A lot of presentations at this week’s Content2Conversion Conference touched on theories and tactics related to creating customer focused narratives in B2B content. While some marketers might think of incorporating storytelling in their B2B content marketing as a gamble, Laura Ramos of Forrester Research says it’s time to make that gamble. According to Laura, it’s time to double down on the one key element missing in most B2B content: Storytelling.
B2B Marketing lacks enthusiasm and capability to use storytelling to connect with buyers, Laura said. It’s time to tell stories and it’s time to understand the power that storytelling has on your audience.
Since the human brain is wired to connect with storytelling, buyers are physiologically inclined to remember stories and let the emotions generated influence their buying decisions. For B2B marketers who are still new to incorporating storytelling techniques in their content, Laura offered the following best practices to bring more stories into B2B marketing and B2B conversation.
- Create empathy by understanding your audience and then showing you care. Feature business uses and users of your product or service as human.
- Tell stories with chapters because engaging stories have tension and pace. Don’t shy away from long-form content. Plus, longer content can be serialized to build anticipation.
- Blend rational with the emotional by personifying an inanimate object. Connecting B2B products to human characteristics helps connect your content to its audience.
- Introduce problems we care about and that include bigger implications of your industry. Glass packaging is more than just a bottle, it’s how a product tastes, and it cares for health of its users. Entirely new audiences can be accessed if some of your content touches on larger issues.
Laura also offered five ways to make your content more contextual.
- Understand your buyers and know them as people, not just businesses.
- Make customers the heroes of your stories. Tell stories that features your potential customer saving his or her company millions.
- Stir emotions to connect with buyers. Entertain and tell stories that connect emotionally to your buyers. Contend doesn’t always have to feature a sales pitch. Compelling, emotional stories draw buyers into real issues within the industry.
- Personalize the experience by using technology or partnering with companies that can create polls, and surveys that are change specific to how a person answers a question.
- Give away something useful in your content. Make sure what you are publishing contains interesting information, innovation, stories and examples. Of course most content should be related to your industry, but don’t be afraid to put out some content just because it appeals to others interests of potential buyers.
Stay tuned for a C2C15 wrap-up post later today, including TopRank Marketing’s Killer Content Award!
