The goal of your marketing shouldn’t just be about being seen; it should also be about being remembered. And one of the most effective ways to make your brand memorable is through storytelling.
Stories help people attach meaning to information. By connecting with people’s emotions, they make ideas easier to understand, easier to recall and easier to believe. Here are a few of the reasons why storytelling is such a powerful marketing tool.
Being remembered by the few is more effective than being seen by the many
A common mistake marketers make is prioritising attention over memorability. Campaigns that aim to reach the masses, rather than connect with a carefully defined audience, might deliver impressive vanity metrics in the short term (I know we all love to see high impressions), but they don’t build a pipeline for the long term.
At the end of the day, behind all the shiny social media statistics, our role as marketers is to bring in new business.
In B2B marketing, consideration cycles can be long. Organisations are often tied into contracts, waiting on new budgets, or navigating lengthy approval processes. Unlike spotting a targeted ad for a 1960s Elvis Presley ash tray and clicking ‘buy now’ (my eBay algorithm has me sussed), B2B decisions take time.
That’s why memorability matters. You’re not trying to drive an impulse purchase; you’re trying to be remembered when the moment to buy finally arrives.
The 95/5 rule – Why patience pays off
Anyone I’ve worked in a sales and marketing capacity with will know I talk about the 95/5 rule a lot – and for good reason.
The rule suggests that, at any given moment, 95% of your potential buyers are ‘out of market’. They’re not actively looking for what you offer. So, if all your marketing focuses on the 5% who are ready to buy right now, you’re missing a much larger long-term opportunity.
This is where brand building becomes so important. The brands that win aren’t necessarily the ones shouting the loudest today; they’re the ones that have built enough familiarity and trust to be remembered when buyers enter the market tomorrow. And that’s where storytelling comes into play.
Stories help people feel good about brands and create the mental shortcuts people rely on when making decisions. They help your audience remember your brand long after they’ve forgotten your latest campaign statistic, product feature or sales message.
Brand awareness vs brand salience
Brand awareness is the term most of us will be familiar with. Quite simply, it means people know your brand exists. But awareness alone isn’t enough. What really matters is brand salience, which is whether your brand comes to mind in a buying situation.
Take Nvidia as an example. Many people recognise the name and logo and know it’s a ‘tech company’. But outside of its core audience, relatively few people could clearly explain what it does. In this case, that’s intentional; the brand only needs to resonate with a specific group.
For many SMBs, however, a lack of salience can hold back growth. It’s not enough for people to have heard of you. If you’re not the brand they think of when they need your service, you’ll lose out to a competitor.
In practice, brands should build awareness first, then strengthen salience through consistency, distinctive assets and emotional connection. Storytelling helps with all three.
Why stories create memory
Stories are how humans make sense of the world. They help us attach meaning to information, explaining why it matters, which is what makes it memorable – and we’ve used this as a survival mechanism for millennia.
The Blindboy podcast is full of great examples of this. I learned about a brilliant one in a recent episode. In Ireland, there is a well called Tobar na nGealt (Well of the Mad). For centuries, people would flock to this well, believed to be a portal to the otherworld, to drink the magic water and cleanse their mind.
In 2012, after centuries of myth and folktales surrounding this well, scientists tested the water and discovered a high volume of naturally occurring lithium, which has been cited as a treatment for ill mental health. A study found that ‘Naturally occurring lithium in drinking water may have the potential to reduce the risk of suicide and may possibly help in mood stabilisation, particularly in populations with relatively high suicide rates and geographical areas with a greater range of lithium concentration in the drinking water’.
I absolutely love this example. By passing a story through word of mouth for generations – “this well has magic water, if you’re sick in the mind, drink from it and be cured” – countless people were likely given genuine health benefits.
Hundreds of years later, we’ve been able to prove that this tall tale has real truth in it.
What marketers can learn from storytelling
Now, the Well of the Mad may not seem to link directly to B2B marketing, but there’s a lot we can learn from the example.
Firstly, if your product is good, people will talk. The news will spread far and wide that your magic water cures illness.
Secondly, the reason that information was remembered for centuries wasn’t because someone published a list of facts on LinkedIn (or the medieval equivalent). It was remembered because it was wrapped in a story.
The well wasn’t simply a source of water with unusual properties, it was a portal to the otherworld. Little bubbles of magic rose through the well and infused the water, so drinking it passed those magical qualities on to you. The story gave meaning to the information, and in turn, memorability.
In marketing, storytelling shouldn’t be seen as creative dressing. It’s a cognitive tool that helps your audience understand, retain and recall your message when it matters most.
B2C does it best, but B2B can do it too
There are so many ads I remember from my childhood – and it’s the great use of storytelling that’s kept them in my mind.
The BT campaign starring Kris Marshall is a great example. Running for six years, it followed his character navigating life with his new partner and her children. Each instalment introduced a new life event, from career challenges to a pregnancy (which the public actually voted for) and eventually a wedding.
This campaign was effective not just because of the creative, but also the continuity. Viewers became invested in the story. Each ad built on the last, reinforcing both the narrative and the brand. The underlying message was that BT could support customers through life’s changes, but it was presented in a natural way that enabled the viewer to come to their own conclusion.
Almost 20 years on, I still think of Kris Marshall every time I see the BT logo.
There’s an important lesson here for marketers – you can’t tell one great story and expect that to be enough. Your message should be woven through multiple touchpoints over time. Repeated storytelling builds memory and narrative progression deepens emotional investment. Together, they make your brand easier to remember when those crucial buying moments arrive.
You’re selling to people, not companies
There’s a common perception that B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing has more freedom to be creative, like the BT campaign example. It’s easier, people assume, to tell stories that resonate with consumers than with organisations.
But it’s important to remember that just because your product or service is B2B, that doesn’t mean your customer is a business. Your customer is a thinking, feeling person within that organisation – someone with responsibility, pressure and decision-making power. If your marketing speaks only to ‘the organisation’, it’s missing an opportunity to connect with the person who has the power to bring your product or service on board.
Storytelling allows you to do exactly that. It brings context to your messaging, makes your proposition more relatable and, most importantly, makes your brand more memorable. And in a market where 95% of buyers aren’t ready to purchase today, memorability is one of the most valuable assets your brand can build.
Don’t let B2C have all the fun
Our writers and strategists at Stratton Craig can help you tease out the story from any piece of comms, whether it’s an annual report, a company update, a piece of thought leadership or an advertising campaign.
Get in touch with us to make sure your brand is resonating with, and being remembered by, the people that matter.
We’ll be exploring storytelling in our upcoming webinar, which you can register to here. With the aim of making storytelling tangible, we’ll share real, practical techniques that you can apply to your communications to make them clearer, stronger, and more engaging.
