B2B Writing Institute - How to Start and How to Finish: Intros and Conclusions

Why your introduction and conclusion need to get better:

The #1 feedback I get from marketing managers I interview is that writers aren’t sophisticated enough/don’t have the business savvy they need to get great content out the door.
The intro and conclusion is where you show that sophistication by providing expert context.
Context is what helps an executive decide whether or not to read.
The “sender,” the headline, and your first line immediately sets that context and their expectations for why this will be worth their time — or not.

For you, the writer, you have two readers: the reader, and the marketing manager. Your job is to develop such a good rapport with the marketing manager that you 1) meet and exceed their expectations so they hire you again, and 2) can advocate on behalf of the reader to put out increasingly excellent content into the world.

With writing tips, try to avoid what not to do. We have way more than enough info about what not to do, and the act of creativity can’t be negative. What we need are suggestions on how to act, move forward, create. The tips here focus on what TO do. The goal is for you to walk away with ideas you can bring to your next writing session.

HOW TO WRITE COMPELLING INTRODUCTIONS

Create space for the reader to think

There’s a classic approach to writing that suggests you make it easy for the reader by saying what you’re going to say, saying it, then saying what you said. This could be helpful in copywriting where you have to manage short attention spans. But in long-form, the people are sitting down to read and they’re smart. The concepts need to be straightforward and digestible, but it doesn’t have to be repetitive.

Don’t say what you’re going to say — create space for them to think about what you’re going to talk about.

EXAMPLE:

BORING: Low employee engagement is a big problem, and it’s critical businesses make a plan to solve it today.

BRILLIANT: How does your company deal with low employee engagement? Do you see it as a huge priority, like 75% of executives surveyed by VISA? Or are you pretending it will go away? This article will show you….

Open with a memorable scene

This can be corny, so use it carefully, but if you come across a scene from your customer interviews that perfectly encapsulates the problem you’re writing about, use it. This is especially effective in B2B niches where the reader is very person-oriented, such as human resources, marketing, and retail. This also helps you meet the good writing requirements known as “show, don’t tell.”

EXAMPLE:

BORING: It’s incredibly important that your banking customer service team understands the processes and protocols for providing excellent customer service in banking today.

BRILLIANT: One of your banking customer service team members gets an application in the mail and processes it. But three days later, the customer shows up with a coupon in hand and complains it wasn’t automatically applied to their application. Does your staff know what to do? There’s a new technology that can…

Source: https://hbr.org/2018/03/the-b2b-elements-of-value

Find the logical disconnect or the nagging problem

A sophisticated audience spends time researching and educating themselves on sophisticated problems, not simple problems. Simple problems they have under control — but they still need to ponder and think through sophisticated problems like something that would make a good white paper topic. Every single industry — every single topic within every single industry — has some big question that doesn’t make sense, that would make a great intro to a piece on that topic. Part of your research process might be trying to identify what those problems are: logical disconnects, peculiar inconsistencies.

EXAMPLE:

BORING: In some way, every industry relies on manufacturing to create and deliver the products they sell to their customers. Manufacturing is incredibly important, no matter what industry you are in.

BRILLIANT: If 95% of retail CEOs surveyed by Deloitte say the timeliness of their manufacturing supply chain is a significant priority, why do only 10% of those CEOs say they actively invest in risk mitigation for their supply chains? The answer may surprise you…

General tips about introductions

Find the tension. Stories require tension, otherwise, they’re just lists of events. Whatever your topic is, look for the, “But…”. Sometimes you can use “But” in the intro, and sometimes you need to find a way to introduce tension without using that exact phrase.
- Exercise: “It seems like it’s about X, but it’s really about X.”
Lead with a statistic. Especially in B2B, using a recent statistic is a very powerful way of signaling that what you’re writing is topical and worth paying attention to. Many B2B marketers explicitly request there be a stat or two in the introduction (but not so many that you pull the reader in too many directions).
Beware warm-up copy. Very few topics actually need background information, we just think they do and marketers think they do. The purpose of writing at a higher level is that the audience is hella smart. Often, they already know. Act like they already know.
Think about the reality of your intro. Always keep what’s realistic for the audience in mind to avoid sharing anything that is a non-starter (CEO timer example).
- As you’re creating, make sure it’s realistic for the person reading.
- Make sure it’s not fanciful.
Give it a Google. Compare your article (perhaps by keywords) to other articles published on the topic. Make sure your introduction makes sense in that context, and will catch the attention of the reader when they’re scanning all of those pieces deciding which to read.

HOW TO WRITE CONCLUSIONS WORTH READING

May the saints protect you if you have a marketer or editor who requires you to put the word “Conclusion” in the title of your conclusion. I’m so sorry if this happens to you.

More often than not, conclusions are the dying breath of a writer who wishes the article was over already. You can kind of tell when it’s basically just the intro paraphrased word for word. So for that reason, I try to write my intro and conclusion before I write the meat of the article. This is to your personal preference, but I find that when I know where I’m starting and where I’m ending, I know how to make the middle much better, too.

So my writing order goes like this:

Intro that’s too long and complex, which I break into the intro and conclusion
Refine the conclusion
Body of the piece
Re-write intro and conclusion

Answer the question or relieve the tension from the introduction

In general, a strong introduction is like lobbing a ball: there’s a very clear place where the ball should land to close the thought. Your first option is to answer the question, close the thought, reveal the truth behind the question or tension you built in the introduction.

BORING: The ideas presented in this article should help you figure out how to make employee engagement more of a priority for your organization. As a result, you will be able to make the most of your hires and build a company culture that serves you well.

