Category: The Blog

How to write for the new CIO: a Radix primer

Posted on by The Radix Team

The Chief Information Officer is an interesting creature.

Less than a decade ago, it was uncertain whether the role had a future, but – lo and behold –  it evolved. Today, the CIO is expected to be the driving force behind digital transformation.

But that said, the CIO still appreciates a helping hand now and then – even if it’s just to nudge them in the direction of the right enterprise technology. And that’s where well-written marketing content comes in.

But first, we need to understand the role, and the pressures involved.

The CIO – then and now

Traditionally, the CIO’s pressures came from balancing the books and mitigating risk, but today, they arguably face the greatest challenge of all C-suite executives.

With the emergence of the tech-savvy Chief Digital Officer, the CIO has had to step up, and face the tricky job of maintaining and migrating legacy systems, while delivering the latest technology and enabling mobile working.

For many CIOs, it’s been a long time since they actively engaged with IT on a ground level – maybe even as far back as the 1980s. We assume the CIO is still a technologist, but they are often far more interested in the business benefits technology can deliver, not how many numbers it can push per second.

Forced out of their comfort zone, and left with no choice but to enable the agile and flexible service their customers and employees expect, it’s only natural that a CIO should take advantage of helpful brand content. But what should that copy look like?

No time wasters, thanks

The CIO doesn’t have much time in their day to dive into B2B marketing, and for some of us, that means getting pretty ruthless with our copy. No fat, no fluff – every sentence needs a purpose.

At Radix, we have a ton of experience writing for C-suite executives, so I asked my colleagues to share some of their thoughts on writing for the CIO. Here’s what George Reith had to say:

“When writing for a CIO, I have to be so careful not to patronise them, or cast doubt on their ability to deliver the goods. But at the same time, I never assume they know everything on a ground level. They’ve experienced the upheaval of mobile and cloud over a short period of time, but I won’t avoid introducing new technical trends on a business level – I believe that’s exactly what they want.”

And when it comes to making decisions, David McGuire finds CIOs aren’t afraid to follow their gut instincts:

“Whenever I’ve attended industry events with CIOs from big enterprises, it’s quickly become apparent that there are as many approaches to their big, common challenges as there are people in the room. And the thing I found interesting was how often those preferences were based on gut feeling; for a persona that’s presumed to be so rational and analytical, a lot of people were talking about what they ‘felt most comfortable’ with.”

Bringing CIO copy to life

In 2015, Octopus Group published the Tech Heads report and it revealed 41% of CIOs believe today’s B2B marketing copy is too generic. In fact, they called it their number one frustration with vendor content. But as writers that’s encouraging; it confirms that getting detailed and adding a touch of originality isn’t going to be a problem.

CIOs want a fresh spin on important topics – so we always aim to show them something they didn’t know. Of course, this is easier said than done, so when approaching a CIO centric topic, we make a habit of asking ourselves: am I preaching the converted? Am I boring them? Am I just echoing existing copy?

It’s fine for us to say “cloud-native app development is faster and more flexible”, but it’s always better if we offer an example of what their team can actually do with this technology, and in turn how that helps their business.

The anti-tech tech-head

If we find the technical intricacies of our copy tough to understand, then chances are the CIO will too. The trick for us writers is to use ourselves as a template audience: just say what is it, what it does, and how it helps – and keep it as simple as possible.

And with that said, I’ll leave you with this quote from our Head of Copy Team, Matt Godfrey:

“The CIOs I’ve spoken to really couldn’t care less what technology they use or what it does – they’re far more interested in getting the right business outcomes. They’re also (usually) playing the long game, although they’ll happily take a quick win if it fits their overall strategy.”

Put simply: they won’t abide fluff – so we give them what they want, when they want it. And we make it snappy.

Need to convince the C-suite?

Radix has a whole team of writers experienced in writing content for B2B technology audiences. If you have a project in mind, let us help you. Get in touch today, and we’ll talk about your options.

Podcast 53: style guide v tone and voice. What’s the difference?

Posted on by The Radix Team

Do you italicise titles? Or put them in speech marks? The question may seem barely worth your time, but the fact remains: writing “Ulysses 31” and Ulysses 31 in the same sentence looks more than a little sloppy.

