce.

Your big idea isn’t the only thing that your content will explore and discuss, but it is the thread that should tie all of your content together. As little ideas come and go, look at them through the lens of your big idea – identifying ways of exploring emerging topics and hot trends in a way that complements and aligns with the core of your content marketing efforts.

We asked, they answered: copywriting for B2B social media

Posted on by Steve George

It’s understandable that clients often ask us for social media advice. We write social posts, and much of the B2B content we write gets shared online. But we’re always acutely aware that we’re only copywriters, and social media is a fast-moving field, with expertise and best practice all of its own. We can write you a great LinkedIn article, but we can’t tell you how you should use it.

So we were delighted when we were joined by social media expert Kate Stoodley from Comment Ground for episode 71 of our podcast. It gave us a great chance to ask all our most burning questions – but there was still loads more we (and our audience) wanted to know.

And so the idea for this pair of head-to-head blog posts was born.

B2B copywriters and social media specialists approach similar challenges in very different ways and contexts. There’s so much we can learn from one another. So, why not put each other on the spot with a handful of hard-hitting questions, and shine some light on what each side really wants to know about the other?

Here’s how Kate responded to the B2B copywriting inquisition. If you’d like to see how I answered Comment Ground’s questions, keep an eye on their blog: the Comment Ground Commentary. This blog’s twin will be appearing soon!

Question 1: How does the length of copy on a B2B social post affect its performance, and are there any clear trends in the data? (Also, how many hashtags is too many?)

Kate: There are many factors to consider when thinking about social post length; data and trends, the channel, the topic, the goal and of course the intended audience. While it’s absolutely worth considering best practices and guides (like this comprehensive one from Hootsuite), it’s equally if not more important for B2B companies to test, test and test again to determine what performs best for their content, audience and networks.

Across most social channels right now, there’s one clear trend emerging – that less is most definitely more. On LinkedIn, recent data found that shorter updates outperform longer ones, with 16-25 words being a general goal for B2B. Brevity also still rules on Facebook, where posts with approximately 40 characters receive 86% more engagement than their lengthier counterparts.

Interestingly, despite upping the character limit from the infamous 140 to 280, shorter tweets (100 characters and under) also still typically perform best. Hashtags can be used more liberally on this network – though we’re seeing marketers’ focus shift to quality over quantity, even on this rapid-fire platform, and especially for B2B.

Question 2: There’s a perception among copywriters that social channels are a good place to test the limits of a brand’s voice and tone. Is that fair, or is it better to be consistent with other copy?

Kate: Social is definitely a prime arena for testing brand voice and tone limits. In fact, we recommend crafting a social-specific voice to many of our clients. Simultaneously though, we also advise our B2B clients to ensure they keep the focus on what their customer wants, and how they prefer to be communicated with.

It’s tempting to view social as an opportunity to let the creative juices flow, and while that can be true, most B2B buyers aren’t looking for brands to stray too far from their core offering/messaging/style. Most B2B buyers report wanting to feel understood and in good hands – and to be able to quickly recognize a brand’s post.

Question 3: What things are B2C brands doing in social that B2B hasn’t caught onto yet? Can B2B ever be on the same level as B2C in social, given the personal nature of the channel?

Kate: To answer the second question first – Yes! B2B brands can be on the same level as B2C in most ways. However, B2B brands should not aspire to do something just because B2C can.

In terms of the personal nature of social, B2C brands are still definitely quite a way ahead of B2B. Generally, they’re doing a better job of personalizing copy and posts to resonate with consumer buying habits and different personas. However, we are starting to see exciting B2B personalized social content emerging, largely thanks to ABM’s rise in popularity.

B2C brands’ visuals tend to garner lots of attention. For B2B brands, the volume and quality of data at their fingertips presents an exciting opportunity to do the same. By grabbing a stat that their audience is really interested in and presenting it in a compelling way, B2B brands can create engaging visual social content that feels just as fresh as what B2C is doing.

Lastly, B2B is still in the early stages of effective employee and C-Suite social programs. Despite an almost over-abundance of thought leadership content and talk, there’s still a huge opportunity for B2B brands’ subject matter experts, sales teams, C-level leaders and other associates to showcase their brand’s culture and messages personally, in a way that will resonate with various target segments. After all, the people behind brands is where successful social is heading, regardless of industry.