BRILLIANT: You’ve been able to coast on employee engagement until now because it was an employer’s market: it’s been easy to find the candidates you want and your turnover numbers have stayed within a reasonable range. But as the economy turns in favor of employees, companies that want to retain top-performing employees will need to be sure those employees are engaged in their day-to-day, and the best way to do that is with automated pulse surveys.

Speak to the consequences of both action and inaction

Speak to what happens if companies abide by the truths in the content and take action — and the consequences if they ignore them and don’t take action. (Hint: if there aren’t any consequences, it’s not a good topic to write about!)

Speaking to action allows you to incorporate a copywriting technique called future-pacing, where you paint an attractive picture of what the future could look like if the reader takes action on what you’re saying. Readers get attached to that future vision — and suddenly the present pales in comparison.

BORING: A significant number of banking institutions are taking cryptocurrency seriously, which is a strong sign it’s not a flash in the pan but rather a trend that’s here to stay. Consider how your organization can make the most of this new way of connecting with finance.

BRILLIANT: Cryptocurrency represents an enormous opportunity for financial gain for both your banking institution and your banking customer base. If you don’t act now, you may find that you not only miss out on an extraordinary opportunity, but you also miss out on a new generation of customer seeking banking partners who are future-focused. But if you find a way to prioritize this trend before your competitors, you just might set yourself up for the best fiscal year you’ve ever had.

Play devil’s advocate for the inevitable outcome

Lazily make the case for the opponent’s argument, with an air of, “Sure, you can try to ignore this. You might get away with it. But not for long.”

This emphasizes how long-form is truly the opposite of direct response. It’s never about putting so much pressure on the reader that they’re forced to leave or agree with you. It’s about providing the data and the argument, and then backing off so hard that they feel empowered to make their own decision.

BRILLIANT: Can you run a successful e-commerce business without tax automation? Of course you can, you’ve been doing so for years. But as the e-commerce tax landscape becomes more and more complex, you might wonder if it’s worth the resources. What a team of one can easily handle now will quickly become overwhelming — the question you must ask yourself is whether or not you’re ready to grow your tax team by 100% or even 200% in the next few years.

General tips about conclusions:

Close the loop. Avoid adding new information, such as statistics or links, in the conclusion. The purpose is to complete the thought and drive home your point, not add another tangent (“And another thing!”). This is a big part of what will make a piece of long-form actually feel finished instead of just “ended.” The one exception is that many people seem to be able to close on a quote from someone in the piece very well, but there’s a journalistic art to doing this well.
Think of a warm, confident radio reporter. The voice you’re going for is satisfied, resigned, and sympathetic about the future, no matter how hopeless it is (if they don’t take your advice) or hopeful it is (if they do take your advice).

FINAL THOUGHTS

When you start to feel pressure that you have to do it all and you can never figure out, remember: your role as the writer is to collect the right details to assemble an effective story. You’re working with background research, live interviews, past webinars, and branded materials from the client… and this is the raw data you’ll shape into puzzle pieces that make up a piece of content. None of the information I’ve shown you here is 100% a creation of my brain — I took all that was given to me and assembled it into something to suit the target reader.

HOW TO START AND HOW TO FINISH QUICK SHEET

Remember, it’s not all on you. You’re here to assemble a complex puzzle.

Introductions

Find the tension. Stories require tension, otherwise, they’re just lists of events. Whatever your topic is, look for the, “But…”. Sometimes you can use “But” in the intro, and sometimes you need to find a way to introduce tension without using that exact phrase. Lead with a statistic. Especially in B2B, using a recent statistic is a very powerful way of signaling that what you’re writing is topical and worth paying attention to. Many B2B marketers explicitly request there be a stat or two in the introduction (but not so many that you pull the reader in too many directions). Beware warm-up copy. Very few topics actually need background information, we just think they do and marketers think they do. The purpose of writing at a higher level is that the audience is hella smart. Often, they already know. Act like they already know. Think about the reality of your intro. Always keep the physical reality of the audience in mind to avoid sharing anything that is a non-starter (CEO timer example).Give it a Google. Compare your article (perhaps by keywords) to other articles published on the topic. Make sure your introduction makes sense in that context, and will catch the attention of the reader when they’re scanning all of those pieces deciding which to read.

1. Create space for the reader to think

BORING: Low employee engagement is a big problem, and it’s critical businesses make a plan to solve it today. This article will show you…

2. Open with a memorable scene

BORING: It’s incredibly important that your banking customer service team understands the processes and protocols for providing excellent customer service in banking today.

3. Find the logical disconnect or the nagging problem

CONCLUSIONS

Close the loop. Avoid adding new information, such as statistics or links, in the conclusion. The purpose is to complete the thought and drive home your point, not add another tangent (“And another thing!”). This is a big part of what will make a piece of long-form actually feel finished instead of just “ended.” The one exception is that many people seem to be able to close on a quote from someone in the piece very well, but there’s a journalistic art to doing this well. Think of a warm, confident radio reporter. The voice you’re going for is satisfied, resigned, and sympathetic about the future, no matter how hopeless it is (if they don’t take your advice) or hopeful it is (if they do take your advice).

1. Answer the question or relieve the tension from the introduction

2. Speak to the consequences of both action and inaction

3. Play devil’s advocate for the inevitable outcome

BORING: Now that you understand the consequences of not adopting tax automation, you can make an informed decision about the best tax automation partner for your needs. You won’t be sorry — and neither will your customers.
BRILLIANT: Can you run a successful e-commerce business without tax automation? Of course you can, you’ve been doing so for years. But as the e-commerce tax landscape becomes more and more complex, you might wonder if it’s worth the resources. What a team of one can easily handle now will quickly become overwhelming — the question you must ask yourself is whether or not you’re ready to grow your tax team by 100% or even 200% in the next few years.