How to craft B2B brand stories that convert

It all starts with your brand story

Your brand story is not just a marketing asset; it's the heart and soul of your business. It explains what your business is about, what makes it unique, and why your customers should be interested in it. It's the "why" behind your existence.

"Brands are built around stories. And stories of identity – who we are, where we've come from – are the most effective stories of all. This storytelling is a powerful way to bring brands to life." - Bill Dauphinais

Mark Ritson on the importance of brand for B2B

If your ad makes a buyer laugh or cry or smile, your message is much more likely to be recalled in a buying situation. That’s why 2019 research with Les Binet and Peter Field showed that in B2B, emotional advertising drives significantly more long-term growth than rational advertising.

Because brand-influenced emotional reactions impact buyer decision making, those companies with strong brands usually achieve better financial performance. In fact, McKinsey states that their analysis shows that B2B companies with strong brands outperform weak ones by 20 percent. 

Ritson emphasises the need for B2B marketers to understand the relevant emotions of their buyers and how these relate to their brand. This suggests that emotional branding is not just a B2C phenomenon but also critical in B2B contexts.

Because B2B marketers need to balance brand activity - which plays out over a longer timeframe, and activation - which plays out in the short term, they need to master different types of targeting.

Binet and Field are famous for their 60/40 rule, a formula that shows B2C businesses grow most effectively when they devote 60% of their budgets to mass reach brand advertising, and 40% to narrowly targeted, segmented campaigns focused on immediate sales. Their research now shows that a very similar rule applies in B2B. The proportions are slightly different on average – much closer to 50/50. However, the principle is the same. 

Establishing your brand messaging

In the fast-paced world of marketing, you have only a split second to capture your customer's attention and convey your brand's value. This is where brand messaging comes into play.

Brand messaging is the art of using the right words to communicate your brand to potential customers. It encapsulates the core elements of your brand and weaves them into inspirational, persuasive, and motivational language.

The key elements of a brand story

• Brand positioning: Your brand's "who, when, why, and how." How do you want your brand to be perceived?

• Establish your target audience: Creating detailed buyer personas to understand your ideal customers.

• Establish pains and gains: Identifying customer pain points and presenting your business as the solution.

• Brand messaging: Crafting compelling messages that resonate with your audience.

• Differentiators: Highlighting what sets you apart from your competitors.

• Value propositions: Defining what your product or service does for your customers.

• Tone of voice: Developing a consistent brand personality.

• Slogan or tagline: Creating a memorable catchphrase.

All these elements culminate in a brand messaging framework, your brand bible.

Finding & understanding your target audience

Understanding your target audience is essential for effective B2B marketing. Your target audience is the group of customers or clients you're aiming to reach with your product or service. Creating buyer personas, semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer, helps you focus your marketing efforts and guide your products or services to meet your customers' needs.

In today's evolving landscape of B2B tech marketing, it's crucial to recognise that IT decision makers are just one of many stakeholders with a say in a purchase. Tech acquisitions often involve a committee of decision-makers, with various departments playing a part. However, these stakeholders are often not impressed with the state of tech marketing. They find tech advertising too vague, not targeting them specifically, and failing to grasp their challenges.

To reach and persuade this diverse group of stakeholders, you must adapt your messaging and approach.

Tools to understand your audience better:

• SparkToro - SparkToro is a company that provides audience intelligence data, helping users understand their audience's interests, activities, and where to reach them for marketing purposes.

• GWI Audience Insights - GWI is a platform that provides on-demand consumer research, offering insights into global internet users and consumer behaviours through the world's largest survey on the online consumer. 

Tools to find and build a target prospect list

• Apollo, Lemlist - Apollo.io is a data-first engagement platform that integrates with your existing workflow to help you find and connect with your ideal customers more effectively. Lemlist is an email outreach platform that enables personalised campaigns and automation to improve engagement and conversions in B2B communications.

• LI Sales Navigator - LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a sales management tool designed to help sales professionals tap into LinkedIn's extensive network to build and nurture customer relationships.

Establishing pains and gains

Customer pains are the obstacles that prevent your customers from reaching their goals. They are the blockers that your product or service is designed to overcome. On the other hand, customer gains are the benefits that make your customers happy, such as saving them time, effort, or money.

To be successful in B2B marketing, you must identify your customer's key pains and position your business as their solution by emphasising the gains they'll experience by using your product or service.

Crafting a compelling brand story and key messaging is the foundation of your B2B marketing strategy. Your brand's identity and messaging are crucial in setting you apart from the competition and resonating with your target audience.

Tools / hot tips:

• Prompt for comprehensive framework development: "I'm developing a brand called [Brand X]. Can you help me create a detailed key messaging framework? This should include our unique value proposition, target audience, brand voice, key messages for different channels, and strategies for emotional and rational appeals."

• Prompt for audience-centric messaging: "For my brand [Brand X], I need to develop a key messaging framework focused on our target audience. Please include an analysis of our audience demographics and psychographics, and create tailored messages that resonate with these groups, highlighting how our brand addresses their specific needs and desires."

• Prompt for competitive differentiation messaging: "I want to establish a key messaging framework for [Brand X] that clearly differentiates us from our competitors. Please include a competitive analysis and develop key messages that emphasise our unique selling points, innovation, and the benefits that set us apart in the market."