How to write a B2B blog that attracts prospective customers

Everyone knows that writing is easy. We spend our lives learning to communicate through words. We use them every day. So when it comes to writing for business, surely it’s a doddle to knock out a few awesome blog posts as part of a B2B content marketing strategy. Right?Sadly, no.

Okay, it IS easy to put words down on a page. But getting them in the right order, to inspire the right person to become your customer, is a different matter. And if you’re reading this, you probably already know just how tricky it can be.

So without further ado, here are a few tips and tricks to crafting B2B blog posts that will attract prospective customers to your business:

You talkin’ to me?

Knowing who you’re writing for is absolutely essential. Without getting inside the head of your prospective customers, you’ve got no chance of breaking down their wall of apathy and winning their attention. What roles are they in? What ambitions do they have? What business pains are they experiencing that you might be able to solve?

Anyone familiar with HubSpot will know full well that developing a persona that represents your target audience is a great place to start. And if you already have a customer base, great! Speak to your sales and customer service teams to find out what they know about your customers and the pains that brought them to you. Then use that information to write better targeted content to help attract the attention of other prospective customers in the same boat.

Questions, questions, questions!

If you know what pains your prospective customers might be having, it’s time to identify what questions they’re asking to try and solve them—because these will become your blog titles.

These days, before anybody does anything, they Google. Which means these questions are exactly what your prospective customers will be asking online. Selecting blog titles that match will not only help with better search ranking for these queries, but will ensure your post stands out as most likely to answer their question.

Again, talk to the sales and customer service teams. These guys are on the frontline of your business and have the most direct contact with your target market. Find out what words or phrases they’re using and questions they’re asking. If your website has a search function, you can do this yourself by going to see what people are searching for on your site. And you can also find keyword phrases for how people found you in Google’s webmaster tools.

Everyone’s welcome

Yes, you’re writing for a specific persona. But it doesn’t hurt to make sure everybody reading your content can understand and appreciate the message. Even if your sector normally thrives on acronym overload, keep it easy to read. You also need to make sure it’s digitally friendly and not a pain to digest. So stick to a few digital copywriting rules, such as:

• Use scannable headlines to enable fast delivery of message
• Break down intimidating chunks of copy with clever use of white space and images
• Use bullet points for anything you list

Being inclusive and accessible in your content writing means more people are likely to share. Of course, visitor numbers aren't everything, but the greater the reach of your blog posts then the greater the chance you’ll reach more of your prospective customers.

Don’t take ‘B2B’ too literally

Businesses aren’t some mythic entities whose language you have to learn before you can communicate with them. They’re made up of people like you and me. We weren’t born into our roles. We’ve probably had a few other jobs on our way here, some in different sectors. And we certainly have interests and lives outside of work (or at least we try).

So while your B2B blog posts should tackle subjects in a way that connects with certain people in a certain sector, try to remember that the secret to good business to business writing is to acknowledge that it’s also human to human.

Let me just check my calendar

Blank pages are scary because we all fear the unknown. Creating a content calendar can help keep you on track by preparing you for what you need to be writing on any given day. This not only lets you face that blank page with confidence knowing what you need to be talking about, it also helps you stay on message in the weeks and months ahead.

Of course, knowing what to write and actually writing it are two different things. Hence…

Be a plotter, not a pantser

This goes back to the basics of fiction writing. Some people can weave fantastic tales simply by sitting down and writing to see where they end up. And those stories can be fun to read, so long as you don’t mind them being more about the journey than the destination. But in B2B content marketing we don’t have engaging characters to carry readers along and those readers generally aren’t here to escape reality.

B2B blog posts should always be about offering help or advice as quickly and efficiently as possible. Your audience has a question and you need to answer it. So if your reader needs to get from A to B, plan out how to get them there. For each blog you write, get a rough outline down on paper (an intro, five talking points, and a conclusion, etc), then you can start writing with confidence, knowing you can take readers where they need to go.

Clickety-click

Blog posts are about educating and helping your customers, but they shouldn’t operate in a vacuum. They’re an essential part of a wider B2B content marketing strategy, designed to reach as many of your prospective customers as possible, before nurturing them (with other blog posts) and converting them (with downloadable ‘gated’ content like ebooks, etc). It’s all about guiding them down your marketing funnel to generate some cracking leads your Sales Director will love you for.

So the Call-to-Action (CTA) is all important. It could be a text link or a button, placed at the beginning or end of your content—try a few different things and see what works for you—just make sure the wording and offer tie directly in with the content on the page. It should always be the next natural step on the user’s journey.

Need an example? Okay then. Let’s say someone has just read a blog post on how to write B2B blog posts to attract the right customers and they LOVED it (ahem). The next natural step *might* be to offer them a brilliant in-depth guide to crafting engaging content for the traditionally dry B2B sector, don’t you think?

Us too! Click on the link below to lift your lead generation game to the next level.