You know, if you want your business to thrive, having top-notch B2B marketing is like having the perfect bunch of bananas to fuel your success. 

Here’s the thing though – if you don't step up your game, you'll miss out on all the incredible perks this fruitful strategy can bring, like:

• Long-lasting, steady profits from B2B clients
• Reciprocal buying
• Higher ROI or improved conversion rates

Good thing the information in this article will help you nail your copy and become the top banana in your field. We're diving into 10 B2B copywriting mistakes that slip up conversions and how you can fix them. 

So if you’re ready to get back to enjoying the sweet taste of success, check out how to dodge those rookie errors when crafting B2B copy.

B2B Copywriting Problem #1: Overwhelming Yourself

There are tons of different kinds of B2B copy, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. 

There’s: 

• Email marketing — Where you send out a weekly or monthly newsletter to keep yourself top of mind.
• Content creation — Such as running a blog to keep yourself trending on Google.
• Social media - This one alone has almost a dozen avenues, and they all require their own touch.
• Video sales letters - You have to script and shoot and post somewhere.
• Podcasts - This can be a great way to get yourself out there, but they need some scripting, time, and equipment. 

Whatever the case, don’t make the mistake of thinking you need to be everywhere and do everything for your audience. It’s borderline impossible without the right size team.

After all, trying to send out newsletters weekly, publish optimized blogs, and post daily on all your social profiles can really wear you down over time. Sooner or later, you’d wind up launching mediocre copy, making dumb mistakes, or just giving up.

How To Fix It: Find The Gap In The Market

Instead of pulling yourself in a hundred directions, get all your bananas in one bunch. Focus your efforts on a single platform. 

To start, take a look at your competitors. What are they doing with their copywriting? What are they not doing? 

Say you’ve got a banana stand, and every other banana stand in the country has a blog and a Facebook page. You can stand apart by being the only banana stand with an Instagram and a podcast. 

Focusing on the platform your competitors aren’t covering would make you more memorable to your target audience.

B2B Copywriting Problem #2: Missing Your Audience

It’s an easy mistake to make. Everyone wants to cast a wide net and potentially draw in more prospects and sales.

Unfortunately, more isn’t always better. After all, not everyone wants the same things.

So, if you’re serious about connecting with the right people, avoid writing to everyone and be specific with your audience. Being too broad can cause your writing to lack precision and fail to connect with anyone. 

Instead, identify who you're trying to reach, and write with them in mind. If your writing is too vague, your audience may feel it's not for them, and you'll miss out on making a meaningful connection.

Think of it this way: If you wanted to throw a banana where your buddy could catch it, how would you throw it? Would you aim in his general direction, or would you aim for his palm? 

If you throw in his general direction, you could hit your friend in the face or miss him altogether. On the other hand, if you aim for the middle of his palm, you might miss, but he could still catch it with no problems. 

If you don't know your audience, you'll be tossing a banana over your shoulder and hoping it hits someone.

How To Fix It: Make A Persona

If you want to reach your target audience, think about who you want to work with most. Build your ideal customer into one person. It's not only about who they are; it's about what they want. 

Ask yourself questions about your ideal customer as though you were interviewing them. 

• What do they want more than anything? Why?
• What are they more afraid of than anything? Why?
• What are their goals? Worries?
• What and who do they like? Dislike?

Write it down, and reference it when making decisions in your copy. 

For our banana stand, let's build a persona and call her "Kim."

• Kim runs a small gym. However, she wants to be successful more than anything.
• She's afraid of her clients leaving her for a chain gym.
• Her main goal is consistent retention, but she's worried she has nothing to offer.
• She likes to live a healthy lifestyle. She likes driven and bold people.

Building a persona like this will do two things.

First, it keeps your copy from being general. You can speak to the correct desires and pain points. For instance, you can write copy about retaining customers by adding value.

Second, your copy will be more personable and conversational. When you have a persona in mind, it makes it easier to write good copy. You have an idea that you're speaking to a real person, which will show in the end result.

B2B Copywriting Problem #3: Being Shallow

When you’re writing for a B2B audience, remember you’re writing to really skilled, knowledgeable people. Business owners who already know at least some copywriting basics, and most likely a lot about marketing and their industry.

So if you were trying to write some quick, surface-level copy, don’t. Your audience is looking for solutions to specific problems. You know, problems relating to your industry.

That’s why it’s so important to focus on addressing those pain points with your product or service. Tap into the concerns and feelings they might be experiencing. 

