7 ways to turn uninspiring B2B content into content that engages its target audience 

It’s good practice to keep one eye on engagement rates.  

Gone are the days when B2B brands put out excessively technical, product-centric content written by product managers. Today, effective B2B content is focused on the customer and solving the customer’s problem or helping them achieve a goal. Where a product manager may have focused on a product’s features, we fixate on its benefits to the customer in solving that problem or achieving that goal.  

But that doesn’t mean your B2B content is always more engaging now. Perhaps you’ve noticed some worrying trends, such as fewer qualified leads month or month, or fewer returning visitors to your website, or higher unsubscribe rates on the emails you send out? 

If this is the case, we recommend first: 

• getting feedback from your customer or leads 
• reviewing your content alongside your engagement metrics data to better understand why your audience is struggling to engage  
    

B2B content needs to be more educational than promotional, but educational content can – and must – be engaging. So, here’s some tips for how to breath more life into flagging B2B content.  

1. Know the power of a good story  

Engaging B2B content is the same as good storytelling. As copywriters, it’s our job to know the power of a good story and be able to tell stories while educating a customer about X or Y product or solution.  

To create a story, we first learn as much as we can about the customer (or persona), then we study the product or solution. From there, we find the ‘big benefit’ that solves the customer’s problem and dramatise that benefit. To do this, we position the customer as the hero/heroine of the story who is trying to solve a particular problem. We create a story arc and highlight how the hero/heroine overcomes certain obstacles to find their solution. To keep the customer hooked, we write in a language they like and understand. We make a promise and position the product as their solution. And yes, it’s harder than it sounds.  
 

2. Understand how your customer likes to learn  

This all forms part of knowing your customer/persona. How does your audience want to learn or consume? If you create content that considers how your customers want to learn and consume, it should prove more engaging to them. As you do this, update your persona templates.  
 

3. Make content available 

We’ve in an age of gated content. Gated content is an important content marketing for lead generation strategy, while ungated content is important for building brand awareness and supporting SEO. To help make customers more engaged in your content, make sure around 50% of it requires no commitment to consume it – no email address, sign-up or cost required.  
 

4. Consumability is key 

You can make online content more consumable, and therefore engaging, by doing any of the following: 
 

• Breaking up paragraphs 

• Using more subheadings 
• Using bullet points or numbered lists where appropriate  
• Adding multimedia elements (more on this below) 
• Respecting the white space around words 

5. Incorporate case studies, as appropriate 

If you’re creating content for the bottom of the marketing funnel stage, consider using case studies that reference a real-life scenario or feature real-life characters. Or include customer stories. This comes back to the theme of storytelling, and the need to bring vitality and humanity into your B2B content.  
 

6. Perform sense and flow checks 

This is usually the task of an editor, but if you don’t have one, make sure you ask something else to read and edit all B2B content before it is published as part of a standard editorial process. Does the flow make sense to them? Do the first opening paragraphs weave seamlessly into the next section? Does the piece of content as a whole make sense, and will it make sense to the target audience? If it doesn’t make sense to a test editor, the target audience will likely respond in the same way – and they won’t find content engaging if it doesn’t hang together.  
 

7. Use visual aids and interactive infographics 
    

Visual aids, dynamic screenshots and interactive infographics – or other multimedia elements – allow you to present information in new and engaging ways, and can help keep your story moving. Not only can these elements act as powerful magnets to draw attention to a piece of content, but some consumers will be visually-orientated and prefer learning through images and interactive graphics.  

Interactive infographics are also ideal if you’re selling a tech solution or digital platform and you’d like your target customer to get a sense of how it looks and works before they reach out to request a demo. 

If you need support to write engaging, audience-driven content for your B2B brand or agency, contact Copestone today.  

If you need support to write engaging, audience-driven content for your B2B brand or agency, contact Copestone today.