Radix Podcast Archives

B2BQ&A 111: How can ABM content balance relevance and brand voice?

Posted on July 28, 2023March 17, 2025 by The Radix Team

Account-based marketing owes a lot of its power to the way its content can speak to this reader in particular, and address their unique needs. But how much tailoring is too much?

That’s the question we’ll be tackling in this episode of B2BQ&A, on behalf of Rhiannon Blackwell, Account-Based Marketing Leader at PwC.

Specifically, Rhiannon asked:

“How do you strike the right balance between your brand voice and messaging and hyper-relevance with a client, for example, by using their language?”

To answer Rhiannon’s great question, we’re thrilled to welcome two further well-known experts from the world of ABM. Our special interview guest is Andrea Clatworthy, Head of Marketing Transformation in Europe for Fujitsu, while our guest co-host Judy Wilks is International ABM and Executive Content Lead at Autodesk.

Along with Radix’s own David McGuire, we try to get to the bottom of how to show a customer or prospect you really understand them without being, well, creepy.

But wait; there’s more. You’ll also hear an essential copywriting pro tip from Sarah Mullaney, freelance copywriter and content writer, and owner of She’s a Writer.

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

Need to balance relevance for the client and your own brand voice? Here are the key takeaways from the podcast:

1. Use the client’s language

It’s important to mimic the language your clients use when they talk about their business. Make sure that everything you say to them, you put in the context of their brand – not your own. According to Andrea: “It could be as simple as just recognising whether a client calls their customers ‘customers’, or ‘consumers’, or even ‘clients’.”

2. Focus on your customer’s worries, not your brand

Relevance to the reader is all-important in ABM, but it can be especially tough to find that blend between what your brand wants to say – and how it wants to say it – and what the reader needs to read. As Andrea explains: “Whilst your brand is important to the customer, it’s not the primary thing that they are worrying about.”

3. Be careful how you use research

With a lot of B2B content, there’s a temptation to show more of your research than you should. But in ABM, the risks of getting it wrong are even greater, so be careful – if you tell your reader things they already know, you’re not going to get very far. And remember, there’s a fine line between “personalised” and “creepy”.

4. Understand how people consume content

Finding out how your audience consumes information can give you a good indicator of how to deliver your content. “It’s worth the effort to find out if a client is turned on by numbers and graphs,” says Andrea. “Or if they prefer video over written, or they like snackable content rather than long-form. Figuring that out can be really helpful.”

**5. Don’t tell the client you get them – show them**

This golden rule holds true for any writing, but if your ABM content can show an understanding of your reader’s business (without telling them their business) you can provoke a powerful response. As Andrea explains: “If you get it right, the reader or, if you like, the consumer of your writing, will have a positive emotional reaction. And they’ll be more likely to share content internally and be your advocate.”

Want some further reading? Here are the sources Andrea mentions:

For a great primer on ABM, Andrea recommends Bev Burgess and Dave Munn’s excellent book A Practitioner’s Guide to Account-Based Marketing.
If you want to gain an insight into how people like to consume information, a good starting point for Andrea is DiSC® profiling.

Here’s what you can expect in this episode…

4:01 – David poses Rhiannon Blackwell’s question to Andrea Clatworthy.

15:00 – Co-host Judy Wilks gives her thoughts on Andrea’s insights.

21:58 – Judy and David discuss the fine line between “personalised” and “creepy”.

24:23 – Sarah Mullaney from She’s a Writer shares a copywriting pro tip.

25:05 – David updates us on the search for the best B2B content of all time. Ever.

Got a question? We’ll find the answer.

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

How to listen:

You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As”).
Or you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.

Credits

Thanks to Andrea Clatworthy for sharing so many ABM insights.
Heartfelt appreciation to Rhiannon Blackwell for her question.
Cheers to Sarah Mullaney for sharing a fantastic copywriting pro tip.
And enormous gratitude to Judy Wilks for being an excellent guest co-host.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 111 – How can ABM content balance relevance and brand voice?

Rhiannon Blackwell: How do you strike the right balance between your brand voice and messaging and hyper-relevance with a client? For example, by using their language.

Judy Wilks: Well, what a great question from Rhiannon, and something that’s very close to my heart. Let’s ask Andrea Clatworthy of Fujitsu, what she thinks.

David McGuire: Hello, listener, and welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search of an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is episode 111.

Judy: Account Based Marketing, or ABM for short, relies on your content talking to a very specific audience about their very specific needs and concerns. But the big question is: how do you balance that with delivering your own messaging and brand voice at the same time?

In a few moments, ABM expert Andrea Clatworthy will answer that very question posed by our friend and colleague, Rhiannon Blackwell of PwC.

Plus, we’ll hear a copywriting pro tip from Sarah Mullaney and get an update on your search for the best B2B content of all time.

David: Before all that, let’s do some introductions.

My name is David McGuire. I’m Creative Director at Radix Communications, the B2B writing agency, and I’m delighted to say that we have another ABM leader as our co-host for this episode. It’s Judy Wilks, International ABM and Executive Content Lead at Autodesk.

Judy, thank you so much for joining us.

Judy: Thank you for having me. I’m very happy to be here.

David: That’s some job title. What does it actually involve?

Judy: That’s a very good question. So, in a nutshell, our team designs and creates content that does two things: content that fuels regional ABM programs and content that fuels global executive engagement within Autodesk.

David: So, from that point of view, as well as Andrea’s viewpoint, which we’ll get in a minute, you’re very well placed to help us answer Rhiannon’s question as well. So, that’s amazing. Thank you so much.

Before we get on to that, though, would you mind performing your first official duty as our co-host and telling the listener how they can get in touch with us?

Judy: Absolutely.

So, listener, if you have any comments or suggestions, you can find Radix on LinkedIn or Twitter: @radixcom. Or, if you want us to answer your question in a future episode, just record a quick voice note and send it in by email: [email protected].

David: That’s amazing. Thank you.

Judy: Now it’s time for our B2B Q&A for this episode. It comes from someone I know well from the ABM circuit; it’s PwC’s ABM leader for global marketing, Rhiannon Blackwell.

Rhiannon: How do you strike the right balance between your brand voice and messaging and hyper-relevance with a client – for example, by using their language,

David: Thanks, Rhiannon. It feels like we have a lot of ABM experts on the show today, which is great, because this really is an important question.

Relevance to the reader is all-important in ABM. When we’re writing ABM content, it can be especially tough to find that blend between what the brand wants to say and how it wants to say it, and what the reader needs to read.

So, how can you strike that balance? Well, I asked Fujitsu’s Head of Marketing Transformation in Europe and long-time ABM evangelist, Andrea Clatworthy. And I started by asking her Rhiannon’s question: just how do you balance client relevance and brand voice?

Andrea Clatworthy: This is such a great question. And it’s not an uncommon one.

It’s like a “depends” answer, which is never a good one, but I think it’s right to find the balance. And so thinking about it depends. For instance, if what you’re trying to do with your customer is perhaps reposition yourself, then you probably want to dial down your brand a little bit – without breaking the rules – and use more of the customer’s voice.

If perhaps it’s a new customer, or it’s new territory for you and you’re trying to break in, then perhaps you want to dial up your brand whilst recognising their voice. So it’s a really fine line.

And I find what we try and do when we’re creating the story and the narrative and the value proposition, we’re thinking all the time about what’s important to the customer. And whilst your brand is important to the customer, it’s not the primary thing that they’re worrying about. I would edge towards dialling it down just a little bit, but don’t break the guidelines.

I think it’s really important not to break your brand guidelines because they’re there for a reason. But you can stretch them. And you can take some liberties… perhaps.

Having said that, sometimes it’s appropriate to use some of the branding elements that your customer might have. So perhaps they’ve got an imagery style that you want to mimic rather than be 100% them.

Or it depends on what the communication is that you’re going to be providing. So, supposing it’s in the form of an infographic or something, as part of a conversation, and you want, you expect, and you’d love them to then use that asset, that you’ve created for them, with their stakeholders in their company, as part of their business case process if you like. Then you might want to make it slightly more their brand.

So, even though it looks like yours, and you’re suggesting this awesome thing, it’s easier for them to reuse that asset.

David: And that makes their life easier and turns them into kind of a representative of you. And I guess that goes for both brand elements, design-wise, but then also if they have a particular vocabulary, like a particular way of talking about a subject or an issue.

Andrea: Yes, there might be a project name that they use, or it could be as simple as just recognising whether they call their customers “customers”, or “clients”, or “consumers”? So, use the language that they use when they talk about their business.

David: Is there a chance, though, that a writer working on ABM Content could almost be too keen to show how much research they’ve done? And end up either telling the reader something they already know? Or just being a bit creepy?

Andrea: Yeah, that creepy thing is spot on, isn’t it? And actually, it’s relatively easy to get it wrong and I’ll give you an example of somebody pitching to me.

So, I’m a gamer. And somebody came in to see me, I reached out to them and said, you know, tell me stuff about your proposition. And they came to me, and they’ve ABMed and done everything personalised and tailored to me, which is great. And they focused on this gamer aspect. And I like a particular type of game, but they pitched to me using first-person fighter game, and they’re not the sorts of games that I like.

So they got the gaming bit, right, but they got the type of gaming bit wrong. So instantly, I’m kind of like: this is a bit creepy, and it’s wrong. So I gave them that feedback, you know, say thanks ever so much. It was so nearly right but made it completely wrong.

So using that research correctly is a trick there.

David: And I guess that must be easier – or maybe riskier – if you’re writing to accounts that you know well.

Andrea: If it’s an existing account, it’s much easier to get that balance right, because you know them and you’re in dialogue all the time, and you know completely what you’re doing. And the marketing part of that ongoing engagement will be reflective of the conversations that the account team or whoever is having.

So it’s much easier to get that right; it’s much harder when you don’t really know who you’re talking to. Then you probably edge a bit more on your brand, but reflect the language that you know that they use.

David: And when you’re doing your research in that case, and you’re thinking about the challenges they’re facing, and how your products and solutions can match that, how much are you thinking about the position that the company’s in? And how much are you thinking about the individual role? Like, are you thinking, “Oh, this is a company in the retail sector,” or are you thinking, “This is a CTO,” or whatever?

Andrea: It’s a bit of both to be quite honest. And then a bit contextual.

A company in the retail sector might be in growth mode, or they might be in massive reduction mode, as we’re seeing happening across the piece, they’re just reflecting where they are, because the language that you use might be slightly different.

If they’re in growth mode, and they’re being really prosperous, then they’re going to have a slightly different outlook on any future investments that they’re going to make, compared to if they need to reduce in one shape or form whether that’s people, or stores, or whatever. So it is both.

That persona piece is important too. So if it’s a CTO, then you know, there’s loads of work on personas and I think most people are probably reasonably comfortable with those.

