Words: Adam Ketterer – Founder
Category(s): Branding, Positioning
Date: 9th February 2025
When B2B tech companies contact Beneath for help, it’s very often for the same reason: the story they’re telling in their marketing isn’t doing a good job of reflecting their strategy as a business.
Sometimes this is because the story they’re telling isn’t clear or interesting enough to do the strategy justice.
But far more often, the problem is that their strategy has evolved over time (through growth, product pivot, an acquisition, trying to break a new market, whatever), and they haven’t got round to updating their positioning and messaging.
Maybe they haven’t realised it’s time for a change.
↳ Read: How do you know when it’s time to change your brand story?
Maybe their old story is great, they love it (a tricky, stubborn trap). But if the strategy has changed then the story must too.
↳ Read: B2B brands, beware the wrong story told well.
B2B brand stories have an evil twin
Ben Horowitz said, “Companies that don’t have a clearly articulated story don’t have a clear and well thought-out strategy. The company story is the company strategy.”
Which not only means that a better story equals a better strategy. It also means that if you’re telling a story that doesn’t line up with your strategy, you’ve created a weird, bad/wrong strategy: the one perceived by anyone who hears your bad/wrong story.
This second, phantom strategy is competing with your true strategy, which doesn’t stand a chance if it’s not actually being articulated.
You’re in for trouble. Maybe not immediately, but one day you’ll realise just how far you’ve veered off course thanks to the evil twin story.
Don’t worry, it happens to everyone
On a slightly more reassuring note, the truth is every company will hit the strategy-story gap – more than once. (If your strategy and story are in permanent alignment, it means you’re not growing as a company.)
So what should you do to fix things, when you find yourself in this situation? As with pretty much everything in B2B marketing, it starts with your positioning.
Revisit and refresh your positioning and messaging to make sure it’s geared towards achieving your current strategic goals.
↳ Read: Define your B2B brand positioning in six questions.
Then use that updated positioning to inform everything else. Only then can you become what we like to call a storyful brand.
↳ Download: Storyful brands and how to build them.
It won’t be the last time
Equipped with your fit-for-purpose positioning, the story it informs, and all the brand and marketing materials that will bring it to life, you’re ready to go off (in the right direction once again).
But remember, sooner or later you’ll see the telltale signs of the strategy-story gap reappearing: confused prospects, slow sales, more bad leads than good, higher churn, and more.
This is normal and, like we said before, it’s a good thing. A sign of development over time and through changing circumstances.
I forget who said it – probably April Dunford – but positionings are like buses. Use them to get from one stop to the next on your strategic journey (which is really a journey of many successive strategies). Then hop off, reassess, and hop on the next one on your way to that long-term vision.