PowerContent Blog

Ask Tough Questions to Find the Right Copywriter

When you’re hiring a copywriter, you're obviously looking for someone with excellent writing skills. That's a given. But high-tech is a complex industry, so good writing skills alone are not enough. The ideal candidate needs solid business acumen, the ability to quickly comprehend technology, and an understanding of how to market and sell high-tech products.

That's why these 11 questions can come in handy next time you evaluate copywriters. (Download a PDF copy of the checklist here and print it out so you’ll have it next time you need a copywriter.)

Since lead generation is such a critical part of most B2B marketers' strategy and to-do list tasks, it's interesting to get an aggregate look at top trends related to it. Over 800 marketers of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn gave opinions on their challenges, top metrics, most effective techniques, and more. Here's a summary of that research. To read the entire report (and I recommend you do), visit http://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2-b-lead-generation-report-2013. It's a great way to benchmark your efforts against your peers.

Tech buyers value detailed, current research that speaks to their pain points. But where can you find that kind of information? Sometimes, you have to create it.

As you fill in your content calendar for the year, consider conducting original research as a source of new content. It may sound like a lot of work (and it sometimes is), but original research has the potential to connect with prospects like nothing else. What's more, you can deploy your findings in multiple ways and keep your content calendar full for weeks or months.

Here’s a great infographic summarizing recent research on the state of content marketing for B2B companies.  One key result: marketers are spending more on content and using more tactics.

As many of you who read my blog know, I’m a big proponent of re-using content in a strategic manner. The fact is, you need a good deal of content for B2B high-tech marketing – you’ve likely got a relatively complicated product with a relatively long sales cycle. Content is one of the best tools you can use to educate buyers about your product, what it’s like to work with you, what type of company you are, and more.

Some companies seem to "get" content marketing and execute on it better than others. I'm on a quest to recognize those that do a stellar job. Here are 5 companies Mashable thinks have great blogs, the starting point for most content marketing efforts.

In this infographic, UMB Tech captures the most common mistakes technology marketers make with their content. Are you guility of any of these?

44% of Software as a Service (SaaS) companies offer a limited time trial, or demo version, of their software for prospects to try before they buy[1]. Surprisingly, most SaaS companies don’t seem to be following up with these warm leads in a personalized, engaging manner.

What do you do with your leads that aren’t yet ready to buy? If the answer is let them languish in your database, learn how to turn them into sales-ready leads with an email lead nurturing campaign.

Developing personas for each of your key buyers is one of the best time investments you can make. But once you've created them, there's always room for refinement.

(For more on buyer personas, see my previous post where I interview Adele Revella: "The #1 Thing All Technology Marketers Should Do".)