A leading provider of digital transformation across a huge range of industries, BT for Global Business has been solving business challenges for over 70 years. From connecting remote locations to reinventing entire workplace systems, it supports industries to harness the latest digital technology and develop more agile, responsive ways of doing business.
BT decided to create a campaign to engage nine industries, with digital transformation white papers at its core, each focusing on a separate industry. It was critical that this campaign achieved cut-through, speaking each industry’s language and sharing messages in compelling, accessible and effective ways. Facing tight timescales, BT’s content team needed a trusted pair of hands to help deliver the project on-time and on-budget. Having worked closely with BT on highly technical content for 20 years, BT asked us to support this significant project. We immediately set to work, coordinating numerous expert interviews and delving into the specifics of each industry’s transformation journey – particularly the unique challenges and opportunities.
The results of the campaign were impressive, achieving over 2,000 leads and website visits 25% above target. Driven by the compelling content, the campaign had a CTR that was 500% higher than originally projected.
9.3.23
Video marketing is an integral part of the B2B toolkit – helping organisations convey complex, compelling messages more efficiently than static text and imagery.
Making sure your videos stand out in today’s crowded marketplace is vital. Videos drive better search engine results and – thanks to the rise of visual search engines like Google’s Shopping Graph and Lens – are increasingly favoured by social media algorithms.
To get the best-possible results, it’s important to be strategic about which type of video marketing suits your specific needs and furthers your short and long-term business goals.
A versatile tool for conveying simple, yet visually exciting stories and messages – animations are a powerful way to attract buyers’ attention.
Often fun, sometimes even fantastical, they embed easily into social media pages. A powerful way to drive user engagement, they can also offer interactive features like embedded links, sub menus and questions that branch into different content. Using animation intros, outros, cutaways and overlays, it’s possible to liven up less visually striking footage with much-needed colour and action.
Check out our guide for producing amazing animations here.
Whether featuring business leaders or subject matter experts, interview videos are a great way to convey thought leadership and authority to your target audience. Today, with the comparatively high video standards available through camera phones and remote collaboration tools like Teams, creating high-quality videos is easier than ever. But remember, the best B2B interview videos are professional, engaging and flow like a real conversation between relaxed participants.
Read our top tips for self-filming here to get started.
Driven by the likes of TikTok, Snap Chat and Instagram, short, sharp, ‘snackable’ videos have gained prominence over the last decade. Thanks to their growing popularity, they’re now a staple B2B marketing tool, particularly on channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Often as short as 20-60 seconds, these videos push brands to refine their messaging while also keeping it persuasive, captivating and informative. With short social videos, the aim is to create something that will be reshared by peers, driving brand awareness and making new inroads into your target market.
Powerful forums for discussions about the latest insights and research, webinars should offer customers thought-provoking and industry-leading insights around key topics. Usually broadcast live as a launch or hybrid event, they also have considerable value as a piece of long-form content or as a ‘visual podcast’ when hosted online after an event. In fact, 73% of marketers consider webinars to be the best way to generate quality leads.
To help you get started, we’ve created a handy guide for planning and promoting webinars, here.
If done correctly, an explainer video can condense a variety of different and longer form content into concise and powerful messaging. Generally, these videos focus on how to solve a customer’s problems – beginning with challenges or pain points before suggesting a solution and outlining its benefits. Explainers are about straightforward storytelling, so don’t overcomplicate the messaging and include a clear CTA to encourage buyers along your purchase journey.
Case study and customer testimonial videos can validate your products and services by showcasing a client’s experience and displaying the result of a successful project. By enabling a satisfied customer to tell their story, these videos build brand credibility and provide a less biased, more client-focused overview of your USPs. For extra validity points, ask your most recognisable, household name clients to be part of the video so you know it will instantly have traction with your target audience.
Take a look at our blog post for planning your perfect video case study here.
From teasers to post-event outreach content, event films are a great way to showcase the action and key messaging of your brand’s events. These could include clips of key speakers, footage of any activities that took place, short interviews with attendees and even testimonies that celebrate the event’s success.
