Just 26% of producers thought their company "didn't have the skill" to produce high quality content according to research by LinkedIn and Edelman.
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But then again, the deck is stacked.
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In my last few emails, we found that:

• 97% of leaders believe in the importance of humanizing the brand through storytelling
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• ​65% admit they don’t know where to start​
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• Less than 1/3 of CMOs think their organizations have a shared definition of ROI in the C-Suite
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• Only 11% of leaders believe narrative structure is important to telling "non-traditional" media stories.
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• 100% of leaders wish marketers would tackle risk-aversion and lead the conversation.

Or to put it another way:

Friend, these are our defining moments, and those who can help companies navigate this new paradigm this early are going to re-shape how our practice works now and into the future.
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There's just one problem...

The 11% Problem

I talked about this in my last email, but may have buried the lede. The TL;DR is that more B2B companies are currently using or actively exploring channels like YouTube, LinkedIn, than ever before.
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Yet, only 11% of them believe narrative structure is a top factor in telling stories on these channels.
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Worse, just under half find it hard to quantify impact to executive leaders, and only 42% have the tools to properly measure.
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I've been at this for 20 years now, and I can tell you that if there's one thing that has wrung any semblance of life out of any content program, it's the marketer's inability to communicate the importance of story mechanics and translate them into business results.
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If we don’t address this now, we'll never get off the treadmill, and be doomed to stick to ‘safer bets,’ and ok results.
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But that's ok, because after this email, you'll be on a path toward change.

How we fix it

Imagine you use one cohesive content calendar to plan a narrative over the next three months.
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Everything you produce, no matter the medium, flows into the next like one, long, continuous story.
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To do this, we start by learning what your readers / listeners / viewer's goal they want to achieve that seems just out of reach, then what is the main thing that's getting in their way.
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For example:
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​Objective: The reader wants to stop being reactive in how they create content
​Conflict: Everyone in the organization pulls them in different directions
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Once you’ve got those two things, your next move is to map a path to resolution.
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Ask yourself:

• What do they need to learn, believe, or feel to overcome this conflict?
• What’s the sequence that will get them there — step by step?

Where are the natural turning points where the stakes rise, a new choice needs to be made, or momentum builds?
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This is Narrative Design thinking.
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This isn't "telling a story" inside an individual piece (though you are more than welcome to.)
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You're bringing the audience into a content arc that leads them closer to resolution.
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Each blog post, video, podcast, webinar, etc helps take them one step closer to that goal:
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​For example:
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​If the audience’s objective is to stop being reactive, but every stakeholder is pulling them in different directions.
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An arc might look like this:

• Blog Post:“The Hidden Cost of Reactive Content: Why Always Playing Catch-Up Is Hurting Your Business” (sets up the conflict)
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• Podcast Episode:“Inside the Chaos: Stories from Teams Stuck in Reactive Mode” (stakes + empathy)
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• Webinar:“From Chaos to Clarity: How to Build a Narrative-Driven Content Strategy” (teaching the framework)
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• Case Study:“How [Company] Cut Content Waste by 40% After Aligning on Narrative Objectives” (resolution + proof)
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• Newsletter Mini-Series:“The 5 Narrative Principles Behind a Content Calendar That Actually Works” (sustained reinforcement)

By the end of the arc, you’ve walked the audience from pain → possibility → proof → participation, and every asset is part of a single cohesive story rather than a disconnected content dump.

How we measure it

This is where we have to champion a new idea of what "effective" content actually means, because "inbound traffic, leads, and sales" is too blunt and getting harder to quantify.
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In addition to the classic metrics, here are some of the others I believe we should be prioritizing if we want our content to be considered "effective":

• Scroll depth / retention → Are people consuming the content?
• Pages / session → Are they being pulled deeper into the experience?
• Return visits → Do they come back in 30, 60, 90 days?
• Sales cycle velocity → Do buyers move faster after engaging with content?

These become much easier to track and influence when you're creating a narrative across multiple assets.
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For example, let's look at how we can take one just narrative principle — The Objective — and measure its efficacy across multiple pieces of content.

From my own experience, I can tell you that when I've been very intentional about designing a narrative experience, I've:

• Doubled the amount of pages visited within a session
• Doubled the return visitor rate
• Cut the time to sale in half

Take this a step further, and when you're hyper-coordinated about everything you publish, you can:

• Measure cross-channel sentiment to see if it aligns with your intent
• Watch for that same sentiment shows up in sales conversations
• Listen for inbound leads repeating your language or framing their problem the way your narrative defined it

These are the kinds of metrics executive leaders can’t ignore, and helps get everyone aligned on what "success" can look like.

This is why Narrative Design matters.

When we connect narrative principles (like Objectives) to a verifiable behavior change, then tie that behavior to pipeline outcomes, we stop arguing for “storytelling” as a nice-to-have and start presenting it as a growth strategy.

And remember: only 11% of leaders think narrative structure matters right now.

That means 89% of leaders aren't thinking like this yet.

Yeah, it may take some convincing, but my goal with The Narrative Design Toolbox is to give you the language so you can create better content, and communicate to others to communicate exactly how and why that content will work.
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See you next week.

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