But, then if you know who that CTO is, as a human being, then picking up on some of those things is equally important if you can get it right.

So I think that there are a few bits to this. There’s a bit about emotion. If you get it right, the reader, if you like the consumer of your writing, copy, assets – whatever it is – they have a positive emotional reaction, hopefully. And then they’re more likely to continue the conversation or, you know, share internally, and be your advocate. So, that’s a very clear signal.

David: I’m interested in the emotional response. What kind of response is that? Is that kind of a relief at feeling seen; that someone is recognising what they’re struggling with? Is it kind of delight and surprise, like, what sort of emotions are you seeing from the best content that you send?

Andrea: Yeah, those ones, and “relief” is a great word. Because actually, if you get the personalisation bit right, and what you’re suggesting you can help them with is right as well, then that’s the combo, because what you want people to do is to choose you above everybody else.

So, if you’ve delivered those messages correctly, you can kind of get a sense that these people get me and I can see how we could work together. And they’re going to solve a business problem one way, shape, or form, whatever that might be, with me when I choose to work with them.

So, it’s a bit of euphoria as well, I guess,

David: It’s not adding on something to make them feel emotional. It’s actually listening and thinking about what they really need, and then expressing that in a really kind of clear and impactful way.

Andrea: I think you’re spot on. That listening piece is really important, isn’t it? If you think about the old elephant adage: two big ears so do the listening first. If you get that right, then it can really help.

Now, how do you listen? That would be the next question.

We can read stuff, right? But quite often, if you’ve got an account team in with that account, they’re really getting to know those people, that person. So that they’re your primary source of that first-party insight if you like. It’s really important to include them in the process that you’re going through to create whatever it is you’re creating.

David: Okay, so we’ve thought about the branding, the voice, the vocabulary, and the kind of messaging that you’re aiming to deliver to make that connection. What else is important in ABM content that really works?

Andrea: Great question, again. I think it’s worth considering the format of the content that you’re going to be delivering.

Understanding how people consume information can give you a really good indicator of how to deliver that content. So, if somebody is very much numbers based, then think about making sure that there’s numbers and perhaps graphs.

If somebody likes to consume video over written, or perhaps they like snackable content rather than long form, and then working some of that out can be really helpful.

And clearly, you want to use omnichannel anyway. Don’t just rely on one thing.

There are some little things you can do. So you can use some DiSC profiling, for example, which will give you an indicator of the type of behaviours and brain workings, to use a non-technical term, that could determine how people like to consume information. So that’s quite a good starting point.

David: It’s really thinking about the individual and what they need, really in a kind of 360 way.

Andrea: Yeah, absolutely. And, we know, don’t we, as good marketeers, that different content and content formats work better at different stages of the customer journey. So, building that in as well to your comms plan is a good thing to do.

David: That’s amazing. Thank you.

So if the listener wants to find out more and really dive into the subject of creating really good ABM content, where do you suggest they go for more information?

Andrea: A really good starting point is a bit of reading. There’s a really great book by Bev Burgess called A Practitioner’s Guide to ABM. And it is a practitioner’s guide, so that’s a great place to start.

I’d also recommend reaching out to organisations like yourself, David.

David: [Laughs] Thank you very much; the cheque’s in the post

Thanks, Andrea, that’s great. It’s so helpful to know there’s no one right answer; you can dial your brand voice up and down – depending on the job your content needs to do.

Judy, what stood out for you there as an ABM leader?

Judy: Well, actually, “everything” is one answer. There was such a lot of great stuff in there and like a topic that I could talk about till the cows come home.

But there were two key things that Andrea said that I think are kind of foundational.

And number one is: never break the brand rules. That’s just a good starting point for any ABM. Not your brand rules, nor the client’s brand rules.

And then moving on, I pulled out this quote, and I wrote it down and I’m going to read it because I think it’s really essential to ABM.

Andrea said, “Whilst your brand is important to the customer, it’s not the primary thing that they are worrying about.” And that’s just absolutely crucial, you know. It’s a nice way of saying the customer doesn’t care about you or your brand. You have to make sure that everything you say to them, you put in the context of their business.

So what that means with getting that balance right between your brand and voice and theirs, is that if you, if your piece, either visually or stylistically shouts your brand, you’re actually not going to get your point across because your point in ABM is always: I understand your business. And if you’re shouting your brand, you’re not going to get that point across. So you need to think about that.

But, at the same time, it’s really powerful when you get it right that you can show the synergies between two brands.

David: So is it more complicated than the way the content sounds, the way the content looks, the vocabulary you choose, the register you write in, are maybe led by your brand, so that it’s recognisable, but the content, the stuff that you write about, the messaging, that kind of stuff is led by their priorities?

So maybe the content is about them, but the branding and the voice are about you? Or is it more nuanced than that?

Judy: I think that is your starting point. And then it depends.

I think you can look at it like a continuum. Absolutely, the content will always 100% be about them. That’s the starting point. But the continuum is then how much do you kind of shift the brand, the tone, the voice, the vocabulary, to reflect the customer, as well?

And that will depend on a couple of things. It will depend on: what is your level of awareness with that customer already, and what is the level of the relationship?

If, as Andrea said, you need to establish awareness with the customer, then you’re probably going to want to lean more towards your brand. But, if you’re at the partnership stage, then you might want to show how the two brands work together, so you really visually and stylistically get that partnership message across.

David: Yeah, and I guess, all of this with the proviso that when you talk about the vocabulary that you use, any specific terminology should be their terminology. So if they call their customers “clients”, or they call their customers “members”, for example, or if they have certain initiatives that they have their own language for, then you should absolutely adopt that rather than trying to impose your terminology on top of something that they would recognise.

Judy: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I don’t really have anything to add to that. I 100% agree.

David: With a lot of B2B content generally, there’s always a temptation, when you’ve done your research, to show maybe more of that research than you should and end up telling the reader things that they already know, to kind of show off how much you know.

I guess that’s an even stronger temptation, in ABM, given how much you will know about your particular audience, right?

Judy: Yeah. And this is a podcast so you couldn’t see me smiling then. But yes, absolutely. That is a real danger because as you say, you do a lot of research into the company and their business and you know a lot about them. And it’s ABM, so you really want to show them we understand your business. But if you just tell them what they already know about their business, you’re not going to get very far.

So I apply the adage here that you don’t tell someone you’re funny, you make them laugh. It’s the same thing: you don’t tell them everything you know about their business, you show that you understand their business by the recommendations that you make in the content.

And, let’s face it, you’re never going to know their business as well as they do. But the value that you bring is that you are an outside perspective. So you show them you understand their business, by adding that outside perspective to what you know about them – and perhaps sending them something they hadn’t thought of before.

David: Yeah, it’s the same thing as when I’m training copywriters in general how to do this stuff. OK, you’ve got this knowledge about them. So what?

So it’s not, you know, “Ah, this company has workforces on three different continents” or whatever it is, it’s “Because you have a workforce on three continents, you will need to handle time zones in this way or handle collaboration – and here’s a way that we can help you with that.”

Like, we’ve done the thinking around the “so what?” about the information that we have – we’re not just parroting back the information.

I think that’s obviously all the more important in ABM, and I think in any B2B content, that’s useful.

Judy: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, in any content, the more you talk about the customer, and the more you show an understanding of their business – without telling them their business – then it’s going to be more powerful. So yes, that is exactly it.

Which takes thinking. It’s one thing to have a load of data, it’s another thing to then analyse that data. So, suddenly the writer is not just a writer, you know, the writer is suddenly an ABM strategist as well.

And, I always say, “Writing is thinking.” It’s not just about putting words on a page, you’ve got to have those thoughts first before you can then articulate them nicely on a page.

David: Yeah. Do you have any advice on how much of your research it’s even okay to show before you start to kind of worry them that you’re getting a bit creepy?

Judy: Well, now we’re talking about talking to the individual, and as well as talking to the company. And, the topic of creepy personalisation, as I often call it, comes up a lot in ABM. And, I think one good standard is to think: how would I feel if it happened to me?

So, for example, on my Twitter profile, I probably say I’m a cat fancier. But if someone gave a business presentation, and it had cats all over it and used cat analogies, or gifs… is that going to make me like them more?

David: Of course it is! Be honest…

Judy: All right, well, even if you take cats out of the equation, you know, that’s creepy. And we come back to what is the one key word that sums up ABM? It’s relevance. Are cats relevant to that conversation? No, they’re not.

I think it’s much more powerful, if yes, you do your homework about that person, but you also try and understand their values. What are their motivations? What’s their personality type?

So, don’t just kind of look at what they do out of work, “Oh, David plays golf, let’s put some golf analogies in here.” That’s not relevant.

But, if you understand their motivations and the type of person they are, then you can tailor the content in the right way. So for example, if I think of myself as a bit of a change agent – and typically, I’ll have plastered that all over LinkedIn – it won’t be very difficult to find. If I’m that type of person, then you need to position whatever you’re proposing as some bold, exciting, disruptive move.

That’s much more powerful than putting some images of cats or golf into your content.

David: Before we finish this episode, there are a couple more things we need to do. First, it’s time for our copywriting pro tip.

Voiceover: Copywriting pro tip.

Sarah Mullaney: My name is Sarah Mullaney, from She’s a Writer, and my B2B copywriting tip is to have core materials about the values or proof points of the client within reach when you’re writing about them.

You can use these to focus less on what services or solutions the clients are offering and keep bringing the copy back to why the client is a leader in their field and why their customers continue to use them.

This will help you to get into the mind of the reader writing the most purposeful and benefit-driven B2B copy for them.

Judy: Thanks, Sarah. That sounds like a really useful tip for making sure that you can stay on track during the day.

So, David, I gather that you have something to ask the listener.

David: Yeah, I do… To mark the 10th anniversary of this podcast, we’re continuing our search for the best B2B content of all time.

Now, in particular, we’d like the listeners’ help finding the best blog posts, case studies, and web content. There’s so much to choose from out there, it’d be really helpful if anyone could tell us where to focus our search.

All you need to do is to jot down one or two of your favourites and email them to us at [email protected]. Or just fire them at us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Anyway, Judy, thank you so much for co-hosting. It’s been so much fun to do this with you. I wish we had more time.

Judy: I know. Well, I’ve already said I could talk about this topic forever. So, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity.

And I guess while we’re at it, we should thank everybody else that’s been involved in this episode.

So, in no particular order, thank you, first of all, to Andrea Clatworthy, for answering the really great question. Thank you to Sarah Mullaney for the pro tip. And lastly, thank you to Rhiannon Blackwell for asking the question in the first place.

David: Rhiannon, I hope you feel that we have done you justice.

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

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

David: We’ll be back soon for another B2BQ&A.