Website banners add movement and life to webpages. With this tool, it pays to think carefully about what might enhance your website or embellish the messaging of a particular page. For example, you could showcase a recent event, promote your latest content or celebrate an anniversary. At any time, these banners can be updated to regularly reflect what’s going in your organisation’s story.
Across all its different forms, video marketing can drive engagement, entertain audiences and allows you to experiment with your brand’s messaging, while reaching new audiences. For these reasons, its popularity as a B2B marketing strategy will only increase.
With almost 20 years’ experience in B2B, we’re experts at crafting purpose-built and visually engaging video marketing to suit our clients’ campaigns. If you’d like to find out more about what we could do for you, please get in touch.
12.1.23
As we enter 2023, what key trends and innovations can we expect to see shaping B2B campaigns?
We’re all familiar with over-optimised, near impossible-to-read articles where the author has tried to maximise SEO by shoehorning in too many keywords. These robotic and repetitive pieces of content are something B2B agencies work hard to avoid, but many find it difficult to tread the fine line between being readable and search engine friendly.
Luckily, some key changes were made to the Google algorithm last year, eliminating the need to repeat key terms to increase search visibility. Instead, the algorithm has been refined to connect users to quality and relevant content that answers users’ needs more effectively. The result is that many marketeers and content creators will be refreshing their SEO strategy and moving from a ‘keyword-first’ to ‘people-first’ approach.
In MarketingProf’s 13th Annual B2B content survey, 78% of B2B content marketers said they will continue to invest in video throughout 2023, a 9% increase on the previous year. And 90% of B2B marketeers said they’re now heavily reliant on video for their online promotion.
It’s been impossible to ignore the surging popularity of short ‘snackable’ video content in the past few years – especially in the consumer sector, where we’ve seen the rise of social media platforms like Tik Tok. Increasingly, we expect to see this model move into B2B, as brands experiment with new forms of video to augment their marketing toolkit. But to do this successfully, business-orientated brands must refine their visual storytelling and hone their core messaging to create engaging and easily digestible short form content.
Every year, more digital natives move into professional buying and decision-making roles. This tech-savvy demographic expects relevant, tailored content at every opportunity but Gen-Z buyers also valueauthenticity and personability when making purchasing decisions. So instead of steering marketing towards big data and AI-driven targeted campaigns, we expect to see increasingly personalised B2B marketing in 2023.
To win buyers over, B2B brands will need to adopt a more personable and direct tone of voice. It will also be vital to start delivering hyper-focused campaigns that target specific roles, localities and even individual. In 2023’s crowded marketplace, connecting with this target audience on a personal level and demonstrating that you understand their interests, behaviours and needs will win business.
Recent studies have shown that 71% of people now expect personalised interactions and content and 76% of customers today now feel frustrated when their content isn’t personalised.
Since the pandemic, the way we attend and participate in events has completely changed and a combination of virtual and physical is now the norm for a range of different marketing events. Towards the end of last year, several major advertising and media outlets reported a significant rise in the revenue they were generating from hybrid events – Forbes, for example, saw a 60% rise in revenue as it embraced hybrid event formats.
As a result, we’re expecting to see more B2B organisations embracing this model and combining remote and physical conferences, webinars and networking events. This hybrid approach will give businesses greater scope to connect to a wider, international audience than their traditional reach. And a rise in event blogs, podcasts, videos and whitepapers is likely to follow for those who couldn’t attend.
If you’re considering your own hybrid event, our guide on webinars has some great tips for generating long term value.
Throughout 2022, as with many other years, mailboxes, inboxes and social media pages were awash with generic, unexciting B2B content.
But despite growing adoption of marketing automation and multi-channel management tools, we’re confident that 2023 will be the year quality triumphs over quantity. It’s a belief reflected in the Content Marketing Institute’s annual survey which found that ‘producing better quality content’ was still the top differentiator for successful brands. As we move through the 20s, organisations that value thought leadership, originality and creativity will continue to stand out from the crowd.
To find out more about how to make your marketing as strategic as possible in 2023, get in touch with the asabell team. We tailor campaigns our clients’ specific needs and always have an ear to the ground to ensure everything we create is impactful for today’s audiences.
