How a Shift in Communication Tone for B2B Companies can be Beneficial

Developing a specific voice and tone for your brand should be part of your communication strategy. How you develop it should be derived from the value proposition of your company. How do you want to position yourself? Your brand’s voice should stay true to the vision and mission of your business. This is also true for B2B companies.

Simpler Language

Often B2B businesses consider that a simplified vocabulary lowers the quality of the content they might share. In contrast to that, being overly formal leads to content being ignored. A simpler language being used means it is easily understood by the audience and connections are built much quicker. Even in B2B industries communication is done between humans. Sounding human is the best way to start that conversation.

Simple language doesn’t necessarily mean your content isn’t valuable or comprehensive. It’s a way to get your target audience to relate and understand what you share. Simplicity often equates to being clear and concise. If a prospective buyer doesn’t understand what are you talking about, he won’t be interested in becoming a customer.

Readability is Key

You probably already heard about readability. It means how syntax, word choice, and sentence length are combined to make content easy to digest. Understandably there might be important points to make and some of them may be complex, but comprehension can be improved with well structured text, example or analogy.

A long and winding sentence might put the reader off continuing onto the next paragraph. There are already tools that assess readability and even give you hints for improvement of your text. It grades your content on different aspects like adverb usage, passive voice, length of sentences and other. These tools can save you a lot of time and effort when creating your content.

Should you use Jargon?

Every industry has some specific jargon used in communication. Should you use it? Does it help with your communication?

Generally, you should use jargon only if your audience also uses it. For example, a product might have a formal name, but if your audience has no knowledge of it you shouldn’t use it. This is often true for industries like healthcare or manufacturing. In this case it’s better to use the jargon everyone knows about to avoid miscommunication.

B2B voice and tone are certainly evolving. There have been many shifts in the discipline, most to a more conversational voice, which changes a brand in a positive way.