How to write B2B content that doesn’t suck
What is it about B2B companies and their struggle with creating customer-centric content?
If your business was a restaurant and you serve flavorless food to the customers, would you expect them to return? Sure, your restaurant got butts on chairs but you’ll never see those people ever again. You’re just asking for bad reviews.
So why do you insist on publishing your nineteenth piece of dry content stuffed with keywords and flooded with jargon?
You won’t create genuine interest or trust let alone repeat customers.
Somewhere you’ve forgotten that the sales manager you’re trying to reach out to probably enjoys going to punk festivals on the weekend. Or that head of procurement that spends their lunch breaks watching funny puppy videos.
We’re just people trying to do business with other people. Why has the entire B2B SaaS community mutually agreed to just stubbornly continue to delude itself?
Let’s start with the uncomfortable truths.
4 Reasons you love bland B2B content
1: You’re scared to be different.
For all of the product marketing drivel on how your solution isn’t like the others, you still don’t want to stand out too much. Being too specific, opinionated, or even funny may alienate parts of your audience. You probably believe that if you play it safe, you’ll appeal to the broadest range of potential buyers.
Wrong. It’s totally counterproductive because blandness is alienating. Congratulations, your blog post is now part of the noise your prospects have been trying so hard to tune out.
2: You’re scared of not sounding “professional”.
How do you feel when you read this?
Our solution empowers businesses to leverage actionable insights in order to optimize their workflows and drive ROI.
And how do you feel when you read this?
Our software helps you find the important patterns in your data so you can improve how you do things and make more money.
Aren’t both of those examples professional? Stiff language creates distance between you and your prospects. So why create even more barriers which prevent customers from relating and engaging with you?
3: You’re scared of not standing out as experts.
Most businesses won’t invest in content creation, either financially or time-wise. AI or that person you found on Upwork for 0.05 cents per word will do for now. The result is your brand authority being flushed down the toilet.
Where are the true insights that your internal experts can lend to your content? That’s what your potential customers want to see and what they need to trust you.
4: You’re scared of not making money NOW.
There’s a B2B SaaS leadership obsession with instant gratification. Anyone who isn’t a content marketer always wants the results yesterday, but content strategy is a long game. There’s also an obsession with vanity metrics like views, followers, or unique users. Where is the focus on true engagement?
Also, there’s this group delusion shared among B2B businesses that although you all have different audiences, you all want to sound like each other. Why? Because instead of caring about what your customers need, you’re more concerned about what your competitors are doing.
So, now that we’ve covered what we’re scared of, here’s how you can be bold…
Turn bland into grand: How to fearlessly create B2B content
It’s time to ditch your B2B content safety blanket and find your fearless voice.
Fear fix: Embrace the niche
Own a problem, a solution, and an audience because being hyper-specific attracts loyal followers. Broad appeal is a myth you can’t afford to buy into.
Action steps:
Interview your sales and customer success teams: What are the weird/uncommon questions you get from prospects or customers? That’s your niche goldmine.
Get specific when describing benefits: Don’t use words like ‘efficiency’, go for ‘cuts reporting time by 40%’ and back that up with real customer data.
Don’t be a B2B dictionary: Does your team struggle with stuffy language? Each time one of them uses jargon, make them put 50 cents into a ‘Jargon Jar’.
Fear fix: Stop hiding your people
There are a lot of fake experts out there. I see it everyday on LinkedIn. True insights will position you as the authority and ‘Not Just Another SaaS Company™‘. You have true experts hiding in the backrooms of your company just waiting to be discovered.
Action steps:
Tap into the brain trust: It isn’t just sales or marketing people who have great content ideas. For example, some of the best content I’ve put out involve ideas that have come from software engineers or talent acquisition. Real people = relatable company.
Forget the fluff: I know your content strategist is telling you you need X amount of ‘What is B2B Generic Title Here?’ posts to get eyes on your brand. Instead, dig deeper with your nerds with real stories of problems they’ve faced and how they got over them.
Content challenge: Take one month off from ‘noise content’ creation and invest time in yourselves. Produce content that comes from the heart of your business: your people.
Fear fix: Ditch vanity insanity
Vanity metrics like pageviews, followers, or website traffic are popular because they’re the easy way out. They give the illusion of progress, even if that progress means nothing. Also, they stroke our egos. Big numbers look great in reports and make people believe they translate into actual business impact. Spoiler alert: they don’t.
Sorry, I’m going to need to get a bit ‘Jargon-y’ here. I promise I’ll put my coins in a jar.
Action steps:
Redefine success: What does true content ROI look like? Is it higher domain authority? More qualified leads from organic search? Get specific, and get buy-in!
Choose the right tools: Basic Google Analytics won’t cut it. Get the tool that lets you track your content’s impact on lead quality, deal close rate, etc.
Get cozy with case studies: We all love social proof. One in-depth customer story about how your content influenced their business is worth more than a dashboard full of numbers.
See? Pulling off the band-aid didn’t hurt at all. Ready for some cringe content? I thought so.
Common B2B content fails we’re all guilty of
👉🏽 Jargon-tastic
“Leveraging technology to optimize workflow efficiency.”
– Wow, that said a lot without saying anything. My jar would be FULL.
The glow-up version:
“Get 40% more done in 20% less time with XYZ.”
👉🏽 Stale socials
“New blog post! Check out our latests insights on XYZ. Link in the description below.”
– I think I’ve read that post a million times from hundreds of companies.
The glow-up version:
“Sick of bad decisions? So are we. Here is our latest data on XYZ and how we used it to get smarter faster.”
– And instead of making the reader go to a blog post, you could just post an image of the data. You can use the post to talk about how each piece of data helped your business.
👉🏽 Email destined for the trash
“Dear [Recipient Name],
I hope this email finds you well.
I wanted to reach out regarding my previous email about our company, [Company Name], and how our product, [Generic Product Name], could potentially revolutionize the way you do [Insert Vague Business Task].”
– I can’t click the delete button fast enough, can you? Finds me well? I’d be completely UNWELL after reading that email.
The glow-up version:
“Hi [Recipient Name],
Noticed on LinkedIn you recently mentioned [problem relevant to your product]. I’ve been there – it’s super frustrating!
We’re [Company Name], and we help with [one core benefit]. Curious if you’ve got 5 minutes to chat next week and I can share some tips that worked for us? No sales pitch, I promise.
Let me know! [Your Name]”
Ahhh. We’re getting warmer! You’ve done your research and it feels like a real person wrote it.
Can you imagine if we all stopped this groupthink and all B2B SaaS companies stopped playing it safe and started being smarter with content? We might all actually learn from the content we consume and have a good time doing it!
The future of your B2B content
I get it. Sometimes, we work for people that aren’t ready and you’re forced to stay bland. But if you have the power to make changes, don’t be afraid to take risks.
Stop contributing to all the noise out there, be the brand that people want to engage with.
Remember that restaurant where no one ever wanted to return? Don’t be the B2B content version. Make your content so valuable and insightful, that prospects can’t believe you’re giving it away for free.
