Humanizing B2B

For years I've been trying to convince my students and training attendees that LinkedIn is not and shouldn't be a sterile, boring and conservative place. Nothing B2B-related should be like that! Quite the opposite - valuable professionals usually are valuable and likeable people as well. The same is true for B2B brands - selling to other companies doesn't require acting as a robot, since all companies are made of people and we're all marketing and selling to other people. While browsing on NetGalley for new #businessbooks, I found a title that caught me with the same messages and values - 'Humanizing B2B' by Paul Cash and James Trezona, founders of Rooster Punk, a B2B Storytelling agency. It will be available by the and of April and it is a must for every B2B marketer. Just a couple of the stuff I've highlighted on my e-reader: - Paul and James have created five principles to show that humanized B2B marketing is not as complicated as it might seem - it's about people, not products; you need a purpose that's actioned; emotion is at your marketing code; likeability is transformational; and storytelling is your vehicle. - They have gathered useful models and tools for great storytelling (the Brand archetypes model, the five-stage Story framework model, etc.)

As someone who has worked in Marketing for 10+ years and always pushed that the human aspect is incredibly important, EVEN for B2B, I was excited to see this book come up in my list.

Although it's promoted to be "due to the catalyst of the pandemic" I believe that this book has been needed for a number of years, it's easy to read and gives marketers some tips on how to best implement a more human approach to B2B marketing.

Hopefully, we'll see more organizations take this approach in reality and not just read about it.