B2B Content Writing Challenges in 2024

A recent survey showed that 97% of executives in B2B companies consider brand marketing as an essential tool for revenue growth.¹ Creating and publishing content (i.e. content marketing) is an important part of brand marketing.

In this article, we will highlight

• What is B2B content writing?
• B2B content writing niches
• Benefits of content writing for B2B companies, and
• Challenges and solutions for the marketing teams to improve their brand marketing strategies.

What is B2B content writing?

B2B (business-to-business) content writing is a service in which experienced writers compose an article and create e-mails or whitepapers for businesses. B2B content targets a number of people within businesses instead of individual customers, thus, it has a broader language and can be a more complex process as the writers must persuade a group of people.

A recent survey conducted with B2B content writers shows that they refer to case studies the most while creating content.²

Source: 2022 Content Marketing Report

Figure 1. Visualization of where the content writers refer to while creating content.

Why is creating B2B content important?

Although one may think that B2B buyers spend most of their time meeting with potential suppliers, a recent report shows that those who do this are only 17%, and they assert that they spend more time researching independently online or offline.³ 

Besides, a successful B2B brand marketing strategy such as thought-leadership content marketing or omnichannel interaction results in up to a 20% increase in sales⁴. That’s why creating effective B2B content is crucial in helping buyers realize your services or brand.⁴

Top 3 benefits of B2B content writing

The benefits of writing content for B2B companies are as follows:²

1. Educate the audience

The audience of B2B content is people who are planning to purchase and looking for potential solutions and suppliers.

Thus, they want to read content that educates them, gives them insights regarding the field, and how their proposed solution helps. So, provide them with insights that can be turned into actions.

2. Create brand awareness

To stand out in the market, you need to get noticed by the buyers, so brand awareness is a must. Content writing can help your company to be found on search engines, or the whitepapers written in quality can attract attention from individuals within B2B companies.

3. Build credibility

The B2B buyers’ journey (i.e., trusting one company over others and making purchases from them) can be quite complicated. A recent report shows that a sales representative can only have up to 6% effect on purchasing decisions.³ They do their own independent research till the stage of meeting with sales representatives. Thus, what you offer online or offline can be important in gathering information about your company.

Top 6 industries that can benefit from B2B content writing:

1. Healthcare

B2B healthcare buyers can be very selective and careful in choosing a supplier as their customers are those with a health condition and want to improve their health. Thus, being data-driven and keeping up with the latest research findings and practices are critical while reaching audiences. Content for blog posts or videos can help you present the latest technologies.

2. Finance

Producing reliable content is crucial, especially in the finance sector, as Google has taken the initiative to combat misinformation that threatens one’s financial stability or life (e.g., wrong investment suggestions) and developed a Search Quality Rankers program to evaluate the content on the Internet. Based on the feedback from raters, Google developers roll out the pages that spread low-quality content.⁶

3. Technology

Content writing in the tech industry, also called IT content writing, is a newly emerging field that explains considerably complex phenomena (i.e., cybersecurity, IoT, AI, sentiment analysis) to the general audience. Companies hire content writers for whitepapers, peer review lists, or case studies.

4. Banking

As with the finance sector, the banking industry also needs to be very careful in what they present to the general audience because the customers want to work with banks that give assurances that they will manage their money. Content for blog posts or podcasts can be created to prove expertise and build trust.

5. Energy

The need for energy resources of individuals and companies is indisputable. However, since climate change has started to show itself, especially in the last century, people’s and companies’ perspectives on energy companies have started to change, so they prefer to work with companies they can trust. Thus, honest content that explains the latest trends, innovations, and practices that do not harm the environment is required.

6. Law

Getting legal advice is also very important for individuals and companies. Companies that will receive this service undergo a very strict review process, affecting their decision on whom to work with. Thus, B2B companies that offer legal advice must prove their field expertise to gain new customers. That’s why they create content as blog posts that provide crucial insights to attract them.

Challenges of writing B2B content

In 2021, 75% of large B2B companies stated that they outsource content writers instead of performing them in-house. However, outsourcing writers also has some challenges, as seen in the figure below.²

Source: 12th Annual B2B Content Marketing Report

Figure 2. The most encountered challenges while outsourcing B2B content writers

Top 4 questions to ask before choosing a content writer

1. Do they have expertise in your field?

Before committing to work with a content writer, ask them for one or two articles in your field and evaluate their understanding of the field, how they conceptualize it, and how they approach it.

2. Do they provide easy and multiple means of communication?

Even though you provide a briefing on your expectations, it may be challenging to be on the same page from the start. That’s why being offered multiple communication channels would be a great sign that you can contact each other in the content creation process. This feedback loop can minimize any miscommunication or unmet expectations.

3. Do they offer flexibility in the content?

How you present, the content is as important as the content itself. In other words, implementing images, graphs, or figures in the necessary parts of the texts would make your content attract more attention.

4. With whom have they worked in the past?

You can check the writer’s previous works or check whether they work with any Fortune 500 companies. This can hint at the quality of their work and whether you can trust them.

Check out our benchmarking study on content writing tools

You can also check out our content writing tools benchmarking to compare the vendors in the market, which services they offer, and their pricing.

Please contact us if you have any additional questions about content writing services:

Sources

1- Sheerin, Alannah (November 9, 2021). “Why Brand Marketing Matters?”. BCG. retrieved November 10, 2022.

2- “12th Annual B2B Content Marketing” (PDF). Content Marketing Institute. July 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2022.

3- “The B2B buying journey: Sales insights”. Gartner. Retrieved November 10, 2022.

4- “B2B Marketing”. Bain & Company. Retrieved November 10, 2022.

5- “What Is a B2B Writer?” Fenwick. Retrieved November 10, 2022.

6- “Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines” (PDF). Google. July 28, 2022. Retrieved November 10, 2022.