B2B Superpowers - Breaking Bland - How To Make Your B2B Content Engaging

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Essential B2B Podcast, brought to you as ever by Lead Forensics. I'm your host, Joe Ducaro. Here's another conversation from our B2B Superpowers webinar series, this time with returning guest Tom Edwards, digital director at Archetype and host of the Complete Tech Heads podcast. For this one we're discussing how to ensure that the content you're putting out isn't bland and stands out from the crowd, which is a common problem in B2B. Tom is a super informative guest and I loved being able to pick his brains once more. So without further ado, here is Tom Edwards on breaking how to make your B2B content engaging. Just to set out our stall slightly, what are the key differences between B2B and B2C content? And how can we make B2B content just as engaging as that of B2C?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I mean obviously the main difference is the clue is in the name, right? So B2B is for business audiences and B2C is for per consumer. So immediately straight off the bat you've, you've got a far bigger wider net that you're casting with B2C. Um, and so you can leverage things like, you know, celebrity culture and sports and all of that sort of stuff that, that has very, very large audiences, um, to drive engagement. Whereas with B B2B people tend to be a little bit more risk averse, I think. Um, because you have a lot more um, sign offs and you have a lot more kind of, um, a lot more built in assumptions about who your audience is. Uh, and people kind of tend to look at, you know, the LinkedIn audience targeting or whatever and you see it's all directors and CEOs or whoever you're targeting. Um, and it does tend more to be on the senior side, in my experience. Um, which isn't necessarily, you know, the right thing to do but it, but that's the way it is. That's where people believe the decision makers are. And so they think that they need to be more risk averse in targeting them because businesses are much more concerned about the way that they're presenting themselves, I think to these more kind of higher value target audiences. Um, so yeah, you tend to have, I think a little bit less, um, not creativity but, but you tend to be a little bit more restricted in your creative roots with B2B. Um, and so I think one of the ways that you can potentially bring your B2B content more in line with, with kind uh, of B2C outlook, let's say, is to take more risks and to try to think outside the box a little bit more and to encourage your internal stakeholders to um, push the boundaries a little bit. Um, would be my first kind of stake in the ground.

Speaker A: Well, in terms of that sort of the, the creativity side of things then, so what something that I've often found with you know, in, in certain walks life is that restriction does often breed creativity. Um, so that's why you know, with Lee friends, being on the brand team myself, we really enjoy like okay, so this is the, the corridor we've got to fit into. What can we do within those restrictions? So I do enjoy that side of things.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Something that you mentioned quite early on in your answer was you know, referencing celebrity culture or pop culture or something like that. Does that mean, you know, there is no place for that sort of discussion or ideas in B2B?

Speaker B: Uh, no, I don't think so. I think part of the reason is that those kinds of elements tend to be less relevant to the, to the product that you're selling in B2B. So you know, consumer brands, you know, like makeup brands or fast food brands or whatever, they'll have more kind of relevance to those celebrities. They'll be more of a, um, more of a natural connection there. Whereas with B2B your influencers often will tend to be business people themselves and so they tend to already have a job. Uh, and it's, it's, you know, it's difficult to find a uh, business influencer, uh, with a large enough audience that is going to be a price point that's going to work because it's, it doesn't, it tends not to be their full time job. You know, a business influencer will tend to already have a very, you know, well paid and time intensive job in their field and will tend to be kind of posting on social media in their, in their spare time to build their own network and their own audience. So finding those brand partnerships tends to be a bit more difficult. Um, I mean speaking about celebrity culture more generally, I think you definitely can, um, and you know the real golden um, nuggets are ah, where you can find that crossover where there is, you know, popular culture is crossing over into what your business does. Which people tend to refer to as B2B 2C right. Where you're talking to business people as consumers. Um, and there are lots of brands, you know, particularly tech brands that are tending to do that very well.

Speaker A: Yeah, I suppose on the, it's, it's, I think it's slightly easier to do on the social media side of things versus you know, when we discuss content, you know, like emails, blogs, that sort of thing. On your, your social side of things, I think there's definitely an appetite for um, propagating memes or something like that. You know, I mean, you know, referencing pop culture of the moment that, you know, capturing that zeitgeist but then relating it back to your product. That's something that we very much leverage all the time.

