Category: Content Marketing

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.

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].

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.

Podcast 79: The Best B2B Content of 2019

Posted on by Katy Eddy

Welcome to the second annual Best of B2B Content awards, as nominated and voted for by you, our esteemed audience of B2B marketers, copywriters, and everyone else who has found their way into listening to Good Copy, Bad Copy.

We’ve put together a rundown of the 17 nominations, and now we’ve had a chance to collect and count all your votes, it’s time to announce the winner.

We’ve a lot of traditions in the Radix office, particularly when it comes to the festive portion of the year. Our tree is always topped with a slightly unnerving fairy with John’s face. Matt always provides enough chocolate and sweets to give us all month-long headaches. I attempt to sew a piece of festive clothing before our end-of-year dinner (this year, I failed miserably).

The question is, how many times do you have to do something before it becomes a tradition? I’m hoping it’s two, because otherwise both my dressmaking and this awards event don’t count. Yet.

So, in this soon-to-be-traditional finale, David and Fiona run down the list of your top 12 examples of content from the last year of the decade (yikes), including your 2019 Best of B2B Content winner.

You won’t get any spoilers from me – I’ll just say congratulations to all the finalists:

  • ABC News Story Lab
  • Adobe
  • The Center for Advanced Defense Studies
  • Danfoss Cooling
  • dotdigital
  • DXC
  • Hectare Agritech
  • Korn Ferry
  • Linode
  • MarketingProfs
  • Microsoft
  • NTT
  • Rockwool
  • Sophos
  • The Marketing Practice
  • Turtl
  • Wait, What? and Quartz

Want to find out who won? You’ll need to listen.

In this special countdown episode, you’ll find…

2:10 – A brief yet heartfelt apology for our broken email address

2:40 – The nominations that – sadly – didn’t make it into the top 12

4:41 – The countdown begins

24:18 – Time for the top three

28:40 – Fanfare… the winner is revealed

32:38 – A sneak preview of January’s edition, where we’ll be discussing the results of our recent survey into what gets in the way of great B2B content

Send us your thoughts, podcast-related feelings, or righteous indignation

Contact us through @radixcom on Twitter or [email protected]. (Bonus points from David if you share a voice memo.)

How to listen

Credits and resources

Thanks so much to everyone who sent us a nomination or audio: André Spiteri, Angela Cattin, Giles Shorthouse, Heather Barnett, Jon Lonsdale, Karla Rivershaw, Kerry O’Shea Gorgone, Lasse Lund, Maureen Blandford, Paul Hewerdine, and more. You rock our world.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

How to write great content about HR technology

Posted on by Katy Eddy

In the past few years, organisations have started to embed more tech into their employee relations processes – using tools to centralise case management and self-service portals to engage employees.

That’s led to a crowded HR tech market. To stand out, you need content that’s sharp, relevant, and reflects the reality your audience faces at work.

In short, don’t be so focused on the “tech” part of the equation that you forget about the “human” bit of “human resources”.

Here are seven suggestions to help you get it right:

1. Understand your audience, and their skills

Globally, an average of just 45% of those in the people profession say that “human resources” describes their role most accurately.

That means there’s a lot of generalists working in the industry, especially in smaller organisations, and they’ll likely be most interested in tools that can make the more complex parts of their role easier.

Specialists, on the other hand, will be looking for hyper-specific tools that are catered directly to their skills, like learning and development.

Only a third of HR professionals say they have the skills to cope with more demanding duties beyond their current roles – which is the perfect starting point if the solution you’re marketing can ease their workload.

2. Recognise that all workloads aren’t created equal

It’s worth considering how busy your target audience is, and the size of the business makes a huge difference.

Small to medium-sized organisations often have a better HR-to-employee ratio – almost four in ten report having 1:20 or fewer, while a similar proportion of large enterprises have 1:100 or more.

Because larger organisations are more likely to stretch their HR resource, each exec will be dealing with far more people and have even less time to manage each case. So pay attention to that ratio, and consider how it affects their day-to-day role – and how your solution can help.

