Topic results for "Copywriting"
Friday post: B2B AWESOME!!!
This is a Friday Velocity post. That means all bets are off, and this is totally NSFW. But fuck it. I think it’ll make you feel awesome.B2B content marketing: when target audiences clash
Marketers are instinctively inclusive. Our default is to set our crop-sprayer on the widest possible setting, covering the largest possible audience for everything we do.
But content marketing is different.…
The “Get Your Stuff Read” blog post
Please. On your website, address the reader's needs obviously and directly. Even bluntly. They'll appreciate it.Why you should give away the very thing you sell
As content marketing gains momentum, we find that we’re not having to work quite as hard explaining the principles to prospective clients. But one objection does keep popping up…
Are you the bore in the corner?
When he was working for a big B2B company, Andrew Walker did a brave thing. He audited every piece of communication that his company put out, with a cold,…
How to write FAQs – an FAQ for B2B
We're big believers in the power of a great FAQ section on a B2B website -- not just for customer support but for marketing. So here's our FAQ on FAQs:What B2B marketers can learn from Viagra Spam
Viagra spammers have a tough challenge. They know that if they can get their message to a few billion people, a few thousand morons will place an order. But…
How to inject urgency into your B2B marketing
We talk a lot about the Battle for Attention in B2B and about Buyer Attention Deficit Disorder and the relentless Mississippi of info-dreck that gushes through us all every…
Five things I’ve learned in B2B marketing
Well, I’m moving on to work for Thomson Reuters (the siren call of being able to walk to work proved to be too strong to resist), and I thought I’d get all reflective and try to sum up some of the (many) things I’ve learned at Velocity.Copywriting: the unsung hero of B2B
We bang on a lot about the importance of copywriting in B2B but we don’t often see good data to support our case. I found some while listening to an…
Sex, Lies, and Advertising
Back in the 19th Century, you could make all kinds of wild claims about your Tincture of Gripe Water or Dr Astoundo’s Patented Baldness Liniment. Nobody could sue you if it didn’t do what it said on the tin. That changed in the early 20th Century, which is all to the good. It means marketers have to be more creative when promoting products or services, and not just resort to bare-faced lies.Ten ways that B2B marketing copy goes wrong
Let's face it, most B2B copywriting is not very good. There are many reasons, but here are our top ten. Is your latest B2B marketing copy guilty of any of them?B2B marketing jobs in London
We want your body. And your brain. We're looking for talented copywriters, designers and project managers, so if you're looking for a job in B2B marketing, come and talk to us.How to structure a B2B argument
B2B marketing always comes down to building an argument; telling a story that leads to an inescapable conclusion: ‘You need to buy this, now.’ If your argument isn’t solid, the creativity of Björk and the budget of Nike will not move your business.The power of beliefs in B2B marketing
Check out this great TED Talk by Simon Sinek on the power of beliefs in marketing. Great leaders and great companies start with beliefs not facts, policies, products or services. People don't buy WHAT you do they buy WHY you do it.B2B Copywriting: hitting the sweet spot
There are four kinds of B2B copywriting and they fall into the neat little quadrants formed when two important axes intersect: Clarity and Authenticity. If you can get both in your writing, you're in the Sweet Spot and wonderful things will begin to happen to you...B2B summed up in two words: the writing’s on the road
B2B is a lot simpler than the gurus would have you believe. After all the e-tomes and blog posts and webinars it really all boils down to two words -- and you can see them painted on almost urban street road in the land. When in doubt: look down.The value of story? About 2,776%
We’re always talking about how important a story is in marketing — but now someone has finally proven it with an ingenious experiment.
As summarised in a recent DoubleThink…
Nativ gets its mojo on
We’ve been working with a great company called Nativ, who offer a digital video content management and distribution platform and service.Velocity gets medieval
I have to confess to having no real reason for this, except that it's spring and I always think of these lines from the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales whenever it's April and it's sunny.It’s not what you said, it’s the way you said it
The general consensus out there seems to be that French Connection’s new ad campaign is a right royal triumph. If you’ve been living under a stone for the…
The F word in B2B marketing
Is it just me or is typical B2B marketing utterly joyless? Why is that? Why do people who are passionate about carp fishing and bicycling and the Beatles become…
Marketo’s new Definitive Guide gets some Velocity
We’ve been working with Marketo, the biggest cheese in B2B marketing automation, to design and sub-edit their new eBook ‘The Definitive Guide to B2B Social Media’. It’s the latest in the series of Definitive Guides (you can read the first one on Lead Nurturing here).The Cliché and The Copywriter
Trawling LinkedIn as is my wont, I came across this website which was thoughtfully shared with the world by Reuben Webb: http://www.101cliches.com/view-the-101 Oh how I sniggered.Read this or the world will end
So Gesu was wondering aloud the other day whether negative or positive headlines are more effective. By negative and positive we mean, respectively, the ones that say things like: ‘Ten things you’re doing wrong in your life’ or ‘How to be even more lovely than you are already’. They both boil down to the same thing: fear.You can have it done right, cheap, or quick. Pick two
Fortunately, it’s very rare that we ever get a client who doesn’t understand that you can’t have all three at once. Yet it’s still something that a lot of agencies come up against. But perhaps these problems wouldn’t arise if we marketers explained ourselves properly.You say tomato… copywriting for international audiences
We have a lot of international clients. Most of them are European or American, but occasionally they’re based further afield. This generates an interesting issue: how do you accommodate international English speakers in your copy?Let us march!
