No One Cares About My Business

_{Day 19/100}

The most tragic thing in content marketing isn't the algorithm changes or budget cuts. It's watching companies spend thousands on "brand storytelling" that nobody will ever read to the end.

Harsh truth incoming: Nobody cares about your company's story. Sorry, not sorry.

Let's face a painful truth: most of your audience isn't finishing your carefully crafted brand stories. They're skimming, clicking away, or scrolling past entirely.

It's not because they have the attention span of a goldfish (although, let’s be real most of them do). It's because you’re not giving them a reason to care.

Now, I’m writing this as if I’m giving myself the hard advice I need to hear.

Why Most Content Marketing Stories Fall Flat

After reviewing hundreds of client blogs and content strategies, I've noticed patterns in storytelling fails:

👎 Your story centers on your brand achievements - People care about their own problems, not your company milestones

👎 You're blending into the sea of sameness - If I could swap your logo with a competitor and not notice, we've got issues

👎 You lack conflict - Every great story needs tension and stakes. "Everything worked perfectly!" is boring

👎 You're using jargon instead of human language - "Leveraging synergistic solutions to optimize paradigms" makes me want to throw my laptop out the window

Fix Your Stories: 4 Practical Steps That Actually Work

1. Reframe around customer transformation

When I'm helping clients craft case studies that actually get read, here's what works:

🤮 BEFORE:
"Our platform offers 15 integration points with leading CRMs..."
Translation: We built some tech stuff and want to brag about it

🔥 AFTER:
"See how Company X eliminated 5 hours of manual data entry weekly by connecting our tool to their existing systems..."
Translation: Here's exactly how we solved real problems for actual humans

The first tells me what you do. The second shows me what life looks like when your product isn't a waste of money. Actual results beat feature vomit every time.

⚡ WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:
Open your most recent case study. Read the first paragraph. Does it talk about your company or the customer's journey? If it's about you, burn it down and rebuild immediately.

2. Create tension through relatable challenges

I had a client who kept writing product pages that listed features. Useful in theory, but about as emotionally engaging as watching paint dry in slow motion.

🤮 BEFORE:
"Our solution streamlines workflow management."
Translation: We do something vague that sounds impressive in boardrooms

🔥 AFTER:
"When deadlines tighten and stakeholder expectations increase, teams using our solution deliver 30% faster without the typical quality tradeoffs."
Translation: We understand the actual hellscape you're working in and have proof we can fix it

The second version creates actual stakes. It acknowledges the pressure your audience feels daily. It signals "this person gets my nightmare situation" instead of "this person wants my credit card."

⚡ WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:
Call an actual customer. Ask them to describe the specific day they realized they needed your solution. Use their exact language in your next story. Not your marketing-speak interpretation—their raw, unfiltered words.

3. Deliver unexpected insights

Generic claims fade into background noise faster than a beige carpet in a beige room. Specific, counter-intuitive insights slap your reader's brain awake.

🤮 BEFORE:
"Our tool improves team collaboration."
Translation: We say the same meaningless thing as 8,000 other SaaS companies

🔥 AFTER:
"Most teams think more communication improves results. Our customers discovered the opposite—our tool reduced meetings by 60% while increasing project completion rates."
Translation: We're about to flip your understanding of this problem on its head

Challenge assumptions. Be the one who makes people say "Wait, what? I never thought of it that way." Those are the stories people screenshot and DM to colleagues at 11pm.

⚡ WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:
Find one surprising data point or customer outcome that challenges industry assumptions. Not mildly surprising—I mean genuinely unexpected. Build your next content piece around that mind-grenade and watch engagement explode.

4. Cut ruthlessly for clarity

The number one issue I see in content reviews? Bloat so excessive it needs its own zip code.

You don't need to explain everything. You need to explain the ONE thing that gets someone to take the next step. Everything else is just masturbatory content marketing.

🤮 BEFORE:
8 paragraphs explaining your company's proprietary six-sigma-infused methodology that nobody asked for

🔥 AFTER:
3 paragraphs that nail the problem, solution, and proof—then get out of the way

⚡ WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:
Take your current highest-performing content piece and brutally slash it by 30%. Not gentle trimming—I mean take a machete to it while preserving only its essential message. Watch performance metrics improve as you say more with less.

Transform Your Next Story

Here's what this transformation looks like in the wild:

🤮 BEFORE:
"Founded in 2018, our company has been developing innovative solutions for the marketing industry. Our platform offers comprehensive analytics, automation features, and integration capabilities that have helped numerous businesses improve their performance over time."
Translation: Generic corporate speak that makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon

🔥 AFTER:
"Marketing teams waste an average of 12 hours weekly on reports nobody reads. Our customers cut this to 2 hours on day one and redirect that time to campaigns that actually drive revenue."
Translation: Holy shit, I feel seen and want to know more immediately

The first paragraph makes me want to fake a family emergency to escape the conversation. The second makes me want to throw my credit card at you while yelling "TAKE MY MONEY."

Over to You

It’s hard. I’m not gonna sit here and write this as if I’m an expert. These are the main shifts I’ve seen and have tried myself. I would love to hear about your own changes in writing brand stories.

✌️ Tim "Plot Twist" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai