Category: Content Marketing

How to commission B2B tech thought leadership – a guide

Posted on by The Radix Team

Life can be tough for a B2B marketer – especially when you get a brief to write a thought leadership article for your CEO about something as vague and ill-defined as “the role of technology in sustainability”.

The first thing you do is probably call your friendly neighbourhood B2B content writer. It’s no secret that thought leadership content is mostly ghostwritten by a copywriter – hopefully, based on an interview with the subject matter expert (SME).

But when you’re provided with a scant brief like this one, how do you set your writer up for success so they can write with authority, deliver real insight, and win you awareness, credibility, and traffic?

Let me help you out.

Here is my guide to commissioning outstanding thought leadership writing that gets read, remembered, and shared. (It doesn’t matter what content type you’re commissioning; from a blog to a white paper, it’s the same approach.)

Step 1: Propose ideas people haven’t thought about yet

“Know your audience” is the golden rule of marketing. Because relevant content gets read. While this is true for most forms of B2B marketing – where you find out what questions your readers are asking and answer them with content that makes their job easier – thought leadership is a bit of an anomaly.

B2B technology thought leadership isn’t usually so closely linked to client questions; it’s more about proposing new ideas people have yet to think about.

That means the challenge when writing B2B thought leadership content is making sure what you say is relevant and interesting to your target reader, and speaks to a need they can see, even if they have yet to think of the question they need to ask.

Step 2: Look around you – the unique angle is probably already there

Nobody likes a copycat. By contrast, original content gets remembered, which is why true thought leadership offers new perspectives for people in your industry.

This may well include a strong opinion that sparks debate. (Thought leaders don’t please everyone.) But not every piece needs to be radical. You can simply present a well-known concept in a different way – just make sure it’s a truly unique take.

And you shouldn’t have to go far to find that fresh angle. It’s likely you’re already sitting on a wealth of knowledge across SMEs in your business. Some of these people might even be ready-made thought leaders. All they need is your help to convey their distinctive viewpoint.

Finding a unique angle will help your piece avoid the fate of so much content that’s wrongly passed off as B2B thought leadership, but makes little impact.

Step 3: Build a detailed brief

Before commissioning a thought leadership piece, you’ll need to ensure your copywriter has a clear view of your sector, brand, and audience. They should be familiar with your target readers’ challenges, clearly explain the unique idea, and understand why it’s important to the people in that industry.

This means you’ll need a watertight brief, an experienced writer in your sector, or – ideally – both.

This will put your writer in the best position to have a valuable conversation with your SME and ask the right questions to clarify their thoughts.

To improve the process further – and depending on how well-developed the angle is – you could ask your writer to sketch out an outline, write some questions, and find some third-party data to support your SME’s brave new vision.

Ask your copywriter to share these with you and your SME ahead of the next stage.

Step 4: Choose a writer that’s experienced in interviewing

Interviewing is the most crucial part of the process as it helps you get the best content. When I worked in B2B journalism, the strongest stories always came from speaking directly to SMEs.

But not all writers have the experience or skills to interview SMEs. At Radix, we’re fortunate to be trained in interviewing experts as a core part of our skillsets. Here are a few of the areas we feel are most important:

  1. If there’s anything you’re not sure of, don’t be afraid to ask as this will help you translate the interviewee’s expertise into compelling content.
  2. Ask for real-world examples to bring the idea to life as this will make it much easier and more pleasant for your audience.
  3. Look for structures and narratives in what the person is telling you to help construct the piece, then summarise at the end of the interview.

One of our favourite things is watching the expert relax after we’ve asked some questions, because this means they were absolutely the right questions, and we know it’s going to be a good thought leadership piece.

Step 5: Double-check the angle (and make use of the tangents)

Asking questions is one thing. Articulating the answers and finding the best angle is another. To do this, your copywriter must be agile when interviewing and ruthless when writing.

This is where you will both be rewarded for creating an outline (in Step 3) as it gives your writer the chance to validate with you where they feel the best points are and which parts of the conversation should go in the main piece.

Of course, things can change during an interview, so your writer should let you know if the idea morphed and if the SME agreed to it. Also, your copywriter might think of ways to turn peripheral ideas that came up into other valuable content pieces.

This is what we do every day at Radix: gather and untangle the often-tangential thoughts of people who are too busy to do so. Then we organise, condense, and structure them into a captivating narrative, suggesting extra content where the opportunities present themselves.