Once again, we’d really like to thank Kate for her time and input. If you’d like to hear more from her, check out Good Copy, Bad Copy Episode 71, or visit the Comment Ground Commentary page.

Thin Slicing: What B2B marketers can learn from the agile software development practice

Posted on by Steve George

B2B marketers are great at coming up with creative campaigns and content ideas. But all too often, long approval cycles, restricted budgets, and the sheer scale and complexity of those ideas make them difficult to bring to life at speed.

Fortunately, marketers aren’t the only ones experiencing those challenges. Our colleagues over in the world of software development are up against them too, and they’ve devised some transformational new practices to help overcome them. And there’s one in particular that B2B marketers may be able to borrow.

Thin slicing is an Agile practice where large projects are sliced up into smaller deliverables and launched iteratively, rather than all at once. In our Turtl doc below, we explore how thin slicing can help B2B marketers both prove and improve the ROI of their campaigns and content.

Click to read Thin Slicing for Marketing

Funnel!: A brief history of the world’s first content marketing strategy game

Posted on by Steve George

If you’re a very, very lucky person, you may have received an interesting package recently. I am of course talking about Funnel! – the content marketing strategy game that’s been landing on literally tens of desks around the world.

For us at Radix, it’s so much more than a board game. It’s the culmination of more than a year’s work, it’s proof that we can turn our hands to creating just about any type of content and make it great, and it’s a living testament to the diverse skills, ideas and personalities that make our team amazing.

It’s also a project that I’m immensely proud to have been a part of. But, as I sit here marvelling at the finished product in my hands, it’s interesting to reflect on how a team of copywriters went from a single passing comment to a highly playable representation of the industry we work in.

We thought it was time we shared the full story of Funnel! with the world. So if you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin.

What a long, strange trip it’s been

It’s February 2014. There’s a spirit of opportunity and possibility in the air. A team of energetic and ambitious copywriters convene to chat about Joe Pulizzi’s book, Epic Content Marketing.

After discussing Joe’s thoughts on “breaking through the clutter”, we started thinking about how we could make some noise of our own. “Why don’t we write a book?” a voice suggested. “But Joe says we need to do something different. We need to make a board game!” Kieran replied. Ever the wit, his comment garnered responses ranging from a chuckle to a sharp exhale. But one person wasn’t laughing.

The sound of a lightbulb pinging on drew everyone’s attention to Fiona, who then uttered the two most dangerous words in the history of mankind: “Why not?”

With a raised eyebrow and a wry smile, I turned to George, offering the kind of knowing look that you used to give your best friend when the teacher said you needed to find a partner. He gave me a single nod in return. Game on.

Avengers assemble!

This was happening. We were going to make a board game. We had the idea and the ambition, we just needed a team that was up to the task. Fortunately, at Radix we have a hugely diverse range of skills and backgrounds. For some of us, it was time to dust off talents that we hadn’t put to use for quite some time.

As some of you may or may not know, Radix is also blessed with a disproportionately large geek population. George has genuine game design experience, Emily has designed, created and consumed a huge volume of game-related content, and I spend every moment of my free time analysing, writing about and playing popular card game Magic: The Gathering at a competitive level.

With skills like that at our disposal, the core game design team shaped up quickly. But creating and publishing a board game is a lot more complex than simply making a balanced game that plays well and feels fun. There were a lot more moving parts to consider.

At our first meeting we pinned down all of the roles that needed to be filled, and dished them out accordingly:

  • George’s game design experience made him a natural choice for Project Leader
  • Emily’s graphic design expertise landed her jobs in both concept art and marketing
  • With the intention of leveraging my connections in the UK tabletop gaming community, I volunteered myself for the role of procurement, budget and logistics manager
  • We decided freelance artists would be responsible for final art designs
  • Because we all had something to contribute to design, the final design team consisted of George, Matt, Kieran, Steve, John, and Emily
  • As guardian of the budget, Fiona oversaw us all as Project Sponsor

With the roles locked down, we set ourselves the ambitious final delivery date of March 31st 2015, giving us a full year to complete the project. Various milestones were laid out along the way, but by that date, we wanted the final product in our hands.

