GrammarPhile Blog

We don’t believe in simply whining about problems. We’d rather be part of the solution. To that aim, here’s the follow-up to our last post on The 10 Biggest Problems with Most B2B Marketing Content.

If you find your B2B marketing content lackluster, ineffective, or willy-nilly to the detriment of your sales, your marketing team’s motivation, and your sanity, check out our suggestions for fixing the 10 most-common problems we’ve observed in B2B marketing content.

How to Fix the 10 Biggest Problems with Your B2B Marketing Content

• What is our product/service/offer?
• Who does it help? (Who are you trying to talk to? Who is your ideal customer?)
• Why does it matter? (If potential customers don’t identify with your purpose, benefits, values, differentiators, etc., then you’ll be hard put to make them loyal.)

2. Set aside your ego and fear of not being taken seriously. Being personable and an expert aren’t mutually exclusive. If you take stock of major pitfalls of the digital age, they generally revolve around a lack of humanity and healthy relationships, including between businesses and their clients. The most feared people may be monolithic enigmas, but the most loved people (and companies and brands) are the ones who treat others well while allowing themselves to be truly known.

Show, Don’t Tell

I could tell you that spell check is a lousy editor because of its significant limitations. Maybe you’d believe me. Maybe you’d ignore me because that first sentence was boring. Maybe you’d roll your eyes and say, “Lady, you write for a proofreading company; of course you want to rag on spell check.”

The better thing for me to do is to tell you a teeny tiny story.

One of our most seasoned proofreaders, a woman we’ll call Lisa (because her name is Lisa), was reviewing a document last week. We always run spell check first (it’s sort of like throwing down the gauntlet and then beating the heck out of our inferior opponent). Spell check flagged “prepregnancy” and suggested a helpful alternative. “Consider: ‘prepreg Nancy’.”

First, I’ve laughed heartily over this no less than twelve times. Every time I read it, I start up again. When Lisa told me, I resisted the impulse to roll around on the floor like a horse and neigh-laugh. Second, are you kidding me? A human proofreader could be working on two hours of sleep and the maximum dose of Benadryl and do better than that.

And now that I’ve tickled your funny bone (aka your humerus), I’ll get to the real point, which I’ve also just illustrated.