Good B2B marketing copywriting is powerful as it has the ability to inform, educate and assist. With this in mind, what is best practice for getting the most out of your copy? We have a few tips to share that can help you to understand what the reader may be thinking and how you can use tools of the written word to create a winning structure.  

How People Buy  

Whether you are selling a product or service, when writing B2B marketing copy, you need to make sure you understand how people buy. When reading and researching people go through a process where they are looking for a solution to their own pain points and this is where good copy comes in. If you can understand and empathise with the reader, then you are more likely to engage and make a connection. The process of how people buy is as follows: 

Awareness Phase  

Where in general the reader knows their pain points and they need a solution 

Consideration Phase  

Are actively looking at potential options to find a solution 

Decision Phase 

Where the reader is ready to actively make a decision 

Identifying the pain points of the reader allows you to trigger an emotional response, this intensifies the need for them to find a solution. It is from here that they will consider a logical response to the problem before seeking solutions and finally making that decision.  

An advert can highlight a pain point in the awareness phase and then a following case study can help to bridge the gap from the consideration phase into a decision.  

For example, if you are a telecommunications company, you could lean on the inconvenience of a temperamental phone system. You may focus an advert on asking the audience how many calls they’d lose if their line drops out regularly? Which is a real pain for many businesses. You can then follow up with a case study that highlights a real scenario where a customer was struggling with their current provider, but you were able to move in and fix all their legacy issues.  

The pain point is highlighted to the audience, the audience empathises and feels that pain, and then through the case study sees that it is an issue that has a solution – with your service. 

WIIFM – What’s In It For Me  

Good copy can talk to the reader on a deeper level. To do so, you need to understand what they need and why – incredibly important for nailing B2B marketing copywriting.  

The phrase ‘what’s in it for me’ is important and will remind you that to understand how to get to the pain points and flesh the copy out, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. To use a basic example, let’s look at the vacuum cleaner and how you might explain what’s in it for the customers. You might say: 

‘Do you ever wish there was an easier way to pick up crumbs from the floor? Using your body to bend over can be doing long-term damage to your posture and spine but there is a better way.’ 

And then reinforce the fact that you have a magical device called a vacuum cleaner which picks up crumbs from the floor in seconds – it’s quick, easy and won’t hurt your back from bending over to pick it all up. 

The ‘WIIFM’ process is not just to discover the pain points are but also to understand why they exist and what the ideal solution is for the reader. This is important as it will also dictate the structure of the piece.   

Nailing The Structure  

How are you going to bring it all together? This is what your structure is for, and you have a wide array of elements to bring your copy to life for the reader and you need to use it.  

Use headings to help not just with engaging with a snappy headline but also to help as a navigation tool. Bullet points can help to plot your main takeaways in an easy-to-read fashion, while bolding and italicising can do the same in a body of text.   

It’s also good to have one mini-topic per paragraph, as well as one idea per sentence. This allows the copy to come together more easily and ultimately makes it more digestible for the reader. For structure, remember:  

• Headings for skimming and navigation 
• Bullets for digestible lists
• Bolding and Italicising 
• Paragraphs for mini-topics
• Sentences – One idea each 

The structure of the copy is important, no matter what type of content you’re looking to utilise. 

Getting The Content Right  

When it comes to content and B2B marketing copywriting, there are a wide variety of ways to bring it to life. We live in a content-rich time where copy can be used on ads, websites, blogs, emails, social media and press releases – so if you can nail copy, you have a multitude of ways to take advantage.  

At Genius, we believe great work needs both a great strategy and a great idea, and copy is no different. If you need a copy expert who can take your written word to another level, why not reach out? It’s amazing what a few words can achieve.