The secret to B2B copywriter success

I’ve been freelance for 14 months now and the Christmas break gave me the opportunity to reflect on what was, incredibly, a very successful 2020. Despite starting pretty much from scratch, and despite everything else going on in the wider world, I managed to build up the group of great regular clients that I’d been hoping to forge relationships with from the start. I guess all that workload goes some way to explaining why I haven’t found the time to write a blog for myself since last April...

I’m not writing this blog so I can gloat about how brilliant I am, and that’s for two reasons. The first is that I know that so many people in the creative industries, particularly those who are freelance or self-employed, had an absolute nightmare last year and I genuinely feel for their ongoing plight. (I could go off on a tangent at this point about how angry I am about all that, but this isn’t the time or the place.)

The second reason is that, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I’m all that brilliant. Sure, I put the effort in, I work hard and I always try to make sure all the bases are covered with my clients. But am I some sort of copywriting genius who can knock every single assignment out of the park? Absolutely not. And that’s not some sort of ‘imposter syndrome’ talking: I just know my own abilities and my own limitations very well.

So this got me thinking about why last year was such a success. After all, there are plenty of freelance copywriters out there, and now more than ever, the supply of them certainly outstrips the demand for them from agencies and businesses alike. What made the difference?

And then, one night, while having a long soak in the bath (all my good ideas seem to happen when I’m in the bath - why is that?), I recalled one recurring theme that seemed to crop up with most of my regular clients throughout the year. On a number of different occasions, my contacts within businesses or account managers within agencies would get in touch to thank me for taking such a hands-on, proactive, engaged approach with the subject matter at hand.

Now, to me, that’s just part of the service and is just the way I operate. If I’m writing about something, I need to know what I’m talking about. To do that, I need to get involved with the topic, so that I can ask the right questions of clients and get to the really interesting stuff that can bring the content to life. I just considered this to be basic common sense, but the surprisingly positive reactions I was getting from my clients for doing this implied that many other copywriters simply don’t. And I find this absolutely baffling.

There’s a very good reason companies book copywriters to write things for them: because they’re able to create content that people want to read, will find interesting, and will engage them enough to read further, buy a product or whatever else the intended action is. But if the writer isn’t interested in, or engaged with, the subject matter at hand, how can the reader be expected to be interested or engaged too?

This is especially important in B2B, where a lot of content is just dull, corporate greyness that would have blended in very well with John Major’s Conservative front bench. Senior decision-makers in companies big and small may be businesspeople, but more importantly, they’re still people. If they get a chance to spend a few minutes of their valuable time scrolling through their LinkedIn feed, the last thing they want is more straight-laced corporate spiel. They get enough of that in the rest of their working lives. Interesting, eye-catching copy, however, will pique their interest and intrigue them into exploring further.

All this sounds so basic, and yet the impression I’m left with is that so many writers treat each job like a transaction: take brief, write stuff, send it to client. Anyone working like that, frankly, isn’t doing their job properly. It’s the job of a good copywriter to go above and beyond, really get into the nuts and bolts of a client, product or campaign, and seek out the really interesting nuggets of information. It doesn’t matter how boring a B2B job might seem from the outside: those nuggets are always there if one is willing to dig deeply enough and think creatively enough to find them.

So I guess this big ‘B2B copywriter secret’ with which I’ve enticed you into reading this blog isn’t so much of a secret after all. It’s more of a key element of good copywriting that is perhaps overlooked and neglected far too often. Engage with subject matter, and make the effort to obtain the information that can drive interesting content, and your clients will feel they’re getting value for money and that you have their goals at heart.

And besides all that, writing interesting stuff is much more fun, anyway.

To find out more about my B2B copywriting services, get in touch with me here or get in touch via LinkedIn. I normally respond to all requests quickly - unless I’m in the bath...