10.11.22
The pressure’s on as the busiest time of year approaches. Year on year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales continue to grow as an impressive 55% of consumers report spending more during 2021’s Black Friday than they did the previous year.
But this festive season is set to be one of the most challenging yet. Rising energy costs, potential blackouts, the after effects of the pandemic, global tensions, political uncertainty and new trade agreements are all putting a strain on supply routes and pushing up product and delivery costs.
With negative press and anxiety about product shortages building, how prepared is your logistics operation to deliver a successful holiday shopping season?
The story’s alarmist, and that’s bad for business, making your customers less likely to expand their operations. But there are signs of recovery – the shortage of HGV drivers has eased, petrol and diesel prices have stabilised and, despite strikes, ports and transport congestion is easing.
Because these positive stories garner less attention by the media, it’s up to you to take control of the narrative and assure your customers you’ve got the situation under control. Make sure your clients know that, regardless of what they might have heard, they can still expect reliable delivery times, outstanding service and the ability to handle sudden or last-minute requests – even at the height of the festive shopping season.
Just because the industry narrative isn’t always positive, doesn’t mean your organisation’s unique story can’t be. This year, your organisation may have implemented new solutions, secured a range of successes and rolled out operational improvements.
Perhaps you’ve integrated a new automated warehouse system? Adopted new micro-fulfilment centres? Upgraded your fleet? Or even met your sustainability targets? Whatever it is, your partners, competitors and customers should know.
As a forward thinking logistics organisation, you’ve likely been planning ahead for this season – scheduling and recruiting, securing extra vehicles, drivers and storage and looking at potential route optimisation to handle the expected surge in demand.
Maybe you’ve even been running tests on your critical infrastructure like IT systems, website and warehouse automation platforms to make sure they can cope with the added strain. If you’re putting in all this effort, it’s time to share your preparation with customers and demonstrate that your operation is a strategic, safe pair of hands for the season.
We’re experienced supporting our logistics clients through their biggest challenges – helping major organisations create marketing content that tells their unique story and demonstrates their ability to deliver for their clients on time, every time.
26.10.22
Innovation and game-changing solutions are the lifeblood of B2B. Without them, there’d be no disruptive market forces or exciting new opportunities to talk about.
But transforming the complex processes and painstaking hard work behind state-of-the-art technology into a compelling and accessible read is a fine art.
How do you create attention-grabbing content that holds the reader’s interest while also conveying the specialist knowledge and technical details that ensure conversions?
Here are our top tips for talking tech and convincing senior decision makers that, with your marketing support, their technology is safe in your hands.
The first step is to understand your audience. Are they cybersecurity specialists? Part of a procurement team? Logistics and operations managers? This will help you tailor your content to your readers’ professional interests and level of understanding.
Most readers are likely to be reading an extension of their work, so think carefully about what they want to know. For example, a cybersecurity specialist is probably not interested in reading an article explaining how a firewall works – this is assumed knowledge that won’t engage a reader with such a high level of industry knowledge. They are far more likely to want to hear about new innovations in the market, emerging trends or challenges – so always ensure that your focus remains at the forefront of the industry you’re discussing.
Regardless of technical subject matter, good content should always tell a story, not read like a manual. That’s where the expertise of copywriters comes in.
As opposed to letting subject matter experts (SMEs) write content themselves, gather their insights and let the copy experts turn it into something engaging, compelling and easy to understand.
There are some basic questions you can ask to make sure you have the most relevant information from your SMEs:
Then, think about the solution’s USPs. What makes it stand out in the market? And where can it assist more generally in terms of time and process efficiency, cost savings, quality improvements and so on.
We’re experts at working with experts. Take a look at our short guide on working with SMEs to create valuable and engaging content, here.
To prove your credibility and experience, it’s important to use correct industry terminology, as well as recognising where terms or concepts need extra clarification. Poor technical writing is clouded with jargon, buzz words and acronyms. Sometimes, these terms and abbreviations are just concepts repackaged by marketeers – so think carefully about what they really mean before using them.