Speaker B: Yeah, totally, Yeah. I mean there was, you know, there was like, there are lots of cultural moments that businesses tend to get involved with. Like there was the Wes Anderson thing, right, uh, where everyone was filming like skits in the style of Wes Anderson. There are lots of businesses that jumped on that. The Roman Empire is another recent one where, you know, how often do you think about the Roman Empire? I don't know if you've come across this. Right, yeah. Uh, so lots of businesses have been, you know, riffing on the, you know, thinking about the Roman Empire and you know, we've seen that a lot with, with our clients as well and they tend to do well. You know, like if you can get involved in that cultural moment, I think there's a reason why memes, you know, explode and then drop off. It's because we have this kind of inbuilt kind of social engagement mechanism where we all kind of want to get involved in the, in the current thing. Right. And audiences of business to business brands, uh, are no different to uh, B2C brands in that regard. I think they do tend to do quite well. And again that kind of comes back to my earlier point which is the brands that are prepared to take a few more risks will be able to leverage that and generate that engagement. Whereas if you've got a thousand sign offs by the time you get to actually posting it, it's old news and you don't get any engagement at all and you look like you're behind the time. So um, if you're going to do that kind of thing, you have to do it quickly and it has to be part of your kind of brand tone of voice as well. It doesn't work for everyone. And if you are, you know, if you're working in a, in perhaps a much more serious industry, you know, if you're like a, I don't know, cybersecurity firm or something, it might not work, um, and it might not be the kind of thing that you want your brand to be talking about. So you've kind of got to define Your brand tone of voice. Before you get involved in this, if you've got more of a kind of um, laid back, um, kind of personable brand, which as I say you tend to get a lot in, in, in tech firms, um, then you can get away with it. People kind of expect it more of, of that kind of company.

Speaker A: Are there ah, any examples of B2B companies that have, you know, successfully shared or created even engaging content? And, and what are the, the factors of those strategies that made them stand out?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I mean one, one that really stood out to me was um, a campaign that Fiverr did, ah, fiverr.com ah, you know, with two Rs, um, where they, it was a, they got all of their team to um, change their, their job titles on LinkedIn. Um, and they put them to uh, you know, like kind of silly things or, or things to do with their personality that aren't necessarily to do with their job. Like you know, the person who complains about uh, the washing up in the kitchen or whatever. It was like you know, creative, ah, producer and um, you know, dog, mummy or you know, whatever it is, like little things like that. And it's, I thought it was genius because um, it's leveraging the algorithm, right? So people's job title changes get incredible reach because LinkedIn thinks that this is a really, you know, incredible life moment. Everybody congratulates people who, who get, who get a new job title or you know, a promotion or a move. And so it gets huge algorithm distribution and so worked perfectly. I think I saw it everywhere on my feed. Um, and because it was um, leveraging that, that um, quirk of the algorithm, um, it did insane engagement and it also kind of told a, a story about Fiverr being a kind of friendly, fun brand and it, they're a B2C brand, you know, they're marketing to freelancers and people who buy freelancers. So it works across all of that because it's talking about your, it's, it's aligning your job with your passion, which is exactly what freelancers on, on Fiverr are doing. So um, yeah, I thought that was really, really clever. And they, they also combined it with like an out of home campaign as well. So they put a lot of these silly job titles on, on out of home ads. So yeah, thought that was very, very clever. Um, there's a, there's, there's a guy called uh, Rob Mayhew, I don't know if you've come across him who's a, a TikTok and LinkedIn influencer. He does different, he does a few different brand partnerships. Um, I think Expedia was one of them. He's done others. But he does, he does skits about the marketing world. So I mean you'd love it. As with any marketers watching this, I'm sure most people watching this would have, would have probably already heard of him. But he um, kind of just puts a, um, kind of not sarcastic but just, just a humorous slant on day to day business in the marketing world, particularly the marketing agency world. But I think you know, in house marketers will, will get it as well. You know, he kind of pokes fun at the pitch process and about uh, you know, like how last minute, you know, creative ideas usually are. You know, he's, he's forever talking about how, you know, yeah, we just made this idea up, you know, 12 hours ago and it's like the big, the big, the big idea and stuff like that. Um, so, so he's great. And again I think that it's kind of links back to things we've been saying which is that it's kind of marrying, it's taking B2B outside of that kind of stuffy suit and tie, you know, serious, serious, serious mentality and bringing it into a world of human beings who have quirks and foibles and are a bit silly. Um, and that's why it works so well and that's why it gets so much engagement and why it's, you know, people are like, you look at the comments and it's just people saying, you know, lol. This is, this happened. This exact same thing happened in my office last week. You know, whatever, it's relatable. Um, and I think it's, it's difficult to be relatable if you're sticking strictly within your business parameters to be relatable you have to be a human being. Um, and so that's why he works so well. Um, yeah.