Until then, make great content. And remember: a writer only begins the content; it’s the reader who finishes it. Well, either them or that stakeholder who won’t sign it off anyway.

David and Judy: Goodbye.

Podcast 98: How to make your B2B content more readable and accessible

Posted on July 30, 2021January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

In this month’s episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, we’re talking about how to make your B2B content readable and accessible for the widest possible audience.

And who better to talk to on this subject than Sarah Winters, founder of Content Design London? In our feature interview, David and Sarah discuss how our readers really take in information… and how we can make our B2B content accessible and clear, even when writing about technical subjects.

Radix consultant writer George Reith is co-hosting, and talks to David about using contractions in B2B copy. Can they be a shortcut to friendlier sounding B2B content? And when are they best avoided to boost readability?

And as always, we’re sharing another tip from our own team of experienced copywriters. This month Consultant Copywriter Kieran Haynes is on hand with a counterintuitive way to beat the clock when you’re on deadline.

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

What steps can B2B Marketers take to make their content clear and accessible?

Between 2010 and 2014, Sarah Winters and her team at the Government Digital Service invented the discipline of Content Design, applying new techniques that shifted the focused to user-centred content.

According to Sarah, a lot of people approach writing B2B content differently to content created for consumer markets. Sarah shared some simple things to keep in mind that will boost accessibility and readability for your B2B reader.

Remember your reader is human… just like you

Essentially, readability is about talking to the human; the fact your user is representing a business shouldn’t change that. So, think about the way people take in information. Then, consider what they’re trying to achieve – whether that’s registering for your latest webinar, or gaining a deeper understanding of a technical subject in an eBook. Finally, serve them the information they need to complete their task, in the clearest way you can.

User researchers are your new best friends

It goes without saying that strong user research makes for better B2B content and streamlined online journeys. But it also eases the content sign-off process with stakeholders. You’ll find challenges and push-backs are resolved more easily when you can show your content decisions are insight-led and backed by research.

Some jargon is good (yes, we really mean that)

B2B has a bit of a bad rep for loving a buzzword. We’re still not fans of those. But sometimes a specialist term is really the right word to use for your audience. Sarah suggests the best approach to technical language and jargon is to offer an explanation the first time you use it on a page, and make sure that the words around it act as markers that offer context.

Tiny changes can make a big difference to accessibility

If your content is not accessible, it’s not useful. To boost accessibility in your B2B content, Sarah suggests thinking about language first. Small changes to sentence structure and length are an easy place to start. And will make all the difference to everyone who reads your content.

At Content Design London, Sarah’s team don’t talk about Plain English, which sounds boring and makes people switch off. Instead they champion Clear English. And being clear is all-important for frictionless B2B marketing content. Making content easy to read is a great starting point for making it accessible to more of your target audience.

Sarah shares many more insights and examples with us in the interview, so have a listen… and if you’d like to know more, it’s worth diving into the Readability Guidelines wiki and Sarah’s game-changing book, “Content Design”.

In the rest of the podcast, you’ll also hear an insightful conversation into the best use of contractions in B2B copy between David and George. Spoiler alert: if you find yourself writing shouldn’t’ve, you’re doing it all wrong.

In this episode, you’ll find…

00:57 – A warm welcome for our Radix guest co-host, George Reith.

02:18 – David talks about accessibility and readability with Sarah Winters.

17:15 – George and David discuss jargon, the best use of contractions in B2B writing, and the apps and algorithms that can help boost readability scores in your writing.

35:10 – We announce the winners on our Content Design London resource packs, and hear their winning tips for making B2B content readable and accessible. Thanks to everyone who entered and shared their advice with us.

41:00 – Kieran’s copywriting tip of the month: how to plan your writing time.

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Transcript: Good Copy Bad Copy 98: Readability and Accessibility

Speakers:

Sarah Winters, Founder at Content Design London
David McGuire, Creative Director at Radix
George Reith, Consultant Writer at Radix
Kieran Haynes, Consultant Writer at Radix

Sarah Winters: The people who are the most well read, don’t want to marvel at your GCSE English skills…

David McGuire: Hello listener and thank you for joining us for episode 98 of Good Copy, Bad Copy, the B2B copywriting podcast. We’re really very grateful for your company.

George Reith: And this month we’re going to be talking about how to make your B2B content readable and accessible to the widest possible audience. And we have an in-depth interview with an expert on that very subject: Sarah Winters from Content Design London.

David: My name is David McGuire, I’m Creative Director at Radix Communications, which is a B2B tech copywriting agency, and I’m delighted to be joined by a familiar guest co-host for this episode. It’s the smooth sounds of Radix consultant writer, George Reith. George, welcome.

George: Hi David, and hi listener, thank you both for letting me come back again.

David: It’s always a pleasure to have you here apart from that you made me sound bad.

George: I was just going to say it’s sad that you’ve given me such a warm welcome. I wish I got this kind of welcome everywhere I went really.

David: I can’t speculate why that might not be the case. So speaking of going places, I think by the time this is broadcast, or podcast. The Freedom Day will have come and gone. Are you feeling the freedom yet?

George: David, I’d ask you know, are any of us ever truly free? Even when Freedom Day comes and goes, I’ll still be bound by the meat cage that is my body, and pinned by the weight of existential dread, so…

David: Okay so moving swiftly on. George, I’m sure you know the drill by now please can you tell the listener, how they can get in touch with us.

George: Sure thing. Listener, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions you can get in touch with us via email – [email protected]. Or on Twitter – @radixcom

David: Thank you very much.

George: So David, you’ve wanted to get this month’s guest onto the podcast for quite a while, haven’t you?

David: Yeah that is absolutely true, actually. So, when I saw Sarah Winters speak at The Copywriting Conference, it completely changed how I thought about those conversations that you have with stakeholders about making content clear and readable. I mean, she’s genuinely just one of the best speakers I’ve ever seen.

Sarah is the founder of Content Design London, and she’s the author of one of my favourite books, and she was really fundamental in making gov.uk an accessible site. So she knows a thing or two about that awkward chat where you get accused of dumbing things down. I was obviously really delighted when she agreed to talk about making B2B content clear and accessible. So I started by asking her, “Why should a B2B marketer care about readability anyway?”

Sarah Winters: It’s interesting because a lot of people will pull B2B away from any other market and it’s daft, because there are humans in businesses, there are humans that run businesses. So essentially readability is about talking to the human. The fact that they represent a business is neither here nor there, really.

The way that we take in information and the way that we process it in our brains goes one way, regardless of your language, regardless of your culture, regardless of where you’re sitting on a neurobiological level, it goes in one way. If you have a cognitive challenge or you have a disability, then of course your other senses, or the other ways that you take in information, will do their funky thing but essentially it’s still processed the same way, unless you’ve had like a lesion on the brain from when you were born.

So I find it really odd that people care about readability, depending on the way that you define it, in their day-to-day lives. But they completely divorce it when it comes to business. They’re like, in my day to day life I want you to get to the point, I want you to be amusing or engaging, or, you know, funny. I want you to be tearful, I want you to be, whatever. But I want to essentially complete your task, but when I’m at work I want something completely different.

That doesn’t happen. Never happens. You are a human and you bring everything with you, all the time. You do change slightly when you go to work, and you will maybe introduce specialist terms, or jargon, and that’s fine. There are ways of getting around that so that you’re inclusive and specific. But readability, depends on how you define it, and why you don’t care about it, rather than why you should care about it, if you see what I mean.

David: Yeah, so, how would you define, are there ways of defining that you think are particularly helpful?

Sarah: For us, we just term everything as accessible and inclusive.

David: Right.

Sarah: A lot of people will talk about plain English, and we tend not to. We changed it a little while ago, we’ll now talk about clear English, because if it’s plain, people think boring. And if people think readable, they think, boring. And that’s not the case at all. It just means that you’re being clear, and I think though a lot of people, particularly in a B2B setting, they need to be clear because there’s competition for everything. Right? If you’re not frictionless. If you’re not able to get people through a process, or into your sphere to become your brand champions, whatever it is, if you can’t do that in an easy clear way your competitors will. And you will have lost out.

David: I think one of the things I guess that comes into it, is where you talked about the technical specifics and the jargon that people need to use. Is that something that you find in the clients that you’ve worked with?

Sarah: Yeah, it’s stupid things. Nuances, like, “I’d like a 72 word sentence please with all high punctuation”. It’s like: “Why? You know that you’re going to dump 90% of your audience once you start hitting 14 to 19 words, don’t you? And it’s just about why are you losing so many people?” That’s my kind of question. But you could do really easy things with your content to make it open and inclusive.

David: So, what sort of things would you suggest?

Sarah: So, one is actually to know your user journey. And I don’t mean the sales funnel, I mean the user journey. Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking a brand new idea, you’ve got seven to nine, or seven to twelve, unconscious thoughts before you can make a conscious decision about anything. That language is coming from somewhere. And is it the specialised language or not?

So by understanding the journey that people go through to get to you, and what language they’re bringing with them, and what preconceived ideas that they have, you can actually work out where those specialist terms should be.

So, if you work from a user-centred perspective, you would have, I don’t know, social media and mainstream media and all of these things that kind of inform the way that you think about something. And you can use more lay terms there, and introduce specialist terms.

The way to introduce specialist term is to just introduce it the first time you use on a page. That’s it. But often people will pull things that should be two or three steps down the line, up-front. And that’s where they lose people. And nobody by the way, is using terms like “synergy”, or whatever it is that you’re using. You know what I mean, you can use them, but know where it is in the journey. That’s the crux of it.

If you’re introducing a term, like I say, use it the first time you use it on the page, and work out all the words around it, so you’ve got context markers throughout a paragraph. Any paragraph, doesn’t matter how big or small, you will have context markers. So your brain is kind of telling you something about the content before it happens. If those are too heavy. You will get people switching off.

And again, they’re going to go to your competitors, they’re not going to stay with you. So you need to work out how much emphasis you want to put on your jargon and on your specialist terms. And what it’s going to cost you.

So if you have a 72 word sentence, loaded with jargon, loaded with buzzwords, you can do eye tracking, you can get eye trackers really cheaply now, and watch people skim through the middle of it, get to the end and either bounce out or carry on. But where they trust you less, because you can test for that as well, or that they’re disengaging with you.

So you’ve really got to have that conversation with stakeholders, I normally term it as, “Do you want them to read it, or do you want them to act on it?” Because often, those can be two different things.

David: Sure.

Sarah: And then with the reading thing, “Do you want them to read it, or do you want them to engage?” Because those are two different things. And so you have to have that balance because if you get boring the brain shuts down and then that’s that.

David: Because people will say, our audience are very, very, very, very smart, they’re very, very educated. If it doesn’t sound like a PhD thesis, no one’s going to read it. But that’s not true.

