Marketers have a full array of tools at their disposal for building brand awareness and customer engagement. At the core of some of the most powerful tools—such as email, social media, and paid advertising—lies content.
There’s very little you can accomplish from a marketing standpoint in the modern economy if you don’t have well-written and engaging content providing a foundation for brand awareness and to engage and educate your customers.
Recent changes to search engine algorithms and updates to search engine optimization (SEO) standards has led to content marketing evolving from repetitive, poorly structured keyword-packed posts to carefully crafted content designed to educate visitors and guide the customer journey toward a desired action.
In this evolution, the incorporation of storytelling has emerged as an extremely powerful and effective content marketing strategy.
What is storytelling in content marketing?
Storytelling in content marketing requires marketing professionals to weave narrative elements into blog posts, video, and other marketing content assets that are being used to build brand awareness. Including narrative elements through storytelling in content marketing can improve lead generation, engagement, conversions, and retention.
How does a good story fit into a marketing strategy?
Whereas a consumer might need to read up to an average of four reviews before making a purchase, a referral from a trusted source is much more effective at driving lead conversion[1]. This is where storytelling comes into play, as it can be thought of as a creative method for incorporating social proof into your content marketing strategy.
Coherent narrative across campaigns and platforms
Storytelling isn’t restricted to the written word and content creation is a multidisciplinary undertaking for modern marketing professionals. You can tell stories via blogs and informative brand stories on Facebook and LinkedIn, create podcasts and videos on Spotify or YouTube, or you can use visual media elements such as images and video to tell stories on Instagram, Pinterest, or TikTok.
This versatility across platforms to be able to create connected narratives allows brand awareness campaigns to have a common thread and provide consumers with a cohesive experience regardless of how they choose to interact with your brand.
Should you sell first or tell a story first?
Your sales funnel is ultimately structured around sales conversions. However, the tactics you use to build customer relationships are crucial to that conversion process. If you make your sales proposition too prominent, you risk alienating potential customers. On the other hand, if you get lost in storytelling, you risk burying the CTA under a beautiful but distracting story.
We understand the importance of not leaning on hard-sell tactics up front, so we brought this question to our community of B2B service providers across the UpCity Marketplace. While many took the stance that storytelling is a much stronger and more effective tactic than the hard sell, they did so for different reasons.
For some, it was important to put the customer at the center of the story to prioritize their experience and drive their behavior that way.
“Storytelling all the way. The sale is in connecting your solution to the targeted buyer. They need a story to understand how that connection is made. In fact, your buyer should be the center and hero of the story and your solutions should be the supporting characters.” —Brian McGuire, Founder, B. McGuire Designs
For other professionals, their goal was to place the brand at the center of the narrative and use storytelling as a way to help customers better understand the brand from a new perspective.
“As a video producer and director who has delivered over 300+ videos to different brands, I know for sure that the best way to sell anything is to tell an appealing story. Stories are how we as humans communicate and that is why they can make a brand more personable, and therefore increase its value.” —Director ZANE, Founder, ZANE Productions
Ultimately, many of our professionals felt that it is about finding the solid balance between selling and storytelling, so as to not lose the customer’s attention in the narrative and keeping them focused on your ultimate goal of driving leads back to your site and converting them into customers.
“It’s always best to find a balance. The advice we often give to our clients is to balance storytelling and selling, tell relevant, authentic stories that align with their brand values and avoid overly promotional content. Storytelling can help establish deeper connections with the audience, create brand identity, and build trust, ultimately driving sales.” —Willy Evans, Director of SEO, Digital Division
What are the benefits of storytelling in content marketing?
Adding storytelling elements to your content marketing strategy adds emotional weight and connection that your copy or visual content might not otherwise have. This emotional capital can go a long way to strengthening the psychological bonds consumers might have with your brand by increasing interest and providing new avenues for engagement.
On the surface, incorporating storytelling into your content marketing strategy provides several high-level benefits.
