How technical should your B2B marketing copy be?

It’s often difficult to know exactly how technical you need to be in B2B copywriting.

You have to communicate enough detail about your complex product or service to demonstrate credibility and make your audience understand what you’re offering. However, you don’t want to bog down your copy with lots of dense jargon, as this prevents it from being clear and engaging.

Here’s my advice on how to balance readability with the need to communicate complex information.

Tailor to your audience

Generally speaking, the more niche and expert the target audience you’re writing for, the more license you have to get technical.

So copy that’s selling to e.g. cybersecurity specialists will be more technical than copy aimed at C-level executives. The latter should be more focused on how the product solves broader business problems.

What if your copy is aimed at both technical and non-technical audiences? In this scenario, you can set out your copy in layers with varying levels of detail.

For example, the header and first block of text could communicate the information in a more simplified way, with the second block of text - or linked product page - providing more expert-level explanations about the product or service.

Doing this ensures everyone involved in the B2B purchasing process, from the specialist to the C-level executive, has the kind of information they need to make a decision. With an average of 11 stakeholders involved in a B2B sale according to Gartner research, making sure your copy caters to all involved increases your likelihood of making the sale.

Simplify as much as possible

No matter how technical an audience you’re writing for, you need to strip out unnecessary jargon, as it reduces the clarity of your copy.

Overloading your copy with jargon and technical terms can alienate even the most informed readers, as research by Nielsen Norman Group shows.

An important caveat: every industry has its own unique language, and sometimes you need to use it to provide precise descriptions. For example, it’s difficult to find a simpler way to say “passwordless MFA solution”, and trying to do so might make it harder for you to be understood.

But for every technical term or piece of jargon, ask yourself: "Does saying this make it easier or harder for my readers to understand me?" If the answer is no, replace it with clearer language.

It’s more than possible to use plain, accessible language to explain complex concepts - this is what the best B2B copywriters do.

But don’t overcompensate

Savvy B2B marketers have cottoned onto the fact that even technically-minded audiences don’t want to be bored to death with pages and pages of dense copy.

However, I’ve seen B2B companies swing too far in the opposite direction and make the mistake of using wordplay, cute phrases, and other tactics like this to spice up their copy.

These verbal somersaults not only make your brand look unprofessional to a business audience, but also make your copy less clear. People want to quickly and easily understand what you offer, but attention-grabbing ploys often actually make this harder.

I recently worked with a B2B tech client who correctly recognized that their copy had too many inappropriately fluffy, “exciting” phrases (“Ka-ching” being an example). My job was to write copy for them that was engaging, while still sounding professional.

You also want to avoid giving overly simplified explanations of concepts or terms that your audience is highly likely to understand, as this will make them feel patronised. For example, if I was writing for an audience of marketers, I might not want to explain a widely-used term like “target market”.

Admittedly, striking the balance between not using unnecessarily complicated jargon and not patronising informed readers can be difficult. This is why specialised writers are so valuable: they understand your industry audience well enough to be able to communicate effectively with them.