Key Elements of Great B2B copy

David Ogilvy, founder of the world-renowned creative agency and one of the greatest copywriters, often said, “Unless your advertisement is based on a GREAT IDEA, it will pass like a ship in the night.”

One of the greatest challenges for even the most seasoned marketers is facing a blank document and carving out creative, engaging, persuasive, and knowledgeable sources of information for their target audience and consumers.

Yet, writing great copy and content is crucial to the cultivation and development of loyal customers who trust the source and seek advice on how to solve their most pressing business issues.

Here are some considerations that marketers need to keep in mind for crafting great copy:   

1. Focus on one main idea.

Whether you are using market research, customer feedback, or industry tendencies, centering your message on a single idea increases the likelihood of engagement. Your audience will grow frustrated if they do not clearly and promptly understand what point you are trying to make.

What’s your story really about?

One of the most common techniques when introducing new topics is the funnel effect. Once you have a focus on the main idea and topic to present, open with a general statement that will quickly captivate your audience, which can be a fact, a question, or an observation. Move gradually towards narrowing your scope with more specific information and conclude with a statement and a concrete call to action (CTA). If your content achieved its goal of engaging with your audience, your increase in CTA should be significant, particularly if there is a direct relation between content and CTA and if you have developed a clear sense of their needs.

A high CTA rate is the reward for great content.

2. Define your audience and keep it in mind at all times.

Not every message needs to be as short and to the point as “I see dead people”, or “I’m loving it™”, but prospective buyers have had it with the 1 ½ hour, 30+ slide deck, or the 40+ pages whitepapers used by many b2b marketing teams. More is not always more.

In his book “How To Write Short”, Roy Peter Clark shares some additional questions to improve your writing, Here is a summary:

• What’s my point?

• In a sentence, what am I trying to say?

• What is the work really about?

• Have I taken a detour?

• Have I squeezed in extra stuff?

• Have I shifted tenses or language styles?

• Can I answer my questions in ten words? Five? Three?

In “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” Stephen Covey refers to one of these habits as “Begin with the end in mind”, a principle that can be applied to writing great copy as well. Answering the question, “What exactly are you trying to achieve? will help guide your content and lead your audience toward taking action.

3. Edit. Edit again. Make it shorter. Declutter.

The owner of a now-famous Japanese store, The Yamashita Fish & Seafood Market, felt the name of his establishment was too long. To make it easier for people to find it and remember it, he changed the name to Yamashita. However, he felt it wasn’t easy enough to remember. He renamed it again, this time calling it Yamashita. Still concerned that his customers would have trouble remembering, he changed it to Yama.

Believing there was room for improvement, he simply renamed it “Y”.

Sales went down.

After a few days of going over the matter, he finally came up with an idea.

Since his store sells fish, why not just use a picture of a fish?

That is how the fish store would be recognized for decades to follow – the store with the picture of a fish.

What’s your picture of a fish?

James Clear, author of "Atomic Habits", wrote in one of his blogs "the difference between good and great is often an extra round of revision. The person who looks things over a second time will appear smarter or more talented, but actually is just polishing things a bit more. Take the time to get it right. Revise it one extra time."

4. Ask yourself, “Why am I writing this?”

Nobel-winning Portuguese author José Saramago analyzed three elements before writing a story:

Why?

What For?

For Whom?

After reviewing your document, if you can answer these three final questions, your content is ready to go.

There are many more key elements to great copy, including finding your own voice for branding, optimizing for SEO, keeping it consistent, and helping your audience find a solution, and we will discuss these and more soon.

Happy writing!