After I started wandering around the web looking for good examples of B2B storytelling, I found a few resources that required a deep dive.

Yes, I got diverted.

One is a conversation with B2B content strategist Ardath Albee* of Marketing Interactions where I asked her for a good example of hers on B2B Storytelling since she’s among the industry’s experts. She gave me a good example and I’m waiting for her to answer a few questions before I write a post on it.

Another is a book I stumbled upon when I followed a Carol Tice tweet that led me to The Word Chef – who has a concept I thought of using when I first started freelancing since my last name is Baker, but discarded thinking it was too corny. (For her, it works!)  On Tea Silvestre’s Word Chef blog, she has a list of 30 marketing books she recommends, and I jumped at the chance to read Made to Stick when I learned my library had a copy.

How do you create ideas that stick is the question answered by brothers Chip and Dan Heath in their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

They suggest using a simple principle to create sticky ideas:

Create simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional stories.

I promise to write a review post, and I’ll recommend every content marketer, especially B2B marketers, read it to improve or start their storytelling.

I also found an interesting post by Phil Johnson on Forbes called Not Just for Bedtime, Marketers Corner the Market on Storytelling.

In it, Johnson has three tips on how corporate marketers can adopt storytelling but not confuse it with marketing. His tips echo the Made to Stick principles:

• If your story does not reveal something personal and unknown about the person or brand, it’s going to be boring.
• If your story does not tap into a specific emotion – whether it be fear, desire, anger, or happiness – it will not move people to action.
• If your story does not take people on a journey where there is a transformation between the beginning, middle, and the end, it’s not a story.

I also want to interview the creative artists at 321 FastDraw, who draw wonderful stories – they call them Telestrations – on white boards. I discovered their wonderful videos when writing stories on Seattle and Microsoft for the Kaufmann Foundation’s entrepreneurial site ID8 Nation.

 Tell me: Do you have any great storytelling tips or resources for marketers that I should check out as part of my research? I’d love to explore more.

*Full Disclosure: Ardath is a client.