Sarah: That’s not remotely true. There was a study, I’m trying to think of it off the top of my head, where somebody was saying, the most intelligent people on the planet are the most well-read. And the people that are the most well-read. Don’t want to marvel at your GCSE English skills.

David: True.

Sarah: They want to get what you have to say, and apply it to their own lives, to their own context because they’ve got a lot of reading to do, they’ve got a lot to get through. And it’s not to wade through your sentence structure. And often readability, accessibility, usability has nothing to do with intelligence. It has more to do with boredom, Are you boring me, because you’ve got a long sentence, you’re not getting to the point fast enough, you are not engaged.

I’m not talking about funny cat GIFs, or whatever, shoving those everywhere, not that. People come with a task, again, knowing your user journey. Where’s the task ? Where am I able to be amused? Where am I able to be engaged? And where do I want to do a task? And then reflecting that journey back to them. That is the most effective way of getting to people.

David: I’ve noticed that one of the things that you’ve researched is the impact of contractions on readability and accessibility. I think as copywriters, particularly in B2B, you know, people want the copy to sound friendly, they want it to sound conversational, like you’re talking to a human being. Contractions are a huge go-to. It’s like, yes, use them, you know, please. It’s not as simple as that, is it? There’s another side to it.

Sarah: Yeah, there is. Jo Schofield did a Medium post. She was working for Co-Op or DWP at the time, and they did some testing on contractions. English as a second language, particularly, find contractions very difficult. And other people are looking for the word, ‘not’.

So, when we read, you have three eye fixation zones and the third one is where your brain says, “Do I need to read that word or not?”. Now the word ‘not’ could be the only thing that turns that sentence or that paragraph from positive to negative.

And when people have that in mind because they are task orientated rather than engagement orientated, and they miss it, they could literally read a piece, think it’s positive, and it won’t be. It’ll be negative, because it’s literally hanging off an apostrophe.

So you need to be careful. Of course, if you go, “would not, could not…” Well that has a tone, but remember, it’s only one contraction into two words, that’s it. The rest of your piece can handle it. So if you think that your, your entire work is hanging off a contraction, then I would probably look at all the things that are going on in the page.

But, just be aware that particularly negative contractions can be difficult for English as a second language, and people with learning disabilities. There’s 1.4 million people in this country with a learning disability. They have jobs. They will be on the other end of the business that you are trying to engage with, so just, is it worth it? That is the question.

David: That seems like a good way to segue into making things accessible for people with disabilities of one kind or another. Readability and accessibility are quite closely linked, in that sense.

Sarah: I think they should be. If it’s not accessible, then it’s not useful. Basically, there’s 13.9 million registered disabled people in this country. That’s not even including temporary disabilities like migraines, stress – which a lot of people in this country will understand now.

David: So, I mean in a B2B context, when people are making content for B2B marketing, what are the main things they should be thinking of from an accessibility point of view?

Sarah: Probably, language first. What languages and where. Sentence structure and length. These are all tiny things that just make such a massive difference. And it is that jargon, it’s that jargon. There is a stack of research out there, that people can use to kind of bash their stakeholders with.

And even in this country, a B2B example will be the Health Regulatory Authority took the government to court, because their website was legally signed off by lawyers, it was 100% legally compliant, but it was confusing because there was too much content on the pages.

So a High Court judge declared it in favour of the defendant – in this case, Richmond Pharmaceutical Company. And so the government had to pay loads of money, and loads of charges, and all this sort of thing. Because the website was confusing. So a High Court judge set a precedent in this country: you can be legally correct. If you’re confusing, you can be taken to court for it.

David: Where can the listener find out more about you, and more about the resources that you share?

Sarah: So everything is on Content Design.London. We have a Readability Guidelines Wiki – it’s in the book as well. It’s in a free wiki that you can just go and see. And it’s everything that I’ve talked about, has research backing this up. And so when you go into a conversation, you can pretty much stay quiet and say, “You see this research, you see this research, you see this research, what you want to do?”. So if you have a look at Content Design London, or we’re on Twitter, which is @contentdesignln. And we put a lot of our research out there as well, so everything that we say is backed up by usability.

David: You said this was a market you really wanted to talk to. So, what did you really want to say to B2B marketers, while you have their ear.

Sarah: I see you. I know how difficult it can be. We’ve done it as well, so I know how difficult it can be to explain to stakeholders that they do not need to have all the marketing, and all the jargon, and put out everything that they’ve ever thought, ever, onto the internet. There is research out there and your best friend will be a trained user researcher. Because they can go out and get videos, really quickly, of people failing and getting bored, which you may not be able to get from your analytics, but you will be not grabbing them to convert. So, your best friend will be a user researcher.

David: Thank you so much, Sarah, it’s great to finally hear from you on the podcast, and so much practical advice for our listener. George, what stood out there for you?

George: So what stood out for me, is that I think Sarah has somehow dived into my brain, or at least my copy, and is personally calling me out for my use of contractions. In all seriousness, a lot of really interesting points here and things that I sort of, I think, take for granted sometimes. Maybe just do by default, and suddenly listening to that I’m now starting to interrogate that a little bit more.

Because to me, I’m just, like, contractions all the time. Obviously it makes things sound more casual, it’s like a free way to kind of get a bit more flow in your copy, and especially when you’re writing about something quite dense and technical and abstract and complicated. Having that kind of free, easy way in the copy make things a little smoother, a little easier to read, to a native English speaker, of course, that’s the default for me.

But obviously I’ve foolishly not really considered how it might read for somebody who doesn’t have English as their native language and might be using it as a second language, and therefore contractions suddenly reduce readability. That was an interesting one for me.

David: Yeah, I mean because you’ve got the whole thing with English as a second language, or you’ve got whether they’re reading on, say, a mobile device, which adds a whole bunch of cognitive load anyway. I get it ,but still, at the same time, from a voice and tone point of view, if you don’t use contractions at least some of the time, your brand can sound like a pompous ass.

So, I think there’s a balance. Our colleague John actually wrote a really good blog post about this, he had a dive into the research. I think, you know, the bit that Sarah was saying about the negative contractions, in particular, I think those are the ones that are particularly important.

I think, some kind of simple positive contractions are fine. But then there are ones that are either excessively complicated or they’re negative. You know, if you find yourself writing ‘shouldn’t’ve’, or something like that, then maybe think twice about it. But I think there’s a balance, I think maybe some contraction use is okay.

Are you one for being very standard within the client’s brand, copy, about which words you will contract, and which words you won’t? Because I tend to feel like, again in the spirit of writing as you’d speak, I wouldn’t always contract, or not contract, certain words. And, so I mean, I’m actually deliberately inconsistent about it in the content that I write, but I don’t know if that would just really wind people up.

George: Yeah, it’s interesting, actually, because I, I think I’m alarmingly consistent at just contracting absolutely any word, where it’s appropriate, and probably some where it’s inappropriate to be consistent.

David: You’re just alarmingly consistent in general.

George: If you say so. But I’m a big ‘contraction-er’, I don’t know if that’s a term. I’m going to make it one.

David: You are now.

George: So yeah, but this is really interesting. The idea that some stuff adds more cognitive load when it’s contracted than others. So the negative element is a really valuable point. Especially, Like Sarah said, when the only thing that signifies you’re talking about negative is the contraction.

But then it’s also easy to miss if you’re skimming through a document. So I guess there must be a line there right of sort of where it seems inconsistent versus where actually you’re doing the reader a favour, and I think finding that line is going to be an interesting one and I guess it will depend massively on what you’re writing.

I suppose, like if it’s, you know, quite short, to the point important message about what a reader should do about something, like a practical guide, maybe you don’t want to contract as much. But if it’s a much longer piece maybe contractions would be okay, because you’ve got more text to kind of work around and show when you’re switching to a negative.

Although, that’s contradicting myself straight away, maybe a longer piece you can get away with less contractions. Because it’s such a long piece, there’s already a lot of cognitive load associated with it. Does that make sense?

David: I think so. Yeah I think so. I think some of it is about where you are in the document and what you’re trying to do. I think sometimes you can be at a part of the document where you want to slow things down, and be really serious. You know, like I said, sometimes in an email, you know, you might want to say, “we won’t bother with so and so…” or in another sense you might say, “we will not do this”.

George: Yeah, I just wanted to say about how refreshing it was to hear somebody talking about B2B content, and saying hey, a little bit of jargon is fine. And that’s nice because whenever I attend a copywriting conference, someone always goes like, “jargon is the worst thing you got to get rid of all of it, that’s the main culprit of overly complex writing in B2B.”

And I sort of get where they’re coming from and obviously some jargon is less helpful than others but you know. Yeah, it’s nice to hear somebody really knows what they’re talking about saying hey, you know, jargon is how people understand their industry. And sometimes it’s fine. Assuming you can get the rest of the sentence to be pretty straightforward, having specific terms that apply to that industry is important and useful. Those terms do mean something. And it’d be silly not to use them.

David: It’s all about speaking the language isn’t it. It’s all about speaking their language that they actually use. I think the issue that we have, particularly in B2B writing and B2B tech writing, is that people have come to, I don’t want to say misunderstand what jargon means but certainly the meaning of the word jargon has expanded, the accepted meaning. So, strictly speaking, it is that the terminology of your industry.

So we’re both copywriters, I can talk about an Oxford comma and you’ll know what an Oxford comma is. Now, it has kind of expanded to when people talk about jargon to include all of the kind of business bullshit terms that go in. You know, “oh it’s innovative solutioneering”

George: Synergistic! I actually don’t think ‘synergistic’ has actually been used by people for like, what 15 years at least. That used to be the standard, okay here’s you know, business BS right here.

David: Yeah, “Let’s leverage our solutions”, all that stuff. But, you know, I think that because there still is a certain element of technical specificity, which is hard for me to say, on a Friday.

If you think about it, what I like to do is think about the water cooler or the break room where your audience works.

And if you think about two engineers or two technical people. Two experts, you know, they’re not going to say, “the big machine’s broken again, the red light is flashing. It’s hurting. Can someone make it less sad? Can they come and make it all better?” They’re going to talk about the specifics.

But neither are they going to say, “Ah! The Flugelbinder is operating at sub-optimal efficiency once again, this is a most inconvenient turn of events. We should arrange for a Maintenance Solution to leverage his expertise forthwith.”

George: I’ve never written about a Flugelbinder before, but I really want to now. It sounds quite exciting.

David: I’m going to have to invent it. So that you can. See, there’s a bit in between, where we use technical specifics but in short, easy to understand sentences.

Because when you talk about talking their language in a B2B tech context, you talk about technical specifics but presented in a simple way.