A good style guide can help you keep content consistent, even when you’ve a small army of people writing for your brand.

But do you need one? What should it contain? And is it the right place to lay down the law on voice and tone?

Hear Emily, Fiona and David share their expert perspectives in our 22-minute guide to guides (and still find the time to reminisce over 1980s Franco-Japanese cartoons).

Listen now to discover:

  • The difference between “editorial style” and “voice and tone” guides
  • The one thing absolutely every style guide should contain
  • Our gripes with The Economist Style Guide (which, for the most part, we love)
  • Why blog posts are a special case when it comes to “voice and tone” rules
  • … and much, much more

How to listen:

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

(Or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.)

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Economist Style Guide Online

Credits:

Intro and outro music by Industrial and Marine.

Header based on photo by Tim Graf on Unsplash.

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

Posted on by John Kerrison

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

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

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

Why all the confusion?

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Appearance

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

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

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

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

[Editor: wait, you mean like this?]

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

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

2. Funnel Stage and Purpose

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

Audience

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Podcast 51: Do you need jargon in effective B2B marketing copy?

Posted on by The Radix Team

You may think you can escape using jargon in your B2B copy. You may believe that you need to write in a way that your Auntie Kathleen can understand. Alternatively, you might feel that your copy isn’t professional unless it’s couched in the latest technical and business speak. Which is right?

It’s easy to see why technical jargon has a place in B2B marketing copy – you need to call things by the same terms the audience is using. Using industry jargon in context can mark your copy out as relevant to customers.

Even copy laden with full-on business speak can have its place in the B2B copy landscape. It’s all a matter of context and audience.

But how do you do that, without turning your copy into meaningless business BS? Can you use jargon and still stand out?

Join Fiona, David, and me as we take a journey down a linguistical rabbit hole, and find out how to effectively use jargon in business-to-business marketing copy.

Listen now and find out:

  • The importance of speaking your audience’s language
  • Why plain English isn’t always the answer
  • How language affects the credibility of copy
  • Business guff that does need to go
  • … and more

Ready to give it a listen?

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

(Or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.)

Stuff we mentioned

You can find that awesome article on corporate claptrap, by Lucy Kellaway, for FT.com, here.

Check out the picture of that Pokémon and coding language infused recruitment profile here.

And you can see the “Accelerating Next” copy in Fiona’s blog post on why you need to stop using the present participle in your headlines.

Credits:

Intro and outro music by Industrial and Marine.

Header image adapted from photo by Caleb Rogers on Unsplash.

What is an em dash, and when should you use it?

Posted on by George Reith

You mastered the full stop in primary school, and wielded the comma like a pro by secondary—but now, it’s time for you to master a new type of punctuation.

A versatile piece of punctuation that can give your writing far greater variety and impact, the em dash is the next best thing that will happen to your copy.

What is an em dash?

This:—

Longer answer, it’s a long dash that can take the place of commas, parenthesis or colons depending on the context.

To produce one in Microsoft Word, simply insert two hyphens between a pair of words without a space. So you’d type(–)like this, but without the brackets. (If that doesn’t work for you, check out this explainer from Punctuation Matters.)

What is an em dash not?

It’s important to clarify the difference between an em dash, an en dash and a hyphen.

  • An em dash is a longer line, roughly the length of an ‘m’.
  • An en dash is a shorter line – like this (it is roughly the length of an ‘n’). It represents a span of numbers or dates. In many cases it can be used similarly to an em dash if you are writing in UK English. You can produce it by typing a hyphen between a pair of words with a space either side( – )like so.
  • A hyphen is an even shorter line that links two words for clarity. You’d use it to distinguish a cloud-ready platform (a platform that’s ready for the cloud) as opposed to a cloud platform that is ready for… something else.

You probably already know how to use hyphens and en dashes (even if you didn’t know it was called an en dash before), so I’ll just be sticking to talking about the em dash for now.

When can you use it?

You can use the em dash in a variety of ways: As a more impactful comma replacement, an alternative to parentheses, or a way to round off a sentence in a snappy, concise way.

Like a comma

“Product X can help you do stuff better—transforming the way you meet, greet, and treat your customers.”

