Creating B2B content for technology and manufacturing companies is relatively simple, even if you skirmish with ideas, grammar or writing. Here?s how to make it easy and–believe it or not–enjoyable.

Use This Simple Model For B2B Content

(Scroll Down For Tech Company Example)

B2B Content – Step 1

The first step is to think of this as something that can be done in increments of 15-20 minutes. There?s no law that says you have to create an article all at once. Few writers ever do. ?Once you jot down a few bullet points most of the article will come to you spontaneously when you?re thinking about something else.

B2B Content – Step 2

The second step is to think of a topic about which you would like to read. You?re a professional and like most of your peers you want to stay current about your work and profession. You know the trends in your market space and what twirls your propeller better than anyone…write about it.

B2B Content – Step 3

The next step is to go through this short exercise, jotting down a few bullet points. Save the full sentences for later.

Jot Down Five Bullet Points

1. Background, usually a recent trend in your industry, vertical or market space around this topic.
2. Current Challenge – In B2B a challenge is almost always described in terms of time and money wasted.
3. Your Viewpoint – ?I know the industry…here?s what?s driving this trend.?
4. Your Recommendation – ?Based on that I recommend?. It?s fine to highlight your product?s key advantages without mentioning your company or the product name.
5. Wrap It Up – End the article quickly so your readers can get back to what they were doing.

There?s no need to create these in any specific order. Just pick one with which you?re comfortable and get started.

Tech Company Example

You’re with a company that sells file management software to certain verticals. Here?s how you would create a piece for an enterprise data storage audience focused on the life sciences vertical.

Background – “Life sciences is creating petabytes of unstructured data through genome and related projects that have complex workflows with lots of technical and/or rich content. This leads to soaring storage and IT costs for those companies.”

Current Challenge – “Data storage costs are skyrocketing and overburdened IT staffs need a way to push file management down to the business user, in this case the research scientist. Allowing the researcher to determine what, when and where to archive data for later retrieval will migrate data to lower cost storage and save huge amounts of time and expense for IT teams.”

Your Experience – ?Recently we?ve seen next generation enterprise software solutions that solve this problem. With ROI focused architectures, these solutions are ideal for cloud computing and object storage.”

Your Recommendation – ?Look for software companies that offer…?. ?Fashion a bullet list that, of course, highlights your company’s competitive advantages without ever mentioning the name of your company or software.

Wrap it up – “There?s no longer a mandate for IT departments to keep adding costly near term storage. Nor is it necessary for IT teams to bear the brunt of mediating between business users of data and storage archives.”

With a few simple bullet points you have an outline for an article. Once you?re happy with your bullet points it?s time to write the article or delegate ?to someone else. If you delegate make sure it’s someone who knows your company, products and markets. Aim for 500 words because search engines won?t take you seriously unless it?s at least 300 words and it usually takes about 500 words to show your credibility as an expert or influencer.

Finally, look at what you?ve created and think of a seven word headline that grabs someone?s attention and shows this will help them do their job better. ?Potential headlines for this article could be:

Overwhelmed By Unstructured Data? Here’s Relief.

IT: Stop Mediating Between Users and Archive

Ideal Data Storage Solutions for Unstructured Data

Finally, notice how easily this article can be converted for an audience in a different vertical. Ninety percent of the content can also apply to industries with rich content or technical workflows including Media & Entertainment, Oil & Gas, Software Development and others. So with relatively little effort you now have interesting, relevant content that can be blogged, tweeted and posted multiple times across multiple verticals for several weeks.

Remember, B2B marketing is all about explanation and ROI, which is quite different from consumer marketing (attractiveness and immediacy). People expect B2B articles to be succinct but they also expect them to deliver an explanation of how your viewpoint can lead them to saving time and money.

Best of luck and feel free to let me know if you get writer’s block. Yours,   E. Hemingway