While the process of writing headlines for your B2B marketing materials is both fun and challenging, writing an effective one is not as easy as you would think.

The goal of every headline, of course, is to grab the reader’s attention. If your headline doesn’t make a good first impression that motivates your readers to want to read more, don’t get me wrong your article will still be read, but not by as many readers as you had hoped for. But a well-written headline that strikes a chord with readers can significantly increase the amount of readers that are compelled to read on. And for your B2B marketing and lead generation programs, that’s a beautiful thing.

For B2B headlines, there are a few things that are critical in capturing the attention of your audience, and they primarily revolve around benefits. Capturing the value or how the reader will benefit from the article, whitepaper, blog, etc. can greatly improve your ability to expand your readership. When writing your next headline, here are a few things to think about:

Readers eat up numbers: Nothing excites people researching products or services like reading about the financial benefits they can receive from your products. Including hard numbers, percentages or any statistic that instantly shows how your readers can improve their bottom line will make a great first impression on any readers.

Highlight pain points: Businesses trying to solve problems are always looking for experts that understand their space, their top concerns and pain points. If you’re able to squeeze in your headline specific terms that keep them up at night, they will most certainly read on.

Be straightforward: Trying to be too clever with your headlines can sometimes work against you. If readers don’t understand your wit or dry sense of humor you can lose them, or not make a connection at all. Also, don’t create misleading headlines that promise one thing, but deliver another. With the limited amount of time people have to research materials, being straightforward with what they can expect is always the best way to go.

Keep it punchy: While great headlines can vary in length, keeping it short makes it both easier to read and gets straight to the point. There’s a funny term I learned in journalism called energy leaks, which basically describes unnecessary conjunctions such as “that”, “but” or “so” that deflate the energy or power of your stronger adjectives. In other words, if any word in your headline doesn’t strengthen your point, get rid of it. Your headlines should only include words that excite and influence your audience to read on.

Feel free to share any of your favorite B2B marketing headlines or stories about how a specific headline eventually led to new business. I would love to hear them.

For B2B marketers, a key part of your lead nurturing program is establishing your business as a trusted resource for information that’s relevant to your customers’ needs. The last thing you want to do in your marketing efforts is come across as another tunnel-vision marketer trying to force feed your message down everyone’s throat. Each marketing touch — whether it’s through a personal email, company blog, newsletter, or any other social media tool — should position your company as a knowledgeable, thought leader that provides useful information that helps prospects in their decision-making process.

While my last post provided tips on how to attract customers in a hurry, nurturing those relationships takes time. Building the foundation for a strong business relationship starts with an open dialog that not only shows that you understand your customers’ problems and concerns, but that you are there to help. Here are a few things B2B marketers should consider when developing a lead nurturing program:

• Demonstrate that you understand and care about your customers’ needs
• Communication should be conversational
• Content should include timely, relevant information your customers can use
• Make yourself readily available
• Reply to inquiries and follow up in a timely fashion

Today’s customers are hungry for information, and they’re turning to the Internet to find it. By establishing yourself as a trusted industry resource they can turn to, they will pay attention to your future lead nurturing efforts. Once you’ve done that, you’ve set the foundation for a trusted business relationship. After all, most business deals aren’t won through the products and services, they’re earned through the trust of the people behind them.

As a former journalist, I understand what it takes to create daily content that captivates and educates your audience without burning out. The trick is you simply can’t go it alone. I can attest that although my byline was on top of every one of my newspaper and magazine articles, the final printed product was the work of a team of people who helped plan, research, interview, edit, and provided feedback before any of my articles saw the light of day. The same holds true for creating and delivering Web content. No one can regularly produce engaging content without help from a team of resources that brainstorm ideas and gather information that helps keep you in the loop of what’s happening in your respective industry. Here are a few ideas you might consider for helping you gather information for your Web content.

Leverage internal resources — Recruit everyone you can in your organization for potential ideas, stats, or stories they’ve heard. Build a team of internal experts in their particular areas to funnel articles, blogs, and other social media that is relevant to your industry. It really doesn’t take much on their part and you’ll gather more timely and useful information than you ever would, in half the time.

Talk / listen to your customers — The key to any B2B marketing piece is to engage your customers with useful information that’s important to them. If you want to know what your customers want to read about, what better way is there than to talk to them. You’d be surprised how many great ideas for blogs and articles can surface from casual conversations with the very people you’re writing to.

Follow relevant social media — While this goes without saying, following other blogs, articles, Tweets, etc. that cover your space can do wonders for content creation. Following daily conversations, the latest happenings, and hottest industry trends through social media feeds is another way to funnel ideas directly to your desk.

Surround yourself with a team of editors — As a writer, I know that we are our own worst critics. But I have to say that getting feedback from others, who aren’t as close to the material as you are, really helps. Having a team of resources to bounce off ideas, outlines and drafts can strengthen and clean up the point you’re trying to make. They don’t have to be trained copyeditors (but those with experience helps), but having a fresh pair of eyes to review your content before it’s published is always a good idea.

The point is, we can’t magically pull relevant content out of thin air, particularly if we’re working alone. It really takes a pool of resources to consistently create Web content that’s fresh and relevant to your audience. In a world where resources are plenty, use them. As a result, you’ll be filtering too many good ideas rather than scrambling at the last minute for content. And that’s a good problem to have.

These are just a few ideas to think for content creation. I’d love to hear about the different resources you use for developing relevant B2B content for your readers.

In the 24/7 communications age we live in, everybody’s receiving too much information, too fast. As a B2B marketer, if you think you’re busy pushing information out there, imagine how little time a CEO or senior manager spends reading emails each day, particularly marketing emails. Their demanding schedules pretty much dictate how they communicate with others.

To successfully get on somebody’s radar, you first need to understand how they prefer to communicate and receive information. Whether you’re reaching out to your customers via email, IM, Twitter, a monthly newsletter, a webinar invite, or a simple old-fashion phone call (imagine that!), understanding the most effective way to reach your target audience is a critical step to building a closer relationship with your prospects and customers, and sets the stage for delivering great marketing content that actually gets read.

Understanding the differences in how your targeted CXOs, senior management, and IT managers communicate and receive information can help make your marketing efforts more efficient, and ultimately, generate better results. Once you’ve successfully figured that out, and the attention is on you, that’s when your awesome marketing content can shine.