My favourite quote from Ogilvy On Advertising is, "When Aeshines spoke, they said, 'How well he speaks'. When Demosthenes spoke, they said, 'Let us march!'"Diary of a Tweet: Clarity vs Twitterjunk
The birth of every every new communications medium is followed by a period during which the underlying technology actually cramps the communication it’s supposed to be enabling. When it comes…
16 ways to alienate a B2B buyer
Most B2B marketing doesn't just fail – it actively repels the people it's trying to attract. In other words, most B2B marketing would deliver better results if it didn't exist at all. When I buy things for Velocity, I'm a B2B buyer. Here's the best ways to alienate me...You can’t have a conversation when you use a megaphone
Most B2B marketing organisations are set up for interruption-based, broadcast style communications and this traditional approach to marketing consumes 80-90% of the budget. This is strange in a world where there's been a dramatic shift from megaphone marketing to listening and engaging in conversations. There's need for a new type of marketing professional called a content strategist. Do you agree?Brevity is the soul of traffic safety
A friend sent this photo of a Velocity-related traffic sign. I'd like to say we couldn't have said it better ourselves, but if that were true, we'd be out of business...Ghost in the machine: who should write your blog?
There's a debate in the blogosphere about whether it's right for a blog to be ghost-written, particularly one advertised as being written by a particular author. Rather than get exercised about whether this is right or wrong, the question is: can it ever work effectively? Find out what we think.The white paper is dead…or is it?
I presented a webinar the other day where I stated that while white papers are still the staple of content marketing, they're getting really stale as a communications vehicle for B2B. A few people were so incensed they contacted me to say I was talking nonsense. So click here to find out whether they changed my mind...Why we steal from our clients.
In the marketing world, agencies are supposed to be the 'creative' ones and clients are supposed to be the dullards who are grateful for a fresh source of ideas. In our experience, that's just not how it works...How strong is your B2B positioning?
Positioning is one of the essentials of B2B marketing but we don't see a lot of companies getting it right. It's a simple idea: as a marketer, you should explicitly manage the place your brand holds in the minds of your target audience so that it's clearly differentiated from the competition. We use this triple-test to develop strong positioning statements for our clients...The Disruptive Idea: that’s what it’s all about
Disruptive ideas are not the only way to build a successful business. Sometimes just doing lots of little things better than the other guys is enough. But a disruptive idea is probably the single most powerful weapon in the marketing arsenal. And most marketers spend far too little time generating them.Digital Velocity in eight tweets: accelerate your online engagement
B2B marketing has become almost synonymous with digital marketing. If you're not getting your story out on the web, you're probably not getting your story out at all. Now, as social media beds down and Twitter takes off, we thought it would be a good time to summarise all the things we do to help our clients engage with their audiences online.7 tips for writing number-based headlines
Recent research from Spurious has proven that every piece of thought leadership content in the world now has to have a number in the headline or it just won’t get…
17 Strategies to Killer Ads
I stumbled across a great blog today that attempted to categorise advertising strategies. Based on an analysis of The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry, it's a really useful list of advertising approaches that underscores that it's the quality of the original idea and the associated strategic thinking that really make great campaigns.Who needs editors?
Google has dis-intermediated the content business.
You don’t have to hire a PR agency to kiss the arses of the editors any more.
