The Creative Side of Marketing: How Storytelling Can Create Engaging Content
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Stories have been a part of human culture since the beginning of time. Stories are a way for people to pass down information and knowledge from one generation to the next. They help us define our place in history, experience other worlds through imagination, and make sense of things that don’t make sense.
Stories touch on some of our most deeply-held values and emotions, which is why stories can be powerful tools in marketing. When we tell a story, we invite the listener into that story as an active participant. We create scenarios that allow them to identify with characters, relate to their struggles and experiences, and visualize the world as it unfolds before their eyes.
And when you’re able to connect an audience emotionally to your brand or product through storytelling, you have a much better chance at making the sale.
What Is a Story?
A great definition of a story comes from Paul Zak, who says that “a powerful way to organize memory is through the construction of narratives.” Narratives are not quite the same as stories. A narrative can include facts and data, but it doesn’t have an emotional component to it.
A story, on the other hand, includes not only information that is true (or based on fact), but also emotions. There are both facts and feelings within a good story.
Narratives can be shared through the written word or lecture, but stories need to be told through an oral tradition because they’re designed to elicit emotion.
Why Use Stories in Marketing
Stories are an effective tool for marketing because they’re one of the most (if not the most) powerful means to engage your audience. They make people feel like they have a connection with your brand, which makes them more willing to buy into the story you’re trying to sell.
Stories can be more effective than statistical data because they aren’t as straightforward and factual. People don’t relate to numbers, but everyone has a story that they can draw on: like the time your favorite band played at the local bar where you first met your best friend or when you got chased by a dog when you were eight years old.
The brain can make connections and draw analogies much faster when presented with information in the form of a story, which is why it’s so effective for marketing.
When to Use Stories in Marketing
You should incorporate stories into your brand or product on every level possible. They are particularly effective when you’re trying to build brand awareness, but they’re also helpful for increasing sales.
A great story can be told at different stages in the customer journey: it could be the backstory of your company or product (who created it and why), it could give advice on how to use your product or service, it could be a testimonial from satisfied customers, or it could be about how your company gives back to the community.
How to Create a Good Story for Your Brand or Product?
Stories are much more effective when they have an element of truth to them. You want people to really feel like they’re part of the story, which means they need to be able to relate in some way or another.
To create an effective story for your brand or product, answer the following questions:
- What is your character’s (in this case, it could be your brand/product) main struggle? Who are they fighting against? What’s the main thing they want?
- What is the inciting incident that causes your character to want what they originally wanted (but in a different way or for a different reason)? What changes their perspective?
- How does your character end up coming out of this journey better off than when they started? What do they learn?
4. What is the final outcome of your story? This could be a happy or sad ending—or both! You can even leave it open-ended for some added mystery and intrigue.
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What Story Does Your Brand or Product Tell?
Now, go back and analyze the stories you came up with. What insights can you draw from this exercise that might be useful for marketing your brand or product?
You need to understand not only what the main character (your brand/product) wants but why they want it—and what happens after they get it (or don’t).
By understanding these deeper elements, you’ll be better able to create ads that are more compelling and that will emotionally resonate with your audience. You can use this story to guide your marketing strategy moving forward.
Creative Marketing with Stories
There are many ways to incorporate storytelling into your marketing, but here are a few of the most popular:
Brand Storytelling
For long-term growth and loyalty, you should tell stories about your brand at every turn. Don’t just do this through advertising—integrate storytelling into your other marketing efforts as well. You could have a section on your website or social media dedicated to this, creating “brand stories.”
Product Stories
On your website or in-store, you should also be telling stories about any individual products that are particularly compelling. Don’t just list the specifications of each product—talk about what makes them unique and why someone would want to purchase them.
Campaign Stories
A great story doesn’t have to be told over a long period of time. It can also be told in the span of one campaign. To do this well, you should start by answering the questions above about what story your brand is telling (and why).
Then when you’re creating ads for that particular campaign, incorporate these elements into the storytelling to make it feel more cohesive. You can also use different forms of media to tell your story—like video, images, illustrations, etc.—which can be really compelling if done well.
Testimonial Stories
Finally, you should collect stories from happy customers and use them in your advertising. People love seeing other people’s faces and hearing their thoughts about your brand. What they love about it, why they chose to buy your product, and how it’s changed their lives—stories like these are priceless for marketing your brand or product.
Marketing to Different Audiences with Different Stories
Different audiences will want to hear different stories from your brand—and that’s okay. Just because one story resonated with a particular audience doesn’t mean it will resonate with everyone. But this also means you need to be able to create multiple types of stories about your brand and product.
It’s important that you clearly define your target market before you begin telling any stories about your brand/product. This way the story will be tailored to whom it’s being told to and can communicate what needs to be said most effectively. For example:
- If your product/brand is focused on functionality, the story may be more about how it works. If it also has a strong emotional appeal, this will be reflected in the storytelling as well.
- If your target market is mostly male, the story you tell will be different than if it’s more female.
- If your brand is focused on its history and tradition, you probably want to tell a story about how it started and what has inspired its mission. But if it’s trying to appeal to a younger audience, this may not resonate—so you should focus more on how it’s leveraging new technology to better serve the consumer.
When crafting your stories, keep in mind that people tend to be skeptical of marketing efforts these days—especially if they feel like they’re being sold something. So you want to make sure whatever story you tell is authentic and unique. It should feel as though you’re sharing something that isn’t being said by anyone else—and not trying to sell them anything in the process.
Conclusion
Telling stories isn’t just for kids—they’re effective in every aspect of life. They’re useful for selling products, creating awareness for your brand, and even just sharing information with friends.
Stories are incredibly potent because they’re universal—they cross all different cultures (even though the details of the story may change)—and everyone has a story to tell.
Understanding your brand’s story is an important part of building awareness and making people care about what you have to say. Whether it be a short anecdote or a much longer tale, incorporating stories into your marketing will help you capture people’s attention and connect with them emotionally.
About the author
Don Dodds
Don Dodds is the founder, managing partner, and Chief Marketing Technologist at M16 Marketing. With a passion for creating success stories, he and the team at M16 work with startups, small businesses and large organizations to help them better define their digital strategy, user experience, analytics, and overall digital marketing efforts.
M16 provides its services to technology companies, government agencies, manufacturing firms, online stores, healthcare providers, law firms, nonprofits, and wealth management firms.
As a serial achiever, Dodds has created and sold several successful companies and has a keen understanding of how to create and scale a business using digital marketing. He serves on the CSU College of Business Board of Advisors and is a member of the Atlanta Business Chronicle Leadership Trust and a Forbes Agency Council member.
