B2B copywriting is all about promoting your brand, and the products or services it offers. Getting it right can gain you important industry connections and help boost your sales, letting you outshine your competition. Check out these 10 B2B copywriting tips that are sure to bring you success!
1. Always have a plan
B2B copywriting is almost impossible to get right without some sort of plan or brief. The most successful copywriters will first take the time to carefully plan out what they’re going to write, to make sure that they cover all of the most important information and properly promote the brand’s unique selling points.
Most of the time, you won’t be able to fit in absolutely everything about the brand or the products, and a plan will help you to narrow down your ideas and pick the best ones to include. It will also help to prevent any rambling or ‘fluff’ in your copy, which often shows up in writing when the person is stuck on what to say next. This will keep the content concise and interesting, maximizing the chances of gaining new customers.
2. Know your target audience
Creating a successful B2B copy isn’t just all about the brand. You need to know exactly who you’re trying to appeal to in order to maximize success. When creating your plan, ask yourself a few questions about the target audience: who exactly am I targeting? What kind of content would they want to read? What demographic do they fit in with? Why would they want these products or services?
Having an answer to all of those questions will let you get a better idea of who will be seeing the B2B copy and how they will respond to certain styles of content. This will ensure that whatever you’re writing will be highly relevant to the target audience, and will actually result in higher sales and better brand credibility, rather than being boring and unsuccessful.
3. Focus on personal benefits
When promoting a brand, B2B copywriters need to focus on the personal benefits a customer will experience, rather than just on the products or services being offered. Simply stating the facts about a company or a product usually isn’t enough to gain new customers, especially if there’s a lot of competitors on the market – unless you’re highlighting specific nuances, the B2B copy will get lost in a sea of other, almost identical texts.
For example, explaining that a photography studio uses a certain brand of camera is good information, but it doesn’t really show customers why they should choose that particular studio over others. Instead, try talking about how that camera brand allows for higher quality headshots and that better headshots will lead to more call-backs or better brand credibility. This approach gives your customers a specific benefit they’ll get from choosing that particular studio, and will increase the chances of new customers using those services.
4. Be concise
Nobody wants to spend more than a couple of minutes reading a B2B copy, so you will need to be concise and efficient in your writing. Stick to the most important information, including a quick overview of the brand, what the services or products are, and the specific benefits customers will see if they choose that brand.
Also, you need to make sure to be interesting from the start. If a customer isn’t convinced within the first few lines that whatever you are promoting is right for them, they will simply move on. B2B copy isn’t meant to be full of personal anecdotes or unnecessary information, and the more ‘fluff’ content there is, the less likely customers are to choose the brand you are trying to promote.
5. Write like a human
Nowadays, many B2B copywriters fall into the trap of trying to optimize their copy for search engines and other algorithms. The content they produce essentially ends up sounding unnatural, with keywords forced in at weird parts of the text and winding sentences that make no sense. This definitely doesn’t appeal to anyone, as it sends a clear message that the brand cares more about search engine rankings or getting boosted by algorithms, than about their customers.
An easy way to avoid creating robotic content is to use simple language and varying sentence lengths. This will mimic natural speech patterns, and make customers feel like they’re having a conversation with an equal, rather than with someone superior to them. Also, read whatever you write out loud – it helps ensure that the writing sounds natural and convincing.
When writing B2B copy, it’s incredibly important to include some figures or statistics that prove the claims you make. People are more inclined to trust someone if they can back themselves up with evidence, so this tactic can increase the chances of a brand gaining new customers.
Also, it may be tempting to exaggerate some of the figures you use, or to make some claims that aren’t totally proven to make the brand or the products seem better than they actually are. While some people could believe those claims, they will eventually backfire as new customers will realize that they’re not getting the service they were promised. Stick to what you know is true instead of trying to artificially outshine the competition.
7. Don’t just rely on writing
Along with keeping your B2B copy concise, consider using images or infographics to make the copy more accessible. This is especially helpful for situations where the copy is already pretty lengthy, but you just can’t cut anything out of the final draft. The images can replace certain parts of the text, or break up longer paragraphs to make them easier to read.
A great way to implement images is to take some of the information you’ve included in the text and turn it into an easy to understand graphic. Many copywriters do this with the statistics and figures they include – images and moving graphics catch people’s attention first, so including evidence in them immediately tells people that the brand can be trusted.
8. Include a call to action
Since B2B copywriting is all about converting readers into customers, you need to include something that will encourage people to purchase a product or inquire for further information. You can do this in one of two ways: you can either directly tell people what they should do if they want to purchase something or get more information, or you can hint at what they should do by including hyperlinks and subtle references to further action throughout the copy.
Most copywriters will say that the subtle approach is better, as it comes off less pushy and annoying. While this is true, shorter copies may actually benefit more from a direct call to action. For example, a short social media post that ends off with “follow or message us to find out more!” will sound much more natural than a subtle hint that “followers are getting more information”.
Whatever approach you choose, remember to not be too insistent about the call to action. Having to practically force people to get in touch isn’t a good look for the brand, and will usually result in something called ‘false leads’ – people will contact the brand for more information because they feel bad, but won’t actually plan on buying anything, essentially wasting time for both sides.
9. Don’t insist on perfect
This tip goes hand in hand with writing like a human. Sure, it’s important to make sure that your B2B copy is of a high quality, but you don’t need it to be perfect the first time around. Even the best copywriters out there had to start from somewhere, and if you hold yourself to impossible standards, you’ll feel like a failure from the very beginning.
The average reader won’t be focused on nit-picking your writing technique or style – they’ll be much more interested in the benefits and services being offered by the brand you are promoting. Having some imperfections in your text will actually make it sound more genuine, and not like it was written for an algorithm.
Of course, your spelling and grammar still need to be impeccable. We simply mean that you shouldn’t worry too much if you forgot to mention a fact, or think a sentence sounds a bit too short. If you stick to the other tips mentioned here, you’ll be sure to produce something worth reading, and that’s what matters!
10. Avoid generic templates
It can be tempting to simply search up “best B2B copy templates” on Google, find one you like, and fill in the blanks. However, this is something you should definitely avoid doing. Regardless of how far you had to scroll to find the template, or how unique it seems to you, there is bound to be at least one other person out there using an identical template.
In a best-case scenario, your B2B copy will end up sounding pretty generic and bland, as you’re simply filling out some information instead of being creative with the copy. In a worst-case scenario, you may get accused of plagiarism or ripping off a different brand, and that’s definitely going to harm your reputation as a copywriter.
If you’re truly stuck on what to do, you can, of course, look at templates and existing copies to gain some inspiration. You just need to make sure that you’re never directly copying something that somebody else has done, especially if the B2B copy is promoting a brand in the same industry – chances are, your target audience has already seen that copy!
Hi, I'm John! I'm a father, a writer, a marketer, and i'm the lead campaign manager at The Content Panel. When i'm not playing superdad with my kids I'm either at the office, lost in a good book, or out training for my first marathon!