3. Don’t forget about line managers

HR tools aren’t just for HR personnel – and that means they might not be your only audience. A lot of employee relations tools affect the working lives of direct and line managers, who often handle frontline HR responsibilities like absenteeism.

For HR personnel, a key part of the role is equipping line managers to work effectively with their people, which in turn reduces the number of cases that need to be escalated to formal procedures. So, make sure your message clearly communicates how the benefits of your solution filter down through the reporting levels.

4. Balance the needs of people and the business

This is an incredibly complicated Venn diagram. While most departments in a business will be trying to balance profit with people’s happiness, HR is the place where those two factors face off directly – and an organisation’s HR personnel are caught in the middle.

A great HR tech proposition sits in the sweet centre spot where the circles overlap and you can help them support their people meaningfully while meeting their business goals.

The trick to writing effective HR tech content is to keep one eye on the business (processes, efficiency and cost savings) and the other on the people (employee satisfaction and engagement).

Research suggesting that happy workers are 13% more productive can help unify the two ideas. Which reminds me…

5. Statistics make for compelling messages

HR is a stat-friendly industry – and social proof is always a compelling way to communicate your message.

There’s always new research to draw on, both from the big analysts like Gartner and specialists like the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

For example, Gartner’s recent HR report, Top 5 HR Trends and Priorities for 2021, includes responses from more than 800 CHROs and other HR leaders from 60 countries, while CIPD has an extensive collection of research papers and articles covering all sorts of HR topics.

If you’re trying to get into the same headspace as your audience, that’s a good place to start – and a stat-packed infographic is always a good way to tip a prospect over the edge of the funnel.

6. Don’t get bogged down by tech talk

Fundamentally, HR is about the people. And that means you shouldn’t get shoulder-deep in the tech weeds (most of the time, anyway).

However, focusing on the people doesn’t mean ignoring the technical aspects of a solution entirely. When you talk around technology too much, you risk getting vague – and then you lose the sense of authority you’ve been working so hard to build.

So, work to establish the right level of detail for your target audience, whether they’re the CHRO, an HR manager, or a direct manager, clearly linking features to benefits. (Which, let’s face it, is best practice when you’re writing for any industry.)

7. Use writers that know the industry

It sounds like a cheeky point, but it’s true. Through our years of writing tech marketing for HR, we’ve learned a few things about what works (and what doesn’t).

Visit our HR tech sector page to see more about how we write compelling, valuable content for the HR industry – and which content types we think work best for getting your message across.

And, as always, if you have a product or service to sell to HR and lack the copywriter (or time) to do it, you can always ask us.

B2B Content Hall of Fame: Drawbotics’ hyper-detailed TV office floor plans

Posted on by Katy Eddy

Everyone plays The Sims a little differently.

The Sims, if you’re not familiar, is one of the most popular video game series of all time. It’s a life simulator that lets you create your own people and live vicariously through them as they master skills, start families, become neurosurgeons in a few short minutes, flirt with the Grim Reaper (literally), and do lots of other totally normal human things.

For some people, The Sims is an opportunity to build a sprawling family tree. For others, it’s about finding creative ways to kill your digital darlings – perennial favourites include removing the swimming pool ladder or leaving ‘em in a windowless room.

For people like me, though, the real joy of The Sims is in the gently jazz-soundtracked build/buy mode, where you can pretend you’re on Grand Designs and create an obnoxiously high-spec home for your Sims.

The thing that’s always fascinated me about building in The Sims is the level of detail you can achieve. And so, by way of long, tangential introduction, we come to my nominee for the Radix B2B Content Hall of Fame: real estate marketers Drawbotics’ 2017 blog post, “Your Favorite TV Shows Brought to Life with Amazing 3D Floor Plans”.

The Drawbotics 3D floor plans bring together two of my greatest loves: procrastinating by creating opulent yet impractical buildings in The Sims, and procrastinating by ploughing through an entire season of a TV show in a weekend.

And from a marketing perspective, it does something many brands try – and fail – to do: sell you a product without you even thinking about it.