George: Yeah absolutely and I think as well, if he tried too hard to simplify something, and avoid those terms that that people are actually using, I think it just sounds weird, you know. Like an engineer would look at it and be like, “Why aren’t you talking about these things?”. “What are you talking about? You’re not using any of the terms I would expect to see in a document about, I don’t know whatever it would be, DevOps or what have you…” I don’t think there’s any point avoiding it for the sake of it, right?

David: It’s all about the context. It’s all about the audience and speaking their authentic language. I think when you’re talking with jargon, a lot of complexity gets dragged in. And so, it was a while ago now, but you did look into readability and things for us and you wrote that fabulous blog that has sections of different Flesh Kincaid grade levels, and that kind of thing. I mean, do you find yourself ever kind of looking to algorithms and things just to kind of give you a steer if your content is in the right kind of area readability wise?

George: Yeah I did try to. I do, but in a quite a gentle way. I mean, you know I’ve been doing this a fair few years now. So, more often than not, on a default job I’ll kind of just assume the stuff I write is at least mostly readable, like you’d like to think after eight years I can at least do that, right?

But, if there are special requirements, if I’m writing something that’s definitely going to be translated into other languages, then I suddenly think, okay, well, the burden of readability here is going to be greater, because you know there’s a lot of stuff that will translate quite poorly. Or make the translators job the hell on earth and I don’t want to do that.

I’ll run through stuff, just to make sure I’m certain that nothing is really going to throw a spanner in the works. I do find them useful as well in general, just every now and then, just to make sure things are on track, but I think I get a bit frustrated sometimes with how they’re used in other organisations.

So I’ve only had a few clients before that have said, “Right, this piece of writing, it’s got to hit 9 on the Flesh Kincaid grade, anything above a 9 we won’t accept.” And you know, I’m looking at how that algorithm works and I’m like, yeah, but you know the whole blog is about DevOps solutions and the single phrase ‘DevOps solutions’ spikes that algorithm by like a point in whatever sentence it’s in.

That’s a bad example but you know you get these terms that are quite long quite complicated terms. You can’t not use them because that’s what the blog is about, and you’re sat there arguing with somebody. “I know you said you needed a 9, but I’ve got, got it as a 9.2 Is that okay?”

And as long as people are willing to flex a little bit here and there, I think it’s fine to ask a writer to do that sort of thing. I’ve had some awkward conversations about, no, no, it’s got to be below nine, it has to be. And I’m sat there thinking, I don’t think it’s possible when you’re talking about server virtualisation. there’s too many syllables in that word, I cannot get this down further.

And I appreciate I’m going places about this, I have way more thoughts about this topic than I thought, David, you’ve awakened something within me. One more thing I found as well is that I’ve noticed recently I’ve had quite a few clients ask me to run this stuff through the Hemingway app.

David: Oh yes?

George: And I think the thing that I find interesting about that is, I did a lot of stuff in the Flesh Kincaid reading score. I quite like that, as a readability metric to aim for, because it’s very transparent what it’s calculating. You can look it up, it’s a known thing online. And it’s just sort of the amount of words in a sentence,

David: It’s words and syllables.

George: Exactly. So that’s great because I can look at it and if my score is crazy high, I know what to do to fix that, I need to go back and reduce the amount of words, reduce the amount of syllables in the words, and I’ll start getting somewhere.

Some of these algorithms though, like the Hemmingway app, it didn’t feel quite as obvious or transparent to me. Now I haven’t done a lot of work in it, maybe there is a really obvious algorithm that I just don’t know about yet.

But it’s when I don’t know what it’s looking for, I’m there like, how do I start reducing this number? What do I need to do to make this more readable according to this specific app? So I think that’s a bit of a danger there, I prefer something that’s less of a black box, but there we are.

David: And you’re a kind of expert on Grammarly at Radix, as well…

George: Well, I wouldn’t call myself an expert I think I’m just by default the guy that was left holding the bag, when people went, “Right, someone needs to train everyone on Grammarly and everyone ran away, and it was just me left standing there.”

David: As most technical person in the organisation. With Grammarly you’ve got different flavours, it asks you to suggest which kind of flavour of copy you would like.

George: Yeah I’m quite impressed with Grammarly on that front actually. Because I hadn’t used it for a while, and you know I remember seeing early reviews of it, it sounded like it was all quite general. But seeing they’ve now implemented these things, I don’t know how long this has been in there, but now I’ve started using it again. You know, you have these radio buttons, you can dial in, “How technical is the person you’re writing for?’ That kind of thing. “Is this for business, or consumer stuff?”

That’s really cool to be able to narrow that down, but again I do sort of feel sometimes, it’s very simple to use, which is great, but as a result they don’t give you a huge amount of info on all these different things.

So I’ve set mine to obviously be for a business context of writing. And then I’ve set it to be for professionals. But I could set it to be for academic people. And I’m like, what would it pick up for academic people that it won’t pick up for professional people? Where’s the line there for Grammarly?

I’m sure there’s all sorts of complex rules in place to make a distinct way of writing for both of those people and give you different suggestions. I haven’t played around with it enough yet, but I would love just to have a list of things that I could look at on Grammarly’s website, or a wiki somewhere, or something, so I know what kind of things it’s going to be looking out for.

Because, who knows maybe ‘academic’ would be more suitable for some jobs? I don’t know yet. And I can’t find out unless I start playing around with it. Maybe it’ll be homework for me I don’t know.

David: Sarah also talked a bit about making content accessible, as well as readable, to make sure that people with different abilities, and visual impairments and things, can access your content. Are we seeing our clients doing anything new or different? Or giving us anything kind of standard in the style guide and things? I mean, some things we just, you know, have been left I think in some cases to work out for ourselves as writers.

George: Yeah, I mean, you know what I still feel that’s what’s happening. I mean you know I would really love to have been able to give you a great answer here of, look at all these clients they’ve been doing all these amazing things, really putting it front and centre.

I’m not quite seeing that myself just yet. I may have been unlucky, or maybe I just haven’t asked enough questions for them to talk to me about accessibility thoughts they’ve been having in their content.

But you know, I know there are some specific elements of copy though that a lot of people have been talking about industrywide for a while. I know CTAs have kind of been the big one for a while, particularly. I think, there seemed to be an era, about five or six years ago, where every CTA button was “Get it now” or “Learn more”, or something like quite high level and vague.

And then I feel like we had a bit of a turning point, where a lot of people picked up that this is awful for screen readers. They’re like, get more info on what get what. And so you’re seeing a lot more specific CTA buttons. Text that says, you know, download the eBook, get the ‘name of the report’. So I was sort of seeing small nudges towards accessibility like that.

But for me, it tends to come from like other writers, rather than clients pushing it from the top down. Which is fine, I think, but it’s a shame. I think if more clients started thinking about it and telling their contractors, their writers, their employees, to push these things we might see change happen faster, so I’d love for that.

David: Yeah and it might be something that actually we need to get a style guide together and push on it, because it’s not right that people just can’t access your stuff. I mean, from a moral and a business point of view.

George: Obviously accessibility is mega important for people who, you know, can’t listen to things because of a hearing impairment. But also just in terms of usability for somebody who can hear, it’s a great thing too. Because you know, if you’re on a crowded bus and you haven’t got any headphones, brilliant. I mean, I used to have that thing, ads are getting smarter about this now, I’m sure you’ve had it where you’re scrolling Facebook or Reddit, or what have you, and you see an ad pop up, and it’s got audio, and no subtitles.

And I might actually be quite interested in what this ad is promoting, but at the moment there’s no audio. I’m sat on a bus, I’m not going to turn on audio for an ad and blast that out of out my speakers on this bus, right? No chance, I’m skipping that. But if you’ve got subtitles, I might look and go like, “Oh look this man’s waiting for a call from someone, but his phone’s waterproof, so it doesn’t matter he dropped it in a puddle”. But, no subtitles? No chance, I’m not buying it.

David: I’m chuckling about this elaborate bus story, when actually you’re talking about browsing Facebook in the office. aren’t you?

George: Oh yeah, I mean, to be clear I haven’t ridden the bus since the beginning of the pandemic. So yeah I tried to make myself sound really down to earth, “Yeah, I get on the bus too, you know, I do the public transport”. No. I’ve just been a hermit for ages, so no bus and no advert about people dropping phones and puddles. But you can see it happening, right? That that wasn’t a terrible example.

David: So I think that one of the things that we said is that it’s good to have guidelines and to get some stuff in place. And actually we’ve got an opportunity for some people to win some guidelines. So let’s hand them out, shall we?

George: So David, are you telling me we have honest to God prizes to hand out this month?

David: Unbelievably, that is true. After we finished recording, Sarah generously offered us three prize bundles to give away. Each of them, comprises the Content Design London readability guidelines and a copy of Sarah’s book Content Design, which I highly recommend.

So, I took to social media and asked the audience. I said, “What is your best tip for making B2B content readable and accessible?” And we picked out three favourites, and we’ll send each of you a pack. George, do you want to know what they are? He said, rustling his papers.

George: Yes, I do.

David: Okay, he said, having destroyed some trees. Okay so we have some great responses. And the ones that we picked as our favourites are in no particular order… Livi Cracknell, who’s a Digital Content Strategist at Accenture Interactive, responded to us on LinkedIn.

She said, “I would approach it from a strategic point of view to ensure consistency and longevity. So first establish the guidelines that content must meet to be deemed clear and accessible. And when does it fall short? Group these into categories. Translate this into a framework, or a scorecard, or a checklist that could be used to govern the content creation process. And run all the content through this framework during the production cycle.”

Jennifer Law, who’s a Digital Marketing Manager at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, responded on the B2B Marketing Propolis hive for content and brand strategy, and she says, “Some of the things we do within my team are,” (There’s a bunch of these, but they’re all good – I said that, she didn’t). “Attend accessibility forums, held with various user groups in our organization to understand barriers, and then take these learnings back to see how we can apply them to our content.

“Number two, my team holds monthly accessibility meetings to agree on outcomes we are trying to achieve, to improve accessibility within our remit, We look at things like images, documents, page content, etc, and choose which ones to tackle next.

“Number three, we create short guides and ‘lunch and learns’ to educate stakeholders and business units involved in content creation, and to educate the agencies we use on our requirements.

“Number four, we regularly take time and read up on accessibility to understand more about this topic and discuss our meetings and agree on the next steps.

“Number five, we use Semrush and SiteImprove to run audits on our content. If we don’t own the content we talk to the business owners, about our findings and discuss potential changes we can make.

“And number six, we regularly conduct SEO audits to understand questions and the language people use to make sure that our content is readable and resonates with the needs of our audiences. PS, we have also recently completed an accessibility audit on some of our websites, and we are about to do the same on some of our downloadable content to understand how accessible they are.”