Sentences like this, that use the rule of three, it can become a real comma overload if you have another clause in there. By using an em dash here, you can keep both clauses in the sentence without bringing the comma-pocalypse. A well-timed em dash can also help break up your sentences visually, making it easier and more appealing to read.

Like a pair of brackets

“Product X helps you do stuff better—and at a lower cost—than competing solutions.”

While brackets are a great way to include additional information without breaking the flow of the sentence, they often lead to that information feeling separate from your argument, and less relevant as a result. When you want to split your message away from the main sentence, but without detracting from its value, the em dash can help.

End a sentence with a bang

“Product X accelerates deployment times, helping you meet the needs of your customers—fast.”

Sometimes a bit of extra info at the end can of a sentence really ram home a key point in your argument. Em dashes can help emphasise these key points and bring them to life for your reader.

Why would I want to use it?

While there are some subtle nuances between using a comma or bracket and an em dash, it’s mostly best suited to adding variety to your copy.

Whether it’s avoiding overusing commas, stripping out repetitive brackets, or just making your copy look nicer and more varied—the em dash is a powerful tool that all copywriters should try and master.

One final tip

One final piece of advice for any future em dash users out there: double check your style guide before using them.

Most style guides I’ve come across ask for em dashes to be used without any spaces between—much like this. Newspaper style guides and others that follow AP style however, are likely to favour spacing em dashes — like this.

So, make sure to double check which one your client prefers before you start putting em dashes to use in their copy. If in doubt, you can normally tell which is preferred based on whether you are writing in UK or US English. UK English prefers a spaced en dash normally, while our counterparts over the Atlantic use the closed em dash as standard.

Booking a successful B2B web copy project: a clients’ FAQ

Posted on by John Kerrison

Often, the first really meaningful interaction your customers have with you is through your website. They may have come across you on social media or heard of you through word of mouth, but your website is where they’ll dig in, find the information they need, and start to make a decision on whether they want to get in touch.

That’s why your website copy is so important.

And here at Radix, we’ve seen that reflected in recent years, with four years’ continuous growth in website copy as a proportion of our work.

Where once B2B marketers might have tried to carry out the writing in-house, they’re increasingly turning to professional copywriters like us when it’s time to renew the site. (Whether that’s because their old site wasn’t giving them the results they wanted, or they simply remember what a nightmare the job was last time out, we can’t say.)

For most, running a web copy project will be a fairly rare occurrence – so clients tend to ask us the same (completely understandable) questions:

“What do you need from me to write our web copy?”

There are quite a few bits of information which will make it easier for us to give you an accurate quote and – ultimately – to write your copy the way you want it. And we can get that knowledge from you in a number of different ways.

In the past, we’ve held immersive workshops in clients’ offices, or a series of calls with heads of departments to ensure we glean exactly what it is they need their website to do, what information each individual page needs to contain, and how the overall feel of the site needs to come across.

But generally, we’ll be looking for:

1. A proposed sitemap, if you have one

A sitemap makes it much easier for us to identify what your needs are and provide an accurate quote. (If you have a wireframe or preliminary design too, so much the better, as we can get a feel for how much copy you’ll need on each page).

2. A sense of your audience, and their buying process

It’s also great if we know exactly who your web visitors are, and where they tend to arrive from. For example, a curious visitor with little knowledge about the finer details of your industry is going to need different information than a seasoned industry expert. Also, how much do they already know about you? Will they be turning up fresh from Google (and how much is search ranking a priority), or are they following up to confirm you’re credible, after a different initial point of contact?

3. How your brand should sound

The tone and voice of the various areas of your website – and your overall brand – are very important.

Your voice needs to be consistent, as a representation of the personality of your brand. But we tailor the tone to your audience’s needs as they interact with the site. Even for the same visitor, the tone you use for a cheery greeting might be completely inappropriate for an error message.

(Though as our colleague Katy pointed out, even Microsoft can get that one wrong.)

So as we go along, it helps us to understand the context of each page – why somebody would read it, and how they’re likely to feel about that.

4. What each page needs to say

Perhaps the most obvious part – but, potentially, the most time-consuming. Because we need to know all the information you want on every page of your site – and which parts of that information are most important to your audience.