Marathon-based marketing

Drawbotics’ 3D floor plans of seven of TV’s most famous offices are what you get when you combine countless hours of marathon TV-viewing with over 200 hours of modelling work. They include advertising agency Sterling Cooper of Mad Men fame, and everyone’s favourite NYPD precinct from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

So, what makes this great B2B content?

Firstly, this isn’t out-and-out marketing – which is refreshing – but it does function as a truly excellent showcase of one of the company’s premium services. Each floor plan is an example of the “Shoebox”: a 3D model of an office, shop or home, which companies can commission to show off their new developments before they’re committed to concrete. As you scroll through the blog, you’re learning about the product without even having to think about it.

It’s all in the detail

Let’s not forget, the good folks of Drawbotics not only dedicated over 200 hours of extracurricular 3D work to this project – they also had to sit through some telly of… shall we say… variable quality. (That first season of Parks and Rec was a little rough around the edges.)

And that commitment is entirely the point.

When I was building my houses in The Sims, the most important thing was the detail inside. The wallpaper, the soft furnishings, even the light fixtures had to be perfect. I used to have so much custom content installed that it took ten minutes for my game to boot. I even had a dedicated folder of carefully curated clutter. Clutter.

The Drawbotics floorplans aren’t just accurate and hyper-detailed; they have loads of easter eggs scattered around the offices for eagle-eyed fans to find, with a couple signposted in the description for the less observant. Notice little details such as Captain Holt’s pride flag from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Leslie Knope’s framed photo of Hillary Clinton from Parks and Recreation, and Harvey Specter’s array of signed basketballs from Suits – and that’s just at a glance. It’s encouraging – and rewarding – engagement on a deeper level than simply scanning the blog, muttering “Huh. Neat.” and going about your day.

Plus, if they’re putting this much work into a side project, it’s probably a fair bet they’ll make the effort for their everyday work, too. And really, what’s a better advertisement for your work ethic than that?

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7 ways to write B2B marketing content that has real value

Posted on by Katy Eddy

In B2B marketing, there’s almost always a vague urge to create a piece of content just because. Just because we need to fill out our blog. Just because one of our competitors is talking about this, and we’re not. Just because we’ve got a bit of budget left to see off before the end of the quarter.

It’s a hard temptation to resist. Often, businesses write something on the fly, and fill their websites with the content equivalent of used kitty litter. And that’s because creating content that’s actually valuable – something that hits a certain KPI, answers a burning question, or starts a promising conversation – takes work.

With that in mind, here are a few nudges to help you ensure every piece of content you produce offers value to your reader, and your business.

Define what “value” really looks like

The work starts with defining what “value” actually means. And it may feel a bit philosophical, but judging every piece of content by the same generic measure of value isn’t going to do you any favours.

Some content is designed solely to convert a reader into a prospect. Other pieces work best as an opportunity to raise your profile and show your company’s expertise in a particular area. Sometimes you want to share a new perspective on a current news item from your industry.

There are so many different ways content can function, and all of them bring a different kind of value. But if you know what you want a piece to achieve from the start, you can tailor it to that purpose.

Revisit your personas

Here’s a tip: the content with the greatest business value usually offers a lot to the reader too. If you’re giving them content that’s interesting, useful and compelling, they’re much more likely to follow your call to action.

But those needs vary. So to produce content that’s valuable to your business, you need to be certain you’re offering value to the right audience personas.

When you’ve had an established set of personas in your strategy for a while, it’s wise to go back and check on those profiles. If you haven’t revisited them for a few months (or even years), it’s easy to drift away from the key messages you want to communicate. In some cases, you might find those profiles just aren’t as relevant as they used to be.

Make sure you’re focusing on the right pain points and priorities and responding with something useful.

Align your priorities

In an ideal world, the Venn diagram of your internal stakeholder interests and your customers’ priorities would be a single, neat circle. But in reality, it tends to look more like two amorphous blobs that barely overlap – and that can make it difficult for your content to satisfy both.

