The Hunt for the Best B2B Voice Begins

There was a great article last week from MarketingSherpa entitled “Copywriting Lessons from Social Media.” It’s so good I won’t regurgitate it here, but it’s worth a read, both for writers and every marketer who makes a request from a writer. In short, an honest voice is so rare in copy that it sings when you finally see one.

Even rarer? A great B2B voice.

I can think of a few B2B TV ads (which air during the Sunday a.m. talk shows) that use humor to make the point about a B2B product. In web copy, we tend to get shy and return to our “innovative, industry-leading solutions” and other such gobbledygook. The trick for the copywriter is striking a balance between features and benefits. Obviously the B2B audience is less about having fun than getting useful information about your product. But that doesn’t preclude a great voice.

I am now officially on the hunt for the best B2B voices. Top 5 will be featured in a one-of-a-kind praise-ridden blog post by this humble copywriting blogger. Submit suggestions in the comments.

Tips from the trenches: webinars

I’ve been writing a lot of webinar programs lately, because they STILL work and can be highly cost-effective for driving revenue. Here are some tips:

Leverage happy customers. This is two-fold: 1) to include in the webinar presentation itself, to tell your story to others then 2) to get testimonials for other webinars. Solicit feedback in follow-up thank you emails.

Tell a story. It’s true for any presentation, and this includes webinars. Stories take your ideas from the realm of the abstract and transform them into something real and personal. Even (especially) a product demo needs some concrete examples with which your audience and identify. Use challenges faced by your actual customers (better yet, feature that customer and let them speak in person at the webinar) and show how things have improved.

Looks matter. You don’t need to be a presentation wizard, but a few animations, colorful text or photos can make a world of difference.

Invite often—but not too early. Unless it’s a one-of-a-kind, can’t-miss, groundbreaking webinar, folks aren’t going to feel capable of planning that far ahead. I’ve seen a lot of success with webinar invites sent the day before and day of the webinar (obviously, test to see if this applies to your target customers).

Leverage content after the fact. Creating a great webinar is a lot of work, so use the content in whitepapers, testimonials, audio/Podcasts, on-demand replays, etc.

Quality with a capital "K"

I drove past one of those letter-board signs this morning, one describing a service or product as "quality." As a copywriter, I cringe at the word, for a variety of reasons:

1. ____ Quality Widgets. Good or poor? The best or the worst? Quality originally was a noun, not an adjective, and it still screams for a modifier when immediately preceded by a noun.

2. Don't make me think. Good ol' Seth. Quality is abstract--it's not going to create an emotional reaction. It's going to make me keep driving. Did I remember what that sign was about? Nope.

3. Accuracy. Don't waste characters. Is "quality" really the strongest adjective out there for your particular product? Is there another word that's more specific? Of course there is.