You just have to generate content that…
Digital PR: Shut up and listen
A good interview on ScobleizerTV with Joshua Reynolds who oversees Hill and Knowlton's global technology practice. Traditional PR firms get a lot of stick lately about being slow to pick up on digital, but this guy seems pretty switched on.Slugwatch: the power of content marketing
We were just having a really thought-provoking conversation about content marketing with Andrew Findlater and Hooman Bassirian from Reed Business and they told us about Slugwatch, a service for UK…
The perfect direct mail list: just 23 companies
Ray Kessler needed to sell his vanity number plate fast. How did he generate a list of just 23 companies with a good chance of being interested? I know because I was one of them...Drop-down positioning at the Royal Opera House
Check out this very funny drop-down menu from a Royal Opera House web form. Did the ROH construct this delightful list of titles to avoid annoying its Earls, Dukes, Barons, Sultans and Rabbis (they must HATE having to choose Mr) or is this just a clever bit of subliminal positioning?Velocity Xmas B2B Technology Marketing Newsletter: the Gift That Keeps on Giving
That's right, deck the halls - it's the giving time of year. In our bumper edition Xmas B2B marketing newsletter, you'll find: groovy new white papers, audacious new blog posts, and exciting news about new staff, clients and much, much more. Go grab it NOW!Opt-Out: Digital Marketing’s punch in the stomach
Marketing used to be all about the upside. You fired off a message; some people responded; others didn't. Net gain. In the digital world, there's a downside that's as painful as any upside: the dreaded Opt-Out. Here are some ideas for dealing with it...Zappos’ culture: paying employees to leave is great marketing
Zappos, the online shoe retailer, takes a distinctive approach to company culture that delivers real marketing and brand benefits. Check out his excellent presentation from O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Summit here...Customer Value Propositions in B2B Markets
Andrew Findlater from Reed Business Information recently turned us on to an excellent article in the Harvard Business Review (back in 2006 but still daisy-fresh): Its called Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets and it makes a compelling case for what the authors call "Resonating Focus"...Credit Crunch B2B Marketing: Demand Generation, Lead Nurturing and Online PR
The CEO is stalking the corridors, blood dripping from his Budget Axe -- and he's on his way to the marketing department. How will you defend your marketing plan? At Velocity, we're deeply into two powerful new weapons that are not only incredibly effective, they're virtually Crunch-Proof™...Evel Knievel, corporate positioning & corporate message development
Engineers take the leap from tech features to Big Business Benefits like Evel Knievel approached the Snake River Canyon: they fall down. Our Hierarchy of Benefits gives you a better way to do corporate positioning and corporate message development. It provides a practical solution: the Bridge (or, for the Tarzan in all of us: the Vine).Your new content may not be as relevant as your old
All the best B2B tech marketers are mini-publishing houses -- they never stop cranking out thought-provoking content on the issues their target market cares most about. But even the best thought leaders often follow a simplistic content promotion strategy that completely ignores the idea of a sales cycle. Basically, they pump out some new content, promote it, and repeat. What they're doing is burying the best under the newest...A really good newsletter
We know we 'big up' Pär Almqvist, the Marketing Dude at VNL, quite a bit. But we thought you'd like to see what we consider a really, really good eNewsletter that Pär briefed in and designed (we wrote it for him).Microsoft’s baffling “I’m a PC” campaign
Apple got a lot of attention with its "PC vs Mac" commericals. They were simple, funny, well-scripted and seemed to capture the essence of what Mac people love about their Macs. Clearly, they got under Microsoft's skin, because the crack Seattle Rapid Response team has leapt into action (what, three years later?) with an expensive riposte: the "I'm a PC" campaign. The result is wrong in so many ways, I can't summarise them all in a blog post.Branding as body language
A friend of ours who also happens to be a God of Branding sent us an article he wrote ten years ago but could have been written yesterday. He's Axel Chaldecott, co-founder of HHCL, now the top creative on the global HSBC account at JWT. The article's central metaphor is that a company's visual identity is its body language...I beg you: don’t bore the bejesus out of me
Marketing is communication. B2B marketing is bad communication. That's how your audience thinks about everything you put out. Their expectations couldn't be lower. They've waded through thousands of case studies and brochures and web pages from people just like you and IT'S NOT FUN.Playing in the creative sandbox
Despite living in a 'creative' world, most agencies are pretty linear. They take the brief, then they do the creative. Velocity is a bit different. When we do consulting engagements, we do a creative firestorm as part of the engagement, before any specific brief is on the table. Lots and lots of rough concepts -- headlines, images, copy, straplines. Here's why...Buff Your Pitch Up. Google Suggest & B2B Content Marketing
Often we marketers are our own worst enemy when it comes to marketing 'ideas'. In my time I've had the pleasure of conceiving some truly dreadful 'opinion' pieces in the name of trying to grab people's attention. The fault usually lies in believing our own hype. Here's some Google-inspired ideas on how to avoid falling into the trap...The C word: the importance of confidence in B2B marketing
A great website. Lots of white papers and thought leadership content. Case studies and customer testimonials. Great campaigns and creative. Awards, editorial coverage and analyst attention. They're all important to every B2B marketer. But there's a factor that cuts across all of these and is probably more important than any of them: confidence.A Different Kind of Growth Equity Investor Needs a Different Kind of Web Presence
Don't know about you, but it's Friday afternoon and we're offski. Peroni awaits. We're celebrating the launch of a brand new web site for Kennet.Marketers everywhere – get a little mobiThinking
...check out mobiThinking.com, which was launched today to help the world's marketing community to better understand the opportunities and challenges presented by mobile marketing. (Note: it's web marketing Jim, but not as you know it.)New Velocity B2B Marketing Newsletter Available!