Likewise, make sure your tone is appropriate for the audience and always make sure it’s in line with established brand voice. A sprinkle of expressive language will show you care about the subject – but don’t fall into unnecessary hyperbole.
If your content doesn’t convince your reader, they won’t proceed to the next stage in the purchase funnel. Because you’re communicating with technically qualified professionals, you need to support the compelling story around your new solution with stats, insights or links to reputable sources. Real life and relatable examples, particularly case studies with clear deliverables and results, are a good way to win the audience over.
At the same time, still format for easy reading by keeping paragraphs short, using strong subheads to summarise each section and, if necessary, step-by-step instructions or bullet points to outline more complex instructions or solutions.
We’ve got decades of experience producing technical and informative content for our clients – visit our eBook to find out more about our tech expertise.
29.9.22
It’s easy for whitepapers to fall into the trap of being nothing more than thinly veiled sales tools. Just a few pages in, it quickly becomes clear that the paper lacks authority and fails to provide anything new or meaningful to industry conversations.
Rather than eagerly pushing products and services, whitepapers should focus on problem solving – generating real value by helping, informing and inspiring their audience. From here, they have the power to create long-term, meaningful business leads and to set an organisation up as a thought leader.
So, how do you write a whitepaper that establishes your credibility and showcases your organisation as an industry front-runner?
From the outset, take a two-pronged approach to gathering your inputs and insights.
Use your subject matter experts for in-depth and refined details in your whitepaper – their daily experiences on the ground will offer valuable insights on the most pressing trends in the industry. Ask them: What’s affecting customers? What questions are they fielding regularly? What challenges are emerging in their market? This will help identify your customers’ key pain points as well as guiding the main topic and core sections of your whitepaper.
Next, consult your sales directors and use their input to steer wider market research. The sales team will provide ‘bigger picture’ context, supporting evidence and balance for the final paper.
After you’ve gathered the content and inputs, make sure your unique perspective is present throughout the paper. Here are our top tips on letting your thought leadership shine through:
To find out more about writing market-leading whitepapers, please contact us.
27.8.22
As a B2B content commissioner, a prime part of your role is to make sure internally and externally produced content speaks with your brand’s tone of voice – but what does that mean in practice?
All too often, corporate brand guidelines focus on a list of aspirational statements and are light on detail – the specifics of what you should be looking for when you review blog posts, whitepapers, brochures and eBooks. Vague, subjective pointers like ‘be inspirational’ aren’t always the type of practical guidance you need.
We’ve been interpreting and implementing global organisations’ tone of voice guidelines for over 16 years now, so here’s a brief rundown of our top tips…
Use any tone descriptors to give you a flavour of how a brand aims to sound, but don’t get too hung up on trying to interpret them into concrete examples. They’re usually included to paint a word picture, rather than to provide hard-and-fast rules. Remember, too, that these descriptors are highly subjective: what’s ‘visionary’ for one person could well be exaggeration for another.
Good tone of voice guidelines will include plenty of examples, usually demonstrating before and after scenarios. This is where you can really get to grips with the mechanics of tone, seeing it in action and understanding how it varies between different content types. Often you learn as much from what the brand team doesn’t want than from what it does.
The brand voice may go through many updates, but the fundamentals of tone will remain the same:
Particularly in the early days of a brand voice update, it’s often useful to get a marketing colleague to review the tone of a piece of content. This way your team will quickly build up a shared view how your brand voice should be brought to life and will be ready to give constructive feedback to content creators.
Your brand team have invested huge amounts of time into developing the tone of voice guidelines and they know them better than anyone else, so use your brand colleagues. It’s never helpful when marketing departments see brand as a hindrance to getting content out. Instead, see the brand team as a resource you can tap into for clarification and guidance. Bringing brand in on your first few content reviews, or on any tricky issues, is always a good idea and will deepen your tonal knowledge for the future.
We are experts at creating B2B content in your brand voice. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more about working together.
20.7.22
In B2B marketing, your content often revolves around sharing expert opinions with your decision-making audience. For many organisations, that means getting subject matter experts to write whitepapers, eBooks and blog posts.
