The dreaded blank page taunts you as you consider what to write for your business’s website. You have a topic in mind, but you’re not quite sure how to reach your goal with the resources you have. Are you looking for copywriting help? Sifting through all of the paid and free copywriting tools can be overwhelming, and it takes a lot of time and research to find what you need. But don’t stress! We’ve compiled all of the resources you’ll need to get the most out of your copywriting in this helpful guide.  

What is Copywriting?

One of the most crucial aspects of advertising and marketing is copywriting. Copywriting is the process of creating effective marketing and promotional materials (or copy) that encourage people to take action. Of course, businesses want people to buy a product or service, click on a link, or schedule a consultation. Chances are, any written content you come across on a website, social media, or promotional emails is copy written specifically to engage target audiences.

Why do businesses need copywriting? You might think that all copywriting is drab corporate-speak, but there are various types of copy that  serve different purposes. Here are several examples of copy that most businesses generate:

• Product descriptions
• Blog entries
• Website content
• Email marketing
• Newsletters
• White papers
• Social media posts
• Catalogs
• Direct mail brochures

Because generating action from an audience is essential for running a business, copywriting is important regardless of the type of business or specialty. To motivate your audience members to take action, you must first answer the questions they’re asking and then guide them to pursue desired outcomes like purchasing your product or service. 

It’s not always easy to obtain the results you want when advertising your products and services. Unfortunately, the material on some businesses’ websites, marketing emails, or social media platforms may be poorly written or ineffective in persuading people to purchase a product. 

Even if the copy is excellent, it might not be enough to drive traffic to your website and convert sales. Implementing a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy can help you get the most out of your copy.

What is SEO Copywriting?

SEO is a big deal when writing copy. SEO copywriting is content that generates better page results on search engines like Google. Search engines take the main keywords and phrases used in copy and rank them by what is most relevant to the search. To become more visible to your target audience, you need to constantly update your website’s online presence, including content, to rank higher in SEO. Doing so improves your chances of reaching a wider audience.

However, researching SEO keywords and phrases can be a difficult task to take on without the right tools.

What Does B2B Copywriting Mean?

Many businesses use copywriters to communicate clearly and effectively with their target audience, which doesn’t always have to be a consumer. One of the most efficient methods for increasing conversions between companies is copywriting. 

Business-to-Business (B2B) copywriting is writing content for other companies as an audience to inform them about products or services. Businesses make planned, well-researched decisions and, as a result, B2B copy emphasizes trust and connections that will pay off in the long term. Effective B2B copywriting strengthens relationships and generates sales between a business and their audience. Modern B2B copywriting is in high demand across industries, with 70% of business-to-business marketers investing in content writing.

B2B copywriting doesn’t always have to be promotional emails or whitepapers. It may take a variety of forms to effectively call audiences to action, like social media and blog posts. These types of content can be more engaging and drive interest in your products and services.

Who is Responsible for B2B Copywriting?

Copywriters are trained to write in a way that allows them to  connect with the target audience and motivate them to take action. To help copywriters thrive while communicating to an audience, most businesses hire an in-house copywriter or a freelance copywriter. Crafting words that properly express what a company is about, while also influencing the audience in a specific way, requires knowledge and experience.

In general, copywriters do a little bit of everything to create content for the audience. An overall B2B copywriter job description includes:

• Creating content to inform, educate, or inspire a target audience
• Writing text that motivates readers to take action
• Researching information, data, keywords, subjects, and brand information
• Proofreading and editing to improve grammar, style, readability, accuracy, voice, tone, and punctuation

There are many different types of copywriting, but at the core of each of them is the work of studying and interpreting the needs and goals of a certain audience. A copywriter creates better copywriting by developing a plan to engage with the audience, showing that a reader’s problem has been identified, and proposing a solution. 

A B2B copywriter can adapt these techniques and apply them to business customers’ needs and wants by tailoring the content away from consumers and focusing on the big-picture issues at hand. Good copywriters write copy that sells. There are many techniques and tools for copywriters that help them write the best, most effective content.

What Are Copywriting Techniques for B2B?

Copywriting comes with its challenges, but thankfully there are techniques you can use to create better content for your audience. Consider how you want to communicate your business’s mission and what type of content you want to produce: blogs, newsletters, whitepapers, etc. Each type of copy has its own set of restraints. You might be asking “What are the best copywriting practices?” Let’s discuss a few techniques you can use to write better long-form content.