Our newly appointed Project Sponsor Fiona set the project budget at £6,000, ensuring we could deliver a professional-looking final product that feels like something you’d find on a store shelf.

Mapping themes to mechanics

With the formalities out of the way, it was time to have some fun. A series of meetings were scheduled to discuss various formats that the game could take, but the first task was pinning down the messages we wanted it to get across – and coming up with creative ways to do it.

After some discussion, a few key themes and ideas emerged:

Theme #1: Good copy/strong content converts prospects

Luckily the industry already has a recognised way of representing the prospect conversion journey – the funnel! It was decided upfront that player progress in the game would be indicated by moving prospect tokens through the funnel somehow.

Theme #2: The importance of choosing the right writer/team for your content

This was suggested to tie in with Fiona’s wildly – well, moderately – successful blog post (now also a hit stage show) the seven types of B2B copywriter. The message here is that choosing the wrong writer for your content can have terrible, terrible consequences.

We started thinking of a way to translate that into the game, and settled on having players assemble a team consisting of writers, designers, marketers, and support staff, each with their own stats, clearly indicating that they are better at some tasks than others.

Theme #3: Representing and responding to key industry trends

As content marketers, we are driven by trends and changes in popular thought. We wanted the gameplay of our board game to be altered by major events in the industry, and by key trends and concepts such as Mark Schaefer’s theory of Content Shock.

We decided that these were best represented in two different ways:

  • Named panels around the board for players to land on
  • A deck of “event” cards for players to draw at random, each with a unique effect that could impact the progress of everyone, or an individual

On the gameplay side of things, we also had some boxes that we were keen for Funnel! to tick:

  • It had to be relatively simple to learn
  • It had to be unique enough to stand out
  • Players needed subtle ways to interact with each other and derail each other’s strategies
  • It had to cast our industry in an amusing light while still conveying some serious messages
  • It had to be FUN(nel)! (I’ll see myself out…)

The build phase begins!

With an arsenal of great ideas in hand, our creation was beginning to take shape. The bare bones of the game were laid out, and it was time to go into prototyping.

We spared no expense on research and development, arming George with some marker pens, some thin card stock and the back of an Amazon delivery box. He worked his magic, though, and soon the first iteration of Funnel! came to life.

One of the most important parts of Funnel! is the cards. They represent a player’s team, the projects they want to complete and as previously mentioned, major industry and workplace events. There are a lot of them, and luckily for George’s writing hand, we knew of a handy piece of software that could help us create and print basic prototypes.

With the prototype built, it was time for the moment we’d all been waiting for – our first playtest!

Given that the core testing team was comprised of game designers, reviewers, connoisseurs, and competitive players, we were a tough crowd to satisfy. Our passion for balanced and enjoyable games kept Funnel! in testing for a long time – unfortunately, a little longer than we’d anticipated.

Before long, our timeline was in jeopardy – and it wasn’t just because we wanted to test and refine the game more! As the months got busier in the Radix office, it was becoming harder to fit testing and development time into our diaries (something about writing copy for clients? I don’t really know. Probably best to ask someone in charge).

It soon became clear that to get the game up to the standard we demanded, we were going to need a bit of extra time. Following the lead of some of the greatest game developers of our time, our tentative new deadline became “it’s ready when it’s ready”.

Refined game, unrefined gamers

As testing progressed, many of the core gameplay elements were tweaked and new ideas were constantly flowed into the game. Key concepts and gameplay mechanics were locked down for the cards, and slowly but surely our finished product began to come together.

With the end in sight, we reflected on the game as it stood and what we’d learned from playing it. We were nearly there, but we had some precise changes to make that could have a major impact on gameplay:

  • Players were given cards at the start of the game (previously everyone started with nothing) to speed the game along and get to the action faster
  • Some abilities were either changed or removed from cards completely because they were either too powerful, too complex, or exploitable to the point that they effectively ended the game on their own
  • The number of different cards was cut down significantly due to expected production and illustration costs, but it also helped to streamline the game and make it easier to learn

A new challenger appears

With the game content largely wrapped up, it was time to start making our creation look beautiful. The process of hiring and liaising with an illustrator was new to many of us, but after a short amount of searching we found the perfect partner in local artist, Keith Sparrow.

