Is B2B content writing different?
Well, yes of course. As the targeted audience and aim are changed completely so do the writing strategy and elements.
B2B content writing generates content for other businesses instead of the user. And for that transition, a writer needs to keep an eye on some additional things that we will talk about later.
Now apart from just writing skills, the big difference that lies between B2B and B2C content marketing is their content strategies.
But the one thing that remains of the most priority in both is Content.
The bodybuilding block of a business’s online presence and marketing, regardless of who your target audience is.
Further, we will learn how can you create a content marketing strategy for B2B and top tips for B2B content writing.
But first things first,
What is B2B content writing?
For starters, it is a form of writing to communicate or market your product considering other businesses as the target audience.
In this, the content is written not for the end-user but for another company that can benefit (or need) your service.
Just like B2C content writing, in this form of writing, it’s important too to identify the tone, persona, and core objective. But what is more important here to identify is the clearer image of a demanding audience.
For that, you need to write more thoroughly researched and relevant content to convert them.
Okay, so we understand that there are need to make some adjustments to the conventional form of content writing to make it work for B2B marketing.
But, why do you need a different content strategy for B2B marketing in the first place?
Why Do You Need a B2B Content Marketing Strategy?
To recall the basics, a content marketing strategy is more like a roadmap. It lists a set of guidelines that helps you reach point B from point A.
In marketing terms, a strategy helps you create the right content and deliver it to the right target at the right time. And make a profit out of it in the shortest time possible.
So, why can’t you use the same content strategy use used in B2C content marketing?
Because as Spiderman says,
For instance, influencer marketing and product launch campaigns can work out to impress consumers but not other businesses.
Instead, they want useful, actionable and authoritative content that can help them solve their issue or/and grow their brand.
And a well-planned B2B content marketing strategy can help you create content consistently that your audience will love.
How to Create a B2B Content Marketing Strategy?
Every B2B content marketing strategy is unique as it should be.
Though the results differ, the process is quite much similar to the B2C content marketing strategy.
And as needed for every strategy, the first thing you need is a well-defined objective. If you don’t have a clear goal, no plan would work.
It might seem a big thing at the start to create a “strategy” but it’s not. It’s pretty simple, once you start it.
So, I will lay down the road, you just follow closely. Here we go!
1. Find Out Your Audience (and what they need)
I mean if you don’t have a specific audience, the content is good for nothing.
The whole point of writing content is to make your audience convert into your clients.
So, the first thing you need to do is to find your audience and what they want. And then you tell them how you can help them out.
But first, how to find your target audience?
We enlisted the complete process in the easiest form for you. Read, How to Define Your Target Market in 7 Easy Steps! and identify your audience.
2. Limit Your Focus by Using Micro-Targeting
You’ve found your target audience, you understand what they care about, and you’re set to provide them with an excellent user experience.
It’s now time to identify such businesses online and raise brand awareness.
But how can you confirm that your content hits the proper people? It all comes down to choosing the correct short and longtail keywords.
Begin with micro-targeting. You apply analytics data to provide important details such as buyer behaviour, preferences, and popular search phrases or keywords when using microtargeting.
Then, in your content, you may use a set of various keywords to assist your audience find you via Google and other search engines.
Carefully picked keywords might assist you in reaching the companies that are most likely to buy your services.
3. Study Competitors in Your Niche
Unless you’re in a completely unique niche, odds are you’ll have a lot of competition for your audience’s business.
Understand what makes them effective and what they provide your target clients. What can you give that separates you from the competition?
To attract clients, you need a unique selling point (USP), therefore review what you could do differently from your competition and outline what makes you special while marketing your goods and services to potential buyers.
Here are some pointers to get you started:
- Determine your competition.
- Consider their upsides and downsides.
- Make clear what makes your company special, and base your USP on your strengths.
Don’t know where to begin? Understand your intended audience. Who else are they looking for? What other brands are they following? Return to your audience research and discover what it uncovers.
4. Outline Your Priorities
To keep on track and evaluate your success, every excellent marketing plan must have well-defined goals.
How do you pick the correct objectives? By sticking to the SMART goal. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals are SMART goals.
In other words, you’re establishing a specific, realistic objective you can complete in a reasonable length of time.
The outcomes are measurable, which means there is a method to calculate your success and monitor whether you met the goal.
Ask yourself the proper questions to help you build SMART objectives. For instance, what are you aiming to fulfil? What actions will you take to achieve your goal? Lastly, how will you know if you’ve reached your aim?
If you don’t know the solutions to these issues, your goals need to be revised before you can design your marketing plan.
5. Generate Multi-Layer Content
Sure, words are wonderful. After all, you’re seeking to wow your audience while also showcasing your business knowledge.
However, too much text might be distracting. If someone is reading your post and is hit with line after line of continuous text, they may start losing interest.
