Just one simple phrase and we’ve already caught your attention, right?
Just one simple phrase and your entire posture has started to change: you are ever-so-slightly tensing, leaning towards the screen, your eyes latching onto these words as you wonder exactly where this will lead.
Why? How has one simple phrase altered your mindset and mood so drastically?
Because this one simple phrase indicates the beginning of a story, the start of a journey; the spark of an idea which will build into a flame that both enraptures and immerses, transporting you somewhere altogether different whilst simultaneously prompting you to reflect on your own worldview and experiences.
And storytelling in digital marketing is no different.
Each day, we are swept up in an endless avalanche of content, promotional ploys and advertising – both online and offline. As a result, it can feel hugely challenging to differentiate your business from your competitors; to have your voice heard in a world where everyone has something to say.
However, the one way in which you will be able to step up to this challenge – to stand out from the crowd and to ensure you are not drowned out by those cawing the loudest – is through strong storytelling.
Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell.
Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to engage emotion. It is also one of the most powerful ways to convey information in a way that sticks.
By offering insight into who you are and what your values are as a business, you are inviting your target market to connect with your brand on a more personal level.
Rather than positioning yourself as something corporate and untouchable, cold and inauthentic, storytelling enables you to humanise your brand and develops a bond with your target market beyond that of a transactional relationship.
For instance, if you were to pelt your audience with bland, boring promotional messaging, it wouldn’t take five minutes until they’d kicked your content straight into their brain bin.
After all, why should they care what you have to say about xyz? Why should they allow you to take up any room in their thoughts? You’re just another business more interested in making money than truly caring about your customer.
Yet with storytelling, through evolving the emotional relatability of your brand, you’re instead offering your target market a unique experience when interacting with your business.
You’re connecting with your target market, beyond the data they represent on a spreadsheet, in a creative and engaging way that builds them into a true community. You’re establishing both brand validity and a deeper degree of trust with your audience. But how do you do this?
Here’s an example of the kind of questions to ask when developing your brand’s storytelling:
Once you have begun to pull together this clarity and understanding of your brand identity – beyond the colour codes and logo design – you can use this information to shape your digital presence.
Perhaps it takes the form of a page on your website titled ‘About Us’ which showcases your values and bigger vision, or maybe it’s a social media advertising campaign that involves an impactful narrative highlighting how your product or service benefits your target market.
What’s important is that you define your key messaging (the unique stories which will differentiate your content from your competitors) until you have total clarity of what you’re wishing to communicate. And then you need to work out the best way to convey this to your target market.
You need to consider:
As you’ve most likely gathered, storytelling is not a static art form. It is constantly evolving and adapting, both as your business grows and as the world around us changes.
Yet as long as you never forget the importance of storytelling, as long as you make efforts to build those emotional connections between your brand and target market, you will continue to evolve and adapt too.
In her TEDxUniMelb talk, Ashley Fell tells us that great stories: interest us, instruct us, involve us & inspire us.
And really, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be aiming to achieve all of the above in both your online and offline marketing efforts.
Whether you’re looking to entertain, educate, instruct or sell – storytelling can be the difference between a prospective customer leaning toward your brand and leaning away.
Which is why we want to conclude this blog by hammering the following statement home…
Storytelling is a fundamental element of your digital marketing strategy.
We’ll say it again:
Storytelling is a fundamental element of your digital marketing strategy.
And we hope that today’s blog has inspired you to evaluate exactly how effective storytelling can be for your business too.
However, if you’re still feeling somewhat stuck and would like to discuss the potential of refining your brand storytelling with one of our genies, we’d be thrilled to help you take this next step.
All you have to do is book yourself in for a free strategy call here, for a day and time that best suits you.
We can’t wait to hear from you soon.
People do not buy goods and services. They buy relationships, stories and magic.