It can be a fiddly business, but making valuable content relies on finding that sweet spot where the two blobs meet, and identifying the content opportunities that are hiding in that precious inch of overlap.

Stakeholders are far more likely to sign off on content – especially bigger pieces – if it reflects their requirements (and it’ll often benefit from their input too). On the other side, your audience won’t even consider spending their time on something that doesn’t talk about their challenges. By meeting them in the middle, you can get enthusiastic engagement from both sides.

Look for the unanswered questions

It’s getting more difficult by the day to create original content. When you’re looking at content put out by others in your market, it may sometimes feel like they’ve already answered every question or filled every niche.

But sometimes, all they’re really doing is papering over the cracks – answering top-level queries and offering generic responses. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll often find unique opportunities to add your own expertise, opinions and answers.

Primary research is your friend here; there’s no better way to identify your audience’s real, burning unanswered questions. A simple starting point is keyword research, to see which topics and queries people are plugging into Google, but you might want to dive into polls, surveys and social media too, for a more detailed overview.

Appease the gods of SEO

Once you have an idea that’s tailored perfectly to your readers’ expectations and interests, it’s time to pay your respects to the mighty SEO gods of the internet. By convincing the search engines that your content has value, your piece is far more likely to turn up in the top results, so you can see some real-world value in turn.

This is where that keyword research from earlier comes in handy – and an understanding of how latent semantic indexing (LSI) works.

Be warned: keyword stuffing is not the way to go. It’s ugly and doesn’t rank well with search engines anymore. With LSI, search engines also look for words that are contextually related to a particular topic. It’s rare to search using full, sensible sentences; we all use fragments and idiosyncratic phrasing, but by using words that frequently appear together in a sensible way, the search engine will recognise that you’re writing about a subject in depth.

So, you no longer have to squeeze an awkward sentence like “how to move to cloud” into your copy just because your audience types that into the search bar. The algorithm can also spot a combination of related terms like “public”, “hybrid” and “migrate”, which show you know about the subject.

Know where to share it

Getting that sweet, sweet ROI from your content means sharing it in the right places, so the right people read it. (Or hear it. Or watch it. I’m not the format police.)

Consider what you’re creating carefully. Does it work best on your own blog? As a guest post on someone else’s site? Are there industry publications that can lend your content an extra bit of heft? Is this a piece that would lend itself to being printed on heavy-weight paper stock and handed to your prospective customers in person?

Write copy that sings (very quietly)

Great ideas get lost in bad copy. Once you’ve identified your message, who it’s most valuable to share it with, and how to get it in front of them, you’ve got to write it well.

Whether it’s a blog, a video script, a SlideShare or a great big unit of a white paper, it’s all about clean and intelligent writing that supports your message without getting in the way.

And if the idea of actually doing that writing after all your prep work makes your fingers ache… Well, I know a few good writers who could help you out.

White papers v ebooks: what are they, who are they for, and which do you need?

Posted on by John Kerrison

Whether it’s Ali vs Frasier or Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, it seems we have a societal obsession with pitching heavyweights against each other to see who comes out on top.

The purpose of this blog is to compare two of content marketing’s “big hitters” – white papers and ebooks – to see where their different strengths lie and what sets them apart.

Hopefully this will act as a helpful guide you can use to decide what kind of content you want to create. Although there’s also a chance I might lose focus and veer off with some bizarre analogy in just two paragraphs’ time.

Why all the confusion?

Back in my content writing “salad days”, I didn’t really see a real distinction between an ebook and white paper. Both just seemed like long and daunting assets I might soon get asked to create.

To me they were a bit like the content version of Nick Nolte and Gary Busey: I knew without doubt that they were entirely different things, but couldn’t figure out exactly what the differences were—or if in fact they were dissimilar enough for the industry to really need both.

Our Twitter interactions with other copywriters tell me I wasn’t alone in this confusion.

Of course, looking back, I was wrong. Nick Nolte actually has a pretty decent back catalogue if you squint, and it turned out the only reason I so often confused the two is an arrest photo of Nick where he looks like he’s playing the lead role in a Gary Busey biopic.

