Business-to-business copy persuades readers by giving them useful information about the products being advertised. The more facts you include in your copy, the better. When you have a file full of facts at your fingertips, writing good copy is easy. You simply select the most relevant facts and describe them in a clear, concise, direct fashion.

But when copywriters don’t bother to dig for facts, they fall back on fancy phrases and puffed-up expressions to fill the empty space on the page. The words sound nice, but they don’t sell because the copy doesn’t inform. Here’s a four-step procedure for getting the information you need to write persuasive, fact-filled copy. This technique should be helpful to copywriters, account executives, and ad managers alike.

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Step 1: Get all previously published material on the product. For an existing product, there’s a mountain of literature you can use as background information. This material includes tear-sheets of previous ads, brochures, catalogs, article reprints, technical papers, copies of speeches, audio-visual scripts, press kits, and swipe files of competitors’ ads and literature.

Even a new product is often accompanied by mounds of paperwork, including internal memos, letters describing technical information, product specifications, engineering drawings, business and marketing plans, reports, and proposals.

By studying this material, a copywriter should have 80% of the information he or she needs to write the copy. The other 20% comes by picking up the phone and asking questions.

Step 2: Ask questions about the product. The most important questions include:

• What are its features and benefits? (Make a complete list.)

• Which benefit is the most important?

• How is the product different from the competition’s? (Which features are exclusive? Which are better than the competition’s?)

• If the product isn’t different, what attributes can be stressed that haven’t been stressed by the competition?

• What technologies does the product compete against?

• What are the applications of the product?

• What industries can use the product?

• What problems does the product solve in the marketplace?

• How is the product positioned in the marketplace?

• How does the product work?

• How reliable is the product? How efficient? How economical?

• Who has bought the product, and what do they say about it?

• What materials, sizes, and models is it available in?

• How quickly does the manufacturer deliver the product?

• What service and support does the manufacturer offer?

• Is the product guaranteed?

Step 3: Ask questions about your audience.

• Who will buy the product? (What markets is it sold to?)

• What is the customer’s main concern? (For example, price, delivery, performance, reliability, service maintenance, quality, or efficiency.)

• What is the character of the buyer?

• What motivates the buyer?

• How many different buying influences must the copy appeal to? Two tips on getting to know your audience: If you are writing an ad, read some issues of the magazine the ad will appear in. If you are writing direct mail copy, find out what mailing lists will be used, and study the list descriptions.

Step 4: Determine the objective of your copy. This objective may be one or more of the following:

• To generate inquiries

• To generate sales

• To answer inquiries

• To qualify prospects

• To transmit product information

• To build brand recognition and preference

• To build company image

Before your next promotional copywriting assignment, study the product — its features, benefits, past performance, applications, and markets. Digging for the facts will pay off, because in business-to-business advertising copywriting, specifics sell.

— Bob Bly, copywriter and Internet marketing strategist

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