The Key to B2B Blog Conversions: Clarity and Empathy

In a sea of content, it’s the pieces that resonate — that truly speak to the reader’s core — that make waves.

Imagine trying to catch a delicate butterfly with a clumsy, massively oversized net. You’re putting in the effort, moving frantically, but you’re just not equipped to succeed.

That’s the reality for many B2B content marketers today.

They’re armed with passion and knowledge. But without the right tools and techniques, their content is like that oversized net — awkward and ineffective.

What if I told you that the secret lies not in the chase, but in understanding the butterfly itself? That clarity and empathy, when skillfully woven into your content, can turn that cumbersome net into a magnet, effortlessly attracting what you seek?

In this article, you’ll discover how to harness the power of clarity and empathy to not just catch the attention of your audience but to hold it, leading to the conversions for which every marketer strives.

Let’s start with clarity.

Understanding the power of clarity in writing

Clarity isn’t just a virtue; it’s the backbone of effective communication.

Say you’re trying to navigate a dense forest with a blurred map. You have the destination in mind, but the path is obscured. This is what happens when clarity is missing in your writing — your message becomes a labyrinth that readers struggle to navigate.

Clarity in writing involves creating a crystal-clear pathway for your message.

It’s the art of making your words so transparent that the reader moves through your content with ease, understanding your message without so much as a second thought.

You’ve probably already heard all the tips and tricks and common pitfalls to avoid to achieve this. Things like:

• Overusing jargon that alienates readers
• Long-winded sentences that bury the main point
• Passive voice that dilutes the impact of your statements
• Complex sentence structures that confuse readers

So, I won’t waste your time rehashing those points here.

Instead, I’ll focus on the real game-changer, which is the mindset behind achieving clear writing: relentlessly pursuing simplicity.

Editing for clarity is akin to refining a diamond. You chip away the rough, unnecessary elements to reveal an effortlessly brilliant piece.

While editing, your ultimate goal is to remove friction. Your words should glide through the reader’s mind like a hot knife through butter, leaving no room for distraction or misunderstanding.

And how do you achieve this? By simplifying as much as necessary, but no more.

Balancing clarity and complexity

To strike the perfect balance between clarity and complexity in your writing, you must know when to simplify and when to embrace complexity, depending on who’s in your audience.

In other words, your audience defines what qualifies as ‘simple,’ not you or anyone else.

The goal isn’t to dumb down your content. It’s to make it accessible, understandable, and resonant for those you’re speaking to.

This subtle but crucial distinction respects the intelligence and context of your readers.

Simplifying “as much as necessary” means distilling your content to its essence and removing any excess that could cloud your message. But stopping at “no more” ensures you don’t strip away the nuances and depth that give it its value and appeal.

It’s a fine line, one that requires a deep understanding of your audience’s knowledge/awareness level and preferences.

For example, if you’re crafting content about the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, the level of detail and technical language you use would differ vastly between a blog aimed at AI enthusiasts and a general interest news article.

Naturally, AI enthusiasts would crave a level of complexity and jargon that would confuse a general audience. And that only makes sense, seeing as they know way more about the subject than the average Joe/Jane.

The same applies to discussing marketing strategies.

For seasoned marketers, diving into the nitty-gritty of advanced tactics is expected and would be much appreciated.

However, for newcomers to the field, such depth can be overwhelming. Instead, a focus on foundational concepts and clear, concise explanations in simple language would be more effective.

In your own work, consider the audience’s awareness and comprehension level.

Are they experts or novices in the subject matter?

What are their expectations and needs?

Answering these questions can guide you in adjusting the complexity of your content appropriately.

Beyond tailoring the level of complexity to your audience’s awareness level, here are a few more tips for achieving this balance:

1. Integrate technical terms with clear, real-world examples to ensure comprehension without oversimplification.
2. Use relatable analogies, stories — even fictional ones — and real-world examples to clarify complex concepts, bridging the gap between expert knowledge and layperson understanding.
3. Combine storytelling with data-driven insights to engage both the emotional and rational sides of your audience.
4. Prioritize key takeaways, beginning with the most critical information to capture attention, then delve into deeper, more complex details.
5. Structure your content to cater to both deep readers and skimmers, using headings, bullet points, visual elements, and lots of white space to break up the content and make it easier on the eye.
6. Regularly seek feedback from your audience to refine the balance between clarity and complexity in your content.