- Improving customer engagement by involving them emotionally.
- More effectively conveying your brand culture and building loyalty.
- Humanizing your brand and allowing it to be the hero of the narrative.
Digging into the reasons you should include storytelling in content marketing campaigns
UpCity professionals helped us to break these high-level benefits down to a more granular level. As they enumerated the benefits they felt storytelling brought to the table, we discovered that the use they see depends largely on how the stories are used. For example, when used to create authentic bonds with leads and customers, storytelling helps customers feel as if their needs are being prioritized in the connection, and paints the brand as being more sympathetic.
“Building authentic connections with their audience. Actually making their audience feel known-seen-heard. Humanizing the brand and making it relatable.” —Vanessa Castillo, Founder, VCV Agency
Through storytelling, marketers are able to humanize the brand and create bonds that are on par with trusted peers. This helps a brand to not only connect on a personal level, but also stand out like a trusted confidant in a roomful of branded strangers. The goal in both cases is simple, easy-to-engage content that can be quickly assessed, understood, and acted upon.
“It allows us to form deeper connections with our audience, transforming our brand from a mere company into a trusted friend. Storytelling makes our content memorable, ensuring our message resonates and sticks with people. It also sets us apart in a crowded content landscape, making our brand the one that people remember. And if we’re dealing with complex ideas, storytelling is a powerful tool to simplify and make them easily understandable. In essence, storytelling is a game-changer in content marketing, enhancing connection, memorability, uniqueness, and comprehension.” —Aaron Knipp, Founder, Cicospace
As a way of avoiding the hard-selling methods that might turn leads away, storytelling is a fantastic way to engage meaningfully and show the value of your brand beyond your product or services. The experience of becoming part of the brand’s success through these stories is hard to resist.
“The biggest benefits of storytelling are making your audience feel more comfortable and relating to them on a more meaningful level. Storytelling allows you to provide value beyond your product or service. People want to buy from companies they trust and are familiar with.
Would you rather buy ‘Coca Cola’ or ‘RC Cola’? Would you rather buy ‘Rice Krispies’ or ‘Toasted Rice’—the products themselves are not that different, but the stories behind them are.” —Chris Suglia, Owner and Creative Strategist, Happy Hub Marketing
And perhaps most importantly, one of the strongest benefits of storytelling lies in the ability to use the tactic for capturing the extremely limited attention of consumers and converting that attention into loyalty and support as quickly as possible.
“In an age where your brand awareness lives and dies by a thumb swipe, a compelling story is the only way to connect in a split second. The benefit? Garnished, authentic attention. Measure it by whatever relevant KPI you want, but hitting folks in the feels is what gives us pause. If content is king, then creative is queen, and it’s the language we must master to rise above the noise of purposeless, click-bait-driven, shallow sales funnels.” —Max Zoghbi, Creative Director + EP, Loupe Theory
Are there any potential downsides to using storytelling in content marketing?
Just as with any marketing strategy, there are pitfalls and drawbacks to strictly relying upon storytelling as a customer engagement strategy.
Take caution when relying upon narrative storytelling in your marketing
One often-cited challenge was ensuring that you maintain the correct balance between sales and narrative. Our panel of experts cautioned against campaigns that rely purely on storytelling, causing your customers to get sidetracked by the story you’re telling and never even have a chance to become a customer or client.
“While storytelling can be a supercharged marketing tool, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. One downside is that crafting compelling stories isn’t easy-peasy. It takes time, creativity, and a sprinkle of magic to make them truly shine. Another thing to watch out for is going overboard with the storytelling mojo. Yeah, I get it, stories are captivating, but if you let ’em take the wheel entirely, your core message might get lost in the plot twists.” —Gio Toninelo, Producer, Rocket House Pictures
It’s also important to know when it’s proper to use narrative in a campaign, as storytelling requires a certain degree of breathing room on the page. Certain marketing spaces and platforms aren’t ideal for the narrative approach.