(I did warn you there was a tenuous analogy coming.)

The point I’m trying to make – obviously – is that despite initial impressions, white papers and ebooks are very different. Here are three reasons why.

1. Appearance

White papers and ebooks are both pretty lengthy pieces of content, but that’s really where the similarities end.

One of the big differences is that an ebook is more likely to try and hold your attention with bold design choices like illustrations, graphics, embedded videos and charts to make its content easier to scan and digest.

The assumption is, if you’re reading a white paper you’ve willingly sought out some in-depth detail. An ebook on the other hand is trying to introduce a subject to you, and may use these extra touches to keep your attention.

In my mind, to make the distinction, I always imagine the two pieces as a comedy odd-couple. The ebook being a young, trendy teenager, obsessed with design and new-media, and the white paper being the stuffy older brother in a button-down shirt carrying a handful of spreadsheets.

[Editor: wait, you mean like this?]

Okay, that’s a little unfair—unless you happen to like stuffy older brothers—but a white paper is absolutely more likely to have long chunks of text, and in-depth explanations and statistics than it is an embedded video or image.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. It really depends who you’re trying to target and what you want to say. Ultimately, it all comes down to the different roles the pieces play…

2. Funnel Stage and Purpose

One of the reasons I described the ebook as the younger brother is because is because it’s almost always used earlier in the marketing funnel. It’s largely used to present an idea, issue or trend whereas a whitepaper will drill down into that subject and find the detail and finer points within it.

Audience

Part of the reason for these different levels of detail are that the pieces are intended for different audiences.

There are no hard and fast rules around this, but maybe a hypothetical example will help:

Imagine you’re an IT services provider trying to persuade companies to adopt your SaaS offering. There are two routes you could take here: you could aim for the upper levels of the organization and try and outline the business benefits of Software-as-a-Service.

To do this, you might send the CEO an eBook talking about the cost savings and innovative capabilities this IT model can deliver. Right here you want to hit the top-level benefits, have pull stats jumping out of the page, and elements that sell the perks of the solution even when skim-read.

Your other approach might be to target the head of IT.

Now, it’s likely that someone in this position will already be aware of SaaS, so here you may send a whitepaper detailing the technical specifics of how your particular solution works in practice.

This would include details around what migration would require, how moving to the cloud may affect the way the department is run in future, and other details a technically-focused CTO would understand and care about above business benefits. It’s also likely to contain facts and stats about other organizations using similar services, based on research studies and surveys.

Essentially, a whitepaper provides the experts’ view of a specific subject for people who need that level of detail. An eBook on the other hand is designed to whet the audience’s appetite and encourage them to learn more.

And which one wins? Let’s call it a draw.

Still not sure which would be best for you? Need to know more? Want to commission us to write some terrifying ebook/white paper hybrid? Get in touch with a member of the team, and we’ll be glad to have a chat.

Header image adapted from a photo by Garrhet Sampson on Unsplash.

The B2B Content Audio Blog #11: how to run a successful editorial board

Posted on by John Kerrison

Editorial boards are a great way for marketers to continually produce original, engaging ideas and deliver on a successful content marketing strategy. But, getting people together is just the first step.

For your editorial board to truly work its magic you need to follow some best practices, and this 8-minute audio blog will tell you what they are.

Tune in now to learn:

  • What and editorial board is – and why you should run one
  • 5 essential steps for editorial board success
  • How to structure your meetings for the best results

“Looks like we got ourselves a reader…”

If you’d rather read than listen, here’s Emily’s original blog post: Editorial boards in B2B content marketing: a beginners’ guide.

Or if you’d like to try another Radix podcast, there’s always Good Copy, Bad Copy: the B2B Copywriting Podcast.

How to listen

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

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

Get in touch

Got something to say?  Email [email protected], tweet at us, or leave an iTunes review. We have three episodes left, so we’d love to know what you thought of the series.

Credits

Audio editing: Bang and Smash

Theme tune: “Chinny Reckon” by the Nye Bevans