Speaker A: So then, so what are the, I mean we've mentioned, you know, sticking to the stuffy sort of suited corporate um, you know, Personas that you put out with your content sort of thing. What are the other common mistakes that B2B companies make with their content?

Speaker B: So I think the biggest one, um, which, which is like a timeless mistake is talking about yourself and not talking about your customers. Uh, which, which happens a lot. Like often you look at a landing page and you can, you can tell immediately whether it's talking to the customer or whether it's the business talking about themselves. And you know, audiences are Interested in, in themselves, as we all are. Right? Like we're people are interested in themselves and what problems they have and what their day to day is. They're browsing social media, they're, you know, taking time out of an otherwise very busy day doing something else, um, to you know, get some, you know, updates on the industry, but generally stuff that's going to entertain and engage and educate them. So the most important thing is to talk about, about your customer rather than you, um, and try to address their pain points, try to address their lives, try to address what's. What's. What's what, what, what their, what the vision of their future could be like if you work together rather than, you know, we've developed this amazing platform, we've analyzed all of these, you know, millions of data sets. We can do this and we can do that and we can do this. It's like nobody cares about how wonderful your algorithm is, but they might care if it turns out that that algorithm can really make, um, a big impact to their day to day and make them look good in front of their boss and get them a promotion, you know, and then they can have the beach house and the, you know, the wonderful retirement, uh, you know, with a pina colada and uh, you know, a sun lounger. Right? That's what, that's where they want to get to help them get there, you know, with your amazing algorithm, then, then great, then they're going to listen. But just build, you know, building your amazing algorithm and how wonderful you are, I don't think people are going to be too interested in. So that's, that's the thing that I see coming up most of all. Um, and I think you see the biggest dichotomy on that is in tech again. Like you see some tech brands that do it super, super well and others who fall into that hole of just raving about how, how amazing they are and how clever they are and how, you know, how many data points they've got. Um, yeah. And then, then the other one as we've kind of already touched on is risk avoidance. Um, you know, I think in B2B there can be a tendency towards avoiding risk, um, playing it safe. Um, but then you can't marry that with, you know, shooting for, um, extraordinary results. You can't ask for very ordinary, you know, compliance process and risk, um, appetite and then expect out of the ordinary results. So I think breaking down those barriers to taking a few risks is also, uh, an important one.

Speaker A: It is an incredibly tricky fee, isn't it just to uh, you know, because here we're saying, okay, well you try and marry, you know, the zeitgeist creativity, but maintaining that, taking more risk. It's not an easy thing to create an engaging piece of content, is it? At all? So, but what I wanted to ask you about Tom, is um, you were saying there about, you know, showing your customers how your product, service, whatever it is that you're selling, how that can help their lives and how, you know, can they see their future with you once. How, how do you maintain that long lasting engagement and long lasting audience with those people?

Speaker B: Long lasting engagement with, with, with like, so what, how do you, how do you hold on to that engagement over long period of time?