Content written by subject matter experts only works if the experts in the target company are making the buying decisions, but that doesn’t happen often. It’s more likely that your decision-making audience are time-poor C-suite executives who need to grasp the value of your proposition quickly before saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
To get that ‘yes’, global organisations’ marketing departments often use content creators as ‘translators’ who make complex expertise simple and set it in the context of how it can help the business.
We’ve been translating expertise for over 15 years, and rely on a few key principles to generate successful content:
Always remember that the heart of your content is your expert’s knowledge, not the marketing you surround it with. They operate in a world of precise terminology, where using a term incorrectly could change the whole meaning or devalue your efforts to be a thought leader. Put time into understanding the language of the sector and ask questions if something’s unclear.
Thought leadership content often needs the credibility of a named author. So, it makes sense to incorporate the individual’s turns of speech to create standout from your corporate tone. Listen out for favourite phrases or effective analogies when talking to your expert .Then, weave them into your clear, easy-to-read copy.
Expertise can be intimidating because you don’t have an equal level of knowledge. However, it’s important to remember that you’re not in the conversation to debate the finer points of the subject. Your job is to gather information, clarify your understanding and get an overall picture of the messages your expert wants to get across. Don’t be embarrassed to ask for simplistic explanations suitable for a bright ten-year-old, or to probe if you don’t get the point straightaway.
Your expert’s knowledge is deep and wide, and there’s no way you can capture it all in one piece of content. Always start a project with a clear idea of the area you are covering, preferably broken down into sections by the expert or the marketing department in advance. An effective opening question is ‘what’s the key message you want the reader to take away from this content?’.
Successful content sets the thought leadership of expertise within a clear context of benefits for the reader’s organisation. Getting to this point involves tapping into your expert’s interactions with customers so that they share actionable insights rather than knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Always filter what your expert is telling you through the question, ‘how does this help our target audience?’.
We excel at making this whole process easy for both the experts and the marketing department. Get in touch if you’d like to find out how we could connect your customers with your expert’s insight.
18.6.22
Almost half of employees are now opting to work mostly from home and ‘sometimes’ from their usual place of work. So-called ‘hybrid working’, it’s more flexible than traditional patterns of working and can boost productivity, team wellbeing and work-life balance. But it can be tricky to get right. To make sure everyone has a great experience, including your clients, digital platforms have to effectively support the team’s coordination, leadership, communication, and client outreach.
At asabell, we’ve been successfully hybrid working for a while, so we’ve decided to take a closer look at how to make sure hybrid works. Here are some of our top tips.
So, there you have it! Our top tips for making hybrid work. To find out more about how we make sure we produce the best work, while also remaining responsive and accessible to our clients, please get in touch.
16.5.22
B2B marketing in the supply chain and logistics industry is in a state of flux. After a year of considerable challenges, marketing might have shifted right down your list of urgent priorities.
As we mentioned in our recent blog, it’s time to enter a new phase. This year, the industry needs to take marketing off the backburner and focus on building great business relationships that will weather the uncertainty of the coming years.
So where do you begin if B2B hasn’t been on the agenda for a while?
Often, you need an outside pair of eyes. A partner who can assess where you’re at – what’s working and what’s not. From there, it’s important to discuss your business goals and put together a plan that’s tailored to achieving them.
For lots of organisations within the supply chain and logistics industry, technology solutions are core to their campaigns. The successes many businesses have enjoyed after implementing new technologies evidence how innovative, agile and forward-thinking they are. In a market still peppered with uncertainties, these qualities are just what clients are looking for.
If you’ve had some business wins, like successfully optimising the factory floor through IT/OT convergence, or digitally optimising your supply chain, that’s a great place to start gathering material for your next campaign. Case studies, expert opinions, revamping your social media channels and reviewing your brand identity are all good starter for tens, too.
For more information on how marketing can help you achieve your business goals this year, keep an eye out for our latest whitepaper. It’s tailored to your industry, and it’s full of insights into how to drive more value from your marketing.
And, as always, let us know if you’d like any help or guidance. We’ve work with lots of businesses in your sector, creating a range of materials from articles to whitepapers, animations, infographics, and web pages. Tell us what you want to achieve and we’ll deliver the content to get you there!