Know Your Target Audience

Who are you writing for? Knowing your audience will allow you to write purposefully. You’ll be able to determine what information to include, how to organize that information, and what supporting evidence is needed for the reader to understand what you’re saying. You’ll always have a target business audience that you want to reach, and you need to know what draws their attention. If you offer a service for businesses, you’ll want to focus on how a product or service helps them achieve their mission and goals. A small business might have different needs than a larger company, but targeting the right audience will get your product into the hands of those who will benefit from it.

Set the Tone 

The tone of the copy reflects a company’s personality and influences how the reader understands the message. Copywriters should consider the tone of their message while writing blogs, newsletters, website content, or any other type of business communication. Purdue OWL suggests a writer should consider the following questions to determine the appropriate tone: 

• Why am I writing this document?
• Who am I writing to and what do I want them to understand?
• What kind of tone should I use?

Answering these questions will help you determine whether or not to be formal or informal, humorous or serious, optimistic or pessimistic, etc. By knowing your target audience, you’ll be able to write in a voice that engages your target audience. 

Establish Credibility

Your target audience should be coming to you for information on a topic relating to your product or service. How do you make yourself the authoritative voice? Produce content that gives readers good, current, and well-researched information. By providing facts and statistics, you’ll establish yourself as a credible, trustworthy source of information. It’s particularly beneficial if you provide your own primary research. This includes linking to studies or data you’ve collected by studying your product and how it impacts your audience. For example, a B2B software as a service (SaaS) business might talk about how their particular software meets the needs of other businesses because their research indicates a large percentage of their audience struggles with an issue that their platform solves.

Create Interesting Content

It’s easy to get bogged down with the complexities of writing content, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be interesting. Creating intriguing content is more than answering questions customers are asking. Your copy should be compelling and engaging while maintaining authority. There are several ways to make your writing interesting to read.

1. Create a Headline: What is the first thing a reader sees? Your headline should intrigue readers and make them want to read more. Moving from Google to the webpage is a big step in retaining readers.
2. Hook Readers: No one wants to read a boring article, especially one that begins blandly. Your introduction should draw readers into the content.
3. Focus: You don’t want your readers to get lost in a sea of complex ideas that don’t quite connect. Make sure you focus on one specific topic to keep readers’ attention. If the topic is complex, you can use tactics to help with your focus, such as formatting text or creating a bulleted list.
4. Use Your Voice: Your tone affects the way people interact with your content. Just use the voice of your company, whether it’s playful, serious, or in between, and the content will become more personable. A formal tone can still be interesting!
5. Share Knowledge: Readers want to learn something new. They’re looking for answers to their questions! Business content should be more informative than opinionated, which helps readers see you as the authority on a subject.
6. Use an Outline: Okay, this one is simple, but it really prevents you from going down a rabbit hole without actually answering the questions you set out to answer. However, outlines are guides and aren’t set in stone.

By introducing readers to your topic by hooking them through the headline and introductory paragraph, the rest of these tips should help retain and convert them. Ultimately, copywriting is marketing, and the goal is to sell your product or service. That’s difficult to do when you don’t interest readers.

Write Accessibly

Sometimes it’s impossible to avoid technical jargon, which might alienate some readers, but do your best to avoid the thesaurus if there’s a simpler way to say something. According to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) published by the National Center for Education Statistics, the average adult literacy level is basic to intermediate. This means you should be aiming for 6th – 8th-grade reading levels for consumers. While B2B writing can be more elevated, it’s best to adapt your copy to be accessible for everyone. 

Ask and Answer Questions

Good copywriting asks questions and doesn’t leave the reader without answers. You can do this by asking high-ranking SEO questions throughout your content or asking things like “What does this look like?,” which allows you to provide examples. Asking questions engages and involves the reader rather than having them passively read your content.

Insert Calls to Action

Your goal in copywriting is to increase a potential lead’s interest in your product or service and get them to purchase or subscribe. Throughout your copy, but especially at the end, you should be asking your audience to do something. It could be directing them to your website so they can learn more about what you offer, then to schedule a demo or trial. Calls to action often manifest themselves with phrases like “Visit our website!” or “Click here for more information!” Your call to action should ask readers to do exactly what you want them to do.

