Have you ever wondered why there is so much boring B2B content? It seems like it’s growing so fast, we may all drown in it before the year is over! I hope you find this article to be awesome and NOT boring 🙂. Either way, let me know why in the comments. Prospective buyers need our content to gain knowledge and make informed decisions; however, it doesn’t need to be boring. Below you will find 4 content writing tips steps to up your B2B content marketing game.
Diagnose the Problem
Does your company write boring content? Here is a simple test; go try to read one of your blog articles all the way through. Did you make it? Did you get distracted? Did you get the key “golden nuggets?”
Writing boring content stems from a lack of planning, understanding the audience, and speaking to their goals, ambitions, and motives. Learn how to speak your prospects’ language, to stand out in the crowd, and win big in 2019.
Did You Know:
- The average decision maker looks at 11.4 pieces of content prior to making a purchase.
- On average, 7 people are involved in a typical B2B decision-making process.
- The average rep only has a single point of contact within a target account.
- 20% of decision-makers switch jobs over the course of a year.
What’s the point: People don’t buy the best solutions; they buy from people they trust, and solutions they can understand. For your company to generate more qualified leads and grow your pipeline, connecting with more contacts within targeted accounts and delivering valuable content with the right message is key.
Effective B2B Content Must Align with Your Account Based Marketing Strategy
Successful account-based marketing has three pillars; Be There, Be Useful, Be accountable. Social media has made Being There, easier than ever by giving us greater access to decision makers. It’s up to us to Be Useful, by providing valuable (NOT boring) information, helping buyers understand our offering. Being Accountable ensures there is a payoff and your company receives a positive return on effort.
4 B2B Content Writing Tips
Tip One: Define the audience and their motives—Buyers don’t care about features, advantages, or benefits (FAB); and boring content is full of FAB! They buy based upon an internal problem they are trying to solve. Understanding what keeps them awake at night (pain) and how their lives will be better (motives) after they purchase from you is key to writing awesome B2B content.
We have developed a worksheet called the Persona Developer to help you think through how to position your company’s solutions in this way. Here is a high-level overview:
- What is their role/title/function?
- What are their motives or what are they trying to accomplish? (more sales/ revenue/ equity, customers, job security, etc.)
- What are the obstacles or challenges that are keeping this person from getting what they want?
- What are their worries/ fears/ concerns/ frustrations that keep them awake at night? (making poor decisions, not hitting their goals, looking bad, losing money, etc.)
- What are their hot buttons for a vendor like your company?
- What are their most common questions?
Tip Two: Define your value—Every ideal prospect NEEDS WHAT YOU ARE SELLING! This is great news! The key is to understand the value buyers will receive (the after picture) when they implement your solution. Here are the four main parts of the Vende framework for helping clients flush out their value proposition:
- Start with the problems you solve. Cut away the fluff and marketing jargon and focus on the real problems you help overcome? For example, at Vende we solve these:
- Lack of qualified leads and poor digital performance due to lack of expertise in developing effective digital strategies that actually produce results
- Lack of capable resources – not enough people to execute effectively
- Lack of employee advocacy – unable to get employees/sales team to share content socially
- Identify the top 3-5 unique attributes that set you apart. If you were sitting in the lobby with 2-3 competitors, what would you say to the buyer when it is your turn to communicate why they should buy from you and nobody else. For example, ours are:
- 20+ years in business delivering winning B2B digital solutions
- Outcome focused—we build strategies from the bottom up, not top down to ensure we win for our clients.
- Proprietary Technology—we have developed technology that makes it easy to get employees and sales teams sharing content socially.
- Discover your company’s passion. How does your passion/culture positively influence the buyer? At Vende, what gets us out of bed every day is winning for clients. It’s in our mission statement and is felt at every touch point, from how we deliver our services, to how we interact with others, to the resources we produce. Every company has a passion and a culture (whether it’s defined or not) and tapping into how yours helps prospects achieve their goals is powerful.
- How will you prove it?—You can’t just make claims about a better tomorrow without having a way to prove it. Testimonials, client logos, definable methods/processes/ frameworks are excellent examples of proving your value. Be sure to work these into your message.
Tip Three: Define your message—Connect the dots between the audience and the value you provide by developing concise messaging for each targeted persona. Regardless of what level of the organization is being targeted, buyers are asking these 3 simple questions; 1)What do you do, 2) What’s in it for me, 3)How do I take the next step. Developing your message around these three questions is a game changer! However, the answers to these questions will change based upon their seniority level:
- CXO—CXOs are top and bottom line focused almost exclusively. Focus your message around strategies, trends, or opportunities to improve revenue, profit, or equity/shareholder value.
- VP/Manager Level—Managers execute the vision of the C-Suite and are interested in methods, frameworks, and best practices to improve productivity or effectiveness. They are also interested in how easy/difficult integrating and managing your solution will be.
- Knowledge Worker/Influencer—A valuable voice and often a front door into businesses, knowledge workers are looking for ways to make their lives easier and how to get more done in less time. Tactical how-to’s, guides, tips & tricks, work well at this level.
Tip Four: Share your knowledge in multiple formats— Now that you know how to create remarkable content it’s important have a publishing plan that ensures your content gets to the prospect in the right channel and right format. Leveraging the hub and spoke strategy with pillar content and supporting content will keep your blog articles concise and also help with SEO. You can also break long form content into micro-content for social posts and video.
It’s Not Just Humans That Like Good Content
Taking the time to write content your buyers will love will not only help you connect and engage with prospects but will also get the attention of search engines. By creating remarkable content, you will be fueling your SEO strategy. This is important because almost every B2B buyer will use a search engine at some point in the buying process to research solutions.
A Word About Social Selling
Content is no longer king…Consumed content is king. Why go through the effort of producing awesome and useful content if no one is going to read it? Successful account-based marketing requires the one-two punch of content creation and sales amplification. Sales teams need to be connecting with targeted decision makers (5-10 deep per targeted account) within social sites like LinkedIn. When you have an awesome piece of useful content ready to go, these sales reps need to share the content with their connections for maximum engagement.
Break Through the Boring Barrier
Social media has made Being There, easier than ever by giving us access to decision-makers where they spend the majority of their time online. Cut through the noise and deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time to win big. Use these steps to speak your prospects’ language and break through the boring barrier by creating awesome content they will love. Finally, leverage sales teams’ social points of presence and be blown away by the results.
Social Selling Rules!
- Understand your buyers’ motives
- Clearly communicate how your company creates a better tomorrow for them
- Identify the seniority level for each piece of content and then speak their language by answering the three questions, the right way
- Get sales reps to deepen their connections within target accounts
- Leverage their profiles to share your awesome content
- Say goodbye to boring
Can We Help?
Do you have a boring content problem? Vende has been helping B2B’s clarify their message and develop winning online solutions for over 18 years. We believe great companies deserve great marketing. We offer a complimentary initial consultation/discovery meeting to learn more about you and for you to learn about us. Schedule yours today and let’s see if we can help.
