You can use that as a basis for telling a great story - as if it were one that was being orally transmitted. Storytelling by nature uses informal language, and luckily in English, we tend to write the way we speak. Even if you are only writing the occasional company blog post, short tweet, or comment on social media, it’s important to be consistent and to feel comfortable with the language you use. You don’t need to be a novelist to have your own unique writing style that defines who you are as a writer. And don’t forget your call-to-action which should point readers in the right (next) direction, whether that be to visit your website, share your content with a friend, get in touch with you, request a demo, or all of the above. Use a success story to convey your message that your solution can help a certain type of business in a highly precise way. If your goal is to raise awareness and educate, then do that. (They have since changed their policy in this regard!) Which brings me a fundamental lesson about content writing - don’t forget its purpose. They had been afraid to ask, so they shied away from doing so. We confronted them about it and they admitted that we were right. They wanted donors to give them money, but not once did they convey this fundamental key message in their writing. But they were missing one fundamental thing not once in their content did they ever once ask readers to give a donation to help. They had colorful photos to illustrate their content and bring it to life. They demonstrated the lasting impact that the organization’s work was having in third-world countries in Latin America. Not only did they have a lot of content volume-wise, they had so many amazing stories! They wrote about real people whose lives had been changed because of micro-loans they received from FINCA to create small businesses.
We started by looking over all of the content they had. We were contacted by them because they wanted to increase their donor base and they were having trouble getting their messages out in the media (which honestly was challenging for everyone at that time since the headlines were all about Bill Clinton and Monika Lewinsky!). (Yes, I will make a little side-note to promote them since they do such a wonderful job of helping impoverished women create micro-enterprises to work their way out of poverty). Nearly 20 years ago, I started my career working for a public relations firm in Washington, DC and one of my clients at the time was a wonderful non-profit organization called the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA). So how can you be an effective storyteller when creating B2B content? Here are some tips to get you started: Don’t forget your key messages – write with purpose These types of “stories” aren’t compelling or interesting because there’s no lesson to be learned, best practice to develop or insight to be had. Kind of like my 3-year-old son telling me about his day, “And then we went to the beach, and then I jumped in the waves, and then I played in the sand, and then we came home…” Otherwise, your “story” becomes like a journal entry - a factual list of events in chronological order. And what many people miss about storytelling is that every story needs to have a point.
Although often this type of information can be useful when telling a story, it’s not the type of thing that’s necessarily going to stick (with me) or that will bring your story to life. I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of difficulty remembering exact facts and figures, dates, and historical timelines. One very important thing to keep in mind here is that people remember stories. It can relay use cases or case studies for your services and solutions by providing useful and valuable information in the form of a story. It’s personable and invites the listener/reader to learn something new. Storytelling, or the “social and cultural activity of sharing stories,” is now moving into the B2B world as a means to enhance a company’s image or identity, and create brand “stickiness.” Storytelling is not just about relating your company’s history to others it’s about creating story-like content that speaks to your audience in fun and relatable ways. You could even argue that it is perhaps the oldest marketing tactic out there.
What’s funny about this buzzword is that it’s nothing new-the idea of storytelling is centuries old. Effective “storytelling” is another one that’s up at the top of my list. Keep these tips in mind when you create B2B content.įor those of you who have been reading my blog, you’ve come to know (and perhaps even appreciate) that I like to hone in on common marketing buzzwords of the moment to get to the bottom of what they really mean.
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