the death of the b2b infographic and six other b2b copywriting trends we spotted in 2016

The Death of the B2B

Infographicand six other B2B copywriting

trends we spotted in 2016.

Hi. We’re Radix Communications.

We write marketing content and communications for some of the world’s top B2B technology brands.

(You know. Oracle, Xerox, Vodafone, Salesforce.com, Cognizant, Sprint. 60 names like that.)

We work directly, and through agencies.

But here’s the thing...

Working on all those copywriting projects gives us a shedload of DATAon what all those brands are up to with their marketing content.

And once a year, we CRUNCH the NUMBERSto spot any trends, and

find out what’s new.

(We’ve been doing it since 2012.)

For 2016, we’ve identified

716content projects which we can analyse and compare with previous years

(we’ve left out the promotional and sales enablement copy, as it’s hard to categorise accurately)

Here’s what we found out.

1. Infographics are history.*

*Maybe.

This year’s 24% decline in infographic copywriting is no big deal on its own.

What’s more telling is that this is the third year in a row that infographic projects have fallen – from 15.4% of our work in 2013 to just 3.5% today.

So what’s driving it?

Could be the difficulty of viewing infographics on mobile

Or maybe it’s simply that they’ve been and don’t cut through like they used to.

OVERUSED

(But we’ve seen content formats bounce back before, so maybe don’t write them off quite yet.)

2.Case studies are going nowhere.

(Thankfully)

(Source: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs 2015 and 2016 B2B Trends – North America)

In this year’s CMI and MarketingProfs research, case studies even didn’t make the list

of content marketing tactics.

Our data tells a different story.

Last year we wrote 30% more case studies than in 2015.

(In fact, we wrote more case studies in a single year than at any time our history.)

So evidently, someone likes them.And with good reason. A good case study:

provides social proof,shows real-world benefits,helps the prospect identify with your customer

…and generally makes people feel comfortable about buying from you.

(All while cementing your relationship with your existing customer.)

3.Social media on the wane?

(Depends how you look at it.)

There’s no hiding it:we’re writing much less social media content these days.

B2B brands are using a little less social media than they were:

But not two thirds less. So what’s going on?

(Source: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs 2016 & 2017 B2B Trends – North America)

Here’s one theory...

83% of B2B marketers use social media, but...

(Source: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs 2017 B2B Trends – North America)

40%Only of marketers say

social media is “critical” to their success…

(Source: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs 2017 B2B Trends – North America)

43%Which means of marketers use

social but don’t think it’s important any more.

(Which explains why they’re not outsourcing it to professional writers.)

(Alternatively, social might be maturing into a dialogue medium, with in-house experts taking

more of a hands-on role in the accounts.)

4.Everyone’s going to a (third) party.

(We didn’t see this one coming...)

This one was a surprise.Our fastest growing content type in 2016?

ARTICLES.

+350%

What’s an article?Different clients have different definitions, but we’d say it’s a standalone piece of long-form content that’s not part of your everyday blogging or publishing efforts:

Content for third party sites and mediaExtended information behind newslettersMagazines printed on actual paper

It tends to take a journalistic style and involves interviewing a subject matter expert to give an informed

opinion on an important topic.

In particular, we’re writing a lot of third party articles as marketers look to broaden their profile, and go

where the audience is.

(If you’d like to see some examples, just ask us...)

5.There’s a lot of web copy happening.

(Websites. Websites everywhere...)

Our web copywriting work has been growing steadily every year.

But this year, web copy projects have suddenly jumped up, by 60%.

Why?

Maybe the rise of the mobile web has prompted a surge in web redevelopment work.

Could be it’s cyclical, and a bunch of websites are reaching their natural

‘sell by’ date.

Perhaps B2B brands are beginning to realise that just giving information isn’t enough, and starting to use quality copy

as a differentiator online.

Or just possibly, when you’re good at B2B web copywriting,

word gets around.

(We couldn’t possibly comment.)

6.The humble blog post is king*.

*Still

For the second year running (and

the third year out of five), we wrote more

B L O G P O S T S

than anything else.

26%That’s a whopping

of all our copywriting projects.

(Source: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs 2016 & 2017 B2B Trends – North America)

The number is virtually the same as last year – and the CMI/MarketingProfs research agrees.

In short, B2B content marketers like blogs -

just as much as we did last year.

We’re comfortable with them, and we know the benefits:Search visibilityThought leadershipSocial engagementRapid turnaroundResponsive to customersNo design investmentDemonstrates expertise

None of these things have changed, except...

Recent research says blog posts are getting longer:1,054

words on average

(Source: Orbit media survey of 1055 bloggers.)

And while clients aren’t asking us to

make it longer

They have stopped specifying

word counts – saying

make it as long as it needs to be.

It’s less about search, and more about

making it interestingresearching it thoroughlyhelping the customer...

...and that’s fine by us.

But then, as recently as 2014, blog posts had fallen away - and were just 4% of our work.

So maybe infographics aren’t dead after all...

Radix Communications is a specialist B2B technology copywriting agency.

We’ve ten writers in a warehouse in Cornwall, writing all kinds of marketing content – covering the whole funnel –

for forward-thinking agencies and brands.

If you’d like to find out more (about this work, or our research), please do get in touch.