Admit it – you’re over being forced to sit through boring PowerPoint pitches, given by drab salespeople in stifling conference rooms. The real problem is that it isn’t just you that feels this way! Your prospective customers are just as burned out on these traditional marketing methods as you are – which means that you’ve got to bring something new to the table if you want to be an effective B2B marketer or salesperson.
One particular model to consider is the visual story. In this approach, marketing messages are conveyed in a way that is easiest for the brain to process. A voice narrates your message as the visual images supports it.
At TruScribe, we leverage storytelling through the use of whiteboard videos, though there are plenty of other visual storytelling techniques that can be used as part of an effective sales process.
Here’s why visual storytelling works so well for B2B marketing:
Visual Storytelling is Engaging
Before the printed or digital word, our ancestors conveyed their knowledge and wisdom through the use of stories and pictures. Take a look at any primitive culture’s cave drawings and you’ll see just how effectively certain lessons can be conveyed with a few concise images. While it seems we should have moved well beyond the days of sharing cultural histories through simplified graphics, given our technology, our evolutionary engagement with this particular form of education persists.
A big part of this comes from the way our brains process information. The studies we’ve seen demonstrate that 83% of learning occurs visually, with a further 11% arising from auditory cues. When translated to the world of B2B marketing, this means that we need to rely on engaging visual images (and – newsflash – Power Point just doesn’t cut it anymore!) if we want our prospects tuned in enough to hear our eventual sales pitches.
Visual Storytelling is Disarming
Given the number of sales messages we’re exposed to each and every day, it’s only natural that we begin to tune out at the first whiff of a marketing pitch. Don’t believe me? Just try saying the words, “Folks, what’s it going to take to get you to buy today?” to the person sitting nearest to you and see if your conversation partner doesn’t recoil in terror.
Stories, on the other hand, slip effortlessly past these barriers. When we listen to stories, we aren’t as skeptical about the teller’s motives, while the parts of our brains that seek closure and pattern recognition compel us to stay put until the end. The result of using these advantages in a sales setting, as you might expect, is a prospect that listens longer and is more receptive to your marketing message.
Visual Storytelling is Effective
Considering that so much of our learning processes occurs via visual and auditory input, it’s no surprise that combining these two elements into your B2B marketing presentations is an effective approach.
In fact, some studies suggest that message retention can jump as high as 65% when these two elements are paired effectively – making visual storytelling twice as effective as regular video alone and more than six times more effective than audio messages in a sales setting. When you think about the impact these retention rates can have on your business’s bottom line (and really, who wouldn’t want to increase message retention by 30-50%?!), it’s easy to see why visual storytelling makes such an effective B2B marketing tool.