Craft a Media-Inspired B2B Content Strategy: Workshop

Working Webinar Series

From Boring to Brilliant: Crafting a Media-Inspired B2B Content Strategy

Capture attention using the same techniques as the world's best media. This 4-part series for B2B marketing leaders reveals how to develop a content strategy centered on compelling stories, engaging formats, and a human voice.

Matt Locke

Aug 6 | Aug 13 | Aug 20 | Aug 27

12:00pm ET | 9:00am PT

Each session is 60 minutes

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Series Overview

B2B marketing too often gets lost under an avalanche of technical jargon, library images, and corporate reports. And despite what consultants and LinkedIn hot takes may want you to believe, your competition for attention is not just your industry competitors—it's everything from Netflix and podcasts to Instagram and WhatsApp.

How on earth can you win in a world where attention is the scarcest resource? How do you create a content strategy that feels fresh, breaks free from boring, and is most definitely uniquely human?

In this series, you'll learn a tried and tested blueprint for telling great B2B stories and standing out in a cookie-cutter marketplace with inspiration from the world's most successful media properties. Bye-bye boardroom; hello Hollywood.

Instructor Matt Locke of Storythings previously presented these lessons at SXSW. Now, he's working with us to combine these anything-but-ordinary methods with MarketingProfs' hands-on, mini-workshop format to get PRO members up to speed—fast. It's the perfect, next-level program for marketing leaders responsible for establishing strategic messaging and developing content strategies for B2B products and services.

With ideas grounded in decades working in media and digital—from the BBC to Channel 4—Matt covers clever techniques the media industry uses every day, but you hardly ever see in B2B. Using practical tips for creating and emboldening your content strategy, he'll help you take your marketing from boring to brilliant and stand out in an era of disjointed checklist marketing, zombie content, and bland "thought leadership."

Sessions

Session 1

Storytelling vs Storyfinding

August 6

12:00pm ET | 9:00am PT

Let's be honest: Most B2B branded content is boring.

As a marketing leader, you know this isn't because the B2B world isn't full of fascinating stories (it is!). And for most companies, it isn't because marketers can't persuade stakeholders and reviewers that leading with story is the best way to go (really, it's not!).

It's because marketers don't understand the difference between storytelling and storyfinding.

Let's uncover practical tips to find the stories that'll make your B2B content really stand out, based on examples and insights from some of the world's best documentary and media producers.

When you attend this series kickoff session, you will learn...

  • How the way we spend our attention has changed, and the impact this has on your B2B campaigns
  • The decisions we make when deciding to give a story our attention (or not)
  • In-depth insights into finding surprising and unusual stories from your company and employees
  • Case studies of award-winning stories from both media and B2B creators

Session 2

How to Develop a More Human Voice

August 13

12:00pm ET | 9:00am PT

The platforms that grab our attention the most are filled with unique, human voices. But most B2B content too often reverts to a corporate voice: flat and lifeless, lacking personality.

If you put the text from one of your campaigns next to one of your competitors', could you tell which is which?

In this session, you'll explore why we react much more strongly to human voices in storytelling than "corporate speak," how your team can uncover unique human voices in your company and customers, and how to use these voices to make your brand stories pop.

Get ready to learn...

  • The role of voice in storytelling, with examples from the media and B2B marketing
  • How to identify the corporate voice cliches we should all avoid
  • How voice creates empathy and recognition in storytelling, and the difference between subjects and protagonists in story structures
  • Practical tips and insights into how to conduct interviews to bring stories out of your contributors, whether they are c-suite or interns

Session 3

Why Formats Are Key to Building Loyal Audiences

August 20

12:00pm ET | 9:00am PT

Getting attention these days is hard (so hard!). Getting people to come back to your stories again and again? Really hard (really, really hard!).

It's time to elevate your content strategy to address this attention drought. And here's the secret formula from the media world to help you do that: Formats. They're the bedrock of the entertainment industry, but B2B marketers hardly use them.

So... what are formats? Why will they work for your audience? And how can they help you craft an effective content strategy and build sustainable content workflows?

During session 3, you'll learn...

  • How content formats are developed, produced, and distributed
  • How formats help audiences build habits, and help you develop your workflow
  • Insights from unpacking successful formats from the worlds of media and B2B marketing
  • Practical tips for shifting your team's content culture from campaigns to formats

Session 4

How to Use Prototyping to Increase Storytelling Skills

August 27

12:00pm ET | 9:00am PT

Being a great storyteller is like being a great athlete—practice makes perfect.

And that's the problem. You've got experience, you know that most marketing teams don't practice. At all. We approach every project, every asset, every story with the expectation that it must "ship." Let's change that.

Even if resources and time are stretched thin, there are simple ways your team can experiment, test, and iterate content before hitting the share (or send) button.

As Matt wraps things up, you'll learn...

  • How pilots and prototypes are used as a key part of the media development process
  • Case studies and successful prototype examples from media and B2B industries
  • Practical ways to make content format prototypes
  • How your team can build prototyping into existing workflows
  • How to easily test and iterate prototypes with internal and external audiences
Headshot of Matt Locke

Meet Matt

Director | Storythings

Matt Locke is one of three Directors at Storythings, a content agency and B Corp he founded in 2011, whose clients include ADP, Lenovo, BCG, The Gates Foundation, and PBS. He has worked for over 25 years in senior digital roles in media, including Head of Innovation at BBC New Media from 2001 to 2006, and Commissioning Editor, Education and Head of Multiplatform at Channel 4 from 2006 to 2011. He has also written and spoken extensively about media, attention, and storytelling, including his newsletter Attention Matters and the series A Brief History of Attention.

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