Of course, if you have an existing page of content to point us at, that’s somewhat easier. But even then, it’s helpful to have some guidance: what’s working for you, what’s not, and what’s new. You’re refreshing the site for a reason, after all.

5. Some idea of your SEO requirements

If you’d like the site to perform well on Google, it’ll be useful to have some kind of keyword strategy and/or research, so we can make sure each page aligns with what your audience are looking for, using the same language as they will. We’ll talk more about this in a bit.

“What if I don’t know about the voice and tone I want to adopt?”

Lots of brands already have extensive brand usage guidelines when they come to us – and some of them are even useful. But if you don’t, there’s no need to worry: as experienced copywriters, tone and voice are our marmite and toast.

Broadly, there are two approaches we can take. We can chat about your brand, your existing copy and what you do and don’t like, then approximate something for you. Or we can conduct a proper voice and tone workshop, and give you a short, usable document with some rules, suggestions, hints and examples.

(The former is OK if we’re the only ones writing for you; if you have writers in-house too, the guide is a good idea, because it can help you to stay consistent.)

“What’s the best stage to bring a copywriter into my web project?”

Most of our clients come to us with a plan for their site, normally devised between them and their web developer, and ask us to populate the pages. That makes it easy for us to give you an accurate quote and delivery schedule.

However, we’re open to other ways of working too. So, if you’d like our input on how many pages we think you should have and what should go on each one then we’re more than happy to put our experience to good use.

Likewise, some people like to create the copy first, and the design later. That’s fine by us.

“Do you write pages that are short/long/scrolling/really long/parallax/mobile/really, really long?”

The short answer is yes. Whatever kind of web page you want (so long as it contains words).

There’s been something of a cultural shift in web design over the last few years which has seen a rise in more mobile-friendly, scrolling websites. These tend to have smaller chunks of copy in panels scattered across the length of the page, whereas a traditional website will have tabs at the top of the page and longer sections of copy.

So alongside the traditional “250-words, title, copy and some bullet points” kind of web page, our price list also includes options to buy your web copy by the chunk. So we can build a quote for whatever kind of page you – and your web designer – can dream up.

“Do you do web design?”

Nope. We’re strictly words-only.

BUT we do often work in tandem with freelance designers and web developers, agencies, and in-house experts. We’re happy to collaborate in this way if you think it would add to the process, and may even be able to recommend someone if that would help.

“What’s your approach to SEO?”

Ah. We could (and possibly should) write a whole blog post about this. But in short…

We’re not search engine specialists, but we act on guidance SEO experts provide – like keyword recommendations and research. If one of your site’s objectives is to attract search engine traffic, it’s a good idea to work with an SEO consultant (as well as – not instead of – your copywriter, of course).

Most of the copy on your website is aimed at people. Some of the rest is primarily there to please search engine robots. And some parts (like your page title) is a mixture of the two.

Usually, we’ll work on the people-facing parts of your copy (on-page body text, meta description), incorporating keyword recommendations as appropriate, and leave the search engine-facing bits to the experts. Where the copy is dual-purpose (titles, headers, alt text), we tend to collaborate – generally, we’ll suggest something, then recommend you have your SEO team tweak it as appropriate.

We find it’s a good balance, because refinements to Google’s algorithm improved its ability to prioritise quality content, satisfying at the intent behind each search – there are fewer tricks and shortcuts. We use the keyword research to deduce your web visitor’s intent, then – without focusing too much on the technicalities – simply write the best page we can.

It seems to work well – and we’re regularly recommended for website projects by SEO agencies, so they must be happy too.

“Who else have you written web copy for?”

We’ve had the pleasure of writing web copy for dozens of B2B, technology and industrial brands – including some of the world’s largest organisations.

Sometimes, that work is confidential (we’re happy to namedrop, but only in private) – but to give you a flavour, a few sites we are allowed to tell you about include:

Aon Employee Benefits

VoxGen – conversational software and services

Tectrade – cloud services and consultancy

TomTom – fleet tracking technology

The Daniel Group – customer feedback for industry

Penzance Dry Dock – industrial and marine operations

“How much will my new web copy cost?”

