B2B Marketing: Significance of social proof in mar
Storytelling has always been one of the leading mediums of teaching and learning. Since the early times, people have used paintings, toys, books, and skits to tell stories. Often such storytelling revolved around religious subjects. As time passed and civilization evolved, people started covering the success stories, either for influencing society or marketing their products or services.
In modern times, many brands have used storytelling as a marketing tool. Companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Disney, Pixar, etc., have been using stories to market their views and goals and to increase their interaction with the public. The primary purpose of a B2C marketing campaign is to connect emotionally with the audience. It increases the likelihood of people feeling connected with the brand's vision.
Storytelling increases oxytocin levels in the brain, reducing cortisol levels and lowering the sense of pain. According to a recent study done to understand the link between storytelling and brand love, a marketing campaign infused with storytelling increases the affection of existing customers towards the brand. The study concluded that when a brand shares its side of the story behind any product or service, the customers feel more inclusive of the brand's legacy.
A B2B marketing campaign primarily aims to generate leads and sales. It is challenging to connect with the client in B2B marketing emotionally. But, compelling storytelling can turn this complex task into a work of art. Slack, a leading messaging platform for workspaces, worked with their existing customer company named Sandwich to create an advertisement. The advertisement covers interviews with the employees of Sandwich, referring to how Slack changed their way of communication.
The campaign worked wonders and is now considered one of the best B2B video campaigns. The primary reason behind the success of this campaign was the storytelling. The employees of Sandwich told stories and incidents where Slack helped them. It had humor, clarity of vision, and precision. People and businesses felt connected with those stories; the campaign worked wonders.
Advertisements are always seen as annoying by people. The population using ad blockers to avoid online advertisements is higher than ever and is increasing exponentially. A significant part of the population thinks that advertisements are monotonous and boring. Hence, it does not provide an incentive to continue watching or interacting. You can quickly solve this issue using a perfect story backing up your advertisement. Based on the responses received on the video campaign by Slack, people are interested in watching creative ads that follow a particular story.
Many B2B marketers avoid being creative and try sticking to the professional marketing side. Because of this, their marketing campaigns become monotonous, thus less interactive. Despite covering all the goals, objectives, and company's visions, such campaigns always receive minimum to no response. If an advertisement has a story with it, people are more likely to take their time and watch your advertisement. The oxytocin released through storytelling is more likely to positively affect leads or sales than the traditional, monotonous B2B marketing campaign.
It can be easily understood when you look at the marketing campaign infused with a story as a piece of interactive content. People share such content with their friends, colleagues, families, etc. It is an excellent drive to create a loyal community, which results in leads and sales generation. A person's buying behavior, solo or as a group, is hugely impacted by how the community has received the product. Hence, when your customer base is a part of your success story, they highly suggest your product or service to their relations.
Another major significance of storytelling in B2B marketing is creating your own identity. Every company has its own success story and way of communicating it to the customers. Thus, it is vital to form a story that includes all of your achievements and expresses them in your distinctive way. Pixar, one of the leaders in animation, uses its short stories to highlight its animation capabilities. The short stories from Pixar are always positively received by the public because of the warm and cozy feelings they provide. It has created a distinct image of Pixar as a maker of warm, soothing, and highly detailed animation content.
While storytelling, it is crucial that the story should be authentic, should feel human and not corporate, and should highlight the struggles and your future vision. It is expected to form an emotional connection with the audience and offer you the market recognition you seek.