The point is to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and ask yourself: “What does my audience already know, and what would they like to know?”

That brings us to the next part of the equation: empathy.

The role of empathy in connecting with your audience

Empathy is how you put yourself in your audience’s shoes and see the world from their perspective.

It’s the only way to create content that resonates so deeply with your target audience that they stop scrolling, click, read, and share it with their peers.

To do this, you must immerse yourself in your audience’s needs, concerns, and dreams. You must craft narratives that align with their challenges and aspirations rather than simply share information.

This approach shifts your content from a one-sided monologue to an engaging dialogue. Instead of merely broadcasting to your audience, you’re conversing with them, ensuring they feel acknowledged, heard, and valued.

But how do you write with empathy?

Empathy in action: Articulating your audience’s problems

Alex Hormozi talks about making your audience feel understood by articulating their problems better than they can on their own. When they see this, they’ll feel like you can articulate the solution just as well and will choose to work with you.

I agree, and I believe you can only do this when you write with empathy.

To this end, one technique I often use is building content around customer case studies. By doing so, I’m showing the reader they’re not alone, and that the product has helped people exactly like them solve similar problems.

For instance, in a piece I wrote for Pecan AI, I focused on a real-life scenario faced by the marketing team at Hydrant. They struggled with stagnant open and click-through rates in their email marketing campaigns and sought a smarter way to engage their audience.

By diving into this specific challenge, I not only highlighted a common pain point in data-driven marketing but also positioned Pecan AI as a solution provider that understands and addresses these precise issues.

Similarly, in a piece about Webflow, I incorporated tangible case studies to make the content relatable and impactful.

For instance, I narrated the story of Petal, an online credit card startup, which faced hurdles in website development due to limited developer resources.

This real-world example perfectly encapsulated the common struggle of marketing teams, emphasizing how Webflow’s no-code solution directly addresses and resolves such fundamental issues.

Another example I used in the Webflow piece was Grubhub’s challenge of launching campaigns strategically and on time.

Their need to move quickly for a year-end initiative, juxtaposed against the constraints of traditional coding and developer dependency, perfectly illustrated a scenario many marketers find themselves in.

By detailing how Webflow enabled Grubhub to overcome these obstacles and achieve a successful campaign, I showed the reader a mirror of their possible challenges and a pathway to overcome them.

In each of these cases, by taking relevant discussion points directly from customer case studies, I was able to show the reader that they’re not alone in their struggles and that the featured product has helped others in similar situations.

This approach brings the audience’s problems into sharp focus and demonstrates empathy and understanding, making the solutions offered more compelling and relevant.

Practical tips for articulating your audience’s problems effectively

It’s one thing to understand your audience’s problems; it’s another to articulate these problems in a way that makes your audience feel seen and heard. This is where the real magic of content writing unfolds.

Pulling examples from my work for Pecan AI and Webflow, I’ll show you eight specific, actionable techniques to effectively articulate your audience’s problems.

1. Use words your audience would use to describe the problem

When articulating your audience’s problems, try to use the same words they’d use to describe them. Mirroring the words and phrases they would naturally use demonstrates that you understand their world and challenges.

In my piece for Pecan AI, I leaned into this principle. The article discussed the marketing team at Hydrant and their quest to improve their email marketing campaigns.

By using terms like “open and click-through rates” and “email marketing campaigns,” I spoke the language of marketers, who were the target audience for the piece. These terms are part of the daily vernacular for professionals in this field, and that makes the content feel familiar and relevant to them.

This strategy signals that you’re not an outsider looking in; rather, you’re someone who knows their struggles intimately and speaks their language. It builds trust, setting the stage for your solutions to be received more openly.

2. Get granular with detailed examples of actual pain points

Don’t be vague.

Vagueness can leave readers disconnected. But when you get granular, you touch on the realities they face, making your message much more relatable.

In the Webflow piece, I used the specific example of Petal, an online credit card startup, to illustrate a real-world challenge.

Petal needed to get a website up quickly but faced roadblocks due to its engineering team being preoccupied with building the core product. This left the marketing team with limited developer resources for web design, a specific problem that many marketing teams can relate to.

