Category: Content Marketing

Radix Copycast episode 2 – the jargon conundrum and making boring things interesting

Posted on by The Radix Team

Welcome to the latest Radix Copycast – a podcast exploring the trends and issues in B2B technology marketing through a copywriting lens.

Fiona, David and Emily in our “podcast studio”.

Emily and Fiona are joined by David McGuire of Lungfish to discuss two topics that B2B technology copywriters often wrangle with: how much (if any) jargon to use, and how to make a seemingly dull topic interesting enough to excite and inspire the audience.

On jargon, George Orwell once wrote:

“Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”

from: Politics and the English Language

Lots of people will tell you to avoid jargon in marketing copy. But is it really a good idea to cut it out altogether? And if not, how can copywriters find the right balance between demonstrating technical knowledge and keeping content approachable?

In the second half of the episode we look at how writers can make boring topics interesting. David is certain that “nothing worth saying is innately boring” – but how do you find the angle or approach that will bring an apparently dull subject to life?

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Radix Copycast episode 3 – getting to grips with storytelling in B2B

Posted on by The Radix Team

Telling stories is a hot topic in B2B marketing, as evidenced by recent articles covering transmedia storytelling and brand storytelling, among many others. But with so many different techniques and approaches being discussed, we wanted to take a closer look at what storytelling actually is, and how B2B marketers can use it to best effect.

Emily and Fiona are joined by James Henry*, a television scriptwriter with titles like Green Wing, Shaun the Sheep and Bob the Builder under his belt, and several comedy and drama projects currently in development with the BBC and independent producers.

We believe marketers can learn a great deal from professional storytellers like James. Listen to this episode and find out:

  • The difference between a story and a series of events
  • What makes an engaging story
  • How the three-act structure works in business
  • The importance of a “relatable character”
  • Why brand storytelling is not customer friendly
  • How companies can use the seven basic plots to create stories about their customers (like this video from AtTask)
  • … and more

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

* Disclosure: James is Fiona’s husband, podcast relationship-spotters.

Radix Copycast episode 4 – how to create better B2B case studies

Posted on by The Radix Team

They are the ‘bread and butter’ of enterprise technology marketing, with 78% of business to business marketers citing them as the most effective format for generating leads.

But if that’s the case, why do so many customer case studies follow the same dry, stale format?

In this episode, Fiona and I discuss how copywriters and marketers can work together to make case studies more engaging – and even more effective as lead-generation tools.

Points covered include:

  • What a typical B2B case study looks like today
  • How to make case studies more engaging
  • The difference between ‘bread and butter’ case studies and ‘superstar’ case studies
  • Why you may need to interview more than one person
  • Techniques you can borrow from journalism

Polishing your interviewing technique

For every good case study writer, the interview is a crucial part of the process. We share tips for getting more value from interviews, including what kind of questions to ask, when to go off-topic, and how to overcome language and knowledge barriers.

(And somehow, we end up wondering if virtual presence robots might be the answer to all our case study interview problems.)

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.
Music by Industrial and Marine.

Radix Copycast episode 6 – South West Digital Marketing Conference 2013 roundup

Posted on by The Radix Team

Content Marketing word cloud Digital Marketing Conference - smallWelcome to episode 6 of the Radix Copycast – this time we’ve broken out of the studio and are reporting from the Chartered Institute of Marketing: South West Digital Marketing Conference 2013, which took place on 22nd May in Exeter.

The conference speakers charted the evolution of digital marketing over the past three years, looking at the rise of mobile, social media, inbound, SEO and PPC.

But one of the biggest themes was content marketing, and how it enables brands to generate leads and sales. Points covered include:

  • How content marketing fits with SEO and inbound marketing
  • Why content is essential for social media marketing
  • The importance of having a content marketing strategy

The podcast features an exclusive interview with keynote speaker Andrew Walker of Rame Marketing. We also speak to B2B marketers attending the conference to discover how they’re using content marketing today – and how successful it has been.

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

And for another perspective on the event, this post by Alison from Straight Marketing has a great summary and five key takeaways for marketers to consider.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Radix Copycast episode 10 – getting to grips with email lead nurturing campaigns

Posted on by The Radix Team

B2B vendors and their marketing agencies have been adopting marketing automation systems in droves this year, with the result that copywriters are suddenly being inundated with requests to write complex, multi-month, multi-stream email campaigns.

In our latest podcast, Fiona explains the nuances of lead nurturing and how copywriters can adapt to the demands of these campaigns, including:

  • Understanding the lead nurturing process
  • Getting to grips with complex campaign flows
  • Mapping tone and copy to the buyer persona and buying stage
  • Getting creative – and strategic – with subject lines
  • Spotting opportunities to create additional content

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

P.S. We hope you can hear an improvement in our audio quality – this is thanks to Matthew Clarke of KernowPods. Matthew recently provided us with a podcasting workshop.

Radix Copycast episode 11 – getting the right writer for your content marketing initiatives

Posted on by The Radix Team

Welcome to episode 11 of the Radix Copycast. This time we’re exploring the importance of getting the right kind of writer for the right kind of content, and we also look at what journalists can bring to content marketing.

B2B marketers are using more content types than ever before, but it’s rare to find one copywriter who is equipped with the full range of copy capabilities. In fact, it’s a must to find the right writer for the right job and you may be surprised by the diversity of skills needed to produce a range of types of content.

