In its purest conception, storytelling is the art of telling, developing and adapting stories in situations with a beginning, middle and end, with the aim of transmitting messages from an emotional place. In content marketing, it is a powerful tool, because it allows telling stories about a brand and its products, and although it has been used by companies in the Business to Consumer (B2C) sector for many years.
But can you make a positive impact in the B2B world, where buyers tend to be guided more by logic, evidence and facts? The answer is very simple: yes, and a lot, since it is more than proven that, even in the coldest industries, the transmission of emotional, persuasive and funny stories achieves unimaginable effects on target audiences.
“In content marketing, storytelling is a powerful tool because it allows you to generate emotional, persuasive and fun connections in audiences,” says Ari Lisjak, CEO of Isource Marketing.
Here are 3 examples of how three companies in the B2B sector magnificently used storytelling to deliver their messages from a human place:
Adobe: https://bit.ly/3rjErPk
This fun ad from Adobe Marketing Cloud conveys the value of the promoted product without boring the viewer. The video starts in an office with officials who run into an inexplicable increase in orders, doing everything possible to fulfill them. The piece ends with a cute and funny image.
Slack: https: //bit.ly/3rt1ya6
Slack partnered with production company Sandwich to create their 2014 video “So Yeah, We Tried Slack.” The piece shows the adoption of today’s business communication tool preferred by many, from the voice of the employees of the production company itself. A smart idea that is worth seeing and analyzing.
Hootsuite: https: //bit.ly/3d3ZVHJ
In this animated video, Hootsuite explains in a clear and direct tone why certain companies are not successful on social media. Then you describe how you can help companies turn around that situation.
Now 6 tips to boost Marketing campaigns using the art of storytelling:
Identify
It is the first step to tell a story, and for this, companies must ask themselves:
Will the audience be familiar with what I want to tell?
What do they want to know?
What challenges would my readers face without my product / service?
When they understand who they are and why they need the product / service, you can figure out how to convey a clear message that increases campaign engagement.
Structure
A good storytelling has a logical thread, that is, a beginning, a middle and an end, which makes the story easier to understand. It is important to consider the following elements:
The antagonist: the challenge.
The mission: the journey to meet the challenge.
Execution: the solution to the challenge.
The climax: the result.
Hearing
Knowing what people want to hear and where they want to hear it is imperative. Do some research to understand the challenges of the audiences, which will give clues about the most suitable medium to tell the story. For example, if they are found to prefer short videos, animations with funny characters can be created and shared on social media.
The power of gamification
We love this because at Isource we are specialists in executing immersive experiences and the positive results they generate. By gamifying your storytelling, you give your audiences unimaginable power, with quizzes, games, puzzles and a host of other resources so that, for example, they can discover what your product or service does. By gamifying storytelling, you bring unimaginable power to audiences.
Let customers tell the story
It allows the client to take control of the narration and present their experience, humanizing it with practical cases, success stories, testimonials, etc.
Share stories with data
Both numbers and narratives are needed. In fact, stories and data are inextricably linked. One helps establish an emotional connection and the other builds trust with the reality on the ground.
