Let's Stop Making B2B Content So Boring

Signing up for an array of industry-related white papers and newsletters is my feel-good way of staying in the know.

But I rarely read most of the content I sign up for. Just the act of signing up feels like an achievement.

Often, when I try to read the content, I zone out. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

This goes to show that downloads and clicks alone aren’t a sign that your content is successful. For those like me, signing up might be a course of habit. But the monotony of the content stops me in my tracks in reading ahead.

Coming from the world of journalism, where content was created with the intention of keeping audiences engaged, the world of B2B content feels like a complete one-eighty. So much of B2B content uses technical jargon to talk about technical subject matter—to highlight the company itself rather than to relate to the audience.

When it comes to storytelling, people want to hear about other people—not so much about technical products or convoluted technical procedures your organization excels at.

Yet so many organizations want to focus on the products or things.

They miss out on the fact that people care about stories that relate to our emotions. It’s people that make stories interesting. Not things.

Yet the B2B world continues to churn out dense content that’ll likely collect dust than get read.

Let’s stop.

Instead, let’s allow marketers creative license to take risks in telling stories—to move away from the serious and dull tones we assume makes our organizations look like leaders in the industry.

We need to earn our readers’ interest. And to do that we need to borrow storytelling tools used in the realm of newsrooms.

They don’t. Rather, the boring content created in the B2B space simply causes readers to grab content elsewhere.

We need to earn our readers’ interest. And to do that we need to borrow storytelling tools used in the realm of newsrooms.

Here’s how.

Humanize your stories. For every great thing your product does, it impacts people, and that’s what matters more than your product.

Avoid using too many numbers in your stories. We forget about numbers. Numbers alone don’t sway opinions. Emotions do.

If you’re creating content in a complex industry, try using metaphors and analogies to hit the point home in telling your story. People often better remember complex ideas through metaphors.

Many organizations have multiple stakeholders involved in the content creation process, which is bad news for content development. Great ideas created by content marketers end up on the chopping block thanks to those stakeholders who like to play it safe.

Aside from the subject matter experts, the content creation process shouldn’t have many stakeholders—it’ll lead to the creation of the same dull content. You don’t want that.