Wow, there’s a whole load there from Jennifer, who has more than earned a prize bundle, I think. And we didn’t just need, you know, reams and reams of suggestions. We also, on LinkedIn, had a response from Chomparani Ali who’s a content specialist in Germany. I think she’s in Germany. She says, “Clearly structure content with subheadings and bullet points, a lot of B2B blog posts ramble on with long sentences and paragraphs”. Amen to that.

George: I was going to say, we’ve all seen that. Fair play.

David: A wall of practical, usable advice and I think that they’ve all, earned themselves prize bundles, so we’ll be in touch to get your addresses and send those out to you. Well done to you, and thanks to everyone else who took the time to engage and sent tips. Obviously we can’t read all of them.

George: Okay, well, now it’s time for our copywriting for the month. This time it’s from Radix Consultant Writer, and International Man of Mystery, Kieran Haynes.

Kieran Haynes: Hi, I’m Kieran, I’m a Consultant Writer at Radix. My favourite copywriting tip is: don’t start writing before you’re ready. When I first began working as a copywriter, I can’t have spent more than twenty percent of my time planning what I was going to write. I would rush to get some words on the page, to protect me against the ever approaching deadline.

Then I’d edit, I’d rethink, I’d freak out, I’d unpick and I would restructure. It wasn’t a fun or effective way to work. Today I probably spend the majority of my time planning. I set out a narrative flow. I know what all my references and proof points are, and where I’m going to use them. I trust in my writing process even as the clock is ticking down, and my work has is much better as a result.

David: He does sound like an international man of mystery in that piece.

George: If anyone in this business was going to turn out to actually be a spy or assassin, that I never knew about, I think it would be Kieran. Don’t tell him I said that, I don’t want him to get too big for his boots. But I could see him just going, “Yeah, I’m just going to Switzerland for a week”. And I would just be like, I know what you’re doing, you’re not going skiing.

David: I don’t know I think that Kieran would be too obvious.

George: I thought you were going to compliment him and say, “He’d be too nice. But no, too obvious…”

David: He’s too cool, He’s too cool. But yeah, as ever, Kieran, making the rest of us look bad, with his sheer thought process and discipline there. Do you agree with him, George?

George: You know, we were talking about this just earlier today, David. I mean, you know, I have an immense amount of respect for Kieran, because I see him as like, my polar opposite in how he approaches work. You know I feel I’m quite workman-like when it comes to approaching copy, but Kieran is ever the artiste. He is a man who accepts nothing less than perfection, and his planning process is in and of itself a work of art. I think he really commits to it and it produces really great content, so I can’t argue with the results, also unfortunately it couldn’t be me, I just dive straight in and get going and pick it apart like a sculpture.

David: I’m afraid that is all we have time for this month. Listener, join us again next time, when we’ll be talking to Paul Cash about emotion in B2B. In the meantime, George, would you thank our contributors and remind the listener, where they can get in touch, please.

George: Sure thing. So thanks again to Sarah Winters for such an informative discussion. Thanks to Kieran for his copywriting tip and continuing to make me look bad. And thanks and congratulations to our three prize winners, but most importantly, thank you listener for your company.

And please don’t forget, if you’d like to contact show you can do so on email: [email protected], or on Twitter: @radixcom. And if you’re listening on Apple podcasts, please leave us a review; it would be great.

David: And thank you George for co-hosting, have you enjoyed it.

George: I always enjoy it, David. It’s always pleasure.

David: You never look like you’re enjoying it.

George: I’m one of these people, I’m cursed with everything I say sounds sarcastic, And it gets me in a lot of trouble. I’ll be talking to one of the guys in the office, and say, “That’s a really good piece of work, I guess”. And somehow they like think I’m making fun of them. I’m not, I genuinely mean it.

David: I’m one of the few people that’s old enough to remember that guy on The Mary Whitehouse Experience but, you know, none of the audience, none of the listeners, none of our colleagues will know who that is. So I will move on. Until next time, listener, remember, nobody will ever complain that you made something too easy to understand. Well, except for that one stakeholder. You know the one. Sorry.

David and George: Goodbye!

Acknowledgements and thanks

Thanks once again to Sarah Winters; it was great to finally hear from you on the podcast, and we hope you’ll come back soon.

Thanks also to George for co-hosting so smoothly, to Kieran the international superspy for making us all look bad with your copywriting tip. And thanks and congratulations to our brilliant competition winners: Livi, Jennifer, and Chomparani (who is indeed in Germany, it turns out).

Hello to Jason Isaacs.

And last but not least, thanks to Bang and Smash for mad podcast production skills.

Podcast 97: how to write valuable B2B content

Posted on June 30, 2021January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

In this month’s episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, we’re talking about creating content with real value for the reader. More specifically, writing content that reflects your customers’ priorities and furthers your business goals.

In our feature interview, we get a lesson from the two inspirational voices behind The School of Valuable Content: Sonja Nisson and Sharon Tanton. We dive deep to discuss what prompted them to get the band back together, how they help marketers find that content sweet spot, and why client input is always the most vital part of content creation.

Guest co-host John Espirian – influential B2B tech copywriter, Master of LinkedIn and author of Content DNA – joins us to talk through his own experiences, and discuss how to create content that’s “relentlessly helpful”.

And to top it all off, you’ll catch another tip from our own team of experienced copywriters. This month’s words of wisdom are delivered to you by our very talented (and very wise) consultant copywriter Steve George.

A (super-quick) checklist for creating valuable content

As a brand, creating standout content is one of the best ways to attract your ideal customers, and build your reputation as an expert in your field. But it can be hard knowing what to write, or if your content has any real value (to your customer, or your business).

Sonja and Sharon suggest asking three quick questions:

Does your content help you meet your business goals?

According to Sonja and Sharon, this is the first question you have to answer. There’s no point writing content if it doesn’t further your cause in some way. Maybe you want to showcase your unique expertise. Maybe you want to share a success story. Or maybe you’re targeting a specific client. Whatever the reason, it’s important to know why you’re writing.

Is it (really, actually) helpful for your (real world) clients?

To create value for your clients, you need to answer a real challenge, and provide a solution your customers genuinely crave. But to do that, your content should be written with a real end-user in mind. According to Sonja and Sharon, a good litmus test is asking whether you (or your sales team) would be motivated to share it with a specific individual.

Does it add to the story you’re telling – without repeating yourself?

It’s hard to create truly insightful, original content all the time. Looking at a story from different angles is perfectly fine. But to make people want to keep reading, you have to ensure that you’re not just repeating content – and that every piece you write takes the story a step further.

Of course, there’s much more in the interview itself, so have a listen… and if you’d like to know more, maybe enrol in the School of Valuable Content yourself.

In the rest of the podcast, you’ll also hear a wealth of insights from David and John, including the importance of writing to specific reader profiles (or, as John calls them, “Pen Portraits”), and why you should never refer a “Salesy Douche Canoe”.

In this episode, you’ll find…

01.03 – A warm welcome for our latest guest co-host: John Espirian

04:25 – David talks valuable content with Sonja Nisson and Sharon Tanton

19:08 – John and David discuss how consistently valuable content, written for a specific audience, can build trust

34:22 – Our online community weighs in with valuable content obstacles and tips

41:00 – Steve George’s copywriting tip of the month

Was this your favourite episode yet?

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Tweet us at @radixcom on Twitter or pop us a message on [email protected] Or, if you fancy your chances of appearing on the podcast, send a voice memo our way.

How to listen

You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As” to download)
Or you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player
And don’t forget you can follow us on Spotify

Credits

Firstly, a very big Radix thank you to John Espirian. You’re as skilled at co-hosting as you are at copywriting, LinkedIn, and frankly everything else.
Thanks also to Sonja Nisson and Sharon Tanton; it’s great to have you back! I think we all learned a lot from that fantastic interview – your students are lucky people.
We’re grateful to the awesome folk who answered our questions on social media: Fiona, Scott, Maureen, and Joe.
And Steve, thank you for providing an excellent copywriting tip of the month.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash

Podcast 95: how to write B2B social media content

Posted on April 29, 2021January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

In this month’s Good Copy, Bad Copy, we’re talking about writing social media copy for B2B brands – how to write it, what tactics work well, and what B2B marketing experts think great social content looks like.

Guest co-host Lorraine Williams, founder of Lighthouse Proofreading (and undisputed Queen of PDF Proofing), joins David to chat about the wonderful world of LinkedIn and the challenges of writing engaging content for a B2B audience.

You’ll also catch an interview with social media marketing guru Luan Wise. An independent marketing consultant and trainer, Luan knows all there is to know about social media marketing (she even runs courses for LinkedIn). Tune in to hear her best writing advice for B2B social content – as well as her recent research study about social media and how it’s changed in the pandemic.

Plus, three top B2B marketers share their favourite examples of great social content – and our very own Ben Philpott provides the copywriting tip of the month.

**B2B social content: a sneak peek at Luan’s “what not to do” list**

As Luan points out in her interview, social media marketing follows similar rules to any other kind of content – and anything you post needs to adhere to your brand and messaging. That means ensuring your voice is still clear and recognisable, and that you’re writing towards the right audience.

But along with these tips, Luan shares a few mistakes you should be careful to avoid:

Don’t forget your call to action: You’re posting on social media to be social – so don’t forget to involve your reader in some way.
Don’t go silent for weeks on end: Being consistently present is key to being great at B2B social media – so don’t just leave all your posting for a quiet month.
Don’t publish clickbait or fake headlines: The clearer you are, the more your readers will care about what you have to say.
Don’t overthink it: Plan out your social media strategy, then make posting a habit.

You can absorb more of Luan’s wisdom by (you guessed it) listening to the podcast, where you’ll also catch David and Lorraine talking about their own tips and tricks.

And be sure to check out Luan’s website for info on all the courses she runs, and a ton of free resources.

In this episode, you’ll find…

00.50 – (Enter stage left) Introducing this week’s co-host, Lorraine Williams

02.44 – Luan Wise spills the secrets of writing great social media content for B2B

22.31 – David and Lorraine chat about the joys and perils of writing for LinkedIn

35:35 – Three B2B experts share their favourite social media content

43:13 – Copywriting tip of the month, by our own Ben P

Anything you love or hate about this podcast?

We’d love to chat about it. You can contact us through @radixcom on Twitter or [email protected]. Or, if you’re feeling fancy, just send us a voice memo with what you want to say – we might even feature it next month.

As ever, if you’d like to leave us a review on your listening platform of choice, that’s always a bonus.

How to listen

You can download the episode here (right click and select “Save As” to download)
Or you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player
And don’t forget you can follow us on Spotify

Credits

A massive thank you to Luan Wise for letting us pick your brain about all things social media. We really appreciate your time and insights.
Thanks also to everyone who joined in the discussion about B2B social content on Propolis and LinkedIn – especially this month’s featured commenters: Dan Smith, Kate Roe, and Yvonne Deegan. Y’all rock.
Thanks to Ben for the copywriting tip of the month, and of course a big thanks to Lorraine for being an awesome co-host, and an exceptional LinkedIn-er. It was great to hear your social media secrets (btw, here at Radix we’re firmly camp Hula Hoop).
Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Podcast 94: how to write great content for ABM (now that everyone is doing it)

Posted on March 30, 2021January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

This month’s episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy is about how to write Account-Based Marketing (ABM) conhttps://radix-communications.com/type/podcasts/tent that sticks.

