We have grown up listening to stories and enjoyed imagining ourselves as one of our favorite characters from the story. Some of us even had imaginary friends which had a major impact on our personalities while growing up.
Precisely, nothing much has changed. Even now when we hear an interesting story, our mind lights up and tend to associate ourselves with the story.
How marketers are using the ‘story telling’ technique
Smart marketing includes story telling approach to light up the minds of the potential customers and influence them to buy the product or the service. Using a narrative to communicate a message is found to be more impactful on the audience. Story telling approach breathe life into your brand and supports content marketing. If the stories are authentic, they can inspire your audience and they immediately create a bond with the brand. Emotional branding is very much effective for generating revenues. The image that customers have of your brand determines whether they will buy the product or not. As a company, your objective should be creating an experience for the customers which is worth remembering every minute.
Fundamentals of storytelling approach
From childhood, we have unleashed our imaginations through stories. Stories celebrate rituals, culture, events, feelings and help customers relate to their experiences. When you are deciding on your brand story, you should make sure that the story speaks about the brand values and what the brand stands for. It should also involve the impact that the brand aims to highlight for its stakeholders. Obviously, the stories are created to sell product or service but the message conveyed with the help shouldn’t look like a forced advertisement of selling the product. The wish of the company for selling its product shouldn’t come off as very direct. The story line should be so strong that consumers shouldn’t be left with any second thoughts of buying the product or the service. Respond to questions of the customers and engage with them. The solutions that your brand is able to develop should be having a set of value proposition to connect with the customers at a different level.
Story telling is not just about your brand. It is about experiences which your customers can relate with and feel an emotional connection with the brand. The brand should be consistent with bringing up new stories to relate with the product and services to keep the customers involved thoroughly and ensure their loyalty. The stories should not feel like they are being dragged otherwise the customers will lose their interest in the brand instantly.
Basic ingredients of storytelling approach
- The situation through which potential customers can relate
- A conflict or a problem raised
- Offer a tenacity
- Call to action, the solution which your brand is offering
The ultimate goal is to inspire potential customers to buy your product regardless of anything else and stay driven by the brand story. Their belief in the brand story should always stay strong.
Tips for effective story telling
- Make sure your brand story has honesty instilled and that’s how you can communicate the same message to your customers. There should be personalization in the story so that people can relate with your brand. Your story should have similar types of concerns and problems that your potential customers are facing and are eager to solve it. This is the best way to gauge empathy from your customers.
- There should be an emotion focused in the story. It can be happiness, feeling of success, guilt of failure or anything. Highlighting an emotion impacts your audience emotionally as well.
- It is vital to support your story with reliable data for people to believe it more. Using research and some original facts and figures will help to build trust of your audience. It can be very helpful in convincing the audience to buy the product.