Craft a B2B web copy that sells

A B2B web copy has the means to make or break your online presence.

Think about it. 

When new visitors find your company’s website, what is their first impression? It primarily depends on your web copy. So does this copy welcome them or push them away? Does it educate them? Does it answer their questions? Is it relatable and written specifically for them? If not, your web copy isn’t fulfilling its purpose.

If you want your tech business to succeed, you need to learn how to write website copies that captivate and inspire your readers. Learning how to do this will help win your online marketing game and build the reputation your B2B brand truly deserves. 

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1: The Voice of the Customer

Tone and style are vital when it comes to website copy. But you can take them up a notch, to serve as a powerful way to reach targeted leads, with the “voice of the customer” technique.

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What is the “voice of the customer” you may ask?

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Voice of the Customer (VoC) is exactly what the name suggests: listening to your customers. Voice of the customer is the process of capturing prospect’s experiences, expectations, preferences, and general feedback to directly improve YOUR product and customer experience.

You’re probably thinking, “You didn’t reinvent the wheel - companies have been doing this for decades,” and you’re right … to a certain extent.

Collecting customer feedback has always been a fundamental part of growing a business. But the Voice of the Customer shifts the focus from collecting mass data to individual data: it implies responding to customers with proof that their feedback has been incorporated into the products/services they use. 

You can find examples of your customers' thoughts and feedback in different ways. For example, reading customer reviews and conducting surveys are two of the best ways to gather this data, as they provide customers with an opportunity to voice their problems in their own words.

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A company means nothing without its clients. And the only way to deliver a striking customer experience is to understand how they feel about you and what they like/ dislike about their experiences. 

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2: A/B Testing 

You probably know your customers better than anyone else. But that doesn’t allow you to play the guessing game and make decisions based on how you think your visitors will act. Just as you would test certain elements of your marketing campaigns such as landing pages, you should be A/B testing the copy on your high-value pages.

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Important mention: in most cases, it’s unnecessary to A/B test every single word of copy on your website. Instead, focus on the pages that have the highest value. Maybe your product overview page has a killer conversion rate or maybe it’s your FAQ page that does. Whatever your strongest pages are, those are the ones you should be testing.

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Some web copy elements you might want to test:

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• Questions vs. statements in headlines
• Headline length
• Short-form vs. long-form copy
• Language and/or word choice
• Points of view (first-person vs. third-person)

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Start the A/B test by identifying your high-value pages using Google Analytics or a similar tool. Create two different versions of the page, each with its own unique copy. Send about half of your traffic to the control version of the page (the original page), and the other half to the variant (the page with the new copy). Give the test sufficient time and see which page converted better.

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Bear in mind: Because you want to figure out which copy performs better, you need to test a copy that asks the visitor to do something. This could be an offer to download a guide or sign up for a free trial – some sort of clearly defined call to action. If you don’t test an actionable copy it’s going to be harder to figure out whether the variant copy is any better than the control page.

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3: Use of Emotions: Trigger Words

As technology forces us to look at glowing screens to feel closer to people around the world, we begin to miss out on the things that make us human. So, how can we preserve that human element in our marketing campaigns?

You can smack a catchy title on your website’s landing page and include your brand’s greatest accomplishments. But, a good web copy goes beyond that: your copy needs to have a persuasive argument that will get the reader to nod in agreement.

One way to do this is by using words that have significant power — think of them as trigger words. A single word can evoke hope, fear, happiness, urgency, excitement, sadness, and just about any emotion under the moon. There are loads of words that (when employed correctly) can be powerful triggers — even seemingly simple ones like “free,” “you,” “save,” and “new.”

4: Place the most relevant information at the top

Think about fishing. You don’t put the bait in the middle of the fishing line, where the fish won’t see it, right? You place the bait on the hook, right where the fish is guaranteed to bump into it.

The same principle applies to your B2B web copy. When you load your articles and blogs with the most relevant and important information in the first few paragraphs of the copy, you stand a better chance of “hooking” readers and keeping them there.

Add all of the most critical details of your piece closer to the upper portion of the web page: benefits of your product, information about an event or launch, or even statistics that back up your claims.

5: User Intent: Write From the Perspective of the User

User intent is what a person intends to do when they reach your site. Sometimes this intent leads to a clearly defined action – such as buying something, while other times it may not.

The underlying problems your visitors are trying to solve are likely very diverse, but there are only a few reasons a person visits a website: for informational, navigational, and transactional purposes:

• To learn more about service offers in your industry
• To learn more about your company in particular
• To compare products, offers, prices, etc.
• To purchase something

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Place yourself in your prospect’s shoes and ask objective questions about your copy:

• Is it obvious what your company sells/does?
• Is the content of your web copy benefit-driven? Are those benefits clear?
• Does your website require prior industry knowledge on the visitor’s part? Is this knowledge necessary to understand your website?
• Does your site’s navigation allow users at different stages of the funnel to easily access the information they need?

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Conclusion: 

What makes a good website copy?

Good writing? A good idea in mind? Yes, both good writing and striking ideas are key to a good website copy. But, more than that, a website copy needs to engage people, encourage them to explore your offerings, and inspire them to buy. 

Remember: if it fails to sell, it isn’t good.