The power of storytelling in digital marketing
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Table of contents:
1. Introduction
Stories have always accompanied humanity throughout history. In the Stone Age, humans depicted their daily lives on cave walls. In the Middle Ages, kings had storywriters to picture them as the savior of the poor or the whole country itself.
Nowadays, almost 70% of the world population have access to the internet, and use it from time to time. Browsing on the internet, searching for websites, and even buying the chosen products have become an everyday phenomenon in Europe, East Asia, and North America, but citizens of other regions have also started to do the same.
That’s why you need to take advantage of storytelling in digital marketing. In this article, we will present to you how a good story overwrites clear data, and what you should do if you want to unleash the power of storytelling on your website!
2. Why does your brand need a story?
In this part of the article, we will write about the strengths of attaching a story to your website.
It helps your buyers to relate
Through a story, a potential buyer can read your personal traits. How funny you are, how honest, or modest. They can understand you. They can get to know you personally. And customers are more likely to buy from someone that they know or adore.
These can enhance their trust and loyalty. And we should all know that acquiring a new customer costs five to seven times more than convincing a loyal one.
The feeling of “I am finally understand”
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Sometimes, we don’t understand things at first sight. For example, when the topic is too complex, or we don’t have the core information to decode the message.
You may have a website that sells a mechanical gadget to a niche problem. You can describe how the gadget works, and throw mechanical phrases to demonstrate your knowledge, or to give the proper message to your potential buyers. However, if your target market is not business-to-business, most probably the readers require something else.
They want a story! A real-life example when the gadget was useful, and how it saved your day. Practical examples that help the readers understand its value.
“I don’t want to be stuck in that same situation that you once were. I would rather buy the product.” - Many of them would think the same.
Narrative over data
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A – sometimes considered negative - human behavior is that we tend to believe more in stories than in certified numbers and data. Many political campaigns have been built upon this recognition, even by oppressive tyrannies. Now, we don’t say that you should always use narratives over data, because in the long-term that will definitely cause big troubles.
Instead, try to use them simultaneously. For one buyer persona which contains people that are more into your niche and industry, show the data first and then the narrative if they need it. For another buyer persona, with less knowledge of the given topic, show the narrative first, and then the data to certify your assumptions.
We are not rational creatures
It is very deeply attached to the last fact. Tversky and Kahneman, two of the most prominent members of behavioral economics, stated in Prospect Theory that humans do not always think rationally.
This theory - since its publishing - determines the use of marketing, shop structure, and many more. A story can also affect us emotionally, instead of rationally.
“Even if I don’t want to spend on my cats for entertainment, look at this climbing wall and how happy those cats are. We should relocate our budget to this”. It is an everyday scenario that we described, although we can replace the climbing wall with other objects. We don’t decide rationally, but who knows maybe that’s why we become happy often.
3. How should you build up a story for your brand?
In this part of the article, we will describe the structure of story-telling. We will focus, and lead you on a brand story, the one that should be born on the same day as the brand.
Of course, storytelling can be used in smaller aspects, for example on some of your blog stories, marketing campaigns, or your PR activity. But if you establish it effectively, everything will connect and attach to your core story.
Identify the core story
Your brand’s tone and voice can determine many things. In what way can you call your clients? What words can you use in marketing campaigns? How can you call your brand, or what domain name should you choose in a domain name registration process?
These are all coming from the created story.
The introduction of Pringles
In 1968 chips were nothing like today: all chip producers strived to rely on the general flavors (salt, cheese, garlic), with the general package, and chips format. However, buyers were nothing but happy: they believed that the chips broke too easily and that they wanted new, revolutionary flavors.
Pringles entered the market with a friendly, funny, and cheerful tone. Their logo became a character that has all these positive characteristics. A head with a cute mustache - or a funny young adventurous guy who loves being different from the average. A guy that makes everybody laugh, but can be serious in certain circumstances. In 2006, they even came up with a name for this figure: Julius Pringle.
The success of Julius Pringle is not rocket science, but a good attachment of well-established core values. And a story that most of us have wanted to be part of.
Create your personas
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Your core values need to connect with your potential buyer's personal traits. If they are lazy but love humorous content, make fun of their laziness.
However, your potential buyers can be distinguished into groups. Even if they have many things in common, they also have some differences. Detect these, and make personas of the given groups. With the help of this, you can more easily understand what different buyers need, and how you can target them simultaneously.
Make the messages short but memorable
A brand’s story doesn’t need to be a script of a blockbuster. You don’t need to create a Hollywood classic. The less complex your story is, the better results you can get. But as you may have realised when writing short history essays for your school leaving exam, it can be even more difficult to craft a brief, memorable message than a long, complex one.
Our advice is to highlight key values that you want to include in your story and use AI tools to generate ideas that fulfill the given criteria. Sort them out, and complete the best story with your ideas.
Drive the message to your potential buyers
When the story is ready, there’s not much left just to make it public. However, this is also a complex task. Should I use BTL or ATL options? What platform should I focus on? What ad format would make the best return on investment? These questions are all marketing-related, and you better search for a marketing agency to release every inch of your potential.
4. Conclusion
In this article, we introduced you to the power of storytelling, and the reasons why it can be even more powerful than certified data.
A story by itself can not make your company great without a proper service, or a quality product, but help you become more successful. It’s like buying an amplifier for your electric guitar: it makes you louder, and more remarkable!
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