Keith loved the idea of our game as much as we did, and was happy to fill in some of the artistic blanks that we had overlooked. He got straight to work, and after a couple of meetings and a few tweaks to his illustrations, we had completed board, box, and card art for Funnel! – and it looked amazing.

Seeing Funnel! come to life with the help of Keith’s vibrant and eye-catching art gave us a huge morale boost. It was coming together, our board game dream was becoming a reality, and we really were going to make this happen.

The clock returns, and it’s ticking

2014 turned into 2015, and before we knew it we were already a couple of months in. There was still a lot to do to finish the game off, but fortunately we gained an extra pair of hands in the form of Account Manager Chloe.

With my diary consumed by client work and design input, Chloe picked up the slack on the procurement side of things and quickly found us a production partner in Shannon Games. The company came well reviewed, but production was going to cost a little more than we’d anticipated.

After a chat with our project sponsor, we decided that the best thing to do was to cut our required unit count from 100 to 50. Our exclusive game just got significantly more exclusive.

We agreed to do business with Shannon Games, and not a moment too soon, as Fiona then sprung it on us that she was going to talk at June’s B2B Marketing Summit – and required a finished copy of the game for her presentation!

The final stretch: welcome to the crunch!

Shannon Games sent us through the design templates we needed to flow our art into, and after a few more last minute tweaks to card copy, game rules and mechanics, we were ready for the final stretch.

With the game art and print layouts in hand, it was time for Emily to jump into action. She persevered through the unenviable task of creating card templates and fitting all of the art and copy into them. It was no simple task, but she did an incredible job in a short time.

The cards came out looking as fantastic as everyone imagined, and through diligent and focused design work, a job that threatened to slow us down significantly was completed without a hitch.

This was a huge blessing. Our new deadline that was dismissed by many as being unrealistic and unachievable was all of a sudden looking a lot more possible. Within the space of a few short days, the final template art came in and we were ready to get it all out of the door and onto the printing press.

Now we play the waiting game

With our final designs sent off, we faced a few tough weeks of waiting. Fortunately, this gave us some time to think more deeply about the logistics involved in getting our finished games out to 50 of our favourite people around the world – a welcome distraction from the nail-biting tension over how the games would turn out.

This kept us occupied for a while, and before we knew it, a knock came a-rap-tap-tapping at our door. In rolled an exhausted courier driver pushing a trolley of unmarked boxes. Heads rose from computer monitors around the room and great excitement blended with palpable fear as we opened up the first case of finished games.

But, it didn’t take much inspection before the fear was banished. The games looked fantastic, everyone was delighted, and we got our first opportunity to revel in the majesty of what we’d created. It was almost surreal to see our idea in its finished state, but it was a hugely satisfying feeling and one that I won’ forget for a long time.

We now had a little bit of time to create some useful collateral behind the game in the form of a new microsite. Drawing on the video creation and editing talents of Emily and her partner Paul, and the sharp presentation skills of George “Handsome George” Reith, we put a couple of tutorial clips together to help people get to grips with the game quickly.

While this was going on, each box was thoroughly checked, and a personalised cover letter was added to each one as we prepared to ship them off to their new homes around the world.

After discovering that Sarah and Matt’s buggy built for two unruly children could also comfortably seat 8-10 content marketing strategy games, a low-tech plan was devised for getting them all to the local post office and off out into the big wide world.

Breaking news: people love Funnel!

One of our major ambitions for Funnel! was that people would love receiving it and be eager to share it with others. It wasn’t long after they went out the door that we started seeing a stream of amazing and encouraging social feedback pour in. From tweets and photos of people enjoying playing the game, to blog posts inspired by our idea, the response from our friends and influencers has been nothing short of incredible.

It’s a brilliantly satisfying feeling to see a project of passion be so well received. This was something out of the ordinary for us: we took a risk, we did something we’d never attempted before, and ultimately we used our unique skills and abilities to create something truly different. To see that go down so well within our industry has been one of the most rewarding feelings I’ve had in this job to date.

So where do we go from here?

