🐾 The Nigel Nugget (TL;DR)
Storytelling in B2B marketing works by humanizing complex data, building emotional trust with decision-makers, and increasing brand recall. Nigel the cat demonstrates how even technical B2B brands can use a relatable “hero” to simplify their message.
Why is storytelling important in B2B content? Answer: It draws the audience into the narrative, so they identify with the hero. The better the story, the stronger the pull, the further you can take your audience.
Benefits of B2B storytelling
I really enjoyed working with Bytes on posters for the London Underground. We did campaigns aligned with Microsoft, Veritas (now part of Cohesity) and Pure Storage.
But the brief was challenging: How to tell a human interest story in just one frame – a single banner?
I came up with a series for the Transport for London tube network. Here are three of them.
One of the marketing team spotted a tube traveller taking a photo of this next Veritas one …
Examples of storytelling in B2B marketing
The idea basic idea was to focus on a single benefit and create a human story around it.
B2B marketing must have personality to engage with people if you want to build loyalty.
Hitting people with 20 indigestible product bullets and pleading with them to sign up has a whiff of desperation. It’s a turn-off.
Instead, content needs honesty, authenticity and maybe some humour, plus a few winks too. It’ll be much more successful if it can generate emotions in your readers. Perfect … if you can make them smile and feel hopeful, confident and motivated.
Here’s an idea of how we can do this:
Before: Product X offers can help your business workflow achieve 99.5% uptime
Better: Product X can save you from hours of frustrating IT troubleshooting
More empathy: With Product X, Sam’s no longer sidetracked by unexplained glitches. Troubleshooting is handled automatically, while Sam gets to spend more time on high-value IT projects.
More empathy still: Sam saw his daughter’s match at the weekend. He didn’t think about workflow glitches. Not once, all game. Sam uses Product X. Result? 5-0.
Empathy focuses on the internal struggle, making the customer the hero of the story rather than the product or service.
How to use storytelling in B2B copywriting?
How can you inject storytelling, emotion and humour into IT marketing?
Often, long-form content – such as blogs, guides and ebooks – give you the turning space to follow a human story arc.
The tried-and-tested structure is:
Setup → challenge → resolution → results → call to action
But short-form copy can do the same when needed. The London Underground examples show how it’s possible.
Empathetic B2B narrative marketing
Over in the B2C space, research indicates that emotional attachment formed through storytelling significantly influences consumer purchasing behaviour and brand loyalty. Over 67 % of participants agreed that emotional brand stories affected their purchase decisions, according to one study published in the American Journal of Computer Science and Technology (you can find details here). More than 89% of people recalled a brand based on a particular story.
In a separate blog related to Sony, I’ve written about empathetic copywriting and how B2B customers need to recognise their world in your content.
As I explained, it’s important to ask a question: Does my copywriting pass the ‘coffee test’? Is this how I’d speak to a real human across the table? Am I just rattling out marketing waffle or telling them something helpful?
Of course, it’s even better if you can sneak a cat into your IT marketing at the messaging level or infused into your copywriting.
Update: Nigel the cat is still enjoying Adam working from home several days a week. Nigel now has an AI-powered smart feeder and his own TikTok following.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is storytelling important in B2B marketing?
Storytelling is critical in B2B because it bridges the gap between technical specifications and human decision-making. Marketers build emotional trust, simplify complex value propositions, and increase brand recall.
How can a brand character help B2B companies?
A relatable character helps humanize technical B2B brands, so you can explain more complex industry challenges through a simplified, engaging lens, making the brand more relatable and memorable.
What are the best ways to implement storytelling in a B2B strategy?
Effective B2B storytelling involves identifying the customer as the hero, the business problem as the villain, and your solution as the guide. Use case studies and metaphors to create a narrative that resonates with the buyer’s journey.
Cat image – Photo by Musab Belbaraka on Unsplash