Marketers are always trying to sell me something! That’s the perception many consumers have of our profession. Having been inundated with ads forever, consumers have become highly desensitized to them. As a result, marketers and communicators have had to come up with a more effective way of capturing their audience’s attention – storytelling.
Storytelling is a centuries old tradition of educating and entertaining the masses. While many associate storytelling with children, it’s been used by politicians, lawyers, priests and many other communicators to convey a message and get their point across.
So why is storytelling such a powerful tool, even for marketers? Because it appeals to our emotions and enable us to relate to things more effectively, whether it’s an important point, the moral to a story or in this case a key brand or product attribute.
Storytelling as a Marketing Tool
So how does storytelling fit into marketing communications? Storytelling is by no means new to marketing. In fact, it’s been around in various forms for decades. Nike is renowned for the aspirational stories it created about everyday athletes - and some famous ones too, all centred on getting us to “Just Do It”.
What is different today are the multitude of new media options that enable businesses and brands to disseminate their stories readily to their audience. Social media, blogs, websites, video, infographics, photo-sharing, podcasts and digital publications enable brands of all shapes and sizes to tell their stories.
So what do all these resources have in common? It’s simply the ability to communicate a message to a global audience in a written or visual manner, make it memorable, and ultimately garner attention and engagement.
Marketers no longer ‘own’ Storytelling
One important element that all brands need to realize in the online era is they’re no longer the only storytellers anymore. Every mom, grandfather and 8th grader with a social media account, blog or internet access can tell stories about your business and brand. Your role is to embrace, and even encourage this digital authorship!
Yes, you will need to monitor and manage these online mentions, but as research has proven, positive, user-generated content adds more brand value and bottom-line impact than anything you as a marketer could ever do or say.