I’ve been in this B2B technology copywriting business for a few years now, and I can think of few approaches that have flourished in that time as much as ABM. Everybody is doing it, and it’s easy to see why: when it works, it *really* works.

But that also means ABM content needs to work harder than ever to make an impression. And that’s why we’re delighted to have Rhiannon Blackwell, head of ABM for Europe at Accenture, join us to share her expert insights into what content actually works.

Radix consultant writer George Reith joins David as guest co-host, to discuss his own experiences – as well as the ABM challenges cited most by our lovely B2B friends on LinkedIn and Propolis.

Plus, senior copywriter Katy shares a 20-second writing tip, and a CX Manager takes on the Anonymous Five.

“ABM is for life. Not just for Christmas.”

Those are the first words you’ll hear from Rhiannon in this month’s episode. (Sure, it’s March, but it’s the sentiment that counts.) You see, the meteoric rise of ABM is more than just another fad; it’s arguably the future of B2B marketing.

But how do you do it well?

Drawing on years of experience, Rhiannon tells us:

How to get people to listen to *you* and not just see your ABM content as the output of a faceless brand
Why your clients must recognise themselves in your ABM content – and the importance of applying personal insights
What effective ABM content really looks like and why you should never tell your audience how to suck eggs

In this episode, you’ll find…

02.30 – An expert’s view on ABM content: our interview with Rhiannon Blackwell

22.30 – George and David discuss the interview and how George’s ABM experiences compare

34.30 – The LinkedIn and Propolis communities share their own ABM challenges

45.25 – The Anonymous Five: a Customer Experience Manager talks job misconceptions and reveals why generational stereotypes are rarely helpful

Anything you loved in this episode?

Tweet us at @radixcom on Twitter or fire a message over to [email protected].

Should you want to share the mic (albeit remotely) with David on a future episode, send us a voice memo with your comment, question, or 20-second writing tip.

How to listen:

You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As” to download)
Or you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player
And don’t forget you can follow us on Spotify

Credits:

A huge thanks to Rhiannon Blackwell for joining us despite being on the cusp of maternity leave (and congratulations on the arrival of baby Ivor!).

Thanks also to our correspondents on Propolis and LinkedIn: Shikha Saxena, Fiona Campbell-Howes (Hi, Fiona!), and Scott Stockwell. We loved sharing your perspectives.

And of course, we’re indebted to our mystery CX Manager (we’ve made a donation to the Myton hospices on your behalf), and to Katy for supplying our inaugural copywriting tip of the month.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Podcast 93: getting insights from other departments for your B2B content

Posted on March 3, 2021January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

In this month’s episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, we’re talking about an issue that plagues B2B marketers everywhere: getting other departments in your business to share the insights that are so vital to creating worthwhile content.

Guest co-host Adam Harper, Quantexa’s new Demand Generation Manager for EMEA, joins David in the virtual studio to discuss the challenges B2B marketers face when building better interdepartmental collaboration, like:

Mad marketing ideas from senior leadership
Lack of trust from other departments
Being too darned nice to get the co-operation you need

(Yell “BINGO” if you’ve experienced them all.)

Best of all, you’ll catch an interview with indomitable B2B tech marketer and cross-functional insight expert, Maureen Blandford. With her new, free digital book on the subject “Moats and Drawbridges” hot off the press, Maureen tells us why extracting useful insights from other departments is so “ouchy” – and how to make a start.

Finally, a UK-based Fleet Analyst tackles the Anonymous Five. If you create content for fleet customers, you’re really going to want to hear what they have to say.

Time for every functional area to come together

Every functional area of a business – including product, sales, marketing, and customer success – has a wealth of great information that can help everyone else (and especially those of us who make B2B content). But an unstructured, ad-hoc approach to information sharing makes cross-functional insights nearly impossible.

So how can you start to build up that communication, and get the insights you need to create truly great B2B copy? Maureen offers a few tips:

Start small: Learning any new skill feels strange at first, so starting small is your best chance of keeping everyone onboard.
Focus on one question you really want answered: It doesn’t have to be marketing’s choice; product could be seeing an under-used feature, for example. Pick a question, work together to answer it, and you’ll build muscle memory.
Expect messy: Change doesn’t happen overnight – and breaking down barriers is a tough business. A healthy level of friction is part of getting the job done, and that’s okay.

You’ll find plenty more guidance in the full interview (along with a scathing review of Martech vendors). What more could you ask for?

Maureen’s new book can be found here: Moats & Drawbridges: The Current State of B2B Cross-functional Insight Sharing. And when you’re inspired to drive change (and trust us, you will be), join the conversation at #InsightHarnesser.

The Anonymous Five: Fleet Analyst, UK-based maintenance company

In this month’s no-holds-barred Q&A, a mystery Fleet Analyst gives us some brutally honest insights about crap marketing and the impact of electric vehicles.

They tell us which electric car companies have “terrible B2B service” – and which fall short with their targeting – and reveal why, ultimately, Excel is the tool that any software solution needs to beat.

(Thank you, anonymous Fleet Analyst, for being so honest and detailed; we’ve made a donation to Changing Pathways on your behalf.)

In this episode, you’ll find…

0.53 – Introducing the one and only Adam Harper

3.40 – Maureen Blandford tells us why cross-functional collaboration is key

24.21 – David and Adam discuss the interview, and why “anecdata” is so dangerous

36.42 – What one question would you ask? The people have their say

41.26 – The Anonymous Five: a Fleet Analyst tells all

Anything you loved in this episode?

(Or really, really hated? We can take it, honest…)

Tweet us at @radixcom on Twitter or pop us a message on [email protected] Or, if you want to feature on the podcast itself, send us a voice memo our way.

How to listen

You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As” to download)
Or you can subscribe (and leave a review if you like) on Apple Podcasts
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player
Of if you prefer, you could always follow us on Spotify

Credits

Thanks, Adam, for being a consummate co-host – we’ve no doubt you’ll be back on the show soon. Ish.

Thank you to the wonderful Maureen Blandford, for sharing your wealth of expertise (and never being afraid to say it just how it is). Did we mention the book?

Thanks also to our mystery Fleet Analyst, and to our merry band of Twitter and LinkedIn responders: Paul A63005, Ian Truscott, Wendy Clack, Matt Dodgson, Gregory Hooven, Sam Armondi, Sam Batstone, Kate Roe, and Syed Haseen Ahmed. You guys are awesome.

Podcast editing and music by Gareth at Bang and Smash.

Podcast 92: writing B2B content for telecoms (and other changing sectors)

Posted on January 27, 2021January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

This month’s episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy focuses on the changing role of content in the telecommunications sector – and what other B2B marketers can learn from it.

The pandemic has had a seismic impact on B2B telecoms, with brands moving fast to accommodate the stampede to home working. But even before that, the market’s major players were moving away from just selling connectivity to a wider range of more strategic services. And their content was playing a big role.

Our guest co-host, Radix Consultant Writer George Reith, joins David to get to the bottom of that change – and what it means for content marketing.

David is also joined by Sarah Zammit, Business Marketing Specialist at GO plc – Malta’s biggest internet, TV, and mobile provider. Sarah gives her view from the B2B telecoms marketing frontline, including the shift to selling new kinds of products and expertise, and how this has affected the way marketers position their content.

How do you earn the right to change?

Change has always been at the heart of telecoms. New technologies enter the market, customers’ priorities evolve… and right in the middle is the content marketer who’s tasked with making sense of it all.

But for some organisations, the COVID-19 pandemic compressed five-year digital transformation ambitions into a matter of weeks, and their telcos had to keep up. Sarah explains how B2B organisations had to adapt their marketing twice – first to meet the immediate crisis, and then to help audiences adjust to the new reality.

In the interview, Sarah also discusses:

How telecoms breeds agile marketers – who have to deal with constant shifts in technology and business strategy
Why telcos need to earn the right to reposition – and how marketers can achieve this through content
How marketers can get up to speed with new tech – and how Sarah works with experts in her team to distil technical concepts into digestible content

Following their chat, George reveals his take on creating marketing content for telecoms as an outsourced copywriter. He concludes that while telecoms has unique marketing challenges, much of the way the industry tackles change can apply to other sectors too.

In this episode, you’ll find…

03.44 – Marketing is a process of constant education: an interview with Sarah Zammit

17.51 – George and David discuss the key takeaways from Sarah’s discussion, including how good B2B content can help brands move up the value curve

25.15 – How experts and third-party contributors can help establish authority in a new subject area

30.09 – George shares some unconventional tips you can use to get up to speed quickly on challenging technical concepts

We really want to hear from you

If there’s anything you’d like to hear more about on the podcast (or even things you don’t), contact us through @radixcom on Twitter or [email protected].

You can even get on the podcast yourself – just send us a voice memo with what you want to say.

How to listen

You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As” to download)
Or you can subscribe (and leave a review if you like us) on Apple Podcasts
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player
And don’t forget you can follow us on Spotify

Credits

Thanks once again to Sarah Zammit for giving us an insider’s perspective on the state of telecoms marketing today – here’s to it being completely different tomorrow! And we’re forever grateful to George Reith for his invaluable ‘on the ground’ insight.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash

Podcast 91: the Best B2B Content of 2020

Posted on December 18, 2020January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

Our final Good Copy, Bad Copy of 2020 is an extra special one. It’s our third annual Best B2B Content roundup – when we reveal what you’ve voted as the best content of the year.

And this year, through the joys of Zoom, David’s joined by an international panel of B2B marketing experts to discuss the results.

Meet our expert panel of B2B marketing all-stars

Maureen Blandford, VP of Marketing at Community Brands, joins us all the way from Chicago
We welcome back previous co-host and newly freelance B2B writing gunslinger, Harry Kapur
Danfoss’s senior copywriter and content marketing consultant, Lasse Lund, shares his perspective from Denmark
Head of Marketing for Turtl, Karla Rivershaw, brings an overview of what marketers have been publishing this year, along with her extensive knowledge of B2B marketing songs. (You’ll find more on Karla’s LinkedIn profile.)

We know we’re biased, but this year, our best content shortlist has it all. There’s brutal honesty. There’s outrage. There’s celebration. There are surprises. There are insights from industry leaders. And there’s a whole load of fantastic B2B content to talk about.

You can can see all the nominees in more detail here.

