Blog - Stacey Meadwell

Content strategy, Content writing, Writing tips

How to create B2B content around an award win

Every industry has awards, and winning is great, of course. But how much B2B content can you create around your win?

Picture of a gold winners trophy cup. — Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

A lot of work goes into putting together an awards entry. Pulling together the information, data, images, testimonials and writing a submission that will grab the judges attention.

Your awards entry is the story of your business journey and achievements. It’s the story of a particularly successful project or product.

It’s the story of why you do what you do and what makes you stand out from your competitors. It’s all about what makes you or what you do the best in your industry.

All of which makes fantastic B2B content on your website, social media and a potential press story.

Leverage your win

This is more than writing about how ‘delighted’ you were and posting a picture.

It’s making the most of the work you did putting the entry together – and the work that won you the award.

Here are a few ideas for how to create B2B content around your award win:

1. Tell the story of what won you the award

Lifting the shiny new award was the easy bit. Getting to that point no doubt involved hard work, so write about what was involved.

What were your goals and how did you achieve them?

There were probably some ups and downs along the way. So tell the story of what you had to overcome, what the challenges were, how you solved them, and what you learned along the way.

Use that to frame what the award win means to you and your business.

You could also tease what’s next to move the story on.

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Content engagement, Content writing, Writing tips

Is your B2B content alienating your readers?

I read a piece of B2B content yesterday. Well I tried to read it.

The content writer was obviously well-educated and had tried to be clever in how they presented key points but instead had made the piece inaccessible.

Notice board that says 'Insert Something Cleve — Photo by Olivia Bauso on Unsplash

It was already a technical topic but was peppered with historical references to illustrate what they were trying to say.

References that didn’t mean anything to me and had to look up.

I was so busy trying to work out the historical references I ended up not really understanding the points the content writer was trying to make.

The thing is, if your audience finds your B2B content difficult to read and understand, there is a good chance they will probably throw in the towel rather than persevere.

Or if they don’t get a particular refererence, they may misunderstand your point.

Using unfamiliar references can also alienate your audience, which is the opposite of what you want.

Your copy may even give a whiff of showing off or sound slightly smug and knowing.

Encourage reader engagement

None of which is particularly good for encouraging reader engagement.

If your target audience is engineers with a love of medieval literature, then fine, reference The Wife of Bath (Chaucer) in a piece about designing steel supports for large glass feature windows.

But if the majority of your audience don’t have a penchant for old English fiction, then it’s probably best to leave Chaucer on the bookshelf.

You could explain the reference if it’s easy to do so, but only if it doesn’t hugely detract from the flow of the piece.

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Audience engagement, Content engagement, Content marketing, Content writing

3 ways to turn a conversation into B2B content

If you write B2B content for your business, there’s a strong chance you’ll have to create blog posts and articles based on conversations you’ve had with colleagues/clients.

There are different ways to approach it depending on how you want to use the conversation and get the information across. For example, how much of the ‘interviewees’ voice do you want in your piece of B2B content?

Here are three different styles of write up to consider with pros and cons:

1. Simple Q&A

This can be the easiest way of getting across someone’s thoughts and ideas on a topic.

Writing up can be easy, too, particularly if you carefully plan your questions.

If you can, order your questions so that there is logical flow to them.

This means, when you come to write up your Q&A, you’ve already got a structure, so it’s just a case of trimming and editing the answers into coherent (and concise) written English.

If it’s been a more organic conversation, it can make it more tricky to pin down specific questions and answers. And you’ll have to work out a logical structure.

Q&A style interviews, because of their structure, means it’s harder to give context and background or set the scene (planning your questions can help).

But while you can rewrite your question to introduce a particular point, you don’t want them to be long and rambling.

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Freelancing, Wellbeing

Three years in business: the highs, lows and lessons learned

Self-employment was never planned, it happened by accident when I was made redundant, but three years in, I’m more determined than ever to make it work.

I’m not going to lie, it has been a rollercoaster ride, a mixture of exhilaration and fear.

At the Game Fair in 2019 trying on Emma Drake’s fab hat

Some days I wonder what the hell I’m doing. On others I feel I could conquer the world.

The first year felt like I was stumbling around, succeeding mostly on luck and chance.

In the second year, I had my first major setback, a large retainer came to an end, leaving a big gap in my income.

But it kicked me up the bum to start being more strategic about what I wanted to do and what I wanted my business to look like, which meant marketing myself.

It’s when I started exploring LinkedIn and learning to use it properly.

Putting myself ‘out there’ via LinkedIn posts felt uncomfortable and unnatural. I worried terribly what ‘people’ would think.

I don’t think I’ll ever get to a point where I’m completely at ease, but I worry about it a lot less.

Another lightbulb moment

Two and a half years in, I had another light bulb moment; this was in part a response to stress and anxiety rearing their ugly heads.

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Audience engagement, Content marketing, Content writing

Four ‘rules’ about B2B content writing you can ignore

Writing styles, communication and language evolve, but it sometimes feels like B2B content is stuck in the past.

From the questions and comments I get, there are several misconceptions about writing B2B content (and copy).

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

But here’s the thing: I’ve never found the rule book that sets out what you can and can’t do.

Which is good news for B2B content creators because it means you can make your own rules.

It’s about what works for you and your brand, your tone of voice, how you want to be seen and crucially, getting your message or story across.

But first, you need to let go of the invisible rule book:

Rule 1: You have to use technical language to sound professional.

B2B content is about communicating an idea, a story or message to your existing and target clients, peers, partners and potential collaborators.

And you want to do that in a way that is clear and easy for your audience to understand.

Using technical language risks misunderstanding. It can alienate your audience, or they simply won’t read on.

Just because you understand those words don’t assume your audience does.

Research by King’s College found that words and phrases the media commonly used, such as ‘woke’ and ‘culture wars’ are not as widely understood as their use would suggest.

Writing simply and clearly is not dumbing down; it’s the clever way of getting your story or ideas or messages across to your audience.

Rule 2: You have to use fancy words

A lot of B2B content uses words that you would never use if you were talking to someone. Would you say ‘utilise’ or ‘commence’ in a conversation?

The people you are writing for are no different from the people you speak to, so why use a different vocabulary?

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