With the Funnel! project now complete, everyone here is kind of wondering what’s next. We’ve acquired a whole new set of skills outside of what we’d usually do, but when are we going to put them to use again? Or which fringe content format is next on our list to conquer?

Maybe one day we’ll explore the idea of Funnel!’s awkward sequel, but until then, if you want some help creating a board game that’s going to turn some heads and get you noticed, I know the perfect team of highly-skilled geeks for the job. You can find us by calling +44 (0)1326 373592, or emailing the team at [email protected].

Five ways B2B marketers can go the extra mile with data privacy

Posted on by Steve George

In marketing, almost everything we do is driven by customer data in one way or another. It helps us understand customer sentiment, expectations, and needs, enabling us to create relevant, high-impact campaigns and content.

But with great power comes great responsibility. Following the great GDPR panic of 2018, we all know not to put personally identifiable information into the public domain, or seriously misuse it. But beyond that, how much time do we really spend thinking about data privacy and our day-to-day role in upholding responsible data practices?

To mark Data Privacy Week, here are five things B2B marketers and copywriters can do to safeguard data privacy, without compromising on the value customer data can deliver.

 

#1) Personalise, but don’t go overboard

We’ve all come across content, ads, and offers that feel a little too targeted to us. It’s an unsettling feeling that gives people the impression they’re being monitored, rather than simply catered to.

But overpersonalisation doesn’t just put people off; it can be bad news from a data privacy perspective too. The more customer data you gather and use in your campaigns and content, the greater the risk of that data being exposed or compromised.

Encountering overpersonalised offers and content brings privacy right to the front of your audience’s mind, leading them to ask questions about what you’re gathering and why. Suddenly, a campaign that you wanted to drive sales starts driving a very different kind of engagement – changes to cookie settings and personal data visibility.

 

#2) Get rid of data and materials you no longer need

Under EU GDPR law, people have the right to have their personal data erased if it’s no longer necessary for the purpose you originally collected or processed it for. But how often do you go back and clear out old data once a campaign is complete?

As copywriters, it’s our responsibility to dispose of the sensitive data and materials our clients provide us with as soon as they’re no longer necessary for us to do our jobs. Marketers should follow the same principle. Once reference materials no longer have practical use for you, get rid of them. The less sensitive data you hold, the less there is to be compromised.

 

#3) Be cautious when using public AI models and tools

In 2023, marketers everywhere began experimenting with public AI models – most commonly, ChatGPT. But in the rush to see what they could get out of it, very few people spent time thinking about the security and privacy of what they put in.

AI models learn from the prompts users give them as well as the gigantic datasets they’re trained on. If you use sensitive data – such as your own proprietary research or details about a specific customer you want to target – as part of an AI prompt, it can leak and begin to appear in future outputs from the AI model, creating privacy issues.

Specific AI-related regulations have emerged to help account for its potential impact on data privacy. So, any marketer who wants to use public (or even private) AI models to generate content or make decisions should do so very carefully and understand the privacy risks AI can expose them to.

AI models learn from the prompts users give them as well as the gigantic datasets they’re trained on.

 

#4) Use data to answer specific questions

One of the key principles of GDPR is purpose limitation. It says that any personal data you gather should be collected for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes. So, whenever you’re using or gathering customer data, you should start with a specific question in mind.

Plan out exactly what you want to know about your customers, and what you intend to do with that insight. All too often, people start with a scattergun approach and aim to learn everything possible about a customer and their needs. That quickly takes marketers into dangerous privacy territory, and annoys customers too.

 

#5) Champion prudent, high-impact data use

Marketers collect a lot of personal data from their customers and audience – but they’re not alone. Virtually every team in the modern enterprise uses customer data in some capacity to drive their operations and make informed decisions.

As the team closest to customer data (and the origin point for a large proportion of that data), marketing has a unique opportunity to champion responsible data practices.

By demonstrating how the right data, managed and handled in the right way, can drive business value without sacrificing customer privacy, marketers can help other functions maintain compliance.

 

Mindfulness is half the battle

It’s not rocket science. As the team closest to customer data, marketers should be the first to think about the impact of how it’s used.

The good news is that when they do, everyone wins. Organisations avoid compliance breaches, their reputations remain intact, and customer trust in their brands grows.