Speaker A: Yeah, so yeah, getting convinced, you know, walking people to that door of saying, hey, stick with us because, you know, we can help you. That's probably a cornerstone of it. But what else can you do to keep them coming back to you? Almost making a community almost. I suppose.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, so I think so there are, obviously there are, there are plenty of, you know, loyalty tactics that you can employ to kind of keep people engaging with you. I think it's also important to look at different platforms. So like I've found as a, you know, as a, as a, as a content creator outside of, outside of the day job, there's a big difference in the, in the consistency of engagement on different platforms. So I find, for example with, so I'll do a podcast episode once a week, right. Um, which is video and audio. So the podcast audio audience very consistent week after week. So it will, you know, it will grow pretty consistently and it will fluctuate slightly. But you don't have, I don't ever have real dead weeks. Whereas on, you know, YouTube, LinkedIn, um, X, to a, to a lesser degree actually. But um, I've got more, more followers there. Um, excuse me, that can really fluctuate. So if the algorithm doesn't like a piece of content on, on YouTube, it just gets nothing, right? So it will give you your, you know, your first 500 impressions or whatever. If you're, if you're not getting the click through rate off of those, then it's just dead. Um, whereas the other side is that it can shoot up and you can be hitting thousands and thousands of views. Um, if it does like it, but it will fluctuate to a far greater degree. And that's the same with LinkedIn as well. So understanding the differences between platforms is really important. And so stuff like podcast, you will find as much more consistent I think email's an interesting one as well because you own the, you own the data with email, um, you have much more insight into the nuts and bolts of where your engagement's coming from. And if you get email, right, you can make that much more consistent. You can get to a stage where people are opening every one. Um, so like companies like Buzzsumo do that really well. I open every, every email I get from Buzzsumo because it's full of really genuinely interesting insight which I know is relevant to me and my job. All about social media, all about the algorithms, all about what's trending, all of that stuff. So, um, you can build up those kinds of habits. And the different, the difference we're talking about here, really, if you think, you know, email and podcast on one side and LinkedIn, YouTube platforms on the other, is ownership of the distribution, right? So with podcasts and email, the data's, the customers are yours, you're distributing your content to them pretty directly. I mean, certainly with email, less so with podcasts because obviously you're going through Apple and Spotify, but it's a much closer relationship. Whereas YouTube and LinkedIn and Instagram and whatever else, you're very dependent on their distribution. Um, and it's about what, so they'll test it among a few audiences that they think are relevant by the keywords and then, and then that's it. Subscribers aren't as important as they used to be on YouTube anymore. So, so yeah, I think that's, that's the main thing is understanding your different platforms. And obviously embedded in that point is consistent quality. Um, and I think as an individual it's much more difficult. So, you know, I will find it's, you know, I have DUFF weeks, right, because sometimes it's just me. Um, and we're human beings, we fluctuate in our, in our abilities. You know, sometimes we have a bad week. Right. Um, whereas as a, as a business, as a marketing team, you should be able to maintain the quality. If you've got a good team, um, and you've got ideas coming in from different places and you've got that kind of agile, quick sign off process to make sure that good stuff is going out quickly, that you're tapping on those trends, then maintaining that consistent quality over time should mean that people keep coming back. And um, yeah, I think you will tend to see it's like the, the, the stability comes from the owned data, but the growth will tend to come from the, the, the platforms. Because if you do, if you do strike gold, Then it will shoot up into the sky. And then hopefully what you can do is by maintaining your consistent quality over time, you can harvest some of that, some of, some of the audiences that have come in over that one, you know, successful piece of content, make them stick around. And so if you can get a few peaks, but from every one of those peaks, you've got a percentage of them that are sticking around for the more consistent ongoing relationship, then you'll be doing well.

Speaker A: That's it, isn't it? It's something we've not particularly mentioned too much because, you know, for us it's kind of inherent, isn't it? But you want to be offering genuine value as well as, like, you know, if you can, if it, if it's entertaining as well, then that's, that's, that's, that's, you know, the high country, isn't it? But you do have to offer genuine value. As you mentioned, your, the emails that you open consistently. It's because there is something useful in there for you. Yeah, um, yeah, so that, I think that's a, that's a really, that's a crucial point actually. And knowing the platforms as well, I think you're absolutely spot on. It's, it's really interesting what you said about, you know, obviously the audio podcast, they're a lot more consistent than the other bits. That's because it's people on their way to work. It's while they're doing. Yeah, yeah, and it's, it's Monday. It's a new complete decade, you know, so.