“You need space to tell a story. If your medium is limited, you’ll struggle to effectively tell the story. You can end up having a convoluted sales message if you try to cram narrative into a space that really only has room for a call to action or basic brand message. In those cases, it’s better to err on the side of clarity and consistency rather than risk confusion about what the consumer is looking at. People just aren’t curious enough to act on something like an ad that is an incomplete thought.” —Jonathan Fashbaugh, President, Pro Impressions Marketing
A common thread with many of our respondents was that drawbacks that might surround narrative storytelling in marketing could be easily offset with a balanced and nuanced approach.
“Sometimes, if you are focused too much on the story, the marketing goals can get lost in the mix. But finding the right balance of telling a great story that intrinsically promotes your brand, products, or services; that’s the perfect mix.” —Daniel Lichtenberg, Creative Director, Slow Clap
Tips for using storytelling in content marketing
Just as with any marketing strategy, it’s important to do your research and understand best practices around successfully using storytelling in your content marketing strategy to your advantage. Fortunately, we were able to gain some insight from successful B2B service providers operating across a number of industries.
Understand where storytelling fits into your brand’s narrative
Across the insight we gathered, there was a common theme in the best practices provided by the UpCity community: do your research and understand how to leverage narrative properly.
For example, one of the most powerful pieces of advice often given to writers of literature that can be applied to marketing is to remember that, while there are very few original ideas out there, it’s imperative that you adopt proven narrative constructions and make them your own. The difference between good storytelling and great storytelling is a powerful emotional connection with a concept the audience is already familiar with.
“Research different story structures. Most storytelling approaches have already been used. Try to use plot structures, archetypes and narratives that have famously captivated audiences. I learn from the giants of writing, film-making and even stand up comedy.” —Vlad Herescu, Founder, Mauve
Platform will play a significant role in how your narrative content is received. Understand what type of storytelling works best for each social media platform and channel, and how your website impacts the type of content you’re creating, and then create the appropriate content to dominate in the space relevant to where your focus is currently in the campaign.
“Each story should be emotional and aimed at a specific segment of the target audience, adjusted to the social circumstances and promotion channel. The more emotions, details and unexpected turns of events you include in your storytelling, the better the result will be.” —Mykola Lukashuk, CEO and Owner, Marketing Link LLC
As with any other digital marketing tactic, storytelling should lean into your brand’s goal to solve specific challenges or pain points for your target audience. Storytelling excels at showing your customers that you understand them on a personal level, much more so than reviews, customer stories, or testimonials.
“Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. How do they feel? What problems do they face? Use these questions to understand audience needs and position your marketing efforts from an authentic perspective, and then weave stories that feel natural and relatable to that audience.” —Meg Mothershed, Co-owner & COO, Mothershed Design Co.
Our community truly understands that the power of storytelling is in its ability to inspire and guide your target audience through your brand’s customer journey in exciting and engaging ways.
“Stories that sell show your value. Storytelling works better than spreadsheets. Stories that motivate make people act. Persuade your audience to take a leap of faith. Stories that convince explain your expertise, getting people to trust your judgment. Stories that connect reach others in an emotional way. Storytelling is a great way to get people to see things from another’s point of view. Stories that explain clarify your goals, showing why abstract statements matter.” —Kelly Rose Magnusson, Business Owner and Video Producer, Kelly Rose Productions
Integrate Storytelling Into Your Content Marketing Strategy in 2023 and Beyond
Content marketing is a powerful tool to build and maintain brand awareness. Through storytelling, marketers can leverage the powerful psychological influences of emotional connection and engagement to deepen and maintain the customer relationship over time.
If your marketing team doesn’t have the resources or experience to fully integrate storytelling into your content marketing strategy in the coming year, reach out to one of the professional B2B service providers specializing in content marketing that can be found on the UpCity Marketplace.