Writers often appeal to a broad audience to avoid missing potential readers. But by being too unspecific, they fail to appeal to anyone at all.
That’s why it’s important for marketers to write for a 3D audience, not 2D. As a frame of reference, here’s how writing for both audiences typically looks in practice:
- 2D audience: A job title with a problem to solve.
- 3D audience: Industry professionals with technical knowledge, budgets, and career stakes.
The problem of writing for a 2D audience intensifies in B2B markets, as readers in these markets are industry professionals who have technical knowledge and are often accountable for company budgets.
Give Your Readers Actionable Insights
Your audience isn’t consuming content for fun—they’re reading your articles and blog posts to run their businesses more efficiently.
Managers need data on profitability, engineers often need efficiency metrics, and marketers need to know how to write a punchier headline. Don’t bury these insights in flowery descriptions and overly vague language.
Pick a hard angle about a topic that offers true insights for your readers. More often than not, that angle is a pain point or challenge that others in the industry are struggling with.
Take energy use in vertical farming, for example, a topic I covered often as a CEA journalist. Considering indoor farming uses copious amounts of electricity, CO2, and water, this is something that’s difficult for many growers to overcome.
By highlighting a successful vertical farm and what they’re doing right, it gives other growers a concrete example of how to overcome these seemingly impossible challenges.
How to Find Your Angle
For starters, take a close look at what gets the industry talking. My favorite place to look for inspiration is in the comments section on LinkedIn. If you can find a post covering a hot industry topic, there are bound to be people duking it out in the comments.
From there, you can analyze both sides of the argument to determine which one is better for your business intent. If you can craft an article about an industry trend in a way that’s beneficial to your brand, run with it.
However, it’s important to root your content in business insights and expertise rather than trying to sell your audience on what you have to offer. As we say in The Media Mindset, the best way to accomplish this is to think like a journalist. After all, your audience won’t just take your word for it.
Your angle must offer new information that your audience can’t find anywhere else, and it must be rooted in deep industry insights.
Address Internal Tension
When companies offer a product or service, they want to make their offerings exceptionally clear to their audience. However, product-first content tends to resonate the least with potential customers.
As a B2B content marketer, it’s your job to earn audience trust. And while your sales team may have good intentions, they can sometimes stand in the way of that by prioritizing the sale above the customer.
And when your readers sense that, they won’t trust your company or buy your product. Nine times out of 10, at least.
That’s why it’s worthwhile to educate your sales team on the difference between product-first and educational content. By explaining how leading with understanding is more likely to attract buyers than selling them right out the gate, your company will get the result they’re looking for.
And it won’t be because you’re offering the most advanced, cutting-edge product on the market. It’s because you proved that you understand the industry and can offer products or services that help businesses succeed.
Write for Your 3D Audience
B2B journalists write for industry professionals and experts with deep experience and insights every day. They must know the market inside out to appeal to their audience members and keep them coming back.
Regular readers of B2B trade publications recognize industry trends and products that will add value to their business, so journalists center their content around that concept. The Media Mindset encourages marketers to adopt that same mentality.
You’re not appealing to a job title with a problem to solve. You’re appealing to professionals who have been in the industry for decades. Forgetting that fact will ruin your credibility and keep your sales team from scheduling a call with them.
Your audience is 3D. The writers who recognize that build loyal readers and a loyal customer base for their sales team.