Artificial intelligence is now everywhere: in your phone, in software, in your social platforms, and your Google searches. At Two Rivers Marketing, we’ve woven AI tools into workflows and launched an AI Taskforce to ensure that we use this tool strategically and responsibly. We put generative AI to work in everything from bolstering SEO research to kick-starting copy.
And while we’ve clearly seen AI’s power to accelerate our work, we’ve also seen its current limitations — particularly in the B2B world. In complex industries with sophisticated products and discerning customers, authentically connecting with audiences still requires a real-world presence and curiosity that algorithms lack.
That’s why we’ve become even bigger advocates for human-driven storytelling.
What’s Human-Driven Storytelling?
Human-driven storytelling begins with people connecting with each other, which becomes the foundation for stories that connect with people. In a marketing context, a brand’s values can be incorporated into these stories and, by extension, its products: fostering engagement, affinity, connection, and sales.
Whether it’s through words, images, audio, or video — the focus, the foreground, and the foundation is always people. White papers stacked to the brim with statistics have their place, and spec sheets are no doubt a necessary tool in the B2B world. But, at the end of the day, deeply human storytelling connects with people, and it’s ultimately people who buy products.
Human-driven storytelling helps your brand stand out and get noticed. Here are three things it will help you do:
Authentically Connect With Audiences
Authenticity is a top content trend in 2024, and the demand for the real and the unvarnished seems poised only to grow as AI-generated imagery, video, and audio floods our feeds.
Almost 90% of consumers want transparency on AI images, Getty Images found. And recent backlashes to AI in big movies, prestige TV shows, and even indie films hint at a demand for authenticity in stories that are fiction — let alone in the true stories brands seek to tell about their products online.
No wonder the biggest videos on our For You pages any given week are candid, intimate, or otherwise no-frills, low-production clips that resonate with audiences. Whether they feature hilarious comedy, helpful tips, or a transparent account, this content resonates as real.
Authentically connecting with audiences still requires a real-world presence and curiosity that algorithms lack.
To find out what’s real for your customers, try asking what’s real for the full-spectrum people they are outside of being your customers. What challenge does a product solve — not just for their business but, by proxy, for them as a person? And what does that solution free them to focus on, achieve, or otherwise do? That’s what matters to them — and that’s why it should matter for you.
“Real recognizes real,” a phrase rooted in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and hip-hop, notes the unmistakable nature of authenticity. First used to express recognition and respect within communities, it resonates in marketing, too. Authenticity builds trust and fosters meaningful connections.
Authentically Reflect Your Customers
The most powerful stories about your business aren’t about your business. They’re about your customers. And not your customers as CRM data points, but about your customers as real living, breathing people.
They have lives beyond your products. Perhaps the most interesting parts of them! And yet your product, in ways big or small, makes those lives easier, better, or possible. That’s where the story lives — but you have to discover it firsthand.
Reflecting the real lives of your customers requires putting people in front of people, on job sites, over the phone, or in video calls. It’s a level of access that AI can’t touch, and it lets you accurately capture customers’ unique pain points, preferences, and goals.
AI can absorb huge swaths of data, recognize patterns, and generate everything from text to images to video and music. What it can’t yet do is step onto a factory floor, spend a day in the field with a customer, or document new innovations with an engineer. That’s where real people are and where real stories happen. And it’s real stories that resonate with real audiences awash in AI content.
The result? Credibility comes through. Audiences can trust your brand. They can also see themselves in those same pain points, goals, and dreams. The stories feel real because they are real.
Accurately Convey Your Business
B2B marketing requires a deep understanding of niche industries, complex markets, and sophisticated products — and all of that requires nuance. Human-driven storytelling excels at capturing nuance.
From the experience of a new product to the subtleties of an engineer’s description, a person can pick up the nuances of an industry in ways algorithms miss. The contextual knowledge ensures accurate narratives that capture the full dynamics of a business, its brand, and its values.
Things move quickly in B2B. Economic realities shift. Business goals adjust. Competitors make moves. Human-driven storytelling can grasp, contextualize, and relay a company’s evolution on uniquely human — and resonant — terms.
The Power of Storytelling for Your Brand
In the end, business to business is just people to people. And so human-driven storytelling remains a powerful tool — in the AI age more than ever — to connect with audiences and reflect your brand in real ways, to build real relationships and drive real sales.
Ready to leverage the best of AI and human ingenuity for your business? Drop us a line to learn more about connecting with audiences authentically.
By Two Rivers Marketing
