4 Reasons Why You Should Use Storytelling in Marketing

Written By: Lisa Michaels

Stories have practically unlimited potential as tools that connect audiences with the products and services they need to live and work. And the concept is not new – marketers have been leveraging the power of storytelling to achieve exceptional results for a very long time.

Integrating storytelling into your marketing strategy allows you tie together messaging from multiple channels and make your existing marketing toolbox more effective. Additionally, only your creativity and imagination can limit the ability of storytelling to promote your brand.

With such potential lying within your grasp, why not put it to use? The following four reasons will help you understand why and how storytelling can transform your marketing strategy.

Engages Your Audience

Marketers love storytelling because it helps people get emotionally and intellectually involved with a brand. Audiences that become involved in a story will more likely respond to it. Knowing this, you should always remember that every good story has a moral that inspires the action that you desire. From the perspective of audience engagement alone, you can expect storytelling to generate more results than cold calls and high-pressure sales pitches.

When people spend money, they don’t buy a product, service or even a brand. Instead, people buy what those things represent, they buy experiences. Your job, therefore, is to create and present stories that cause people to want what you have to offer. Carefully choose every word and plan every emotion that you intend to evoke. After those initial steps, with your intended outcome in mind, choose the social, digital and traditional channels that you will use to achieve your goals.

Makes Your Content Noticeable and Memorable

Unlike in the past, bland information passively presented rarely achieves anything. Consumers are increasingly ignoring ads and are looking for ways to block pop-ups and other online marketing material. In email inboxes, marketing newsletters face similar obstacles as automatic filters and rules stand in between marketers and their audiences. Not only is such marketing largely ignored, it is also not particularly memorable.

Despite the difficulties in adapting to modern challenges, you can overcome. Storytelling gives you a chance to hook into the minds of your recipients in memorable ways. As a result of a good story, customers can permanently associate a feeling or a sensation with your brand.

The natural act of storytelling has naturally transmitted many ancient traditions to the present age. After hearing a story, people remember it and tell it to others. As a result, the awareness of your product or service can spread through multiple regions and generations.

Builds Brand Loyalty

Customer loyalty can reduce overall transaction costs while contributing to long-term sustainable growth. Storytelling can motivate customers to come back and keep up with your brand. Such a connection also encourages sharing which expands the reach of your brand without any additional cost. For this reason, you should intimately get to know your audience.

If you thoroughly acquaint yourself with the people whom you intend to reach, you can create stories that resonate. In fact, your audience will begin to see themselves as part of your story. To make sure your customers stay loyal to your brand, start by segmenting your audience into personas. Then make sure you speak to them on their level, using their vocabulary.

Helps Your Brand Stand Out

Crowded markets and intense competition in the modern economy have made successful brand promotion more difficult. Although this may be true, you can compensate by telling stories that create a unique personality for your brand. When you do this, you create a distinct character and a vibrant message that immediately stands out from similar products and services.

As you go about crafting a distinct brand persona, keep it separate from your own personality and that of your team. You can enhance the charm of your stories by infusing them with user-generated components. Additionally, you should regard your stories as a competitive advantage so they should have consistent messages that accurately represent your brand and captivate your audience.

Rather than simply stating the facts about your products and services, let your imagination run wild as you create a personality for your brand that informs, entertains, engages your audience and stands out from the competition.

Final Thoughts

Story telling can help you give your brand new life and achieve exceptional marketing results. It helps your audience remember your message and is a great tool for building brand loyalty. To make the most out of your storytelling effort, begin by learning as much about your audience as possible. Doing so allows you to craft precise messages through stories that resonate with your audience. With such a foundation to build upon, you can set forth to create and tell amazing stories across multiple channels, build positive sentiment in the marketplace and strengthen your brand.

About the Author

Lisa Michaels is a freelance writer, editor and a striving content marketing consultant from Portland. Being self-employed, she does her best to stay on top of the current trends in the business world. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter @LisaBMichaels.