Stories are not a new thing – they’ve been attracting our attention ever since the inception of mankind. They’ve also been leveraged by marketers for a long time. And even in today’s age, they’re arguably one of the most powerful weapons in a marketer’s arsenal. But what is it about them that makes stories so attractive to marketers? Why is storytelling a buzzword in the marketing community? And most importantly, how can storytelling help your brand?
We’ll try to answer all these questions here by taking a look at 7 advantages of storytelling in marketing. Let’s begin:
1. It Conveys the Personality of Your Brand:
Storytelling allows the personality of your brand to come out and shine. Whether it’s through user-generated stories, stories created by your brand itself or via a combination of both; there can always be several approaches to storytelling in marketing that can bring forward the personality of your brand. And when that happens, you shouldn’t get in the way – be bold enough to let the personality of your brand be seen. Just make sure that it’s indeed the personality of your brand that’s being conveyed and not that of your marketing team or that of some individual.
2. Strikes the Emotional Chord:
Storytelling can also help your brand achieve what most marketers strive to strike an emotional chord! If your brand has given some remarkable emotional experiences to the customers, by leveraging them with storytelling you can build an emotional relationship with your customers. The key thing here is that the story you share should be real and the presentation should also be in a way that evokes emotions. Be real, be genuine and be authentic. If you create a story just for the sake of evoking emotional response your customers will see through it and you may end up doing more bad to your brand than good.
3. It Can Position Your Brand As A Leader:
When done rightly, storytelling can also position your brand as a leader. There’re many real-life examples available to prove it, including the all-time famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial of Apple. By representing IBM as Big Brother and a young woman as its Macintosh product Apple positioned itself as the leader that was going to save humanity from authority imposed by the big brother (IBM). That was one epic and powerful example of storytelling.
Another brand that leveraged storytelling to position itself as a leader is Nike. Automakers have also been using it as a key marketing strategy. You too can try to give it a shot and position your brand as a market leader.
4. Can Make Viral Marketing Easy:
Storytelling, when done right, can make viral marketing very easy. Stories that touch the hearts almost always go viral and bring more than usual traction to a brand, thus increasing the visibility and reach of that brand. The new leads that come in touch of your brand can then turn into prospective customers at a later time (as long as other elements of your conversion funnel are properly in place).
5. Can Help Bring Customers Back Again and Again:
As a brand owner, you’d always want your customers to come back to you again and again. And while most of the time you’d want them to come in the form of sales, you can’t stress it over. In such a situation storytelling can prove to be an effective way of keeping your customers coming back. Good stories have always attracted people, so they can also attract them to your brand and urge them to come back for more.
There’re many ways in which you can achieve this. You can formulate your story in the form of a journey whose various parts unfold with time, or you can also present an emotional story that people want to watch again and again.
6. It Engages Your Customers:
In this age of forced advertising when the attention span of customers is getting increasingly fickle, your brand can shine by utilizing the power of storytelling. Stories often urge people not just to listen but also to engage with them. And when they engage with your brand, they’re more likely to buy what you’re selling again and again, and also to recommend your brand in their social circle.
7. Can Complement Other Forms of Marketing:
Finally, storytelling can nicely complement your other forms of marketing. Utilizing content marketing? It can help you by adding excitement to your blog posts, videos or other forms of content. Utilizing advertising? You can power your ad campaigns too with some short stories. Storytelling can complement and supercharge all your marketing efforts if done properly.
As you can see from the benefits given above, great stories initiate many chain reactions. Whether it’s a story going viral and attracting more and more new visitors to it, a story attracting people to see it again and again or a story that urges people to engage with your brand and then recommends your brand to their friends; storytelling starts a wide range of chain reactions that can amplify the reach and impact of your marketing. That’s what makes stories the most powerful tools in a marketer’s arsenal. You too should leverage their power for your brand.