23 TIPS TO
BETTER B2B WRITING
Perk up your marketing materials with
a few well-chosen words
By Henry DeVries
This is not the product of original thinking,
it is something better. You should know that we are a team
that believes in doing our homework. What we have done is
study the campaigns of hundreds of successful companies.
We’ve discovered the trick is to take these ideas and
execute them well, and always with a bit of a creative twist.
Here are 23 ideas to perk up your business-to-business (B2B)
writing.
1. What, me worry about the writing? As
we figure it, more than half of the success of your B2B offers
depend on great strategic writing. Direct mail pioneer Ed
Mayer is credited with coining the 40-40-20 rule. Simply
put, 40 percent of your success will be determined by how
well you define the audience (the list). Another 40 percent
will be determined by how the audience responds to how it
perceives your product, service and offer (writing the offer).
Another 20 percent is determined by the creative package,
which includes artwork and the copywriting (again writing).
2. You’re on my list. Varying direct
mail lists can change response rates from plus or minus 100
to 1,000 percent. (A favorite story of ours is about the
upscale business that had an envelope come back stamped “cannot
deliver without inmate registration number”).
3. Make me an offer. In B2B direct mail
it is crucial to have an offer that is quickly and easily
understood. Offers are really a combination of the product
and service, the price and payment terms, incentives and
specific conditions.
4. Salesmanship in print. Interview the
sales force to learn what messages the customer is responding
to in person. Then translate that information to your offer.
Direct mail advertising is, and always has been, salesmanship
in print.
5. Trash the flash. Use a low-key approach
for a B2B envelope. Most B2B mail has to pass through a gatekeeper,
such as an administrative assistant. If it looks too much
like advertising, it might go right in the waste basket.
6. Check your e-mail stats. There is no
more cost-effective way to reach individual customers than
with e-mail. While a response rate of 2 percent might be
considered good for direct mail, some e-mail marketing campaigns
are reporting response rates of up to 40 percent.
7. Permission granted. With e-mail marketing
you can benefit from a level of selling that is unavailable
in the direct mail world. The key is the opt-in approach,
in which prospects give their permission for you to contact
them with offers. Here are 10 ways to leverage the power
of e-mail:
- Build a permissible e-mail list
of prospects who would like to receive more information
about your product or service.
- Diligently collect e-mail addresses
during all your lead-generating efforts, including trade
shows and telemarketing.
- Embed links to a merchandising Web
site in your e-mails, giving you an instantaneous fulfillment
package online.
- Avoid e-mail clutter by customizing.
By extracting specific information from your customer database,
you have the ability to construct personalized messages
for each reader.
- Test, test, test your e-mails. You
can test headlines, offers and lists in a fraction of the
time it takes to test traditional direct mail.
- Research the best resources for outsourcing
e-marketing support.
- Reinforce customer purchase behavior
by communicating after the sale via e-mail.
- Cross-sell and up-sell customers through
the use of database information and targeted e-mails.
- Conduct market research using your
e-mail audience of prospects.
- Remember the golden rule of B2B marketing:
communicate to prospects in the way they want to be communicated
to. Some prefer e-mail, some prefer snail mail. For best
results, combine e-mail with traditional direct mail.
8. Opt for opt-in. With opt-in lists prospects
gave their permission to be contacted with offers, while
opt-out lists assume that secondary users of data are acceptable
unless a person registers an objection to them. Many people
(including us) consider sending e-mail to opt-out lists to
be the unsavory practice of spamming.
9. Swimming the channel. Public relations
is the only marketing communications channel capable of cost-effectively
handling the complex task of delivering multiple messages
to multiple audiences reading multiple publications.
10. The art of being newsworthy. B2B publicity
is the creative use of newsworthy events, publications, social
investments, community relations and other means to raise
awareness, build traffic and otherwise distinguish a company
and its products from its competitors.
11. Shift happens. B2B publicity doesn’t
replace advertising, but many savvy marketers are shifting
increasing portions of their budgets to the art of being
newsworthy. In a front-page story, The Wall Street Journal
commented on the cost advantage of public relations over
advertising, noting that “a p.r. budget of $500,000
is considered huge, while an ad budget that size is considered
tiny.” Companies can buy a full year’s B2B publicity
program for the cost of a single ad in a business magazine.
