3 Ways your B2B Blog can Capture Your Reader’s Attention

“Last year alone, Basecamp helped over 285,000 companies finish more than 2,000,000 projects.” – Opening on Basecamp’s homepage

“Trying out this whole inbound marketing thing? I bet you have some questions.” – Opening to a post on Hubspot’s blog

There’s a famous adage: “With great power comes a high electricity bill.” – Opening to a post by Nick Cernis on Copyblogger

Most of the writing advice you see out there is about creating the “best” headline for your B2B blog post. “It’s the headline that draws them in,” they all say.

While that may be true, once you’ve got them clicking on your B2B blog, you’ve got to keep them, right? Keep them reading so that they forget what they were about to do next, and draw them in all the way to the end of the post. B2B readers are busy people, so you’ve got to capture their attention once, and keep them reading now.

Those three examples are interesting ways to open a blog post – with some stats, questions, or a quote. Based on those, you’d probably keep on reading, right? You’re curious to see how the opening ties in to the topic, and since you’re probably already interested in the topic, you’ll read right through to the end.

You can do that with a great opening to your next B2B blog post – one that captures your reader’s attention and fires up their imagination. Here are three ways that you can do that.

1. Ask a question

This ‘rhetorical’ classic is a classic for a reason. Seeing a question at the start of an article creates curiosity in the reader, and gets them thinking. And you want them thinking. Thinking = engagement.

2. State some facts

We love stats and metrics, and B2B blog readers are no different. If anything, they probably like them even more as they’re great proof to show decision makers. If you can find an interesting or “strange” fact about your topic, then that’s even better.

3. Quote something (or someone)

Using a quote is an effective way to start off a blog post. It takes the focus away from you and puts it on the speaker of the quote, however if you’ve chosen someone readers already know, like, and trust, then you’ve just scored easy authority points for yourself as well.

So, how are you creating great openings for your B2B blog? We’d love to see some of them in action.

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