Don’t forget to provide specific details about your products or services while you’re at it, since the whole point is to tie that into their specific pain points. This helps you establish credibility and provide value to your audience.

How To Fix It: Research, Research, Research

To reassure your audience that you're a professional who knows the market, conduct thorough research on your audience and competitors. 

Reach out to customers, hang out in online groups or attend events, and take notes on what they do well or don't. Subscribe to competitor newsletters, read their blogs, and follow their social media to understand what sets you apart.

To further build your knowledge, learn as much as possible about the product and industry. Even if you don't use every piece of knowledge or jargon right away, having a deep understanding of your field means you can confidently handle objections and back up your expertise.

With well-researched copy, you'll establish yourself as an intelligent professional who brings value to customers, leading to more conversions.

B2B Copywriting Problem #4: Branding Without Value

Not trying to point any fingers, but generally speaking, new B2B writers often make the mistake of overemphasizing branding. You know, crafting really exagerated copy that repeats certain words, or injects too much slang. 

This kind of thing seems halfway decent on paper, like too much icing on a cake (okay, bad analogy, since that’s never a bad thing, but you get the idea). Yet, it’s enough to make your copy sound spammy, scammy, and amateur. 

Over-branding can hurt the copy's performance, especially if the brand name is not yet a household name. 

For instance, businesses like Apple or Starbucks can rely on their brand names because they have built strong brand recognition. That’s why they don’t really emhasize lengthy trust-building copy in their ad campaigns - they already have public trust.

However, over-reliance on branding will create confusion, not desire, for most businesses. Therefore, balancing branding and informative content is crucial to make the copy engaging and effective.

How To Fix It: Focus On The Reader

For B2B copywriting to be effective, writers should focus on understanding what their readers want and create a balance between a clear call-to-action and engaging content. Too much emphasis on branding can make the copy sound like spam, but building an emotional connection with the audience can help. 

It's also important to keep the product offering simple to avoid over-branding that might leave customers feeling lost. When writers prioritize the readers' needs over branding, they create a connection that can lead to more conversions.

B2B Copywriting Problem #5: Quantity Over Quality

Unsurprisingly, boring and uninspired copy doesn’t do much. It just kind of gets rolled out with a whisper and sits there. Churning out low-quality content hurts your brand and frustrates your customers. 

B2B copywriting is not a quantity game. While quantity gets you sales over time, low-quality work won't yield a good ROI. It's spammy and reflects poorly on your brand. 

Customers get annoyed and unsubscribe when they see content that's just trying to grab their wallets. Low-quality content signals to your customers that the work you would do for them is also low-quality.

How To Fix It: Take Your Time

Consistency, not quantity, is key when it comes to copywriting. Putting out one high-quality blog post per month is better than many low-quality ones. 

Take the time to review and revise, and start with a slow, consistent schedule, building up to more frequent posts. 

Remember that customers will reflect the quality of your copy onto your brand, so focus on producing high-quality work that reflects positively on your brand and boosts your image, SEO rankings, and sales.

B2B Copywriting Problem #6: Ignoring The Power Of Storytelling

Effective copywriting goes beyond promoting products and services; it's about forging emotional connections with your audience. 

Storytelling is a powerful tool for achieving this goal. Unfortunately, many B2B copywriters overlook its potential, resorting instead to a laundry list of features and benefits. 

Storytelling enables you to captivate your audience and illustrate how your product or service can make a difference. However, it's crucial to craft a story that aligns with your brand and messaging, as an ill-conceived tale can be detrimental.

How To Fix It: Tell A Story 

A huge reason B2B is so special is that both camps (you and your audience) share similar experiences. Both camps started a business in the same industry, for instance.

This means that finding common ground and telling a story that has them nodding in agreement should - in theory - be really easy.

Just think about satisfied customer success stories, or personal experiences that relate to your brand’s mission. Add some personality with a conversational tone, and keep things consistent (details, dates, branding, etc).

Don’t forget, you don’t have to tell stories using words exclusively. A few relevant pictures and elaborating videos go a long way. Case studies and social media posts do too.

B2B Copywriting Problem #7: Too Much Jargon

Jargon in B2B copywriting can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can demonstrate expertise and make your audience feel understood.

However, too much can confuse readers and hinder engagement, because after a certain point it all just sounds too try-hard. 

While this may or may not be applicable, depending on your particular situation, it can also exclude potential customers unfamiliar with industry-specific terminology. 