What is the solution? Content with several layers. Multi-layered content is created by combining content such as text, videos, and photos to produce a visually appealing user experience.
You’re aiming for business users. They’re a busy group. Make your content interesting and split it up with a variety of media forms to keep their attention and your company remembered.
6. Track Your Progress
How will you know whether you’re meeting your SMART objectives? Use resources like Google Analytics to track your progress and measure your outcomes.
Metric tracking provides useful insights into what works and, of course, what does not.
When you know what content performs best, you can focus your efforts in those areas to help your business expand more successfully.
Don’t be upset if you haven’t fulfilled some performance targets. To be frank, not everything you do will be successful. Not all advertisements will produce leads, partnerships may fail, and some content may go ignored.
That’s all right. It is, in fact, normal. Remember that you’re playing with multiple players, so if one doesn’t work, simply turn and try someone other.
So, now you know the plan (or more specifically, how to create a plan). But that’s not enough, you still have to write text to make it work.
Now, as I told you at the start. Writing for B2B and B2C has some differences, obviously. So, what to do to make your content magical in this realm?
Here are our tips for how to do that.
10 Proven Tips on B2B Content Writing
1. It has to be valuable
Of course, every piece of content has to be valuable.
But while writing B2C content you sometimes do deviate from your path to add more jokes and stories. They will surely work here in B2B content writing too but not much.
B2B content has to be considered informative and valuable to make the prospect remember your name.
Title here as always plays an important role. The potential client has to think “Yeah, I need to read that” when they read the title.
2. Keep it easy to read
Your target audience is those who already own a business and have little to no time to waste.
Now, these people wouldn’t force themselves to read your content, so you have to keep in a streamlined flow to keep them reading.
How to do that? Make it more engaging by,
- Using humour (but not at the cost of the quality of the content)
- Relevant stories
- Maintaining a conversation style
Offering dry content may work out sometimes when the reader is in a hurry and he had to know the information you are offering,
Otherwise, you have to put up some techniques to make them stick to your website.
It’s no surprise that if your content is shareable then it is worth it.
But business professionals are not going to waste their and the other person’s time by sharing content that doesn’t offer quite the value.
What to do to make your content shareable?
Being informative is at the top of the list without any debate. The other thing that makes the reader believe that the content is worth sharing is the content being interesting.
If you can offer your B2B content that is informative and quite interesting that the readers read it without getting distracted, then your job is done.
4. You have to get to the point quickly
I’ll repeat it once again, business people won’t waste their time.
If they can’t get where the blog is heading after 1-2 paragraphs, they would leave.
But that doesn’t mean that you would have to write shorter content pieces or make it less interesting.
It means that your intro, story and humour had to have a focus from the start and lead the reader there with each step.
Also read: 8 Tips to Improve Your Content and Keep Google Happy
5. It needs to be targeted
As B2B audiences are more focused than B2C audiences, you have to narrow down the range and write on specific pain points.
B2B audience knows what they need, so they don’t read anything indirectly related to their objective. Instead, they search for the one that relates directly.
Now, this could be a good thing for you, as now you know that their search is narrowed down, you can research and write on those specific pain points and gain their attention.
6. It has to be unique
If your content cannot distinguish you from others, then there’s a big problem.
The voice of your content has to be recognizable, such that whenever someone reads your content, they must know it’s you (not you exactly but your brand).
The simplest way to do this?
Let your personality come up in your words. The conversational style, your unique humour, and your storytelling skills make you recognizable on the vast web of the internet.
7. It has to be based on analytics
Don’t just get running on your instincts.
Even your well-researched content might fail at the start and that’s normal. Most B2B content marketing tactics don’t work as expected.
But you have to stop your instincts to jump in much often. Just keep trying and wait and then follow the analytics.
Look what works well and do more of that. See what doesn’t works and question why. Once you know what is working as expected and why others are not working quite well, your strategy will start showing off results.
8. It has to be connected with your overall strategy
Last but not least, make sure your writing style is consistent with your business’s brand.
The content you’re publishing must have a clear goal within the structure of your entire B2B marketing plan.
Only a thoroughly thought-out B2B content strategy that fits with your entire company plan will have the impact you want it to have.
Creating content because everyone else is doing it won’t provide an ROI.
Conclusion
B2B content marketing might offer a harder road than B2C marketing at the start. But it will surely give you better results too in the future.
You can make a strategy that fits your brand’s goals through the steps mentioned above. It’s not much of a task, to be frank, you just have to get started.
Remember, you cannot create a perfect strategy in one go, you have to let some tactics fail and learn from them.
Then following the writing tips we talked about, you can write valuable and time-worthy B2B content that your prospects will love.
I hope you would have found the blog informational and have got all the answers you were looking for. If not, then the comment box is wide open for you or you can mail us your query at [email protected]. We will love to help you out.
Also, Thank You For Reading Along. It means a lot to us.