Step 6: Create something outstanding

Thought leadership content can transform industries by challenging accepted beliefs, predicting new trends, or expressing surprising new visions. True thought leaders can provide valuable insights by commenting on industry developments or educating readers about complex topics.

But it will only stand out if the writing is superb.

So, my final piece of advice is to select your writer carefully. Look for an exceptional copywriter who understands B2B technology markets and all the other elements that make a piece of writing outstanding, such as accuracy, clarity, authority, empathy, and wizardry.

Extraordinary writing will make your SME’s piece stand out. (This point is even more important in B2B tech content due to the, sometimes… ahem, dry subjects.)

Putting thoughts into words

If you’re finding it hard to put your client’s thoughts into words and help them lead an industry, here’s some related Radix content on this subject. Or you can talk to our team about it.

Why it’s time for B2B marketers to enter the data mesh

Posted on by Matt Godfrey

B2B marketers love data. Marketing was one of the first business functions to put big bets on analytics and automation, and today, the best B2B marketing campaigns are driven by data. It might not always be complete or accurate, but data helps talented marketers set the general direction of their campaigns and pin their instincts on something tangible.

But what if marketers could easily access trusted data (and lots of it) and use that data to deliver better results?

What if they could uncover new insights hidden in data throughout the business – and use them to create hyper-personalised content and more effective campaigns?

What if they could imagine possible futures for their campaigns and quickly test their hypotheses to see what works?

Well, in a data mesh, they can.

What’s a data mesh? And why should marketers care?

In large, complex organisations with monolithic data architectures, accessing timely, relevant insights can be a laborious process. It relies on specialist data teams to drag insights kicking and screaming out of a central data lake.

The data mesh approach helps overcome these difficulties by decentralising the data architecture and making each domain (marketing, sales, product, etc.) the owner of the data it produces. It’s an approach that’s been growing in popularity over the last few years (which explains why tech consultancies often ask us to write about it) as large enterprises look for ways to reduce organisational and operational complexity.

In a data mesh, the people closest to the data are responsible for managing it and using it to create “data products” that solve their most pressing issues or open up new opportunities.

Federated data ownership removes the operational bottlenecks of centralised structures, so marketers can access and use data how they need to, when they need to. And with data products visible and accessible on a self-service platform, everyone can access products built by other domains and combine them in useful new ways.

New marketing opportunities – and responsibilities – in the data mesh

The data mesh approach empowers marketers to cut out the middleman and start experimenting with their data to find ways to improve content and campaign results. When data users become data owners, the possibilities are limitless.

Marketers who build and own data products can understand their customers and prospects better than ever. They can optimise their campaigns on the fly and conduct low-risk, high-reward experiments with different approaches. They can even begin to create the kind of hyper-personalised content and communications that most marketers can only dream of.

More than most business functions, marketing thrives on data from across the organisation. Insights from sales, service, product, R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and more can all add valuable context to marketers existing knowledge about their customers.

With a data mesh approach, marketers can easily access data products from other business functions to quickly create new capabilities. For example, combining product and sales data products with a customer-intent data product might help marketers target specific prospects with campaigns that are more likely to land.

But before we get too carried away, it’s important to remember that federated ownership also means federated responsibility. In a data mesh, every domain is a data custodian, so marketing becomes responsible for the governance, compliance, and quality of its data.

Meaningful change takes time

Adopting a data mesh approach requires a fundamental cultural shift; it’s a completely different way of thinking about data and how it’s managed, governed, and used.

This shift in mindset includes a switch to what technologists call “product thinking”, where success is defined by the outcomes products deliver, rather than the outputs of projects. It might also require changes in how teams are structured and how they operate. And it will certainly involve fostering a new culture of cross-functional collaboration, as different business units contribute to combined data products.

It’s not something that happens overnight, and it can take years for large organisations to successfully embed the data mesh approach. But if you’re looking for a long-term, strategic approach to getting more bang for your marketing buck, data mesh could be a conversation worth having with your colleagues in IT and elsewhere in the business.

Stay up to date with what’s next in tech 

If you’d like to keep up with how emerging tech trends can have a big impact on B2B marketing – and get practical advice on other ways to maximise the value of your content – sign up for our newsletter.

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.

Star power: Can nuclear fusion fuel the earth?

Posted on by Claire Goodfellow

We spend a lot of time writing about the impact of global warming, from mitigating the risks of climate change to accelerating decarbonisation and renewable energy adoption. And if I’ve learnt one thing, it’s that if the world doesn’t speed up its decarbonisation efforts, humanity could be facing a desolate future.

