This coming year, don’t just create your story — tell one too

Storytelling has become an inseparable part of business marketing over the years. You need to learn these few simple tricks for effective storytelling to market your brand.

“An account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment” — this is the textbook definition of a story. Now, if I ask you this simple question — “What’s your story?”, will you have an answer for it? Some of you may have, some of you won’t. Besides, even the ones who will have an answer to this question might not have the right words to tell that story. This is where the term ‘marketing’ comes into the picture.

Every business has its story

Every business has its own story, but not every business knows how to bring it in front of people. In fact, storytelling has become an inseparable part of business marketing over the years. Brands that have been able to tell their story in a way to get the audience hooked up, have been able to make it BIG!

So, how can you tell your story?

This is a million dollar question whose answer everyone is looking for. Being someone who has been in the marketing industry for quite a while now, I’d like to share a few simple tricks for effective storytelling that can help market your brand.

Choose the right words

Like I already said, anyone can tell a story. But, not everyone can tell a story that puts an impact on the audience. The biggest difference between the two is the choice of words.

If we relate this to marketing, your content must have an element of surprise and an emotional part that users can feel connected to. For instance, Nike is a great example of applying storytelling technique to marketing. As a matter of fact, I believe that Nike does not sell products in their marketing campaigns, it sells emotions. ‘Worth should outshine color’ — these four words form the basis of their equality campaign. A simple yet powerful campaign inspiring people to embrace equality in every facet of life. And it has been a huge hit!

Spread the feeling

A business stands on some core values. What are those values? Don’t focus on what you are trying to sell, rather focus on the feeling that your product or service brings along for the users.

You can see a great example of spreading the feeling with marketing dating back in the early 70s. The brand was everyone’s favourite cold drink — Coca Cola, and the campaign was ‘I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke’. The advertisement, created by Bill Backer in the year 1971, received thunderous applauds from the people, with the company receiving 100,000 letters praising the campaign.

Have your facts and figures at the right place

A story based on the wrong facts and figures can do your business more harm than good. This is the reason why you need to be careful while using numbers in your story. You need to be creative enough to give the numbers people want to read, but at the same time also weave a story around those numbers so that they are hooked up to your message.

Plain numbers or throwing one statistic after the other is too boring to be even considered as effective marketing. You cannot bore the audience if you want to create a strong brand presence in the market.

Find the right place, and the right people

No matter how good the story is, how well you have crafted it and how creatively you have played with all the elements, as long as you don’t pitch it in front of the right audience, it is not going to get the success it deserves.

So, it becomes important to find a niche, create a community or select a particular platform where you want to spread your story. Not every story can fit every platform. If you are targeting multiple platforms, you need to focus on creating platform-specific stories. Or, at least shape them to fit the audience on that platform.

The right story, told at the right place to the right people, is what makes a successful marketing campaign. It is true that a story that has all the first three elements mentioned above in their right place is bound to connect easily with the audience.

But, in today’s digital age, with so many online marketing channels, social networks focusing on particular niches and such a huge global audience, keeping the last point in mind becomes most crucial for succeeding at the game of marketing and storytelling.

If you don’t want 2018 to be just like 2017 for your business, start working out on the tips mentioned above. Your marketing results will surely touch the sky!

So, are you up for it?

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)