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Over the years, there has been a significant shift in digital marketing towards visual social media networks such as Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. For marketers willing to grow their brand, it is essential to target audience in such media platforms and the internet in general. Storytelling is a significant element of modern marketing. Brands that have mastered storytelling art have a competitive advantage.

While the essence of any story used in marketing differs, the end goals are almost the same – engaging with the target audience in a manner that guarantees the business improved engagement, conversions, high sales and better ROI. Your story should have a target audience, the right message and a medium. Here are some aspects you need to master storytelling for your brand.

1. Start By Understanding Your Audience

While you may have a message in mind that you want to pass to your prospects and customers, it is not just any message that will give you the necessary engagement and results. Your message has to align with the needs and pain points of the audience that you are planning to target.

Learning about your audience is the first step towards mastering effective storytelling for your business. The rationale is that get to know what their tastes and preferences are so that you can customize your story around such aspects for a higher chance of success.

2. Establish Your Purposes For Telling The Story

A marketing story should have a definite purpose. Usually, many marketers miss the point by being overly promotional and salesy. The modern customers are millennials who do not fancy anything that promotes a brand. If you are too promotional or salesy, your story will have low engagement. That is why it is necessary to establish your story’s purpose.

Your sole purpose should revolve around offering solutions to some of the problems your prospects and customers are facing. That is the only way your audience is likely to associate with your brand. However, make sure that you have a worthy character to help in creating a memorable aspect in the audience. A great approach is to use the audience themselves as the character as evident in the case of Nike’s Find Your Greatness.

3. Craft An Engaging Message

A winning marketing story is not about your brand. It should contain an emotion-evoking message. Make sure that the story you have in your story hooks the audience. All the elements of the story should resonate. If it is a piece of music included, let it have the same effect on the audience as the video and the message itself.

Avoid using computer-generated voices. Remember that you want to relate with your audience as much as possible and the only way you can achieve this is assuming human characteristics in every aspect of the story. The storyline should express pity, pain, as well a catharsis, which are the essential elements that define a great story.

4. Be Persuasive

While you are trying to be overtly promotional, your end goal is for your audience to take some action. Whether it is to subscribe to a certain program or buy your products or service, you need to put in the extra effort that will make it hard for them to deny your call to action when you drop it. Therefore, your story should motivate the audience as this guarantees a positive response.

Storytelling is an effective and powerful way to generate leads. However, you will not get engagement if you keep telling your audience about things they already know. Share issues they do not know, and which can have a positive impact on them.

Remember to use a call to action that most people will want to take. Your story should carry a positive voice and be empathic. This triggers trusting feelings in your audience.

Storytelling is an age-old concept, but the concept is relatively new in marketing. This can be attributable to the fact that marketers did not see its scalability worthiness. However, the growth of the internet has changed everything – it has become easy for your target audience to follow up any story that you share, and second, it is not a must for marketers to tell a whole story in one go.

In spite of this, people have mastered the art of ignoring anything that does not excite them. As such, it is necessary for marketers to avoid certain mistakes that might cost their effort in marketing through storytelling. This article highlights some of the common mistakes that you should be aware of when adopting storytelling as a marketing approach.

1. Too Much Focus On The Features

A great brand story does not focus on the bells and whistles related to the features of an offer. The best brand stories are based on benefits, interests, values, wants, and needs of the customer, which enhance their life in some way. App.net emphasizes offering clients a solution to some problems they were experiencing such as mistreatment, inadequate or lack of privacy, and challenge the status quo.

Therefore, avoid focusing too much on your brand’s feature, what it can do and instead share a story that is relatable to the target audience.

2. Tell A Story That Does Not Interest Your Customers

Have you ever told a child a bedtime story then over all a sudden he jumped in to control it to direct the story? The same case is similar to businesses and customers. The audience you are targeting has a story that they would love to hear. The implication is that should you deviate from the story; you are likely to experience reduced engagement and low response or none to the call to action. Avoid persuading people to believe a story that they do not connect with; it will not work.

3. Telling A Story That Does Not Evoke Emotions

How emotional your story is determines its possibility of going viral. Several types of emotions such as anger, excitement, happiness, or sadness trigger your audience to share your content. The best story should be more than just an explanation piece and evoke the emotions that align with the current situation and the message you are passing.

4. Letting Facts Ruin A Good Story

It sounds controversial. We are not implying that your story should be about lies. The gist is that you need to select what information goes in your story as well as how to present it. For example, sharing a press release on Saturday because you just hit a million users may not draw the attention you need so wouldn’t it be better if you did it on Monday and let the excitement flow during the entire week?

5. Inconsistency

Most start-ups and even big corporates make the mistake of inconsistency. Do not promise anything in a story if you are sure you will not honor it. It is advisable to stop the whole idea of storytelling if what you say in a story is extremely different from what you are doing. Your words and actions should align in passing the intended message.

Having a clear concept about your brand’s story makes your marketing quite easy and achievable. Any company focusing on leveraging brand storytelling should plan to overcome the listed mistakes. Do you have a start-up story to share?

A brand story is not just another asset for marketing. It is a guiding principle that the brand should follow and has a significant impact on all organizational aspects. It’s a perfect roadmap and sales pitch. One person might find the answer to the ‘who are you’ question complex, while another might find it simple. The answer depends on how you approach the question.

However, coming up with the appropriate answer should be the sole focus before you think of presenting a product or service to consumers. Let’s look at some businesses and learn more about their brand storytelling to give you insight into things you may want to use to tell your brand’s story effectively.

