By Daniel Murray

How do you create the kind of content your audience actually wants?

Anthony Kennada is solving the problem for B2B companies with AudiencePlus, building software, content, and community to help every company evolve their content and media marketing.

Daniel and Anthony get into distributing content in a meaningful way, the community-led growth trend, and why people buy from people.

Do you want your website to stand out in a crowded marketplace? Turn the online spotlight back to your site and grab your customers’ attention with Semrush. For next level online marketing visit semrush.com/free and try it free for 7 days.

Follow Anthony:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/akennada

Twitter: https://twitter.com/akennada

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Sign up to The Marketing Millennials newsletter: workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials

Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. Find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

Timestamps

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:12 A Series of Happy Accidents

03:17 The Future Of Media

08:10 Content That Engages Not Just Sells

13:45 Who’s Thinking About Distribution?

20:51 The Movement Towards Community

26:35 Defining Community-Led Growth

31:22 Who’s Doing It Well

34:05 People Buy From People

36:32 Fruit of Investing In Relationships

How to Write Content For a B2B Audience

If you have an B2B business, you know how challenging it is to market to businesses instead of consumers.

That’s why B2B marketing requires a different approach than content marketing aimed at consumers. Whether you’re creating new content or updating old materials with new target audiences in mind, here are some tips on how to write content that resonates with a B2B audience.

Write Content With a B2B Perspective

First and foremost, always think about your business from a business perspective. Forget about the customers for a second and think about what your business needs to do. What do your customers want?

What do you need to do to make sales? What’s the pain-point you’re trying to solve? At the end of the day, the customer will benefit from your product or service. But they have no investment in the success of your business beyond their own experience with your product.

Use Short Sentences And Paragraphs

Long words and sentences are intimidating to read. They make your content hard to read and difficult to process. Plus, if your reader has to keep going back and re-read a sentence, it’s easy to lose interest and stop reading altogether.

Keep sentences short, and use short paragraphs (maybe two or three sentences max). When you have a lot of content to get out there, try to keep it to a single idea per paragraph. When you have too much to say, it’s easy to confuse your readers. Break up your content into smaller, bite-sized pieces and make it easier to digest.

Be Ultra-Specific.

You don’t have the luxury of being vague when you’re marketing to businesses. You can’t just say “our product will improve your customer experience.” Instead, you have to be ultra-specific. In the example above, you’d have to say something like, “our product will reduce your customer-cancellation rate by X percent.” Businesses don’t care about what’s possible or what you hope to achieve.

They care about what’s certain. And you have to give them certainty by being very clear about the results your product or service will produce for them.

Don’t Shy Away From Industry Jargon.

This one is a hotly debated topic, but it’s one that’s often misunderstood. The fact is, every industry has its own language. If you’re working in B2B marketing, there’s a good chance your industry has its own lingo. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s good.

One of the worst things you can do is to try and re-invent the wheel and come up with your own terms and definitions. You’ll only confuse your readers and make it harder for them to understand and relate to your content.

Don’t Be Afraid To Be Funny And Use Storytelling

Businesses don’t have the luxury of being cute or whimsical. They have to be serious and focused on results. That’s why it can be very challenging to create content that’s funny or uses storytelling.

After all, what’s funny about a business? Well, sometimes stories about funny or disastrous business situations can help humanize your brand and make it more relatable to your readers. Or, you could use a humorous metaphor to explain a complex concept in a way your readers will remember.