Speaker B: Right, yeah, exactly. And it's habit forming. Yeah, exactly. Um, and yeah, so being consistent, you know, I try to publish on the same day every week, uh, because I'm trying to build those habits. And look, I'm sure it's the same, same for you. I'm sure you're always thinking about how can we build the, the habits where we're providing value on a regular basis so that people know that they want to come back. Um, so, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's important to, you know, consistency above all else is, uh, you know, is what I would say. I think that that's, you know, going back to the, you know, your previous question about what mistakes to brands make. I think another big one is inconsistency. So they'll try like SEO is the classic one. Right. But, you know, they'll try SEO for like three months and then not see any results and then assume that SEO is not going to work for them. It's like, well, you know, SEO, you're not going to see any results for at least six, you know, and really, your SEO strategy should be looking years ahead, you know, because it's just that, that's the way it works. Ditto any kind of, um, digital marketing campaign, really, like, if you're not consistent over time. But, like, you know, you see brands doing podcasts as well, and they'll do six, right? And they'll, they'll, they'll throw the kitchen sink at six. Um, and then they'll get some listens and it'll do okay, and they'll get some engagement, but because it hasn't immediately paid back the roi, uh, you know, that they spent on it, um, they'll say, well, no, we tried podcasts. It doesn't work. And it's like, well, look, you look at any podcast, look at, look at the biggest podcast in the world. You know, look at Lex Friedman or, or Joe Rogan. They've been doing it for years. And it's, it's hockey stick growth. It's, you know, you, you have to keep going with, with very little engagement, beyond the point where it feels like it's not doing anything, and only then will you, will you start to grow, you know, um, and that's. That, that's something that I think people are guilty of. Um, but brands certainly are because, you know, on a brand level, you've, you've, obviously, in the meantime, you've got people changing, you know, in the agency and in the company. You've got, um, budgets changing every quarter. There's a reassessment of what's working and what's not. And so things get, budgets get pulled, budgets get reinvested elsewhere. So it's, it's even more difficult to maintain consistency, um, as a, as a brand. But if you can, you'll, you'll reap the rewards, in my opinion.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Um, but like, you guys, right, So, I mean, you've been, you've been really consistent with these. And like, I, I, uh, suspect it's, it's, it's, you know, you're reaping rewards, right?

Speaker A: Oh, uh, well, yeah, with. Yeah, the, the. Yeah, uh, definitely the, the consistently, the consistency is definitely, um, has definitely helped put us a bit further ahead of where we have been previously. A hundred percent.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I see your content in my feed all the time. Um, and I'm sure it's, you know, and also, like, you know, obviously I've got a relationship with you guys. I've done one of these before. And you know, you know, we, I know a few of your, of your, uh, of your colleagues over at Lead Forensics. Um, so I'm aware of you, but if I wasn't, and I'd seen that content in my feed every week, even if I'm just scrolling past most of them, I'm still recognizing it. And you know, if you do that, you, you compound that over years, it's, it's going to be just a, uh, much higher degree of brand recognition than just doing a few, seeing how it goes and then trying something else.

Speaker A: Absolutely, yeah. So, well, I'm pleased to, you know, we're, we're reaching to you, Thomas.

Speaker B: That's very encouraging.

