Hey Reader,We don't think in keywords. We think in arcs. We wrestle with big, layered problems and go down rabbit holes when we think we’re onto something. We binge. We compare. We revisit. We want to make sense of things, and we want to be taken seriously while doing it. So when your content is structured as disconnected articles, you’re forcing the audience to do the heavy lifting of stitching the narrative together. What Narrative Planning Changes A narrative-driven content calendar treats...
11 days ago • 1 min read
Ever watch a show with a killer premise... that you gave up on halfway through? For me, it was Heroes. The first season built tension. It hinted. It layered. It pulled you forward. Season 2? It just fed you information. No tension. No hook. I watched it — but I didn’t care.That's what most B2B content does.It just kind of starts, presents a bunch of information, then... ends.It presents info, then ends. You skim it, forget it, and deep down, you know your reader will too.If that's you, don't...
12 days ago • 2 min read
You’ve heard it before: “This needs to be more dynamic.” So you do what most people do: you punch it up. Sharper verbs. Shorter sentences. Add some urgency to the tone. But the problem isn’t pace. It’s pressure. Or more specifically—the lack of it. Earlier this week, we discussed how most B2B creators aren’t intentionally working with competing values. They’re operating on instinct, not narrative tension. So when someone says, "something feels off," you hear, "you can't get it right." If you...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
“Tell a story” is the most repeated—and least understood—advice in marketing. It flatters the creative instinct, appeals to intuition, and sounds like permission to keep things loose and expressive, but without structure, even the most inspired voices lose momentum. Most of what passes for "storytelling strategy" is just glorified pep talks, not practical frameworks. Sure, do this long enough and you'll hear about "The Hero's Journey" or "The Three Act Structure," but as someone who has...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
Let me paint a picture...Your boss shoots you a Slack message: “Can you do some competitor analysis? We need a new way to stand out this year.” So, you open a spreadsheet, load competitor websites, and start digging. Metrics, headlines, testimonials—line after line after line of data. After a while, your focus blurs, and a familiar question creeps in: "What am I actually looking for?" It’s a scene playing out in marketing teams everywhere. Here’s the truth nobody wants to hear: gathering data...
3 months ago • 4 min read
You know content marketing could be driving more impact.You see the gaps, the missed opportunities, the wasted effort. But then you hit a wall. Leadership doesn’t get it. First off, if that's you, you're not alone. Last year we ran The State of (Dis)Content Report to find out what had content marketers feeling down. Among many things, we found: 🔸 Only 30% of in-house content marketers say their leadership is fully bought-in.🔸 41.3% admit they aren't doing audience research nearly enough.🔸 60%...
4 months ago • 1 min read
A few weeks ago, I asked ChatGPT to pretend Frodo from Lord of the Rings was preparing for his journey by reading blog posts. (Stay with me here…) I wanted it to map out what those blog posts would be - the full journey from “Choosing Your Companions” to “Surviving Mount Doom.” Why? Because I’ve discovered something weird about content gaps. EVERYONE is missing out on their full potential. See, when I was at Shopify Plus, we had a massive challenge: We were trying to compete in enterprise...
5 months ago • 2 min read
This year on Studio Insider, I going to do something different. I'm going to use Breaking Bad Season 2 as a vehicle to demonstrate different storytelling principles then show how they can be applied to B2B content marketing. I'm doing this because it's become painful to me to see how shallow most of the "B2B Storytelling" advice is out there. Most of it is some reskinned version of The Hero's Journey, which, while it is a popular framework, it's not a universal reflection of the human...
6 months ago • 4 min read
For years we've heard the phrases "Provide value" and "Be engaging" but these are so vague and lack definition. As someone who has studied storytelling from age 10 - first as a career actor, then as a marketer - I believe there are multiple principles that can be taken from film theory and behavioral psych and ancient philosophy that can help us create stuff that can be valuable and resonate at a deeper level. But to do that, we first need to know what that value is, why the person on the...
8 months ago • 6 min read