Once, copywriters could quote a flat, per-page price for web copy. But that was when pages were all fairly standard. These days, a page could be anything from a 30-word text panel and a couple of buttons to a 1000-word Homerian epic in parallax form.

That’s why our Senior Account Managers will work hard to define the exact scope of the copy you want, and build you an accurate quote in advance.

But that’s not to say we can’t give you a good, ballpark idea before your sitemap is finalised. All the components we use to build our quotes – various sizes of panels and pages – are included in our price list, so it’s easy enough to get a thumbnail picture if you know the rough dimensions of the site.

If you’d like a copy of the price list, do get in touch.

“How much time will I need?”               

If history is any guide, significantly more than you’ve allowed so far. There’s something about web projects (the temptation to make last-minute additions to the site, maybe) which means they never seem to run to schedule.

But whatever’s delaying things, it won’t be the copy. We’ll give you a firm schedule alongside your quote, and we’ll stick to it.

Obviously, that schedule will depend on the scale of the site, and the amount of input we need from you and your stakeholders. But given a little advance notice, we’ve been known to take smaller sites from fact-find conversation to signed-off copy within a matter of days.

Got any more questions? Our Account Management team are here to talk you through the process. Please drop us a line…

How to write content for engineers – a primer for marketers

Posted on by George Reith

For B2B marketers, some audiences come easier than others. For instance, there’s enough crossover between “marketing” speak and “business” speak that writing for an enterprise audience is relatively straightforward.

On the other end of the spectrum, though, engineers can seem completely opposed to the usual corporate tone. Both software and industrial engineers can also be distrustful of slick marketing spin – making them a tough nut for content marketers to crack.

Here’s a few tips for writing for this challenging audience.

Be specific

Engineering revolves around finding problems and solving them as efficiently as possible. Engineers are often very focused on efficiency and practicality as a result, so you need to make sure your writing is as well.

Any waffle, rambling intros or anything else that stops your content from getting straight to the point is going lose an engineering audience.

Don’t be too corporate

Unlike other business audiences, many engineers are unlikely to trust your content just because it comes from your brand. No two engineers are the same of course, but as a general rule of thumb your content will go further with engineers if it’s based on evidence and clear expertise as opposed to brand recognition.

So, if you can link your content to a specific product expert (preferably another engineer), that can go a long way to establishing you as a credible voice that engineers should pay attention to.

Offer advice, not products

Like most professionals, engineers want to solve problems. Sometimes that involves using a product or service, but sometimes it doesn’t.

With this in mind, practical advice and technical specifics are more valuable than a selection of products and services. So, going straight for the jugular with product features and benefits will come across as unhelpful – and lose you a lot of goodwill.

Instead, start with practical advice. Tips and tricks, important equations or conversion tables, FAQs – anything that will offer value and help them do their job, without pushing a sale.

Don’t convince them – help them convince their boss

Engineers are smart cookies. If something’s a genuine problem, you probably don’t need to convince them, and you probably don’t have to tell them how your product solves it. They’ll have worked that out long before you get to the end of your blog, white paper or video.

But you will need to help them convince someone else. The engineer looking at your content knows what needs to be done, but they’ll need help building the business case to convince their manager/boss/whoever holds the purse strings. So, don’t spend time crafting subtle emotional appeals, and instead focus on offering proof that your solution is worth investing in.

Get your technical terms (and acronyms) right

Do you know the difference between signal-to-noise and carrier-to-noise ratio? Good. Now, do you know if your audience prefers C/N or CNR as an acronym for carrier-to-noise?

An incorrectly-used term or unpopular acronym – even a misplaced SI unit – will very quickly turn engineers off your content, and maybe even your brand altogether.

If you’re not sure about any terms, it’s worth finding out straight from the source. So, email an engineer, call up your client, and do anything else you need to do to actually learn first-hand what an engineer would expect to see.

Get these right – and engage engineers

By following these tips, you’ll have the basics covered and be well on your way to making your content much more targeted towards engineers.

Depending on the industry you’re talking to, there will be plenty of small nuances you’ll need to consider to demonstrate targeted, relevant expertise in a particular engineering sector. If you’re unsure, we recommend always getting in touch with a subject matter expert to clarify – and get their expert opinion on the topic.

(Hint: if you’re having trouble getting the most out of your interviews with subject matter experts, you might want to take a look at our guide to interviewing subject matter experts.)

Podcast 48: B2B blogging keeps changing – so how do you write a good post?

Posted on by The Radix Team

Blogs are one of the most-used content tactics by B2B marketers, according to research by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs. (In fact, they’re the second most used.)

And guess what? Here at Radix, we wrote more blog posts in 2016 than any other content format.

Blogging is still big in business to business marketing – but things are changing, fast. In our recent #b2bcopychat, some people were noticing a trend for longer, better-researched blogs… while others had heard whispers that the format might be dying out.

Which is true – or could it even be both? Join Fiona, David and me as we discuss why blogs play such a huge role in B2B marketing, and how to write blog posts that readers will want to engage with.

Listen in now and find out:

  • Why blogs are such a versatile format
  • Why they’re getting longer, better, and more expensive
  • The importance of quality, and niches
  • Our top tips for writing quality blog posts
  • … and more

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

(Or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.)

Notes from this episode…

Want to know what a present participle is? Then check out this explanation over on Grammar Monster.

Thanks to Paul Hewerdine of Earnest, and the #b2bcopychat gang for their input to this episode.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Everything you need to know about writing a B2B case study

Posted on by The Radix Team

The written case study is the WD-40 of B2B marketing tools.

It’s been around forever, it’s not exactly glamorous, and it’s popular for one simple reason. It works. (Regularly lubricating those narrow few inches at the base of the sales and marketing funnel.)

The power of the case study is easy to understand. What’s more persuasive than learning how a company has helped someone just like you? And helped them so much, they’ll sign up to tell the world about it?

But some case studies are way more powerful than others. Because – let’s be clear about this – writing a genuinely brilliant case study is tough.

You need 100% commitment from your company and the customer. You need above average interviewing and writing skills.

And, of course, you need the magic formula…

Prologue: the case study formula

Unlike a can of WD-40, what goes into a case study is far from a trade secret. As Radix’s glorious leader explained in a recent B2B Copy Chat, the basic formula is simple:

You can mess with the order of these elements, but unless you’re writing for a particularly iconoclastic brand, you’ll save yourself both time and trauma by leaving well alone.

This flow is natural and chronological, and provides a solid structure for everything from your interview questions to your first draft.

Chapter one: getting the background

Track down the best person talk to about the case study. This will usually be the customer’s main point of contact with your company.

Arrange a quick call with them to discuss:

  • What the customer does
  • What the customer bought
  • What they think the case study should focus on
  • Who you should talk to at the customer company, and what their job entails
  • Where the case study will be published
  • If there’s an existing template you need to work to

You’ll also want to establish who’ll attend the call with the customer, and who will lead.

Your ideal scenario is as follows:

  • You will lead the call. You’ve a short time to get all the information you need to write this thing. Plus, it’s important to have the freedom to go off-script if you suddenly spot a great new angle on the story.
  • Only the customer (and you) will attend. In our heart of hearts, we all know the quality of a telephone call is inversely proportional to the number of people on the line.

By the time you’re done, you should have a basic understanding of the ‘solution’ part of your case study – i.e. what was sold, when, and how, be it a product, service, or combination of both.

This won’t just help you prepare for the customer call, it’ll let you focus on the stuff that only they can tell you.

Chapter two: writing your questions

Remember the other three bits of the formula? The challenge the customer was facing, the benefits (how the solution solved those challenges – and then some!) and the customer’s overwhelmingly positive feelings about the whole experience?

Put together a list of open questions, designed to give the customer ample chance to talk to each of these subjects.

Always prepare more questions that you think you’ll have time for, and always prioritise, aiming to cover the most essential points early on. (If you need extra inspiration, my colleague George has some excellent advice on weird-but-powerful questions, many of which can be used to great effect in a case study interview.)

Chapter three: talking to the customer

Yes, Jason. A thousand times, yes. In these thirty or so minutes, the case study’s potential for greatness will be decided.

The material you gather from the customer will dictate how much – or little – you can achieve at your keyboard later on.

Here’s how to run the call.

