Strategies for Storytelling in B2B Technology

Product messaging, especially for new solutions, has to accomplish a lot. It must describe benefits, highlight differentiation, and illustrate tangible real-world impact. It must also be concise, memorable, and resonate with multiple personas (e.g., technical buyers, end-users, decision-makers). One way to accomplish all this is to tell a story. Check out these methods for ideas. 📖

💼 Case studies are a quintessential storytelling format in B2B marketing. These customer success stories explain how your product solves a specific challenge in the real world, making them relatable and convincing. The best case studies are authentic, meaning chock-full of juicy testimonial statements in the customer's voice. Case studies that include measurable results related to increased efficiency, cost savings, or growth are even more powerful.

📐 Marketecture Diagrams are useful visual communication tools, and like any picture, they can say a thousand words. To communicate the value of a product suite or product with multiple tiers and options, creating a diagram can simplify a complex story. When aligning solutions to customer pain points, these diagrams make it easier to grasp the comprehensive value proposition.

📌 Use Cases bring your product to life through stories of practical applications. These scenario-based stories resonate well when targeted to specific segments, like buyer personas and verticals. While it's okay to get creative here, your audience will be able to relate most to those use cases based on typical scenarios.

👩‍🚒 Hero Stories portray your product as the hero and are great for products that heavily empower the end-user. Hero stories highlight your customer's day-in-the-life challenges and demonstrate how your product came to their rescue. Practical formats for this type of story can be animated videos, comic strips, or infographics.

📅 Origin Stories narrate how your company or product came into existence. This "once upon a time" approach discusses the problem or gap in the market that led to the creation of your product. These stories showcase your company's passion and dedication to your customers and can also amplify the company brand.

🔃 Before-and-after scenarios illustrate the transformation your product brings by meaningfully demonstrating the contrast. Before-and-after stories can be punchy and helpful for demand-gen campaigns, social media, and advertisements. The format could be graphics, testimonial statements, or statistics that depict the before and after.

Technology solves business problems through new products and features, but that is only half the battle. Product marketing creates compelling narratives and engaging visual content, which elevates the understanding of products and their impact. This has always been the area of product marketing I love the most because storytelling is so much fun! 🖋 😄