Solar and wind power are both brilliant steps in the right direction, but when there’s no wind and the sun isn’t shining, we can’t use them to produce electricity. So, what are the alternatives?

Imagine if there was a way to power the world that was clean, carbon free, and possible whatever the weather.

The answer could be written in the stars.

These giant balls of plasma generate an abundance of energy through a process known as nuclear fusion. But is it a process we could ever recreate on earth?

We already have nuclear energy. So what is fusion?

Today, nuclear power plants use a process called nuclear fission to produce energy.

Nuclear fission uses unstable atomic isotopes (like uranium 235) and harnesses the energy they create as they decay. It’s highly efficient and doesn’t generate carbon dioxide. However, fission does create some pretty nasty waste products that can stay radioactive for millions of years.

Typically, power plants use geological disposal to handle this waste – burying radioactive material deep underground so thick layers of rock can stop radiation reaching the earth’s surface.

But if that doesn’t happen because of disaster or meltdown, it can be utterly devastating.

Instead of using elemental decay, nuclear fusion combines two isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium and tritium (which are abundant in water and lithium). This creates an atom of helium, a lone neutron, and a lot of energy.

In fact, fusion can generate nearly 4 million times more energy per kilogram of fuel than oil or coal, with no carbon emissions at all. There’s also no long-term radioactivity; only the beta-emitting ingredient tritium, which has a short half-life of just over 12 years. And there’s no risk of meltdowns, as fusion reactions can’t sustain themselves outside of a reactor.

It’s a lot safer than fission. But it’s also far more difficult to achieve.

Major developments are paving the way for fusion on earth

To make fusion reactions happen, scientists need to overcome deuterium and tritium’s natural electromagnetic repulsion. For that, they need to create a huge amount of heat and pressure.

Currently scientists are looking at two key methods to achieve this: magnets and lasers. And recently there have been major breakthroughs in both.

South Korea’s electromagnetic tokamak

South Korea’s “Artificial Sun” is a type of fusion reactor called a tokamak. It’s a donut shaped device that uses magnetic coils to create the intense conditions needed for nuclear fusion. These magnets produce a twisted magnetic field, causing deuterium and tritium atoms to collide and creating energy that heats the walls of the reactor. This heat can then convert water to steam which powers turbines and generates usable electricity.

In 2022, the Artificial Sun sustained a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for 30 seconds, and the team are aiming for 5 minutes by the end of 2026. It’s an unimaginable temperature. To put it into context, the centre of the Sun is only a puny 15 million degrees Celsius.

The lasers of America’s National Ignition Facility

In the US, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has used lasers to achieve the first ever net energy gain from nuclear fusion. Physicists fired 192 lasers at a target chamber containing deuterium and tritium, causing a huge implosion of energy that forced the atoms to fuse and release energy.

To be useful to humanity, the energy produced needs to be greater than the energy put in. And the US team has now achieved this not just once, but four times.

Nuclear fusion could be the future of clean energy

Nuclear energy is gaining traction worldwide. It was formally specified as one of the solutions to climate change in the COP28 agreement, and many governments are now pledging more funding for nuclear research.

Current fusion science is a far cry from the cold fusion controversies of the 20th century, and every new development gets us closer to achieving a clean, carbon-free, and near-infinite energy source.

I’m fortunate enough to get to write about electrification and renewable energy in my work at Radix, and it’s so exciting to think that one day – albeit in a few decades – I might be writing about fusion energy in the same way.

If you’re a bit of a physics geek like me, and curious to learn more about nuclear fusion, the International Atomic Energy Agency is a great place to start.

What is synthetic data? And why should B2B marketers care?

Posted on by George Reith

Like so many next-big-things, the generative AI wave is towing a host of cottage industries in its wake. One of the most fascinating is the synthetic data industry.

I think it’s worth the attention of any B2B tech marketer because it reveals the complex challenges, opportunities, and risks of generative AI in microcosm – and because the best content about AI acknowledges and navigates that complexity.

Synthetic data: a solution to AI’s biggest obstacles

All AI models must be trained on extensive data. And the more general the task, the greater the variety and volume of data the model needs before it can respond with accuracy and confidence.

But collecting data volumes from the real world poses several issues:

  • Sourcing huge amounts of data is time-consuming and really expensive.
  • It can be hard to find data on uncommon or edge-case scenarios (think MRI scans of rare medical conditions or images of a machine experiencing a one-in-a-million fault).
  • There are privacy and copyright issues with using certain online datasets (such as data gleaned from social media platforms).
  • Data produced by humans can carry human biases.