Speaker A: Um, do you have any tips on. Because something that, particularly with, um, video, something that comes to mind, and this may seem like a sort of roundabout way of saying this, but it will come to a point that's worth making. Uh, there's such a thing with video content as the millennial pause. Are you aware of the millennial pause, Tom?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I am, yeah. It was kicking around online a while ago. Was it? Is it where the video starts and then you don't say anything for a second because you're waiting for it to start recording? Whereas Gen Z, their phones have got much better and so they start talking straight away.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly it. So, and if, you know, if there is a pause, they just skip to the next thing. So, uh, it's to illustrate, um, as a point, to illustrate my next question for you. If you've only got, you know, a fraction of a second to grab somebody's attention, have you got any tips on crafting, like, attention grabbing introductions for B2B content? Not necessarily video. It could be, you know, about subject lines for emails, anything like that. A, uh, thumbnail. What are, what are your thoughts on that one?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, you're absolutely right. On video, like, you've got very, very little time to engage people. Um, and yeah, look, it's difficult. I, I think so. A general point, people, people tend to, um, engage with faces, human faces, people like faces. Um, which obviously has obvious evolutionary grounding. Right? Like we, we respond to other people's faces, especially attractive faces. So if you've got, you know, if you've got someone with an attractive face, I mean, I don't know, I don't know how, how this show is going to do in that context. So you and me, we do our best. Um, but, but yeah, uh, so, yeah, faces, faces are good. Like, I think generally with, with this Point, you know, if I was speaking pre AI revolution, I would have said some things, but I think that generative AI has kind of thrown the rulebook into the bonfire now. It's like, because usually you say, well, you know, like, try and get some kind of original, engaging imagery, get lots of bright colors, whatever. But everyone's got that now. Uh, you know, everyone's got, you know, everyone's using Mid Journey and all of their visuals look incredible. Um, people are, you know, and I would have said, you know, if you've got just a static, then, you know, maybe try to do something with, with motion. That's all really easy to do now. And lots of people are doing that. So, yeah, I think the most important thing really is testing and learning and leveraging AI to try a bunch of stuff and see what works, because the opportunity cost now to. Creating a high volume of different assets for the same kind of message is much smaller. So you can do that much easier. Um, so you can, yeah, you can try out a bunch of stuff and, and, and see what sticks. There is also, like, you know, there are some, uh, psychological quirks of, of humans that you can leverage. So, um, you know, faces is one of them. Um, but also, uh, the color red, um, it tends to, it signals danger. And um, and there is a negativity bias as well, which doesn't work for all brands. I think B2B brands tend to steer clear of this. But you see it in, we see it on YouTube. You know, everything is, you know, terrifying or someone destroys someone else or it's like, there's um, shocking and, and with a negative slant tends to do really well. And like, you get it in PR as well. So if you, you know, you put out a press release, if it's got a, like you can, if you've got a data story. And there are, there are two ways you can phrase it. One is like X percent of people think everything's great, or the other one is X percent of people think everything's terrible. The one where everything's terrible is much more likely to get picked up by journalists because journalists have this negativity bias. And the reason journalists have the negativity bias is because they know that their readers have the negativity bias. And I, I used to be a journalist, um, and a digital journalist, you know, at Telegraph and the Sun. And you see it, you see it when you, because you, you get immediate feedback on articles that you publish.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And obviously they've got big audiences, so it's, it's large data Sets and you see that the, the articles that have got, um, yeah, some kind of negativity bias will tend to be more engaging. Um, but yeah, with B2B, obviously you're always balancing that with the fact that you don't necessarily want that to be your, the perception of your brand.

Speaker A: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. But like you say, we'll stick with the positive note on that, Tom. We'll stick with some nice happy faces.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously the ideal one is nice, happy, good looking face, awful world is collapsing, headline, and then everyone's gonna click. Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, Tom, I'm gonna start to wrap up our conversation here today. You've, uh, as ever, offered up some incredible value for our audience on how to create B2B content, which is engaging. But if I could ask you for just one top, one absolute golden rule for everybody watching this to take away with them today, what would that one piece of advice be?

Speaker B: God, um, I guess the big thing now is the point that I've kind of already made, but it is, um, well, I'll combine two points. So it's the risk taking point and the AI point. Right. So my advice would be use AI to test and learn and take some risks and do things differently. Um, and throw out a load of content out there because we're a very unique moment in history where you can do that. You can, you can whatever level you're at within an organization, whether you've got design experience or developer experience or whatever, if you've got none of those, you can create stuff. Um, and so we're, we're really on the, on the brink, I believe, of a golden age of creativity. And that will be the case in marketing as it will be in the world more broadly. So make best use of it would be my advice. Um, get out there, have some ideas, put them into practice, show people around you what you're doing and try to kind of put them out there into the world because there's a lot of opportunity right now.

Speaker A: Excellent stuff, Tom. Thank you so much for sharing your B2B superpowers with us today. Remember to keep an eye on Leap forensic socials for news of, uh, our upcoming webinars. And, and we will see you again very, very soon. But for now, Tom, thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thanks, Joe. Great to see you.

Speaker A: Well, there we go. That was Tom Edwards on Breaking Bland, how to make your B2B content engaging. Remember to subscribe to the Essential B2B Podcast wherever you get your pods and, um, give us a five star rating where possible. We'll be back next week with another episode of Essential B2B.