So, next time you’re using sensitive data to make decisions or create content, think carefully about what comes next and keep privacy in the front of your mind, so your customers don’t need to.

Five classic ways to make your B2B content budget go further

Posted on by Steve George

It’s no secret that the past couple of years have been tough for enterprise technology companies. Between economic downturn, geopolitical instability, and unpredictable demand, most organisations have had to tighten their purse strings significantly.

This is putting a lot of pressure on B2B technology marketers.

In challenging circumstances like these, organisations look to their marketing function to drive demand and keep their pipeline strong. At the same time, they often pare back marketing teams and budgets, as they look to minimise every minimisable expense. According to Gartner’s 2024 CMO spend survey, average marketing budgets have fallen by 15 per cent this year alone.

We’ve supported the brilliant B2B marketers we call our clients through such moments before, and we surely will again. If you’re being asked to do more with less, and you need a little inspiration, here are five tried-and-tested methods.

#1) Make the most of the content you already have

Repurposing an asset can be much cheaper than creating one from scratch. So, dive into your library of existing content before you commission something utterly new.

Maybe you’ve an evergreen ebook that could be atomised into a fresh set of infographics. Or perhaps you’ve a white paper that previously didn’t perform too well, but suddenly has new relevance for your audience and just needs a new promotional push.

#2) Refresh your highest-performing pieces

Another quick and easy win is to refresh an asset that you’re really proud of. Take a content piece that you know your audience love, and look for opportunities to revitalise it with some up-to-the-minute context.

Think about how your thoughts and insights on the topic have evolved since the piece was originally published. If it makes any predictions about the future, ask yourself whether they’ve materialized – and if not, why not? Sometimes, all a classic content piece needs is some timely scene-setting – perhaps through a new introduction or executive summary – to become almost as powerful as the day it first launched.

#3) Narrow your focus to high-intent prospects

Typically, when economic conditions get tough, organisations are even more keen to see their marketing spend having an immediate impact on their bottom line.

One way to get more bang for your budget – at least in the eyes of your organisation – is therefore to focus on prospects with a very high likelihood of buying in the immediate future. (Though you’ll want to get back to building a diverse pipeline of prospects at a range of intent levels just as soon as you can.)

From a content creation perspective, that means asking some new questions. What problems are you solving for your newest customers? Which sub-personas are buying from you most frequently? What are customers asking you for right now?

By honing in on the needs of those most likely to buy, you’ll make sure the value your content delivers is both more immediate and harder to miss.

#4) Talk to your fellow marketers to avoid duplicating effort

Across very large enterprises, you’ll typically find multiple teams of marketers working on their own content pieces. Working autonomously helps those teams to avoid content creation bottlenecks, but it can also lead to duplicated effort.

When the sun is shining and budgets are ample, this isn’t a huge issue. If you end up with two content pieces that explore a similar topic, that’s probably not the end of the world – they might even be useful assets for different stages of a multi-touch nurture campaign.

But when your budgets are constrained, being on the same page as your colleagues in other parts of the business will help you all to make the most of your resources. Share your content plans early, and minimise the chance that you’ll duplicate each other’s work.

#5) Don’t risk the quality of your content

When you need every pound, dollar, or euro of your spend to deliver measurable returns for your business, cutting corners is extremely risky.

With all eyes on your output, it’s important to get things right first time — or at least, as close to first time as possible. The last thing you want is to have your content go through double-digit rounds of edits, only to end up with a piece that doesn’t land with your audience.

That’s why, when you’ve to spend less on your content, the smart play is usually to sacrifice quantity, not quality.

If you’d like to chat about how you could make your content budget go further, get in touch with us today.

Content SOS: what to do when B2B writing goes wrong

Posted on by Steve George

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

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

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

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

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

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

#1) Settle in for a long task

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

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

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

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

#2) Conduct a full content autopsy

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

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

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

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

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

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

#3) Rebuild your story

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no quick fix

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

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

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

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

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

Now if only I knew where you could find that…

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

Posted on by Steve George

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

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

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

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

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

Bye-bye, bounce rate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what should we measure instead? Engagement

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

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

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

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

Eight more ways to measure content performance

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

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

Define what ‘good’ looks like – then measure

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

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

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