How Storytelling Can Re-Invigorate Your B2B Brand

… build better customer relationships, generate leads, and even drive sales!

People of all cultures share the age-old tradition of telling stories. A tradition that dates back over
36,000 years to the cave paintings in Lascaux and Chavaux, France. But in today’s modern business
world, storytelling is being embraced as a uniquely powerful marketing practice.

Recent research in neuroscience reveals that the human brain is hard-wired to respond to stories. And
the pleasure we derive from stories is nature’s way of beguiling us into paying attention.

But B2B marketers oftentimes mistakenly believe that they can’t use storytelling in marketing. They feel
their products and services are too complicated, too abstract, and their business prospects don’t have
time to listen to stories. They wanted to seem professional, disciplined, and impressive – even at the
expense of being a bit boring and stuffy.

So how do B2B companies make heart-felt human connections?

People love telling, sharing, and hearing stories. But stories do much more than entertain. They engage
peoples’ brains creating an experience in which they feel a powerful emotion, learn a lesson, and
envision outcomes as if they were there. People literally think in story which allows them to envision
what might happen in the future and prepare for it.

Even in the B2B space, marketers can use this to their benefit. Instead of only listening to a laundry list
of the features and specs of a business solution, marketers can forge a more powerful connection with
customers – an emotional, human connection.

Storytelling is much more effective when you try to influence or persuade someone than when you
provide statistics or purely rational arguments. That’s because emotion can be a powerful motivator.
Research shows that stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts. So, obviously you want to
create marketing campaigns that customers remember and that drive them to act.

6 Key Elements of Good Storytelling

Capture Immediate Attention
There are billions of stories out there, so you need to make yours stand out, grab readers’
attention and make them want more. Your story needs a hook that quickly pulls people in,
ignites their curiosity, and makes them want to lean forward eager to hear more.
Know Your Audience
Leverage website analytics to identify your best customers, their demographics, and the kind of
content that resonates with them. Then, create stories that pique their specific interests.
Be Relatable & Conversational
Make sure your story is relatable and touches on common human conditions. For example, if
you sell fintech software, make a connection with a reader over the frustration felt when using
outdated software that is overly complicated or slow. Find common pain points. Use simple,
straightforward language, avoid jargon, and tell the story the way you would tell it to a friend.
Keep it Short
Remember that audiences today have a shorter attention span. It can be a challenge to get
people to read past the headline. Tell your story, but keep it short, stick to your overall message
and don’t get sidetracked or bogged down with unnecessary details.
Follow a Storyline
Stories should follow a natural progression – an intro in which we learn about a protagonist
(who your prospects identify with), the challenges they face (pain points), what the protagonist
has done (your product/service) to solve those challenges, and the impact you’re your solution
has made.
Keep it Real
True stories tend to have more impact than fiction, but you also want to write powerful stories
in a genuine, authentic way. Avoid the temptation to be melodramatic or salesy. Let the story
and its characters speak for themselves.

How to Incorporate Storytelling into Your B2B Marketing

Now that you know what makes a good story, you need to incorporate storytelling into your marketing
strategy. Understand that you can tell the same story in different ways across media channels, and you
should optimize cross-channel marketing to reach audiences where they are.

Use business intelligence and analytics to gain insights about people you want to target, where they get
information, which topics are most popular, and how they prefer to view content. From there, you can
figure out what stories to tell, how to tell them, and where to deliver them to maximize results.

Let’s look at effective storytelling methods that can help you craft business narratives that captivate,
convince, and inspire.

Use Original Data

You might think using data and telling stories are opposite marketing strategies. But the truth is that
they work better when used in combination. Using data to support the story caters to customers’
rational side, while the story itself appeals to their emotions. The combination is a powerful one-two
punch.

One of our clients often conducts research via surveys and other methods. They then create compelling
reports that tell the story of how the firm helps businesses achieve their goals, supported by their own
data.

Highlight Your People

Nothing humanizes your organization more than shining a spotlight on your people. Customers don’t
want to do business with an anonymous brand. They want to work with people – individuals with unique
personalities and backgrounds who are relatable and real.

Tell Your Company’s Stories

Brand stories can be an extremely powerful way to raise brand awareness and loyalty and to establish
trust. People love a story about transformation, so it can be powerful to talk about how your company
has grown from an idea written on a cocktail napkin into something that is revolutionizing an entire
industry.

Prove Social Impact

Social impact storytelling is an incredibly popular content trend, and for good reason. A recent study
found that 78% of Americans expect companies to go beyond making profits, they must also make a
positive impact on society. Companies can use social impact stories to forge authentic, emotional
connections with customers and prospects.

One of the most powerful ways to win over prospects is to share customer success stories. Ideally,
prospects will see themselves in challenges your customer has faced and will turn to your company for
similar results. You can create customer stories by interviewing clients or by leveraging user-generated
content and having that content tell stories for you.

And They All Lived Profitably Ever After

The bottom line is B2B companies can use the power of storytelling in creative and unexpected ways to
humanize the brand, connect with customers, and grow the business. The most effective stories
highlight the experiences of companies or individuals, such as the B2B buyers you’re trying to reach, and
show how your product, service, or brand resolves pain points and improves lives.