Better B2B Brands Have Stories, Not Just Features
Storytelling is a sales strategy 📖
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-John
Better B2B Brands Have Stories, Not Just Features
The top B2B tech businesses battle on story. They know anyone can mimic their:
Product
Content marketing
Site design
Sales decks
However, no one can copy brand. Without it, you’re at a gunfight with good code.
Companies like Domo and Shopify have been dominating their respective categories because they have built stories around their brand.
God forbid you do that in B2B.
Domo displayed attitude when it crashed Tableau’s annual conference with a Snoop Dogg concert. Shopify took a political stance when it banned two Trump stores.
While most B2B companies show zero emotions and look like…
These market leaders sell through emotional storytelling, as seen below.
Domo story: BI platform that shatters silos
Shopify story: arming the rebels (AKA the little guy)
It works b/c buyers can’t connect with features.
It works b/c prospects don’t have feelings about product roadmaps.
Both businesses lead with story to pull people in rather than tell people they’ll make them money. Features and integrations are introduced later.
The stories from Domo and Shopify mainly work because they follow a mythic story structure template called the hero’s journey. When used in B2B, it allows buyers to see themselves as the hero in the narrative. Here’s what goes on in the mind of audiences:
“I’m sick of not being able to use data. Let’s fix this!”
“I’m a rebel with my own products. Shopify gets me!”
Humans like relatable stories. Domo and Shopify use that to their advantage. They know info within product marketing is learned and retained better when presented in story form.
Am I nuts? No.
Harley Finkelstein, Shopify President, says the rebels―the entrepreneurs and the small business owners―are the heroes of the Shopify story.
What Having a Brand Story Offers in 2021
How about… having people care that you exist… setting yourself apart… helping to recruit top talent… staying top of mind… creating brand affinity… buyers can interact with something… getting away from performance marketing (short-term thinking).
Ignoring brand storytelling in B2B was commonplace until last year. In 2020, B2B businesses that traditionally didn’t indicate they were alive outside of pinkwashing or a LinkedIn post showing staff planting trees were desperately trying to bond with prospects. Progressive B2B marketers had the upper hand because they established connections with them pre-COVID. In fact, for some, the pandemic allowed them to deepen connections.
Today, old-school B2B marketing ways have put marketers under significant pressure to generate leads, so brand building isn’t prioritized. Time is spent on short-term tactics to deliver quick results. It compounds to bored marketers executing run-of-the-mill tactics like ebooks or PPC campaigns, or worse, quitting.
Brand creates a feeling that won’t appear in your Salesforce dashboard.
Short-termism is an undiagnosed condition suffered by B2B companies, especially SaaS businesses. The common result is nobody owns brand—the story of your business.
The argument I sometimes hear is “brand comes later. We need to sell.”
Brand stories should exist from day one because:
They communicate your core values to buyers
Brand-in-hand makes it faster to write everything including LinkedIn posts, website headers, and nurture campaigns
Storytelling quickly lures in buyers better than features
They determine if you host a large Hawaiian-themed party at a conference or if you host an intimate event at a penthouse with a mixologist
Stories tell job seekers if you’re a potential fit or not
Where I see marketers go wrong with storytelling is not thinking how stories will resonate now and later. Endurance in B2B comes from long-term thoughts such as:
Do our customer journey steps align
Is the community we’re building satisfied
Is our tone and voice on paper for current and future employees to see
Is our value prop consistent across channels
In my latest newsletter, I talked about the wave of emotional storytelling coming to B2B. I referenced research from Les Binet, advertising's 'Godfathers of Effectiveness', who found that the more famous a brand is, the easier it is to sell. The lesson to emphasize: be known and sales will accelerate.
Creating Demand Using Stories, Not Tactics
Making prospects feel something through a story shouldn't sound weird in B2B. Pause your demand gen strategies for a minute and think about what your special story is that’s circulating, or if you have one.
If you feel you’re missing a brand story, start by asking 4️⃣ questions of yourself and your C-suite:
What story does the market know about us?
Does our company have a human touch?
Why do prospects want what we provide them?
How will they succeed if they choose us?
The answers should reveal what makes you different now and for years to come, which emotions your customers feel after choosing you, and your brand’s “why.” In 2021, sharing your distinct brand story in the competitive landscape is no longer a nice-to-have. Focus and compete on story, not features.
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-John