Storytelling is now more important than ever for B2B marketing.

Stories are an indistinct part of our life! All of us have been brought up listening to stories. Those stories of King and Queen, the victory of good over evil and mythological stories had a deep impact on our character. On the other hand, they kept us so engaged that we can hear them for hours without even blinking our eyes and getting bored. We as humans have a keen desire for stories.

This innate desire for stories is not new in Humans, its history is pretty old. In Ancient times, the cavemen used to start a narrative of their journey to hunt the biggest mammals in forests by drawing pictures on the caves. The younger generation was inspired by such stories and made those hunters their idols. That was the impact that stories had on us. 

But how is it relevant to B2B businesses?

Don’t Forget! The decision-makers in the B2B business are also humans. They are no different. They too love the stories.

In this noisy market, your brand needs to stand out to become a business leader. Due to this pandemic, the purchasing power of the businesses and decision-makers have gone down, making it even harder for the brands to survive. 

Traditional marketing is losing the game but something new which is giving astonishing results to the marketers is storytelling. 

What is Storytelling for Brands? 

It is an interactive way to make it to the minds of the decision-makers. Brands create an interactive story keeping its solutions and products at the center to captivate the emotions of the viewers. 

Stories usually do not talk about the products rather than it is more specifically based on the values, the real-life problems, the impacts, and the vision of the company. Right Storytelling approach makes things super engaging and more human, to connect the company to the decision made at a personal level.

But is storytelling effective for B2B businesses?

According to research by Google in partnership with Motista and CEB, 50% of B2B buyers are more likely to buy if they can connect emotionally with your brand.

How can B2B marketers use Storytelling?

In recent years, the word Storytelling has become a buzzword in the business world. But it has a lot more than just being a buzzword. It is a crucial part of a content marketing strategy for B2B marketers. It can be used in various sphere out businesses rather than just focusing on the customers 

For B2B companies especially for tech companies, there is always a claim that we can revolutionize the world, our product is best, our product can raise the efficiency of your company and employees. 

But how?

What magic specifically, will your product do to the company to make a pure turnaround?

You cannot convince anyone to buy such complex solutions without showing its impact. 

Let’s create a story around it.

Start with the bottom-most point or end-user who is going to benefit from your product. Create his or her persona, find out the pain points. 

Craft a compelling story of the daily struggles and problems he or she is facing in the office, ultimately showing the impact the company is facing due to the ineffectiveness of the one such employee.  

Now. bring the magic that your company’s product can do to this current situation. Show, how effective it can be and how it has changed the daily office life of your persona or character, ultimately impacting the revenues and efficiency of the whole company. 

Bring in the real-life numbers and people to build a direct trust to the viewers. 

Imagine crafting a beautiful storyline around the above situation. Won’t it be more effective than your boring presentations?

That’s the power of Storytelling.

Based on a study, 71% of B2B buyers purchase when they see personal value in your business. Along with that, 68.8% of the B2B buyers surveyed are even willing to pay a higher price to do business with a brand they believe in.

HP Inc used the same storytelling to make a topic like Printer security extremely engaging and interesting. Hp’s video “The Wolf,” makes viewers understand how vital HP’s printer security software can be.

You can choose a particular emotion that you want to target before crafting a compelling story. It can be Humour, inspiration, nostalgia, optimism, patriotism, love, or anything you want.

Do you think you can only use stories to market your solutions or products?

But that’s not true! 

Big B2B giants are using stories for several things.

To showcase a Case study of your clients, you can choose the storytelling format to make a deep impact in the minds of the B2B decision-makers. 

Though the people wearing the business hats are dispassionate, coldly creatures, but they are humans. A human touch to your story can do wonders.

To showcase the testimonials of your clients, you can make engaging stories around them instead of just boring testimonials. Because your client stories are real stories with real people. They have the deepest impact on the people.

Use the real faces of your team and their stories at your workplace with an engaging story to show your work culture and ethics your brand follows. Microsoft has used this tactic. 

One of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft, has also used this technique by showing off their employees as a brand-building tactic. Their Microsoft Story Labs platform highlights employees from every department within their company from researchers to artists to video game developers. 

There are several things as a B2B marketer you can do to make your brand stand out. Because the only secret to becoming the market leader in this noisy world is to stand out and your storytelling is the best way you can do that.

Robert McKee wrote, “Leaders use story to author the future.”