That’s why it’s better to just avoid it as much as possible. Remember, the goal of B2B copywriting is to communicate with your audience, not impress them. Avoid overusing jargon to ensure maximum engagement and inclusivity. 

How To Fix It: Keep It Simple 

You might think that in the B2B space, jargon and high-level knowledge is welcome, and you’d be right - to an extent.

Like most things in life, there is such a thing as “too much.”

So try to keep things simple. Demonstrate that you know the ropes and walk the walk, but make it human. With the exception of a few choice words here and there, anyone should be able to read your copy without having to pull up a dictionary.

If you’re not sure whether you’re overdoing it, read your copy out loud. Everything should roll off the tongue without sounding pretentious. If you’re stumbling over words, or hearing it back in a voice recording and cringing, try ironing out a few more words.

B2B Copywriting Problem #8: Overdoing Keywords

Filling your copy with excessive keywords is a common mistake in B2B copywriting. 

You might think that stuffing your content will boost your SEO rankings, but that's not necessarily the case. Your readers might feel like they're being sold something instead of getting valuable information. 

Plus, search engines have become smarter at detecting keyword stuffing and can even penalize you. Using too many irrelevant keywords will hurt your search rankings, and your audience may lose interest in your content.

How To Fix It: Be Strategic

The key to effective keyword usage in B2B copywriting is to use them naturally and thoughtfully. 

Start by identifying the most relevant and effective keywords related to your product or service, and use them sparingly throughout your content. Utilizing keywords in headings, subheadings, meta tags, and image descriptions can optimize your content without overdoing it. 

Remember, prioritizing your audience's needs is crucial in B2B copywriting. Focus on creating high-quality content that genuinely helps and informs your audience, and your SEO will improve naturally. 

B2B Copywriting Problem #9: Neglecting Social Proof

Yep - this one seems super obvious. You already know people aren’t quick to believe brands trying to sell something, so you’d think social proof would be on the top of the priority list, but it’s not.

Sadly, I’ve seen countless brands with 10/10 copy and 0% social proof. The result? Really bad conversions.

So don’t skimp out on testimonials, case studies, and reviews. They can really make all the difference between a sale and a wave goodbye. You don’t want that, right?

How To Fix It: Leverage Social Proof

Remember, social proof is the ability to brag about your offer or brand (or both), without doing the bragging yourself. This makes credibility skyrocket, because suddenly, it’s tons of different people saying nice things about your service, product, business, etc.

That’s why you should be reaching out to satisfied customers. Ask them for testimonials or case studies – or just make it an automatic form that gets emailed to them, if that’s easier.

Another option is to see what people are saying about you online. It’s scary, sure, but it should shed light on areas to work on and give you some solid quotes you can share on your website.

B2B Copywriting Problem #10: Not Creating A Sense of Urgency

Here’s the tricky thing about urgency: 

Lots of brands do it, and most get it wrong. It ends up being super salesy, pushy, and just all-around bad for your conversions.

When you get it right, though? 

You should see a nice spike in conversions. Suddenly, instead of being put off, people flock over because they don’t want to miss out on your offer.

How To Fix It: Implement Urgency Techniques

The key to finding the perfect balance between urgency and overly salesy is nailing your tone, getting your timing right, and leading with the perfect incentives.

Let’s break that down:

• Tone - When you write in a conversational tone, things come across naturally. Human to human. Maybe even friend to friend, which means people trust you more. That trust is what makes your message come across in a positive way.
• Timing - This goes back to the buyer journey. Ideally, you don’t want to go overboard on urgency right out of the gate. You want to use it around the third stage of the journey, the purchase decision stage.
• Incentives - People don’t just want anything - they want the things that’ll be useful to them. Stuff that will save them money and time, usually. So don’t skimp out. Give the people what they want.

Making B2B Marketing Work For You

You did it, you got through the 10 most common B2B copywriting mistakes. Are you guilty of any of them?

If you are, don’t worry too much. B2B marketing is pretty challenging and time-consuming. Most rewarding things are.

By avoiding these common mistakes, you can achieve greater success than B2C marketing. That’s nothing to scoff at.

So if you’re not sure where to start, focus on the small things first. Focus on identifying these 10 common mistakes in your copy, and ironing them out over time. 

Using an editorial calendar and delegating each mistake to a different person on your team is a good idea. That way the work gets divided up, but everything’s being addressed over time.

This can help you generate more revenue with less effort and achieve a stronger copy than ever before.

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