Resources
Partnering with your agency
Want to get the most out of your agency? Read our best practices for successful B2B marketing content development—scoping work, managing stakeholder feedback, project management, and more—written by our experienced B2B content marketing team.
Featured Resources
Be a Superstar Reviewer: Four Tips for Getting What You Want from Your Copywriter
Tips for Selecting and Working with Subject Matter Experts
What Causes Marcom Projects to Fail
More Resources
Smart B2B Tech Marketing: Joy Stark
To celebrate the Content Bureau’s 20th anniversary, we’re seeking wisdom from rock star clients whose serious B2B marketing cred, brains, and heart have always inspired us. Next up: Joy Stark. Name: Joy Stark In: Boston Hired the Content Bureau at: Autodesk For: Tech...
Smart B2B Tech Marketing: Jen Schulze
To celebrate the Content Bureau’s 20th anniversary, we’re seeking wisdom from rock star clients whose serious B2B marketing cred, brains, and heart have always inspired us. First up: Jen Schulze. Name: Jen Schulze In: San Francisco Hired the Content Bureau at: SAP,...
How to Create Bite-Sized Content
You’ve got barrels of data. A dense 15-page whitepaper. Reams of statistically significant survey results. Presentations stuffed with charts and graphs. Content is not the issue; making it accessible and digestible is your challenge. Content distillation—the creation...
We’re the #1 Content Marketing Agency on Clutch
Wow! I was super excited several months ago when we were ranked #3, but thanks to a new (totally independent) review from one of our beloved clients, we’ve achieved the top spot out of more than 7,800 content marketing agencies listed on Clutch. What a special honor...
Our Clutch Reviews Are IN
As you might expect, we like to button things up before publishing—which is why we’ve waited to share our client reviews on Clutch.co. Voila! We’re delighted to report that since we learned about Clutch earlier this year, five Content Bureau clients have offered to be...
Case Study: The Content Bureau Creates Vibrant eBooks, Infographics for RSA Security
Which B2B marketing content is stickiest? RSA Security chose bright, eye-catching imagery for its new eBooks and infographics—creating an accessible and highly memorable security story. You can read all about our work for RSA Security in this new Content Bureau case...
Can We Jump on a Call?
Content Bureau clients are a diverse set, ranging from global tech marketers to venture capitalists, and we take genuine pleasure in getting to know them through email, conference calls, and in-person meetings. It’s a rare project that doesn’t start with a kick-off...
Three Tips for Turning Data Into Compelling Marketing Content
Did you recently fund a customer survey? Or hire a firm to do primary research related to trending issues in your industry? Chances are, you’re looking at a plethora of data compiled into Excel spreadsheets, or summarized in charts, graphs, tables, and scores of...
Tips for Selecting and Working with Subject Matter Experts
It’s time to attract leads with another top-of-the-funnel gem. You need a compelling, thought-leadership-filled B2B ebook or white paper that people will leap to download. And that asset must enhance your brand and further your core message—which calls for more than a...
How to Write Good: Using a Team Approach to Perfect Copy
My son sent me this list the other day and it made me laugh. How to Write Good* The passive voice is to be avoided. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. Don’t be...
Who Hires and Manages the Content Marketing Agency—Corporate Marketing or the Business Unit?
Like many creative services companies, the Content Bureau works with tech and financial services companies that have corporate marketing departments wielding lots of centralized control; and we also work with companies that are almost completely decentralized—where...
Avoid the Pitfalls of Online Research for Stats and Surveys
With just a few keystrokes and clicks in Google, a world of research, statistics, and studies are available to bolster white papers, bylined articles, and blog posts. Unfortunately, the explosion of online content has made sourcing this research a...
Naming Matters: Eschew the Fancy “E”
I was traveling on a train recently and I found myself staring at the station sign at Bay Pointe, the name of a new housing development. Is it pronounced “bay point” or “bay point-ee” or “bay point-ay?” I wondered. Who decided on that spelling? What's...
6 Best Practices for Working With an Outside Content Provider
I’ve been creating marketing content for clients small and large for more than 20 years. Most of the projects I’ve worked on have been enjoyable and even fun. Occasionally, though, things have turned south, putting an unpleasant taste in the mouths of everyone...
Distance Makes the Writer Grow Fonder of Editors—Or, Bringing It Home with the TZ Advantage
For millennia, members of families—blood and work—lived mostly in the same area and were impacted considerably when one of their own struck out for distant pastures. But now that we’ve become wedged in the ethereal arms of technology, distance is a snap to negotiate....
What Format Should We Use: Adobe InDesign or Microsoft PowerPoint?
“In the end, we want a PDF—but should we create it in InDesign or PowerPoint?” It’s a question frequently asked around here, and the answer is always the same: “It depends.” When deciding on an asset format, we ask our clients to consider the following: Design...
The Oxford Comma Argument Rages On
“Nothing, but nothing—profanity, transgender pronouns, apostrophe abuse—excites the passion of grammar geeks more than the serial, or Oxford, comma,” according to The New Yorker. Much like asking creative types if they put one space or two after a period, demanding...
Vector or Raster = Huh?
You’ve received a request for a vector logo file from the Content Bureau’s graphic designer. If you’re confused about what that means, and about the difference between image file types, you’re not alone. Let’s chat about these two image file types—vector and...
Be a Superstar Reviewer: Four Tips for Getting What You Want from Your Copywriter
All marketing managers want to get the most from their copywriting budgets. When you hire the Content Bureau, we’ll typically ask you to review up to three drafts of copy. Is there a right way to review B2B copy? Absolutely! For best results, make your feedback the...
The Best Valentine’s Day Blog Posts of All Time
As you might guess from looking at our website, or my stationery collection, or my closet—freakishly awash in red and pink, with a dash of metallic glitter—Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday. This giant painting in my home office sets the tone for my entire life....
Words to Watch: The Stocking-Size Style Guide
We love creating editorial style guides and brand guidelines because they can help a company to produce more effective content for years. These references can be especially helpful for people in your organization who produce content but don’t count writing as a core...
Copy Blocks: Really, What Can’t They Do?
At the Content Bureau, we produce a lot of marketing assets. A few are crucial but short-lived one-offs, for events or other special occasions. Most—like web copy, case studies, and infographics—are designed to serve your business for much longer, in a variety of...
How to Write Award-Winning Copy
Part two of a three-part series. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was recently invited to join the judges of the Verbal Identity panel of the 2016 LIA Awards. Now that the LIA winners for Verbal Identity have been announced, we can examine why those Gold and...
Why the Best Bylined Articles Are a Team Effort
I’ve never liked pure “ghostwriting”—that is, writing all of the words under someone else’s name without any input from the person who’s actually taking the credit. I’m not annoyed that I don’t share the spotlight. I just think that writing falls flat when there’s no...
How to Create All Your Marketing Program Content At the Same Time (Quickly, Cost-Effectively, and with No Drama)
Yes! This is possible! It’s all about bundling. Our clients—ambitious marketers at large B2B technology and financial services companies—tend to use us for the “hard stuff.” These days, the “hard stuff” isn’t just the long stuff, it’s a bundle of marketing program...
Other Categories