Synthetic data promises a solution to many of these problems. Unlike conventional data used to train AI models, synthetic data is artificially generated, so it isn’t bound by the confines of reality.

For example, if you were training an AI to assess fuel efficiency across different commercial aircraft, you could use synthetic data generated by flight simulators instead of collecting real-world aircraft telemetry data from hundreds of flights.

By creating artificial data at scale, you can get more data at a lower cost without the copyright complications or biases of human-generated data. And you can also design datasets covering phenomena seldom seen in real life.

Synthetic data’s ability to remove all these roadblocks is so great that last summer, Gartner predicted 60% of data for AI will be synthetic by 2024.

The use cases unlocked by synthetic data

Computer vision models, which need training on large volumes of high-quality images, have been one of the first forms of AI to benefit from synthetic data. But there are many other use cases for synthetic data in its many forms, including:

  • Genomic data to train AI healthcare solutions on rare diseases – without breaching patient confidentiality.
  • Images of different (and potentially unreleased) products to train automatic defect recognition on manufacturing lines.
  • Financial records to develop fraud detection systems without using personal financial information.

Whatever task you want to train an AI model for, it’s likely that synthetic data can help make that process faster, more consistent, and cheaper.

The risk of AI eating itself

With so many use cases for synthetic data, there’s naturally a lot of demand. And one way to meet that demand is… with the help of generative AI. We’re already seeing some vendors working to build a closed loop for AI – where generative AI creates synthetic data that’s then fed into other AI models.

But this Ouroboros model of AI has its critics. When researcher Jathan Sadowski looked into the phenomenon, he found models that were “so heavily trained on the outputs of other generative AIs that [they] become an inbred mutant”.

A consumer-facing model spouting nonsense might, at worst, damage a brand’s reputation. But such degradation in a model designed to detect security risks for IT systems or cancerous cells in medical imaging could have catastrophic effects.

The implications for B2B tech companies and marketers

We’re still in the early days of this new generation of AI and the synthetic data that will support it. And with the major NASDAQ staples investing heavily in the space, any problems will have serious resources and talent thrown at them until they’re resolved.

So perhaps in the future, we will have something approaching a synthetic data utopia that leads to unfathomably powerful AI. But for now, we have a fork in the road that everyone in the B2B technology sector must navigate carefully.

Any story about synthetic data must be embraced with positivity and the hope that it will crack the code of training society-enhancing AI models. But we must also be ready to ask the most pressing questions about how synthetic data production can scale. And the level of scrutiny must be dialled up as generative AI and synthetic data training increasingly come into contact with critical, high-risk sectors like healthcare, education, and government.

More importantly, B2B tech marketers must be ready to openly discuss these challenges in any content that speaks about synthetic data and generative AI. Our audience is clever, connected, and very comfortable managing risk. They won’t be put off by an acknowledgment of the potential pitfalls and challenges in the field. In fact, they may find the honesty refreshing and ultimately trust the message and the brand behind it all the more.

Recommended further reading

If you want to learn more about synthetic data and AI, there are plenty of articles exploring this fast-growing field.

While it was written just before the recent AI renaissance, Forbes ran an article covering some of the major use cases for synthetic data and the earliest players in the industry. It’s a great place to start if you want a broad overview of the topic.

And for a clearer look at the potential risks associated with synthetic data, this interview with machine learning researchers Sina Alemohammad and Josue Casco-Rodriguez offers an expert outlook on what happens when AI consumes data created by other AI models.

Nature-based solutions: Technology that thinks outside the casing

Posted on by Claire Goodfellow

As a technology copywriter, I get to see how cutting-edge innovations transform and improve the world. But some of the most exciting solutions I come across don’t rely on breakthroughs in smart fabrics or generative AI. Instead they rely on materials and processes that have been around for millennia.

Nature-based solutions use natural mechanisms to solve human challenges – in a way that reduces our destructive impact on the planet.

Here are just a few of my favourite use cases.

#1 Data centre cooling

As humanity generates, stores and analyses more and more data, we need more capable data centres. And keeping those data centres switched on, and cooled down, takes a huge amount of energy. In fact, data centres account for 1–1.5% of global electricity use.

The battle to stop our servers over-heating has sparked some especially neat technological innovations, most notably, liquid cooling. Running liquid past your circuit boards, and then letting it cool off at a safe distance uses less energy than air conditioning, reducing a data centre’s operational costs and emissions. But the technology still lacks standardisation, and requires large initial investment to implement.