Plus, you’ll hear from our all-star panel on the B2B marketing trends that have dominated 2020, their top predictions and tips for the B2B content that could define 2021 – and why B2B content is such a level playing field.

So who have you voted the winner? You’ll have to listen to find out…

In this episode, you’ll find:

00.33 – Meet our all-star panel of B2B marketing experts

05:20 – 2020 in review: how do you make B2B content in a year like that?

12:05 – Our countdown begins: places 10-6

20:27 – We reveal places 5-2, including this year’s runner-up

44:26 – Honorary mentions: the content that didn’t quite make the top 10

46:18 – We reveal what you voted this year’s best B2B content

49:50 – Hear our panellist’s tips and predictions for B2B content in 2021

Tell us your joy, despair or outrage at the results…

How to listen

You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As” to download)
Or you can subscribe (and leave a review if you like) on Apple Podcasts
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player
And don’t forget you can follow us on Spotify

Credits

Hearty congratulations to our finalists, and a big thank you to everyone who sent in audio, nominations, or voted: Emily King, Doug Kessler, Joel Harrison, Paul Hewerdine, Giles Shorthouse, André Spiteri, Andrew Last, Eman Malik and so many more. We had an absolute blast looking through them all.

And thank you so much to the ABBA of B2B copy – our wonderful panel of experts. Maureen Blandford, Harry Kapur, Karla Rivershaw and Lasse Lund, it was great to hear your round up of the longest year ever, find out your honest opinions on our finalists, and get an idea of what’s coming up next. You should do this for a living.

Podcast editing, music, and festive sparkle by Bang and Smash.

Podcast 90: telling stories with data

Posted on November 30, 2020January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

In this month’s episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, we discuss how storytelling, data, and customer insights all come together to create engaging B2B content.

Guest co-host Ramon Vanden Brulle, Copy Director at Yesler (excitingly now part of Accenture Interactive), joins David to dissect why data and a well-structured, strong story are both components you can’t leave out.

Plus, you’ll catch an interview with Dr Christine Bailey, CMO and Managing Director SMB UK and Ireland for the payment tech company Valitor. With a newly-released book on customer insight strategies – not to mention an actual doctorate on the subject – Chris tells us how data and storytelling reinforce each other in your content. (And she shares a structured approach you can totally steal.)

In this month’s Anonymous Five, a Chief Marketing Officer at a large, UK-based telecoms distributor reveals whether their job makes them more judgemental about the marketing content they receive.

And *drum roll * voting is now open for the best content of 2020. We’ve compiled the most exciting and inspiring nominations into a shortlist. Now, it’s time to vote for your favourite – if you can choose, that is.

Blending data and storytelling? Use SCIPAB®

Christine explains how Mandel’s simple(-ish) acronym can help you add urgency and incentive to your B2B content, by prompting you to create a compelling structure infused with the right data points.

What do the letters stand for, you ask? Here you go:

Situation: Start by painting a familiar, comforting scene your reader understands.
Complication: Bring in the “but” – the issue disrupting the scene – complete with stats to back it up.
Implications: Discuss the fallout of this issue – and the opportunity it creates. Illustrate your point with infographics, statistics, or other bits of data.
Position: Introduce the good that can come from this opportunity – including success stories.
Action: Get into what your reader needs to do, and how you can help. (If it’s appropriate, Christine recommends including some funny stories here – like people who’ve really effed it up.)
Benefit: Tell your reader what’s waiting for them if they get it right, with quantifiable results.

In the interview, you’ll hear real-life examples of this in action.

Chris also dives into her new book: Customer Insight Strategies. She shares how you can find out what your customer actually cares about, and why you should use this information to build your value proposition and personas.

(Hint: it involves this TED talk by Simon Sinek.)

After, David and Ramon chat about championing the customer, and avoiding boasts and promises they’ve heard 1,000 times before. Ramon reveals his secret recipe for extracting the right data points from tricky clients… You lucky, lucky thing.

The Anonymous Five: Chief Marketing Officer, UK-based telecoms

Who doesn’t love a brutally honest answer – especially when it comes direct from a B2B persona you might be targeting?

This month, a CMO at a UK-based telecoms distributor tells us how they’ve changed tack to deliver digital sales enablement, why marketing technology is such a boon, and exactly how much of the content they receive is “woeful”.

(Thank you, anonymous CMO. We’ve donated to Downs South London Kids Walk 300 on your behalf.)

And the VOTING IS OPEN for the best B2B content of 2020

Don’t forget we have 15 inspiring examples of 2020’s best B2B content for you to choose from. (Well, they’re mostly inspiring. One of them just made us want to vomit and laugh at the same time.) Which will be your favourite?

Anyway, you have until the morning of Tuesday 8th December to cast your vote.

If you have thoughts on any of the nominees, record a voice memo and email it to us.

In this episode, you’ll find…

00.55 – Meet Ramon Vanden Brulle, straight from Seattle

04.19 – Where data meets story: an interview with Dr Christine Bailey

26.12 – Ramon and David chat about Christine’s pearls of wisdom

40.07 – The Anonymous Five: a telecoms CMO spills (some of) the beans

Send us your thoughts, feedback, or unwanted advent chocolates…

Contact us through @radixcom on Twitter or [email protected] (ideally, send us a voice memo so we can hear from you on the show).

How to listen

You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As” to download)
Or you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player
And don’t forget you can follow us on Spotify

Credits

Thank you to Dr Christine Bailey for joining us; it was a joy to chat with you (and congratulations on the book). Also, a big hand to Ramon Vanden Brulle for being one of our best co-hosts yet. Thanks also to our anonymous CMO.

If you like the sound of Chris’s new book, you can grab your copy here.

Podcast editing, music, and natty new jingles by Bang and Smash

Podcast 88: the changing face of B2B marketing content

Posted on September 30, 2020January 11, 2025 by The Radix Team

Strange as it may seem, there was once a time where the idea of B2B marketing just didn’t exist. So, from that bleak, cold world, how has B2B evolved into the innovative, passion-led industry we know today?

In this episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy, David and co-host Jane Morrin, EMEA Director of Marketing at Udemy, take a look at the pivotal moments in the B2B industry’s history, what it could look like in future, and the dramatic changes taking place today.

And who better to ask than the editor-in-chief of B2B Marketing, industry founder, and B2B evangelist (his words, not ours), Joel Harrison?

From pub conversations to a lively, booming industry

The interview is truly inspiring, with deep insights into the foundation of the B2B industry, and its evolution. You’ll hear:

What inspired Joel and co-founder James Farmer to create B2B Marketing
How they built a thriving community around B2B Marketing’s content and events
Why B2B demands a deeper emotional connection than B2C – and why they should remain two separate entities
How two periods of inflection have shaped the industry: the 2008 credit crunch, and this year’s COVID crisis
What Joel loves about the industry – and his biggest pet peeves
How the B2B industry needs to evolve from here, and the importance of greater diversity

Plus, David and Jane share their thoughts on the interview and discuss under-representation in the B2B tech industry, and how 2020 will change the industry forever.

Jane chats about Udemy’s own focus on diversity, and the recent virtual event by Tile’s Jossie Haines on equality and inclusion. (You can still catch up here – it’s well worth a listen.)

The Anonymous Five: small business owner, UK

For this month’s “Anonymous Five”, the face behind the curtain belongs to a small business owner, at a UK-based womenswear company.

They tell us what a nightmare day would look like, and why marketers should take the time to find out where a small business is in their journey – and the specific challenges they’re facing – rather than just assuming the owner is overwhelmed.

Thank you, anonymous business owner, for your time. We’ve donated to the charity of your choice: The Wave Project.

Here’s what you will find in this episode…

1.00 – Jane Morrin chats about changing jobs during a pandemic

5.00 – Our interview with B2B founder, Joel Harrison

24.46 – David and Jane add their thoughts on the evolution of B2B marketing

36.51 – How this year will change the B2B world forever

47:38 – The Anonymous Five: a small business owner

Send us your thoughts, feedback or cute pet photos…

How to listen

You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As” to download)
Or you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts
Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player
And don’t forget you can follow us on Spotify

Credits

Thank you to Joel Harrison, it was fantastic to share some of your pet peeves, and hear you get so passionate. Also, a big thanks to Jane Morrin for being a wonderful co-host. You’re both stars.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash

Need to balance relevance for the client and your own brand voice? Here are the key takeaways from the podcast:

1. Use the client’s language

2. Focus on your customer’s worries, not your brand

3. Be careful how you use research

4. Understand how people consume content

5. Don’t tell the client you get them – show them

Want some further reading? Here are the sources Andrea mentions:

Here’s what you can expect in this episode…

Got a question? We’ll find the answer.

How to listen:

Credits

Transcript: B2BQ&A 111 – How can ABM content balance relevance and brand voice?

What steps can B2B Marketers take to make their content clear and accessible?

Remember your reader is human… just like you

User researchers are your new best friends

Some jargon is good (yes, we really mean that)

Tiny changes can make a big difference to accessibility

In this episode, you’ll find…

Was this your favourite episode yet?

How to listen:

Transcript: Good Copy Bad Copy 98: Readability and Accessibility

Speakers:

Acknowledgements and thanks

A (super-quick) checklist for creating valuable content

Does your content help you meet your business goals?

Is it (really, actually) helpful for your (real world) clients?

Does it add to the story you’re telling – without repeating yourself?

In this episode, you’ll find…

Was this your favourite episode yet?

How to listen

Credits

B2B social content: a sneak peek at Luan’s “what not to do” list

In this episode, you’ll find…

Anything you love or hate about this podcast?

How to listen

Credits

“ABM is for life. Not just for Christmas.”

In this episode, you’ll find…

Anything you loved in this episode?

How to listen:

Credits:

Time for every functional area to come together

The Anonymous Five: Fleet Analyst, UK-based maintenance company

In this episode, you’ll find…

Anything you loved in this episode?

How to listen

Credits

How do you earn the right to change?

In the interview, Sarah also discusses:

In this episode, you’ll find…

We really want to hear from you

How to listen

Credits

Meet our expert panel of B2B marketing all-stars

So who have you voted the winner? You’ll have to listen to find out…

Tell us your joy, despair or outrage at the results…

How to listen

Credits

Blending data and storytelling? Use SCIPAB®

The Anonymous Five: Chief Marketing Officer, UK-based telecoms

And the VOTING IS OPEN for the best B2B content of 2020

In this episode, you’ll find…

Send us your thoughts, feedback, or unwanted advent chocolates…

How to listen

Credits

From pub conversations to a lively, booming industry

The Anonymous Five: small business owner, UK

Here’s what you will find in this episode…

Send us your thoughts, feedback or cute pet photos…

How to listen

Credits

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**5. Don’t tell the client you get them – show them**

**B2B social content: a sneak peek at Luan’s “what not to do” list**