Every brand has a story to tell. Content and digital marketing teams spend hours toiling over ways they can capture the hearts of their audience through storytelling. While there is a clear value in storytelling when it works, it’s not easy to come up with a compelling, sustainable and unique story that will grab your audience’s attention and make a difference in the marketplace. This is especially true for many B2B tech companies. Despite the challenge, there’s a good chance that your organization already has a person or team of people dedicated to storytelling because it pays off when it works.
But you may have noticed that it’s noisy out there. It might feel like your competitors all have the same story to tell. Or maybe, your story just isn’t sexy. If this is where you sit, you might need to ask yourself some questions. Are your company and products at the center of your story? Is your marketing content all about you? If you’ve answered yes to both, how do you feel you are positioned in your industry? Are you considered a leader? Or do you blend in?
If you feel lost in the crowd, take a step back and look outside of your organization up higher, to the industry level. If you want to stand out, consider taking the lead in defining your industry, its vision and where it’s going. What if you stopped talking about yourself as much and started driving your market space? What if you could create a new market space, or a category, under which your entire organization identifies? Not only would the category be a differentiator for your organization, but it’s something you can stand for.
To stand out from the crowd, proactively assert your “voice” in the name of advancing your industry. Take the opportunity to lead through a strategic narrative, and to clarify confusion and identify new opportunities in your industry. This higher-level, industry focused approach can provide the impact and visibility you desire in the marketplace. When the entire organization is aligned around a common narrative that helps advance the overall category, silos break down and there is a new sense of unity.
So, how does an organization create an industry narrative and stand out from the noise of brand centered storytelling? Sit tight – we’ve got more for you next week.
