Unravelling B2B’s ‘Storytelling’ Kink

B2B companies continue to fetishise the concept of ‘storytelling’ in their marketing.?

I mean… hands up who wants an industrial pipe lubricant firm to spin it some Goldilocks-inspired yarn at bedtime (“One pipe lube was too hot, another too cold, but the other was juuuust right”)??

Let’s not be coy. The example above is categorically NOT how marketing-as-storytelling works at all – so no-one’s thinking about industrial lube in the small hours of the night (I know a good therapist if they are). But when customers do give it some headspace in their working lives, we want them to think about YOUR greasy oil-based fluid.?

The same goes for SaaS platforms, business consultancies, cannabis extraction equipment, LED lighting — or indeed any other product or service. The conversation you have with your target audience needs to be relevant to the context in which it’s taking place.?

To get all pretentious for a moment (because who doesn’t love Russian Formalism?) let’s consider the constituent parts of any story – which can be defined as ‘Fabula’ and ‘Syuzhet’: the former being the story’s raw material, and the latter being the way the information is organised.?

Essentially these two academic (bleurgh!) terms translate to ‘what’ happened and ‘how’ we want to present it. These are critical components in any piece of content. We package up the message we want to send out in a narrative that’s informative, accurate, and aligned with our audience’s agenda.

It’s the same when it comes to choosing the medium customers will best respond to. How we present information matters.

You don’t need to build an intricate company metanarrative to get to a place of effective communication. That said, communicating with purpose draws from strong business culture — which means having the right foundations in place: a mission, vision, values; which themselves need clear articulation.

Perhaps all of this is (gulp) ‘storytelling’? Or perhaps I just define storytelling differently to most. Either way, the idea of snuggling down in flannel jammies with a hot cup of cocoa… and listening to a business leader rattle off what they think is important at a company powwow is nothing short of sleep-inducing (which actually makes sense…).??

So, don’t focus on telling your story. Read the room. Make it about them. Even when it’s about you.