Is Your Content Telling Too Much?

“Show, don’t tell.”

That’s a directive I’ve received as a writer and given as a content consultant to our clients too many times to count. But what does it actually mean and what does it look like in practice? And how does that apply to B2B marketing?

Content that is “telling,” whether that’s copy, visuals, or both, tends to be straightforward. It’s serviceable, but not very memorable. “Showing” is more nuanced and harder to pull off, but when it’s done right it pays off in big ways. (One classic example is the Volkswagen “Lemon” ad.)

While there isn’t a surefire formula, there are some shifts in your approach to developing content that I’ll share here that can help get you closer to showing rather than telling.

Key Messaging Isn’t Necessarily Copy

There’s often a misconception about what key messaging is and how to use it in your content. Key messaging is extremely valuable for providing focus and direction to creative teams. It signals what the most important takeaways should be for a given audience or initiative. It’s easy to treat those key messages as if they were completed copy, but doing so usually leads to dry, uninspiring creative, or worse, a list of product features and benefits and not much more.

As marketers a major part of our job is figuring out how to get and hold the attention of our target audience members. That requires thinking about the emotional benefits of your product or service and finding a way to get your audience to feel something about your brand.

For example, imagine you’re tasked with developing a creative campaign for Acme Washer Co. They want to tell prospects why their washers are the best option, so they come up with some key messages to support that claim.

• Acme Washers are cost-effective.
• Acme Washers are made of quality materials.
• Acme Washers are available in a nearly endless array of sizes.

Those are three great things to know, but saying it like that probably isn’t going to grab anybody’s attention any time soon. That goes double if the competition is also saying more or less the same thing. These statements tell a reader about the product, but they’re not moving anyone to act. Another way to think about it: If someone came up to you and said “Acme washers are cost-effective” how would you respond?

If it’s with anything other than “Yeah, and?” or “So what?” you are an easy sell.

Getting to the “so what” is what we need to do in order to show our product, service, or brand is worth someone’s time and attention.

How to Answer the “So What” Question

To be memorable you have to make an impact, and one of the best ways to do that is by telling a story. Now, I hear you. “Storytelling” in marketing has become one of those ubiquitous words that in the wrong hands can become diluted and meaningless. After all, the point of any marketing story is ultimately “buy this product” or “use this service.” But that’s fine, and here’s why.

How you tell the story matters. Think of it a little like the endless adaptations of Shakespeare's plays. The facts of the story stay the same, but everything from setting, medium, time in history, and any number of other details can be changed to reflect the creator’s vision. (Just take a look at how many movie versions of Romeo & Juliet exist!) If it’s done well, is memorable, and elicits an emotional response, the story still feels fresh even though you already know what’s going to happen.

It’s really not all that different when it comes to telling a marketing story. You can get to that memorable, emotional place in your work by thinking about your target audience and by being specific in the way you tell your brand, product, or service’s story to that audience target.

When I say “be specific” I don’t mean get granular about things like product numbers or specs. There’s a time and place for that, but it’s probably not in your ad copy or other top-of-funnel content (though there are exceptions to everything). I mean be specific about a benefit or consequence of using (or not using) your company’s offering.

Here’s a quick example. Compare “The boy was happy on his birthday” with “Nathan beamed when he saw five candles on his Spiderman cake.” One is pretty general, one is more specific, both convey the same information (there’s a birthday and a kid was excited about it). The second one is more meaningful because there are real details included that tell a story.

Transforming Key Messages into Creative Content

Let’s look at one of our Acme Washer key messages again, and think about how to answer that “So what” question for their potential customer. We’ll do it by being specific and considering some emotional outcomes for the audience.

CFOs Love Acme Washers

How are Washers Like Piggy Banks?

This Washer Could Save Your Job

This Washer is Good at Math

Now we have four rough headline options that do a lot more than just state a key message. They’re short, and all have the potential to cause the elusive “head tilt” all marketers are after. The ad’s body copy and CTA can then pay off the headline and introduce a few important details.

This principle applies to your longer-form content as well. Think about the real-world benefits your brand offers your audience and use that to shape the story you tell about the solutions you provide. It’s a way of dressing up the foundational information in your key messages and making it relatable.

Stop Telling, Start Showing

Treating key messages and other features and benefits information like finished copy is tempting, especially if you’re a marketer on a tiny team trying to meet tight deadlines. But if you can find a way to extract some human emotional truths from that information and distill it into a creative concept you’re putting your brand in a much better position to stand out and get noticed by your audience.

It takes time to get there. Fortunately, as marketers, we have plenty of opportunities to practice honing our craft.

Get help transforming your brand’s foundational information into content and creative that moves people to act. Reach out to CID’s team to get started.