Category: General

Content marketing, General

B2B Content marketing: Selling without the sell

Photo by Joe Yates on Unsplash

Do you read adverts? What about advertorials and promoted content? How about an article that helped you solve a problem or from which you learned something?

It is getting increasingly hard to sell to people. Ads are a turn-off, and content that whiffs of marketing can quickly lose the attention of a target audience and potentially damage the author’s credibility.

The problem with content marketing is it’s a long game. Building brand awareness, trust, and respect takes time and patience. It’s a subtle, slow-burn sell by positive association.

And that can be hard for those in the business used to ‘closing the deal’. Is it selling if it hasn’t got a direct sell or direct references to products and services?

The answer is yes, but measuring the results of content marketing can be tricky.

What good content market is

Good content marketing is at the top of the sales funnel. It’s about building a relationship and trust with potential clients, demonstrating your expertise and experience by offering something useful and valuable to them without seeking anything in return.

Put yourself in your potential client’s shoes for a moment:

💻 What can your content give them without you getting anything in return?

💻 Will they learn or discover something

💻 Will it make them think about something afresh?

💻 Will it change their mind on a familiar topic?

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Content marketing, General, SEO, Writing tips

What makes a clickable headline

A piece of paper in a type writer which has the word 'news' written at the top.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

People will decide whether to click on a story or article based on the headline.

You could write a brilliant article, blog post or press release, but if the headline doesn’t ‘sell’ the content to your target audience, it won’t matter.

Think of all the headlines you scroll past vs what you click on to read.

Headlines are so important that some national newspapers and magazines have specialist writers called sub-editors to create them.

So what makes a clickable headline?

Different styles work for different types of content, but the key is creating some intrigue or tapping into an emotion or need.

Headlines also need to give enough information so that the reader knows what they’ll get from reading on.

Here are four headline examples and a breakdown of how they work:

1. Pique interest news headline

This headline, from the North West Business Insider, tells the reader enough, so they know what the story is about but leaves out certain information to help create curiosity.

It tells the reader that it is a development deal, the size of the deal and where it is. What it doesn’t say is who was involved in the deal, the type of development and the details of the transaction.

To find that information, the reader has to click through to the story.

News headlines are a balancing act. Reveal too much, and there is no reason to click through; reveal too little, and curiosity isn’t pricked.

2. Challenge or surprise headline

Presenting a statement in a headline that is incongruous with common thinking or trend is a great way of getting people clicking to read on.

This headline on a LinkedIn article by Daniel Paulusma creates different levels of intrigue depending on your views of hybrid working.

It appears to challenge the thinking of advocates of hybrid working, potentially highlighting something they’ve missed: Am I wrong? ‘What is the evidence?’

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General, Social media

Stop the scroll: Adding value when posting about B2B events on social media

Summary of video:

A conference or panel event you attended can be a great source of social media content, but to help stop the scroll and get your audience to pay attention, add some value.

In this short video, I talk about what made me stop and read LinkedIn posts about events people in my network had been to.

All the posts added value; they didn’t merely highlight that the person had attended a particular event but talked about what they had learnt or what it was like.

Engagement – particularly comments – will give LinkedIn posts more visibility, so I finish by sharing some ideas for getting a conversation started on an event post.

Transcript of video:

Prefer to read rather than watch? Here’s a transcript:

Have you noticed any posts about events that people have been to in your LinkedIn feed in recent weeks?

I’ve noticed some great ones: great because they made me stop scrolling, great because they made me want to click through and read more, and great also because they didn’t use the word delighted, which is always a bit of a bonus.

So what was it about them that got me interested?

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General

People in business: How to add personality to B2B content

“We want our content to have a bit more personality” is something I often hear from clients, but when they see copy that reflects the individual, it can make them nervous.

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

It reads as more conversational and less formal than the traditional B2B content you normally see.

The built environment sector I work in is frequently described as a people industry, yet you wouldn’t guess that from the content that is regularly published.

A lot of it sounds quite similar, as if following a particular rule book about how you write to sound professional and authoritative.

To reflect personality in your business content, that rule book needs to be ripped up. It will read a little differently, but it can help your target audience get to know you and the people in your business. It can make you more relatable and approachable.

And content that is a bit different is good in the noisy world of the internet and social media.

You don’t have to completely change how you write or sound like an Innocent smoothie advert. There are small, subtle ways to add a sprinkle of personality to your B2B content that will make a difference.

Whether you are writing your own content or writing it for someone in your business, here are four ways of adding personality:

1. Particular word choice

Start with choosing words and phrases you would use in a real conversation with a friend, family member or peer. If you would naturally say you were ‘chuffed’ or ‘over the moon’, write that.

If you are writing a piece for someone in your business, listen carefully to the words they use. I like to record content chats and get a transcript (Otter.ai is the tool I use).

Are there any particular words or phrases they use? How do they explain their viewpoint or describe something when chatting about it?

Use these in the copy so that it sounds authentic to them.

A simple example is someone who works in the healthcare sector using the word ‘poorly’ rather than ‘sick’ to describe patients using a facility.

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General

The diary of a B2B journalist at a trade show

I was walking along the Croisette in sunny Cannes, on my way to my fourth meeting of the morning, my thumbs rapidly typing a Tweet.

Screen shot of a Tweet showing a picture of the beach and sea in Cannes. Beach is covered in deckchairs with parasols. Caption is Gorgeous morning here in Cannes, just in case you were wondering #MIPIM makes for a lovely walk to work.
Tweeting from Cannes back in 2017

It was day two of MIPIM, the international property trade show held every March, and already I felt like my phone was part of my hand and might have to be surgically removed at the end of the week.

Tweeting was par for the course, something you slotted in while hurrying to the next event or one to one. It was about mopping up the sights, sounds and hot topics of the show to give a flavour of what was going on and what it was like for those not there.

It was also a way of showing what you were up to and that you were ‘all over the show’.

But it was only a small part of the output.

My work on MIPIM usually started in December, coming up with content ideas and commissioning the features for the supplements that would go out with the ‘MIPIM issue’.

Planning ahead with content

Supplements usually had an eight-week production schedule. However, because of the volume of content going into what was our biggest issue of the year, preparation started earlier so I could drip-feed articles through to the production desk for subbing and layout.

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