How to Write B2B Marketing Copy and Content

Tips to writing business to business (B2B) marketing content

When writing to an audience of companies who focus on business to business sales, your content must be different from writing for consumers or the B2C market. 

You are speaking to each individual but they also have company responsibilities they need to adhere to.
 
While emotions might be good to capture attention and connect with the business client, it’s not enough for them to identify with your product or service and move toward buying, like writing to consumers.  

Business clients have the companies bottom line, and budget they are looking out for, along with their pride in making a good decision.  

Your content; emails, white papers, web pages, any print marketing you run needs to have a mix of features-benefits-emotion for your business audience. 

You can start with these steps
Focus on the problem—What problems are they having? How can you make those problems seem worse than they are? This is your chance to connect emotionally. Use statements and questions starting with You, stay away from any mention of your company or services.

Example Headline: Makes copies 75% faster with no jams.
Example lead paragraph: Are you wasting your afternoon making copies? Do you often have to stand at the copy machine to make sure it doesn’t jam, causing you to start your job all over again? Your time is more valuable. You could be returning client phone calls, helping them and strengthening relationships. Instead, you often find your time sucked away waiting on copies. 

How does your company solve the problem—Here you want to point out the features of your product or service written in a benefit focused way.  

Example: The new X-tech copier makes single sided copies 75% faster than the leading copy machine brand. In blind tests, the X-tech machine beat the leading brand copy machine:

• Time to make copies—each job finished 75% faster than the other machine
• Quality of the copies—all copies looked clean, clear and crisp, never any bleeding or ink blotches in over 100 tests
• Efficiency of the machine—The X-tech copier did not jam once, not ever during testing. The other machine jammed often, wasting time and supplies.

Provide them with the main benefit or proof--the one big motivating benefit that beats out the competition or a testimonial from another client. Social proof is your nail in the coffin when showing your clients they will get the results you are saying they will receive.  
Example: Not only do you get crisp, clear copies faster than the leading brands, you can purchase the X-tech for $200 less and it has a 10 year parts and labor warranty. Saving you money immediately and over the next 10 years.

Example: Mrs. Jones with Extreme Staffing said “We’ve never had a faster copier. Our supply budget over a two month period has gone down due to using less paper and toner.”

What action do you want them to take?  Do you recommend they look at more education by providing them with a report or website? Are you asking them to make a purchase? Do you want them to contact you? YOU NEED to be clear about your action item and you need to have the next steps in your content. Don’t leave them hanging once you have them engaged. 

Example: To see how the X-tech machine can improve your copy quality and efficiency, take our short survey on usage. We can give you an estimated amount of money you will save by switching to this machine. Click here to take the survey. (with a link, of course)

You don’t have to worry about giving away too much. If you content is always full of useful information, they will contact you to help them with their problem.  
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Use these steps when writing your next marketing piece to have more customers contacting you to buy.