Remember when writing was fun? New B2B marketing content writers – or writers assigned to produce content about a new application or system — usually get a rush of creative inspiration in the beginning.

You start to brainstorm about ways to communicate the software’s value to your audience, the use cases you can write about, the pain points the solution can solve, and how you’re going to contribute to some good in the world.  

Then your team starts to fence you in.  

Don’t get me wrong, consistently following guidelines and staying true to your brand are vital to developing a library of good content. That consistency in style, tone, and voice plays a major role in teaching prospects about your company and culture and what they can expect from a relationship as your client. It’s also important to optimize content for search engines, so people can actually find and read it.

But writers can get into a rut when they’re just following the rules, and, after a while, the content you’re cranking out seems repetitive, lifeless, and eerily similar. 

Inject Life Back into Your Content

Experienced B2B marketing content writers use a few tricks to keep their writing fresh, both for reader and author. See if any of these ideas reignite a spark of inspiration and get you excited about your next assignment.

1. Create a “pen pal”

Your team has probably created marketing personas to help you better understand your audience. Unfortunately, those personas don’t provide a lot of detail, e.g., “C-suite of a professional services firm with 30+ employees and annual revenues of at least $10 million who finds us online.”  

It’s good information, but it will benefit you to do some digging into your company’s top accounts and learn more about the decision makers there. How old are they? Do they live and work in cities, suburbs, or rural areas? Do they travel, or do they work primarily from a home office? What are the things those people would care about – Family? Environmental protection? The health crisis? 

When you start to create a picture of people in your audience, it instantly becomes easier to talk – or write — to them. Analogies are easier to make, examples are easier to find, and vocabulary becomes automatic.  

2. Tell a story

Yes, you’re writing to people who are looking for information on software. But that doesn’t mean you can’t draw them in with a real-life example, a success story, or a vivid illustration of a new trend in your market.  

This approach to B2B marketing content is effective because it makes your reader, not your product, the focus of the blog or article. It engages them and educates them. Moreover, it puts your products or services into context, so your readers don’t have to work to see how they provide value. And, as bonus, when the content makes a good impression, the reader will look at the byline and view that person (whether it’s you or a person you’re ghostwriting for) as a thought leader.  

3. Use your writing expertise to your advantage

There are limitless combinations of words, sentence structure, lists, quotations, illustrations, and more that you can draw upon to create content that is interesting to read — and write. Try them all. B2B marketing content writers often fall back onto templates or formulas, focusing on producing a certain volume rather than a variety of content, but mixing it up once in a while can put some excitement back into your work. 

Stay inside the rails of your company’s aforementioned guidelines, but if you’re honest about it, when you follow those rules, you still have a lot of latitude. Try new ways to introduce your blog to better capture your readers’ attention, use subheads, lists, pull-quotes and graphics, and break out the thesaurus. It might take a few more minutes than writing according to a formula, but the result can be more interesting and more effective at capturing your audience’s attention.  

4. Rely on trusted collaborators

In many cases, the best B2B marketing content is the result of collaboration. Not only can a fresh pair of eyes catch errors that you may have overlooked, but they can also confirm that the messaging is clear or suggest additional points.  

Collaborators should be someone who respects you and supports your work. No one needs another critic. Surround yourself with people who will boost your confidence, your excitement about projects – and ultimately, the quality of your writing. With the backup of collaborators, you can rest assured that you’re putting your best work forward for your audience (and the CMO) to see. 

As always, set goals of producing effective B2B marketing content, but in the coming weeks, also consider making some changes that will make writing more fun. What did you learn about your product that has sparked your interest? What is your sales team telling you about the pain points it solves? Is there a current event you can use in your introduction or an analogy you can draw from sports or pop culture?  

Get inspired and excited again. Then write.

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