Basic programs start for as low as $20,000 per year.
12. May I have your attention please?
Another reason for the shift is the increased attention that
potential B2B decision-makers and decision-influencers pay
to coverage in the media. Noted author David Ogilvy of Ogilvy & Mather
pointed out: “Roughly six times as many people read
the average article as read the average advertisement. Very
few advertisements are read by more than one reader in 20.”
13. Sorry, not for sale. Another fact
to consider is that some things in life are not for sale
at any price. You can’t buy the Mona Lisa. You can’t
buy the Grand Canyon. And you can’t buy an ad on the
front page of The Wall Street Journal. But public relations
can get you there.
14. How to turn $1 into $3. Creating awareness
is what B2B publicity does best, but it has its drawbacks.
You can’t control the timing and the message like you
can with advertising. But in the long run, nothing is more
cost efficient for building awareness. A good rule of thumb
is that your publicity budget can get you three times more
exposure than an equivalent advertising budget.
15. Free advice on offers. “The sun
comes up and the sun goes down, and nothing else is free” goes
the old adage. But that doesn’t mean we stop looking
for a deal. Providing something for free works magic. Here
is a list of free offers that you can test:
- Free information
- Free brochure
- Free catalog
- Free self-assessment tool
- Free planner
- Free demo disk
- Free audit
- Free Web site demo
- Free trial
- Free gift for inquiring
- Free fact kit
- Free demonstration
- Free white paper
- Free sample
- Free needs analysis
- Free initial consultation
- Free cost estimate
- Free guide book
16. Take the long cut. Don’t be afraid
to write long copy in fulfillment brochures, sales sheets
and collateral materials. The B2B reader is a seeker of truth,
or at least a seeker of information to help them with their
decision. These are sophisticated readers who want to buy
products and services that will allow them to perform faster,
better or more profitably.
17. The “you” approach. So who’s
more important, you or the reader? A common mistake in B2B
collateral writing is the emphasis on the company, not the
customer. Beware of copy that focuses on “our” company
history, “our” company philosophy, “our” commitment
to quality, and anything else that starts with “our” or “we.” The
more sentences that start with “you,” the better
the results.
18. Technically speaking, try English.
Great B2B writing is the art of turning the technical into
the understandable. Sometimes plain English seems in short
supply these days. Sticking to the facts is a great start
to make your offer more understandable.
19. Engineered for success. If you are
targeting engineers, remember that this group is anti-glitz.
Forget the fancy promotional packages and stick to a straightforward,
low-key approach. An engineer prefers to make purchase decisions
that are logical. (Think of Dr. Spock on Star Trek and you
are on the right track). Respect the fact that engineers
will carefully weigh the facts, make comparisons and buy
based on what product or service best fulfills the requirement.
20. It’s newsletter to me. Newsletters
are great, if they are newsworthy. Newsletters are poor marketing
investments if they are not read. Just throwing in the company
news releases from the past quarter is not a good idea. Instead,
stimulate your editorial thinking and identify topics with
high reader interest.
21. To get their attention, try grabbing
them. How good are the lead paragraphs of your articles?
The most important paragraph in a newsletter article is the
first one. If you want to increase newsletter readership,
you need articles with attention- grabbing leads. Here are
a dozen lead paragraphs that grab attention:
- alliteration
- anonymous person (not their real name)
- epigram or famous quotation
- historical anecdote
- humor/pun
- paint-the-picture description
- philosophical statement
- poem/song lyrics
- pop culture allusion
- question/do you
- quote
- round-up of illustrations
22. Here’s a tip. Include stories
with tips, trends and tactics. Newsletter eaders always welcome
tips on product selection, installation, maintenance, repair
and troubleshooting.
23. News you can use. Another winner for
newsletter readers is a how-to article. Similar to a tips
story, a how-to article includes more detailed information
and instructions. You can explain how to use the product,
how to select the right model or how to maximize performance.
Back
to Table of How-To Articles
Copyright© New Client Marketing Institute
2000 – 2003. You may reprint this article in any publication
or Web site as long as you credit Henry DeVries as the author
and include his Web site address, www.henrydevries.com.
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