The latest edition of our semi-regular newsletter update is now available. It's packed with goodness inside, including our star new white pager, Marketing, Meet Sales, which offers eleven ways to make your marketing activity really drive new sales...The Velocity B2B Social Media & Web Engagement Mind Map
This Mind Map gives you everything you need to do web / social media engagement by yourself. It's easy. Just pin it on your wall and - once you've published a great piece of content to your site - follow the map clockwise and post it to the relevant destinations...B2B lead generation with thought leadership content: ditch the web-to-lead forms and win
For B2B web sites, the content that really matters in terms of positioning and prospecting isn't your 'markitecture' pages - your product and services descriptions, corporate histories and such.... it's your 'thought leadership' pages - the places where you express opinions and ideas rather than features and benefits. Here's why...Velocity at Pecha-Kucha night
Intrepid Velocipedes Doug Kessler and Stuart Rothwell attended the first ever D&AD Pecha-Kucha night last night. Nine creative supremos (mostly digital marketers), each delivering their first Pecha-Kucha presentation to a packed house of 400-ish trendy digirati...The power of “You”: the 2nd person singular in B2B copywriting
Most B2B technology copywriting is so boring because its so neutral. The best copywriting looks the prospect squarely in the eye and says, "I'm going to sell to you and you're going to enjoy it." Part of this is the 2nd person singular voice. I'm talking to YOU...Big Eat: Pay-per-click as haiku
In literature, there are novels, short stories, poems and -- the ultimate distillation of emotion and idea -- haiku. Three lines. Seventeen syllables. In marketing, there are white papers, brochures, data sheets and... the pay-per-click ad.What’s the freakin’ (Power)point!!??
What's the point of Powerpoint? A crutch to help you through an uncomfortable challenge (public speaking)? A useful visual aid to convey stories? A pain in the butt, killed to death, hackneyed, eyesore, head-f**k for boring people to death?Hot potato: the holy trinity of technology marketing
To celebrate the launch of a whole new Velocity, Doug (our Creative Director) has put pen to paper to get a bunch of important stuff off his chest...Abbreviations, Acronyms & Jargon
We just got an email shot from Savvion, a company that does a good job in its marketing…
Recent papers
The B2B Content Marketing Tutorial
A roll-up-your-sleeves guide for marketers
If you’ve read the B2B Marketing Manifesto or the Content Marketing Workbook, you’re already hip to the power of B2B content marketing.
But you need a bit of practical help on the process side of content…
The B2B Marketing Manifesto: Five Imperatives and Six Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention
There’s never been a more exciting – or a scarier– time to be a B2B marketer.
It’s not about social media, the web, or email. It’s about a completely new mindset, new buyer behaviours and a shiny new set of tools to address it all.
The B2B Content Marketing Workbook
Content Marketing is probably the single most important weapon in the B2B marketing arsenal. This eBook takes you through velocity’s approach to the art. Download it and see what you think…
A B2B Social Media Checklist
You’ve just published a great piece of content. Don’t just stick it on your website. Use social media to drive people to it (and vice versa). Here’s a one-page checklist to help you socialize your content, driving traffic and downloads…
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The B2B Marketing Manifesto: Five Imperatives and Six Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention
There’s never been a more exciting – or a scarier– time to be a B2B marketer.
It’s not about social media, the web, or email. It’s about a completely new mindset, new buyer behaviours and a shiny new set of tools to address it all.
Latest Papers
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The B2B Content Marketing Tutorial
A roll-up-your-sleeves guide for marketers
If you’ve read the B2B Marketing Manifesto or the Content Marketing Workbook, you’re already hip to the power of B2B content marketing.
But you need a bit of practical help on the process side of content…
-
The B2B Marketing Manifesto: Five Imperatives and Six Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention
There’s never been a more exciting – or a scarier– time to be a B2B marketer.
It’s not about social media, the web, or email. It’s about a completely new mindset, new buyer behaviours and a shiny new set of tools to address it all.
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