Avoid Clichés

As much as you might want to “think outside the box,” clichéed content doesn’t have the effect you might think. Business clichés like “step up to the plate” or “put it in the pipeline” are uninteresting and don’t add much to your copy. Two of the worst offenders are talking about “today’s world” or “since the beginning of the internet.” Avoid these tired, overused phrases.

Which App is Best for Copywriting B2B Content?

After all of this, you might  wonder what research and writing tools and tactics do you use when crafting copy. While  many copywriting tools online will help you write B2B content, you probably want to know what the best copywriting tool is. 

Some of the elements you should look for in a copywriting program include:

• Reliability – You need to be able to count on it to work when you need it and have consistent results.
• Rich in features – A tool should offer features that help you complete your B2B copywriting more efficiently and effectively.
• Affordability – Businesses shouldn’t have to break the bank to get the most out of their copywriting.

Each program has its own purpose, but here are eight B2B copywriting tools and resources available for you.

Slice

Word processors haven’t changed much in the last 40 years, but Slice aims to take the lead as a primary B2B copywriting tool. Slice aids in writing long-form content by encouraging focus and flow to produce the best content for your audience. You can work on all aspects of your project, like research and writing, in one spot to save time and maintain concentration. Features like panes and the web clipper tool help you focus on writing instead of chasing research and people incessantly. Slice does charge a monthly or annual fee after the free, 30-day trial.

Hemingway App

The Hemingway App is an easy-to-use, free online writing editor that improves the readability and presentation of your work by highlighting and correcting grammar, fluency, and sentence structure. It’s a self-editing tool that can help you write more coherently. Everything is color-coded, so you can easily see what needs to be addressed without wasting time searching for what’s hard to read or miswritten. You don’t even need to write in the app to use it. You can simply copy and paste your content from your preferred writing environment (like Slice) and get instant feedback on what needs work.

Grammarly

Called the “Free Writing Assistant,” Grammarly is a freemium browser plugin or website app that examines your grammar, spelling, plagiarism, and other issues in real-time across a variety of word processors, social media, and other programs. The free app will check grammar and spelling for you to ensure your writing is polished. However, there are several premium benefits available with a monthly subscription like: 

• fluency and consistency 
• clarity and concision 
• lively and compelling vocabulary 
• tone detection

DemandJump

When it comes to SEO, DemandJump enables you to find the best keywords and phrases to make your content rank higher on search engines. DemandJump’s content and marketing solutions take rigorous SEO research out of the equation by automating keyword and competition analysis. Their insight reports and content brief tools tell you what people are searching for, indicate how they are searching for it, and build a content plan for your website. 

Ginger

Ginger is an AI-based program that corrects all types of mistakes in context and at the sentence level. Beyond spelling and grammar, when proposing context-based modifications, Ginger evaluates whole phrases. It’s great for condensing copy if you’re prone to writing long sentences. Ginger provides a list of synonyms and phrases to help you find the perfect match. Ginger is free to use, but the premium plan allows you to translate over 40 languages, fix multiple mistakes at once, and rephrase repeatedly.

Copywriting Examples

While Copywriting Examples isn’t necessarily a writing tool, it is a free resource that features some of the best copy and content available. Hundreds of B2B copywriting examples are included in Copywriting Examples’s collection. You may also refine your searches by copy type, style, and audience on their inspiration page.

Copywritely

With Copywritely, you can get tips on how to rewrite any SEO issues in your content. Copywritely is a tool that helps you get more organic traffic by writing content using deep keyword research without manual SEO work. With the aid of a grammar checker, word counter, and paraphrase tool, you can also increase your productivity. You may develop compelling copy by utilizing Copywritely’s built-in templates. The platform enables customers to automate and implement their content strategy while communicating with other team members in real-time. Copywritely does have a monthly fee to use the platform.

Capitalize My Title

Capitalize My Title is a free tool that does exactly that: capitalize any title according to the formatting of APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. It’s as easy as copy-pasting into their text box, and it will automatically capitalize your title according to formatting standards.

The Best B2B Copywriting Solution

At Slice, we know how hard it is to write in a conventional word processor. We promote distraction-free writing by putting all of the tools you need in one place. Our customers report a 10x increase in productivity with long-form writing because it gets them in the zone faster and keeps them in the zone longer. Clip and organize your research in one convenient program without sifting through endless windows and browser tabs. 

Now you can focus on persuading your audience instead of falling down rabbit holes. Visit our website today to see how Slice can help your B2B copywriting.