  1. Arrive first – you’re representing yourself and the brand, if you work for an agency, and leaving a customer hanging is always less than professional
  2. Greet the customer warmly when they join, and introduce yourself
  3. Recap the purpose of the call
  4. Check how long the customer has (and reprioritise your questions accordingly)
  5. Ask if you can record the call, and assuming they agree, set your recorder rolling
  6. Work through your questions – keeping an ear open for answers that suggest further questions, and an eye on the clock
  7. Mentally – or literally – tick off the formula elements as you cover them
  8. Press for concrete results (e.g. how much money has the solution already saved the customer? How much faster, in hours, days or weeks, can they now do the thing they do? How many extra people would they need to do this stuff manually? Etc.)
  9. Ask any bonus questions that have occurred to you during your conversation
  10. Wrap things up by thanking the customer for their time, and assuring them they’ll get to review a draft of the story before it’s published

(If you want more interviewing tips, you’ll find plenty here.)

Chapter four: writing the damn thing

You know how you work best. I always create an outline of the case study first – with sections based on the magic formula – and listen back to my recording of the call, filling in the gaps as I go.

Here are some classic best practices to guide you as you type…

Lead with your biggest result

Your headline has to capture attention, and sell the rest of the piece. Unless it really doesn’t fit with the story you’re trying to tell, be sure to put your most concrete, most impressive result front and centre. (e.g. ‘How Radix learned to write blinding B2B copy 160x faster.’)

Make the customer the hero, but keep the business case clear

A great case study pulls of the deftest of balancing acts.

It tells a hugely relatable story about human beings, but it also keep the one thing the reader really needs to know – the incredible business results – front and centre.

Write from the heart, but use subheads, box-outs, pull quotes – essentially, every trick in your pencil case – to make the those cold hard benefits leap out to someone scanning the page.

Make everyone look good

Your interviewees will often trust you with information that could be used to show their business in a bad light. When this happens, tread extra carefully.

Your job, more than anything else, is to make everyone look good. If you don’t, you risk damaging the customer’s trust in the vendor – and landing yourself with hours of major amends.

Don’t be scared to edit the customer’s ramblings

Few people train to be copywriters. If they did, there would be the same beautiful moment on every course, a couple of weeks into the first term.

The lecturer would leave the whiteboard and its arcane hieroglyphs – MOFU, CMO, ROI – turning slowly to face the hall. They’d pause just long enough to win the attention of its fifty, wide-eyed undergrads, and in a slow, patient voice, gentle as a hand placed on a shoulder, they’d say:

‘It’s OK. You can rewrite what your customer said to make it read well. They won’t sue you. If anything, they’ll be pleased.’

Do strive to keep the customer’s voice

The fact you’ve actually spoken to the customer automatically elevates your case study above a lot of the case studies already sent out into the world.

So when you add their glowing testimonial, be sure to preserve their more interesting turns of phrase and speech patterns. It’ll add life and authenticity to the finished piece.

(Frankly, I always aim to keep as much of the customer’s voice in there as humanly possible. If you can tell their story almost entirely in their own, neatly quoted words, so much the better.)

Remember the call to action

What should the reader do when they’ve finished reading? Since most case studies are designed to sit at the bottom of the funnel, the call to action will often be to get in touch with your company.

Make your call flow neatly out the story – e.g. ‘See how much faster you could write blog posts…’ – and add a placeholder until you’ve identified the best link, phone number, or email address.

Chapter five: acing the amends

Sharing the first draft of a B2B case study is a good feeling. But it’s rarely the end of the story.

Be ready to tackle amends from stakeholders at your company, then amends from the customer, then extra amends from either. Or both.

This (probably) isn’t your fault. It’s just what happens when you’re trying to please different parties, with different agendas. But if you’re charging for the work – say you work for a marketing agency, rather than the vendor itself – be sure to factor this time in when giving your quote.

Epilogue: I could drink a case of case studies

When everyone involved is fully engaged, the case study is easily one of the most rewarding content pieces to write.

You get to talk to a real human being, who daily uses the thing you’re trying to sell – giving you invaluable insight for future projects.

And you get to make a lot of people feel good about what they do.

Which, you know, is nice.

Use your new power wisely. And have fun along the way.