In presenting this particular scenario, the content moved beyond general statements about the benefits of no-code website builders.

Instead, it painted a clear picture of a situation that many in the audience have likely experienced: a marketing team needing more control over web design, hampered by dependency on technical staff, and constrained by legacy content management systems.

This level of detail in describing the pain point makes the problem tangible and the reader’s experience valid.

It does more than just inform; it connects, showing an in-depth understanding of the challenges the audience faces and paving the way for the proposed solution to be seen as genuinely valuable and relevant.

3. Make logical connections between issues they haven’t linked before

Establishing logical connections between seemingly unrelated issues can offer your audience fresh insights and enhance the relevance of your content.

In the Webflow article, for instance, I connected the challenge of timely campaign launches with the limitations of traditional web design tools.

I highlighted how Grubhub’s struggle with executing time-sensitive campaigns was exacerbated by their dependence on developers and the constraints of traditional coding.

This connection illuminated how Webflow’s no-code solution could address not just web design issues, but also broader marketing challenges, providing a novel perspective that the audience might not have considered before.

4. Highlight moments where the desired experience differs from reality

Highlighting the gap between what your audience desires and their actual experience can be a powerful way to resonate with them.

In the Webflow article, I emphasized this by showcasing dormakaba’s challenge.

The company, with a history of over 150 years and operations in multiple countries, struggled with a disjointed brand presence due to a rigid content management system.

This contrast between their desired seamless global brand image and the reality of their fragmented web presence underlined a common frustration many large organizations face, making the solution offered by Webflow all the more compelling.

5. Identify the obvious issue no one is explicitly talking about

Sometimes, addressing the elephant in the room can be what sets your content apart.

For the Pecan AI piece, I tackled the often-overlooked issue of data overload.

Many businesses accumulate vast amounts of data but struggle to turn it into actionable insights. This problem, while commonly experienced, is rarely addressed head-on.

By explicitly highlighting this challenge, the article simultaneously validated the reader’s unspoken frustrations and positioned Pecan AI’s machine learning solutions as a much-needed answer to a problem many were silently enduring

6. Call attention to problems that may feel “invisible” to them

Shedding light on issues that your audience may not even be aware of can be a game-changer.

In the Webflow article, I spotlighted a subtle yet impactful problem: the loss of creative control when marketing teams depend on web agencies or developers for website updates.

This issue, often lurking beneath the surface, can lead to inconsistencies in brand messaging and hinder timely content updates.

Bringing this ‘invisible’ problem to the forefront enlightened the readers about an often-overlooked challenge. But beyond that, it also emphasized the value of Webflow in granting them greater autonomy and control over their web presence.

7. Don’t just treat symptoms, uncover root causes

Addressing only the surface-level symptoms of a problem can lead to temporary solutions.

In the Pecan AI article, instead of just focusing on improving email campaign metrics, I delved deeper into understanding customer behavior and preferences.

This approach went beyond the symptomatic issues of low engagement rates to address the underlying cause: the lack of targeted, data-driven marketing strategies.

As a result, the article provided a more comprehensive view of the challenges and also highlighted Pecan AI’s role in offering a more holistic and effective solution for data-driven decision-making.

8. Give voice to unspoken frustrations

Articulating the unspoken frustrations of your audience can create a powerful connection.

In the Webflow article, I addressed a common yet often unexpressed challenge faced by marketing teams: the creative constraints imposed by traditional web design processes and tools.

Many marketers silently endure these limitations, which stifle their ability to quickly and effectively adapt their online presence to market trends.

Because of this approach, the content resonated with readers on a deeper, more emotional level. It also positioned Webflow as a liberating solution, empowering them with the freedom and flexibility they had been silently yearning for.

Ready for more content-driven conversions?

Clarity and empathy are extra important for getting results with your content. When your content really “gets” your audience and speaks to them clearly, it’s way more likely to convert readers into customers.

So make understanding your audience and communicating clearly your top goals. Use simple language your readers can relate to. Show them you get where they’re coming from and what matters to them. Speak to their real needs and concerns.

This will help you create content that truly connects with people.

With clarity and empathy as your guides, you can craft messages that resonate and inspire action.