Fiona and I are joined by Lindsay Clark – associate writer and experienced business and technology journalist (Computer Weekly, Supply Management, Times, Guardian, FT) – to discuss the different types of writer available, and why journalists in particular make good marketing content creators. Topics we cover include:

  • How to evaluate a potential writer
  • What other skills a good marketing copywriter should have
  • Striking the right balance between in-house and outsourced writers
  • How journalists can help with content marketing initiatives
  • What sort of content projects journalists are best equipped to work on

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Further reading:

Radix Blog: The Seven Types of B2B Copywriter – Which One is Right for You?

Content Marketing Institute: 6 Questions Content Marketers Must Ask Before Hiring a Journalist

Content Marketing Institute: The Makings of an Effective Content Marketing Team: Experts Weigh In

Ann Handley: A Simple Content Marketing Org Chart

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Radix Copycast Episode 12 – B2B copywriting trends of 2013

Posted on by The Radix Team

Welcome to episode 12 of the Radix Copycast, in which we look back at what changed in B2B technology copywriting in 2013. Plus we look at a couple of new trends we see coming up in 2014.

This year we’ve seen several trends emerge in B2B content marketing (and hence copywriting), from the increased use of marketing automation to the popularisation of storytelling. It was also interesting to see what didn’t quite happen as we expected, especially around video marketing.

Fiona and I discuss what changed in 2013 for B2B tech content writers, including:

  • eBooks find their place in the marketing funnel
  • Why reports of the death of the whitepaper were exaggerated
  • The emergence of comic book-style storytelling
  • Why experts and influencers were in high demand

And in the final part of the show, Fiona considers what could be the big (and difficult-to-pronounce) content marketing buzzword of 2014: hyper-specificity.

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Radix Copycast episode 7 – visual storytelling in B2B marketing

Posted on by The Radix Team

How effective are videos in comparison to blog posts? What about infographics versus reports? B2B Marketing’s recent Content Marketing Benchmarking Report found that both infographics and videos are seen by marketers as more effective content types than blog posts.

Whether it’s SlideShare, Vine, memes, comics, videos or infographics, visual content is increasingly popular in B2B marketing. But if you’ve never moved beyond traditional case studies or white papers before, where do you start?

In this episode, Fiona and I discuss how to make the most of visual content. Plus we’re joined by Kieran, one of our in-house copywriters, to explore how enterprises can use comics.

Points covered include:

  • The relationship between copy and design
  • Instagram vs. Vine for short videos
  • Infographics – have they had their day?
  • When to use memes a.k.a. memejacking
  • The emergence of SlideShare rants (like this one)

Kieran has been working on an internal comic strip for a large enterprise technology firm. Drawing on his experience, we discuss ways comics – from single panels to full-page escapades – can be used in B2B settings.

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Services you could use to create visual content include:

Instagram (photos and short videos) | Piktochart (infographics) | Pixton (comics) | SlideShare (presentations) | Go! Animate (animations with text-to-speech)

Radix Copycast Episode 13 – Content marketing: this time it’s personal

Posted on by The Radix Team

Ninety-three percent of B2B marketers now use content marketing. This time we’re looking at why, as more and more marketing content is created, B2B marketers need to consider their audience as individuals in order to ensure their content gets noticed.

Radix-Copycast-episode-13-header-v2

Hyper-specificity, audience relevance, context, personalisation. These are all terms being used by B2B marketers to describe what promises to be one of the top content trends of 2014: a move away from creating generic content for broad audience segments, towards highly-targeted content that is relevant to niche audiences in concrete and specific ways.

But what does this move mean for the copywriters who have to create that highly-targeted, niche content?

Fiona is joined by David McGuire of B2B copywriting consultancy Lungfish to discuss some ways in which copywriters can make their content more relevant to niche audiences, including:

  • The benefits of having a single person in mind when writing
  • How to create accurate personas from audience research
  • Imagining the kind of follow-up conversation we want the copy to provoke
  • How to avoid coming across as “creepy”

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Further reading

Why B2B Marketing in 2014 must be about Content + Context + Conversation by Bob Apollo

Why marketers are keeping B2B buyer personas in the closet by Ardath Albee

Radix Copycast Episode 14 – the true value of marketing copy

Posted on by The Radix Team

If 800 words of copy can lead to a $2m deal, you’d think it would be easy to assign a business value to marketing copy. So why do marketers – and copywriters – still treat copy as a commodity?

That’s just one question we try to answer in this episode of the Radix Copycast, for which Fiona and I are joined by Matt Godfrey, Director and Senior Copywriter here at Radix.

We also examine why, in the real world,  it’s largely impractical for copywriters to move away from pricing copy on a per-word or per-hour basis.

But are there some situations where results-based pricing could work for copywriters and their clients? We consider whether marketing automation might make it possible for marketers and writers to monitor how well copy performs, with a view to gauging its true financial value.

Finally we discuss ways in which copywriters can demonstrate the quality and value of their copy, including:

  • Becoming your own content marketer and using your site to showcase your content
  • Establishing a writing niche, either in an industry or content format
  • Asking for feedback from clients to see how your work is performing
  • Showcasing client testimonials and recommendations on your website

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Further reading

Pam Didner: How Many Content Pieces Can You Create with $1,000?