Everyone loves a great story. People want to feel connected to a group, to belong. Stories give you a reason to communicate and relate; stories are stimulating and give you something to believe in; stories make you feel better, smarter, safer, or even loved.
Business storytelling is similar. It’s about creating alignment between your business and your prospects and customers. But telling your brand’s story is more than what you write on your website, your blog, or even social media. It’s your value, your mission, and how you consistently communicate that to your audience - wherever they are.
Tech B2B companies are constantly battling for the attention of their prospects and customers. To help ensure that you’re heard, you need to be genuine and tell a story that appeals to your audience. In the tech sector, the right story helps you create contrast between choices and will allow your prospects to make sense of decisions they’re about to make, whether it’s deciding on a needed software, hardware or service or making a purchase.
How to tell a great story to your Tech B2B audience: The Golden Circle
It’s all about how you frame the story that you are trying to tell. You need to keep audience and tone in mind, but to really help nail your branding story, you need to understand the golden circle.
Simon Sinek is an ex-advertising executive and author is best known for his Golden Circle concept: “people don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it”. According to Sinek, most people communicate by starting with the “what” they do aspect and eventually work their way back to talk about “how” and “why” they do what they do.
But companies that are universally identified as unique and successful, think Apple or Google, communicate with an “inside-out” type of thinking. They start with the why and only then do they move on to talk about the how and what portions of what they do. To keep it simple - WHY is Why are you doing what you’re doing? HOW is How will this help your audience? And WHAT is What are you offering?
When you’re talking about what you do, you’re speaking to an analytical part of the brain. But when you talk about the why and how, you’re communicating with feelings and dealing with human behaviour. And storytelling is all about making that connection. When you’re planning a story, take time to think through the way you’re choosing to tell it. To really connect with your prospects and customers, express the why of your story. Tap into the emotional side of things and begin to educate or build awareness from there.
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Essential elements of successful B2B storytelling
Regardless of the story you’re trying to tell and how you’re trying to tell it, storytelling has three essential elements - characters, conflict, and resolution.
- THE CHARACTER
The character is the connection between you, the storyteller, and your audience. To make sure you’re focusing on the right characters, start with your buyer persona. This semi-fictional representation of your ideal buyer can help guide you to understanding the goals and challenges that your character will face. Is your buyer persona a business owner who is looking for a better way to communicate between her team members? She’ll likely see herself as the character if a team is used within your stories.
No matter who your buyer persona is, the art of storytelling is making sure you empathize and relate to your audience. While keeping your buyer persona in mind, you should also determine the point of view that your story will have. Will it be first-person, second-person, or third-person? And there’s no right or wrong option. It will depend on your buyer persona, the story you’re trying to tell, and the format of that story. - THE CONFLICT
Conflict helps build developmental and emotional dynamics. It helps make a connection between two entities, and human-to-human connections are the foundation for a successful business. Remember, you’re dealing with people, not machines–your company is providing answers, relieving stress, creating happiness, and making life easier for the end user.
If your story lacks conflict, then you’re probably not telling a story. Instead, you’re telling a pitch, tagline, unique selling point, or a plain statement. This approach won’t resonate with your audience, and from a content marketing perspective, it won’t get you views, shares, conversions, or customers.
As important as it is to understand your buyer personas, it’s equally as important to understand their buyer’s journey and the conflicts that they face at each stage. What problems are your buyer personas facing in the awareness stage? Those are the conflicts that should be in your story. Spend the time outlining the problems, solutions, and products or services for the different buyer’s journey stages and you’ll have a better idea of the conflicts you can use in your content. - THE RESOLUTION
Where there’s conflict, your audience will naturally want some sort of resolution. But what happens next? How does the story end? How did the character or characters change? It doesn’t always have to be a happy ending. Every good story has a closing, so the idea of the resolution is to provide context and emotion for the audience to relate and process the story.
The resolution should wrap up the story but should also clearly call your audience to action. It fulfills the purpose behind the story. For Tech B2B marketing, a resolution could be next steps or even a call-to-action for more content. Either way, don’t leave them hanging.
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Key takeaways for every tech B2B company
Now that you know the three elements that make up the story, there’s only one more thing left to make sure your stories are impactful: the best practices to follow and keep in mind. To help make your story great and resonate with your audience you need to create emotional appeal, be consistent and authentic, and keep the story clear and concise.
- Emotional appeal: Think about the emotional response that you’re looking to get from your B2B audience. Is it fear, survival, guilt, energised, amusement, maybe even hope? To get buy-in from your readers or viewers you need to elicit emotion. What’s the difference between your story and someone else’s story? What’s the mission or purpose of your company? Why should your audience care?
- Consistent & authentic: It’s not just what you say through your website or content, but the entire experience that your company has to offer based on your buyer personas’ needs. David Ogilvy, one of the most well-known advertisers of all time, once said, “tell the truth, but make it fascinating.” You can make any industry, any product, or any service stand out and that’s done with providing an experience.
- Clear and concise: Everyone can benefit from cutting down a lengthy story. Even long stories benefit when you whittle them down to just the most important parts. And be specific. Your story and experience should not be a one-size-fits-all approach. Communicating with the correct audience niche, and creating that need is just as important, if not more important, than the story you’re telling.
And now that you know everything, all that’s left to say is… Happy Storytelling!
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