More than a decade ago, Seth Godin said that content marketing is the only marketing that’s left.¹ The rise of content marketing has created a hungry beast that must be fed. From businesses’ own website, blogs, YouTube channels and marketing collateral to influencer marketing, media relations, and social media, organisations are under increasing pressure to produce more content. And, quality is at least as important as quantity. With such fierce competition for eyeballs, organisations that deliver content that’s useful, meaningful, authentic, and resonates with the audience, will outperform their competitors every day.
This means that quality copywriters are now at a premium. Those with the skills to attract and maintain your audience’s attention, while telling a compelling story that prompts them to act, are highly valuable assets for any B2B marketing team.
Quality copywriting is one of the most crucial components of any marketing activity. It goes beyond traditional writing to evoke an action from the target audience; whether through buying a product or service, subscribing to email newsletters or keeping up to date with company announcements. Great B2B copywriting aims to simplify complex products and services, inform and inspire audiences with interesting and complex ideas, draw audiences in and keep them thirsty for more.
Quality copywriting is an essential aspect of any B2B marketing program, with content marketing producing three times more leads than paid search advertising.2 This not only provides a high return on investment (ROI), it also drives profitability, and affords complete control of the message.
We’ve identified three reasons why quality copywriting is essential for successful B2B marketing:
1. It boosts your website’s SEO
Businesses search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts are ineffective without quality copywriting. Algorithm updates from search engines such as Google mean that SEO now relies primarily on valuable, authentic content, rather than unnatural content produced for the purpose of keyword stuffing and backlink inclusion. This strategy, which hasn’t been effective in search engines for years now, doesn’t provide audiences with compelling information to drive them to return. Great copywriting will organically include several target keywords, while enticing readers to heed your call to action.
Google now looks for websites that have new and unique copy, rewarding websites on their ability to maintain the attention of audiences and drive them to act. This is extremely difficult to achieve, unless the content is well written, relevant and interesting for audiences.
2. It improves the user experience (UX)
Copywriting serves only to meet the needs of the target audience, whether that be through awareness of your product or service, guidance, industry commentary, or news updates. B2B copywriting will inform and inspire audiences, and demonstrate gravitas. It has to simplify complex ideas but not dumb them down. Great B2B copy is authoritative and interesting for audiences, leaving them viewing your content as a valuable resource that understands and challenges their needs or interests.
3. It generates organic traffic and inbound leads
Once your content is seen as a trustworthy and reliable source of information, organic traffic and inbound leads will generate as a result. If audiences like and agree with your content, or feel they’ve learned something valuable, they will start to see you as a thought leader, exploring your business offerings as a result.
Additionally, by leveraging your web content and posting it on your social media channels, you’ll not only have regular, interesting content to keep your social channels alive, but you’ll be able to instantly notify your followers when new content is published, driving them back to your website.
Furthermore, the better quality the content, the more likely it is that people will start sharing your content on their channels, expanding your audience reach. Useful and digestible copy leads to an increase in conversations through a growth in web traffic, higher open rate for your emails, and more interactions on your social pages.
With audiences confronted by non-stop brand messaging, successful marketing initiatives need to include captivating copy that not only draws audiences in, but keeps them there. Most people can write but very few can write well. With quality copywriting necessary for all marketing activities, a talented copywriter is a valuable asset that will likely result in a significant increase in ROI.
Unfortunately, many businesses don’t have enough demand to hire a full-time copywriter. These businesses often rely on freelancers, which can be an effective stopgap but also comes with its own issues. For example, it can take time for a freelancer to get up to speed on complex topics. If the freelancer doesn’t work with your organisation regularly, they may not have an intimate grasp of your key messages and unique selling proposition. And, freelancers tend to charge relatively high rates to compensate for the unpredictable nature of their work.
If this sounds familiar, then an agency might be the right alternative for your business. Our content writers have decades of experience writing impactful B2B copy, and are genuinely interested in the topics they write about. They take the time to get to know your business intimately and deliver materials that get results.
Find out how we can help you develop outstanding copy that can help you connect with prospects, customers, suppliers, staff, regulators, shareholders and other stakeholders today.
¹ https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2008/01/seth-godin-cont/
