How can you make your B2B marketing storytelling more urgent?

Use time-sensitive language! Incorporate words and phrases that convey a sense of immediacy. Phrases like "limited time offer," "act now," and "don't miss out" can create a sense of urgency and encourage prospects to take action immediately. Additionally, try and create a sense of scarcity - emphasize that your product or service is in high demand and only available in limited quantities. This scarcity mindset triggers a fear of missing out and compels prospects to take immediate action.

The best messaging focuses and understands who is in the audience. It shows and highlights where they are today and their current pain points. What are the pitfalls, issues, things, etc. that can go wrong with how you are solving it today. Highlight the risks and explain why the status quo and current solution isn't optimal. (I personally like to show time lost which leads to revenue lost.) Contrast that with a better approach. That's the urgency you need.

B2B buyers are too smart to buy into overt attempts to push them to act. In many cases, trying to create a false sense urgency will destroy your credibility. It's not unlike the urban legend about the frog in the water. You need to turn up the heat slowly. The best way to build the sense of urgency is to highlight the severity of the problem being solved. If your solution can solve a problem that costs the average customer $5000 a month then weave the cumulative impact of that problem into your story. Make it so that the audience sees the problem, the solution, and the ongoing impact through the eyes of a customer via testimonials or use cases. The words of their peers will resonate much more than someone trying to force their hand.

Calls to action are pointless if don't start with a compelling hook! Grab your audience's attention right from the start with a strong opening that highlights the problem or opportunity at hand. Use vivid language and statistics to create a sense of urgency, making it clear why your product or service is essential for their success.

Make sure your CTA is coherent with the initial narrative you are building up. A CTA that seems out of context might be discouraging for your audience. You built a great landing page with all the market insights, and your CTA asks to book a demo - that might be too far -fetched and demanding to ask your recipients. In addition, make sure your next steps are aligned with your proposition. It creates a drop in excitement if your recipients visit a highly-polished content piece to get a crappy email follow-up upon form submission.

Align your CTA with the natural buyer journey and use it to accelerate them to the next stage of their decision-making process. Trying to prompt someone to book a call with your Sales team when all they've done is read a bit of top of funnel content isn't likely to be effective. Instead, offering them an ungated piece of content, or another resource that builds on the story you're telling, will help to keep them engaged and more likely to continue in their natural buyer journey.

Storytelling is story selling. Mastering the language of emotion is key to this. A good B2B story should make you smile, think, surprise you and ultimately make you care enough to act. Nailing more than two off these means you're onto something. Nail 4 and you're a genius :-)

Let’s face it, unless you’re a business owner, in top management or in a specific role, most employees will not people will not spend a lot of time on a company’s viability. Most employees just want to get their work done and get paid. So we need to look at how we can help them with what they want to achieve - work efficiencies and earning. It will be much easier if we can tell prospects compelling stories about how we can help them on get work done faster and with less effort, and/or help them achieve their targets for better performance bonuses.

Appealing to peoples emotions is key when highlighting the problem they are facing. But doing this without bashing them or their company for having this issue is the key, highlight how your product or service is the golden light they've been looking for.

Nothing beats social proof now-a-days. Dark social is alive and thriving, people share and spend a ton of their time on social media. A recent stat from Worldwide Business Research stated that 84% of CEOs and VPs utilize social media for purchasing decisions. So make sure to optimize and post on social regularly, and make it content that provides value and resonates. Not canned AI generated stuff everyone is doing.

This to me is one of the most underestimated success factors when it comes to marketing and communication. Creating trust by injecting social proof is a game-changer. Every message or copy can be proofread and reviewed, but an actual person sharing their honest words about what you achieved with them does create something tangible and relatable for your audience. There are multiple ways to make use of social proof: you can show logos of your customers, add quotes, embed a review of your service, or simply state how many customers are already improving their business thanks to you!

Combine qualitative and quantitative insights here for maximum effect, e.g. "X% of [insert audience] feel that [product] enables them to [value prop] - including [insert customer], here's what they had to say about [insert product]: [insert testimonial]"

One of the best ways to make things urgent and personal is to highlight the consequences of inaction! Show your audience the negative outcomes they may face personally if they don't take action. Paint a vivid picture of the risks and missed opportunities.

Whereas case studies can be great on paper, they can lack ways to let the recipient project themselves into the stated story. That's why it's so important to add individuals to your stories. It's not about that customer who is not creating more business - it's the tell of someone who was unsatisfied with the status quo and took on the challenge to make a drastic change in the professional environment he was working in for the better. Once you link the case study to an individual at that customer, it lets readers envision themselves as those heroes. And who does not want to be the hero at work?

Humanize your content. Too often folks forget that B2B marketing is still marketing to PEOPLE. Often I see B2B content overly focused on rational and logical pain points, which is great, but don't forget to take into account that behind those pain points are people - who have real challenges and frustrations. Focus your content on how you're improving people's lives with your product and service and you will win every time.

Here are a few more to consider to create urgency in your B2B marketing narrative: Highlight Pain Points: Address pressing issues and demonstrate quick solutions. Limited-Time Offers: Use discounts or exclusive deals to encourage immediate action. Real-Time Updates: Share industry/product news to drive swift engagement. Data and Statistics: Illustrate the costs of inaction with compelling data. FOMO: Convey exclusivity and potential missed opportunities. Challenge Assumptions: Present a new perspective demanding prompt consideration. Live Webinars/Events: Host urgent, insight-packed sessions. Time-Bound Content: Engage with time-sensitive series. Visual Signals: Countdowns and deadlines add urgency to launches and promotions.

Leverage user-generated content: Incentivise reviews and posts from the audience. This will add more storytelling power to your brand. Besides, it will create a FOMO effect