Airbnb

Airbnb’s focus is firmly on one thing – customers. It understands the importance of customers in sustaining a great product. In the case of Airbnb, the brand is the guests and hosts. This company tells its stories through their gusts and hosts, where the customers share their experiences about the areas that they visit. This focus is so essential for the company that it created a section where they specifically share Stories from the Airbnb Community.

Minnetonka

It can be a challenge for big brands with long, rich histories like Minnetonka to share their stories. They make things easier and better by taking an approach is different from most other brands. It has proven to be a winner for them. In their brand storytelling, they suggest high quality and longevity by associating it with the words, ‘quintessential American brand.’ This is an idea that the company has kept, despite moving into the global arena. Holding on to its grass-roots history is a great way to maintain brand building and is what makes Minnetonka timeless.

Nike

Founded in 1964, the company known as Nike, today, has learned a lot over the years and has obviously mastered the art of storytelling and giving back to the audiences’ communities, no matter where the customers are globally.

One example of their brand storytelling can be seen in their Equality campaign. Nike stands out as an advocate for equality, mentoring, and many more things based on the trail-blazing values of Oregon settlers. This is easily seen via the stories they share about community programs and events they sponsor. Many of these inspire kids and adults through sports, while also bringing people together for personal and social change.

Zendesk Campaign

Zendesk, which is known for effective customer support software, created an ingenious yet hilarious marketing campaign that helped boost the company’s interests, among its target audience. The brand’s ‘anti-storytelling’ approach earns them trust among its users, by having a very human impression, a thing that is not so common with SaaS providers.

In the Zendesk “Alternative” Campaign, the company created a story about a fictional indie rock band that was frustrated by the supposed ‘stealing’ of their band name by a customer support company. Zendesk finishes the video with the brand writing a cheesy jingle on how vital customer service should be to brands.

Data and statistics can help inform and convince the reader of facts. However, when it comes to a compelling brand story, the secret is to tell a relevant story that moves your audience emotionally and capitalizes on a meaningful or inspiring situation or predicament.

Additionally, focus on being clear and to the point, adding examples or other elements when needed. You also want to encourage 2-way conversations, as well as adopt the right tone and voice. Create the right environment to connect with the audience and tell a brand story that keeps them wanting more.

How businesses get customer’s attention has changed significantly. There is a shift, among consumers and decision-makers, from the overreliance on old-fashioned sales promises and standard banner ads. With the rate at which competition is rising, it is becoming extremely hard for businesses to draw customers’ attention through television ads or shiny billboards.

Modern consumers are interested in your brand ‘narrative’, which apparently, is more than your USP or even a sales pitch. It is your brand’s voice, your background and identity. The right narrative will help prospects and customers understand your brand from a different perspective, and that is why modern marketers are considering storytelling as a marketing tool. However, what are the benefits? Read on to learn why marketing through storytelling works.

Reasons Why Storytelling is a great Marketing tool

Marketing through storytelling, of course, is not a new concept. Brands such as BrewDog, Marks and Spencer, and even Coca Cola have benefitted from this approach for years. With the average individual consuming over 100,000 digital words daily, research shows that about 92% of these people would benefit from such words if they were in a story format. So, what’s in for brands that use storytelling as a marketing tool?

1. Customer Motivation

Probably, you can remember an advert back in the day. The chances are high that whatever the advert was, it had a story that lingered in your mind. Marketing through storytelling is a great way to draw customer’s attention using a fascinating tale prior to the introduction of a call to action. As such, the brand builds an emotional connection with its prospects and customers such that it is hard to turn down their call to action.

2. Makes Brands Memorable

While customers can remember your brand because of numerous marketing aspects such as a catchy headline, professional photos, or even a fantastic video, nothing beats them all than a great and captivating story. However, of course, the story should resonate with the tastes, preferences, or needs. Can you remember a headline in a book in your kindergarten? We bet, you can remember fables and still hum along most of the rhymes you were taught during preschool. That’s it –the power of storytelling in enhancing memorability.

3. Attitude, Opinion, and Brain Chemistry

It is unlikely that a bunch of statistics or a list of facts will change your prospects’ opinion and attitude towards your brand. This is especially true where there is bias or strong objection to the brand. Research carried out by Berkeley showed the potential of stories in changing people’s behaviors, opinions, and attitudes, as well as brain chemistry. You can incorporate stories in your PRs, opinion pieces, or even in the sales pages to persuade your audience to taken action.

4. Build Trust and Relationships

A report by Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages Survey indicated that 92% of consumers build trust in brands through earned media (media mentions, referrals, word of mouth, etc.). How does it apply? You could be sharing clients’ testimonials, media mention, anecdotes, or even stories with your audience to build trust and strengthen relationships.

5. Creating Neuro-Associations

Storytelling not only makes your target audience remember your brand, but it also adds a more tangible element to its value. There is no doubt that good stories impact our memories. For example, there is a strong connection between Coke and Christmas, which is attributable to Coke’s Christmas advert where Santa uses a brightly lit branded truck to deliver presents on Christmas day. As such, many people in the United Kingdom know is Christmas when they see the truck on their TVs. Using stories to create such associations can transform your brand significantly.

While it is agreeable that storytelling is a powerful tool, it can only be successful if you have a brilliant brand narrative, understand your audience, and use the right channels to reach your target audience.

Regards, James F. Polk