So, what solution does nature offer?

About as far away from high-tech as you can get, free cooling solutions simply use the external atmosphere to keep servers at an acceptable temperature. They deliver far lower cooling costs and energy usage than any other option, but are only possible in the right environments.

One place that could be perfect for free cooling a data centre: under the sea.

Using the sea to cool data centres even provides an opportunity to power the servers with offshore wind and solar energy. And, much like wrecks, such data centres could provide valuable habitats for marine life – boosting biodiversity in the surrounding area.

Offshore, underwater data centres do, however, have drawbacks. In some cases, solar and wind energy may be the only viable source of power, as connecting to the onshore grid is very difficult. And a completely weather-dependent data centre isn’t ideal. And then there’s the challenge of performing maintenance…

#2 Urban pollution reduction

The global population is expected to pass nine billion by 2037. As populations increase, so does pollution – especially in urban areas.

One way to protect the health and wellbeing of city-dwellers is to stop pollution at its source (for example, through the transition from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles). Another is to actively remove pollutants from the atmosphere.

Electrostatic precipitators use static electricity to pull pollution particles from the air – and advances in nanotechnology are making the process more efficient. Electrochemical conversion, meanwhile, can pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, allowing the carbon to be repurposed as materials and fuels.

But nature has its own, tried-and-tested solution for capturing and converting CO2. And as well as processing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, some plants even consume other urban pollutants.

Moss is a great example. Certain varieties naturally feed on common pollutants, removing them from the surrounding atmosphere – and providing a handy way to monitor pollution levels. Combining this natural process with choice technologies can yield even better results. Driving more air through the moss, for example, can increase the quantity of air purified, while solar-powered, IoT-connected irrigation systems can help to keep the moss healthy.

#3 Protecting coastal communities from climate change

The global average sea level is rising, and at the same time, climate hazards – like large storm surges – are becoming more frequent. This combination poses a huge threat to coastal communities. What’s more, creating appropriate hard structures to provide long-term protection is a complicated task because the rate of change is as unpredictable as it is unprecedented.

Again, nature offers some adaptable, sustainable answers. One that’s currently gaining popularity is planting mangroves.

Mangroves have a naturally tight root system that provides protection from large waves during storms while protecting the land from coastal erosion. They need enough space to grow, and the right environment to thrive, but where they’re a viable solution, mangroves also create a valuable new habitat for wildlife. This habitat can increase biodiversity, and even provide sustainable fishing opportunities for local communities.

Humans and nature are better together

As astonishing as humanity’s recent technological advances are, sometimes it can be incredibly beneficial to look away from our screens and machines, and out the window.

Nature may not have all the answers, but the ones it does offer have been stress-tested over timescales even the best-funded R&D team can only dream about. Combining natural mechanisms with our most exciting innovations could yet be the secret to shaping a sustainable future for us and our planet.

 

 

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.

B2B Content Marketers checklist for assessing quality technology copywriting

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.

Why don’t I want to write this blog right now?

Posted on by Steve George

For as long as most of us can remember, marketers have struggled to get subject matter experts (SMEs) and other stakeholders excited about engaging with content creation. And there are a few very good reasons for that:

  • It’s a one-way value exchange: If people aren’t interested in building their personal brand and getting their name out there, there’s usually little to no value for them in contributing to content.
  • It’s not their circus, and those aren’t their monkeys: Everyone has their own responsibilities to worry about during the work day. Any new expectation that doesn’t fall within their remit tends to really irritate them.
  • People outside of marketing (allegedly) don’t get why it’s important: Historically, we’ve been told that many non-marketing folks simply don’t understand what marketers are trying to achieve, or why they need expert input to do it. I’m not convinced that’s the case for a lot of people, but it certainly can happen.
  • It isn’t easy: Contributing to content and marketing projects puts huge pressure on people to articulate their expertise in a really clear way, which is something most of us don’t have to do very often.

The trouble is, I don’t really want to contribute to Radix’s marketing content right now, and it isn’t for any of those reasons. I know the value marketing delivers. I understand why it’s important. It is a defined responsibility for me. And I even fall into the very small group of people in the world for whom articulating complex concepts comes relatively easy.

So, what is my problem? And is there anything I can glean from it that could help marketers make some real steps forward in how they engage SMEs and other content contributors?

Our first mistake is making sweeping assumptions about human motivations and needs

Around ten years ago, I received an adult diagnosis for obsessive compulsive disorder. Very recently, I’ve also come to understand that I fall somewhere on the autism spectrum. The two are tightly linked, and while they have a minimal impact on my daily life, they do shape a lot of my attitudes and behaviours.

For me, structure is incredibly important. Predictability is king, and the thing I find difficult about contributing to marketing is its ad hoc nature. For those responsible for managing marketing, it’s a continuous strategic task that’s always front of mind. For me, it’s typically appeared as intermittent requests that can come at any time, and must be tessellated around my client projects.

That shouldn’t be an issue, but it is. If these requests catch me at the wrong time, while I’m focused on something else, that completely shapes how I feel about them. A process I understand and want to help with becomes frustrating, without anybody doing anything wrong.

The answer to the titular question, “Why don’t I want to write this blog right now?” is simple. When I logged on to start work today, I didn’t know I would be writing it. Even though the idea was mine, and it’s an idea I believe in, the organic nature of how this blog originated doesn’t align with my own need for structure and predictability.

I’d never really reflected on that until writing this. I have no desire to build a personal brand or become a leading voice in my field. My motivation for engaging with marketing is simply that I recognise its critical role in enabling me to continue to do a job I’m great at, for clients I really like working with, alongside a team of people I love. And what I need to make that happen is for the whole thing to be very structured and predictable.

We’re all individuals with our own passions, neuroses, drivers, frustrations, and preferred ways of working. If marketers want to get people excited about contributing to their projects, the ways they engage with SMEs must be as precisely tailored as their strategies for audience engagement.

If you give people what they want, you tend to get what you want too

I use myself as an example simply because there’s no SME I know better. My proposition isn’t that everyone should adapt how they engage content contributors to align with my needs. The point is that if we want to get the most from every contributor, we need to engage them on their terms, just as we do with customers.

Thinking practically, it isn’t really feasible (or valuable) for marketers to dedicate the same time to mapping out the needs and motivations of SMEs as they with their customers and prospects. But they absolutely can do that for select ‘high-value’ contributors.

It’s important to forge close relationships with great contributors. Learn their motivations, replicate the conditions that enabled them to make a great contribution to your project, and give them more of what they want.

For some (like me), that might mean making the process extremely structured and predictable by securing a recurring slot in their diary for marketing input. For others, it could be the opposite, creating an organic workflow where they can provide ideas and input however and whenever they like.

Some will be highly motivated to become thought leaders in your market. Others will be much more comfortable providing content ideas without having their name attached to them. Discuss your SMEs’ goals and motivations to uncover how contributing to marketing could help. See how, where, and when they like to work. And use everything you learn to personalize the experience of contributing to your marketing projects.

Closer collaboration builds understanding on both sides

By thinking about contributors in the same way you think about customers, you can discover what each person needs to deliver the most valuable input. And in doing so, you just might change a few attitudes towards marketing.

Practically, all that has to involve is:

  • Frank and friendly conversations between marketers and SMEs where the marketer can really get a feel for how the SME works and what makes them tick. These are the kind of chats that used to happen naturally in our physical office world, but if you’re part of a more dispersed team, you’ll need to make a conscious effort to book these catch-ups in.
  • Being mindful of exactly where, when and how you request SME input, and put yourself in the SME’s shoes to maximize your chances of getting them on side and making them excited about getting involved with your plans. What’s going on in their diary at that moment? Do they have a major client or project delivery deadline looming soon? It’s in your interest to catch them at their stress-free best if possible.
  • Going to them with an offer rather than a request in the first instance. People often don’t really know what marketing could help them achieve personally, so reach out to let them know, and give them a chance to provide input on their terms. If they end the conversation feeling like engaging with marketing and providing input was their idea, brilliant.

Radix’s marketing processes have gone through something of a transformation in recent months. And I’m happy to say, it’s all been framed around how we can get the most from our team. Our expertise is our greatest asset, so we’ve started to approach marketing in ways that make it easy for our people to share their insights and explore topics they truly feel are worth exploring.

I shan’t embarrass the person responsible for delivering our marketing by naming them. But I hope as they review this, they know how much I appreciate their efforts. Meeting me on my terms takes so much more work than simply presenting me with a content concept and making me write it. That effort means a lot to me and builds my desire to help them in any way I can.

Doing all of this doesn’t make the marketer’s life easier – quite the opposite. But it does significantly improve the quality of the content they publish.

While my own neuroses mean that, yes, I didn’t start out wanting to write this blog, I’m more invested in Radix’s marketing than I’ve ever been before. I feel understood, and as a result, I really do want to help.

That feels like a pretty big win for me, and our marketing.

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.