Marketing is Story Telling. What's Your Story?
We all love to hear stories and some of us love to tell them. We are wired for stories. Storytelling started when our ancestors sat around fires in animal skins and it continues today through the internet.
If you want to effectively spread your organization's message you need to tell your story in a compelling, interesting and concise way. Telling your story, or your customers' stories, via social media, public relations, collateral material and your website will help connect people with your brand in a way that bland facts, figures and substance-free sales pitches cannot.
People do business with other people who just happen to work for a business or organization. We value our relationships and rely on them to help us obtain the products and services we need. What about your brand or organization would make a good story that would inspire someone to reach out and start a relationship?
- What's the human element to your business?
- Who started it? Why?
- Who are you trying to help?
- Why are the people working at your organization? Why do they care?
You could approach this many ways:
- If you're a family owned business, what's your back story?
- Do you have a start-up for which you scraped and struggled to make your dream come true?
- How have you impacted your customers in their words?
- Is part of your story you do serious work but you don't take yourself too seriously?
Once you decide what story (or stories) you want to tell, how do you get it out?
- On your website you can use an "about us", "our story", "our history", or "who we are" section to tell the story of your business.
- You can use social media through video, photos or blogs to tell your story or your customers' stories to create a meaningful, compelling bond with your brand. On social media you can ask customers to share how they interact with your company and share their story.
- You could help create an online community of your supporters on Facebook or LinkedIn so they can tell their stories and ask questions. You could create events or social gatherings for your community so people can interact in the real world with your people and products, creating more opportunities for storytelling.
- The media (newspapers, TV news, bloggers and magazines) can be an outlet for stories by those who use your product/service/brand. If the media is telling these stories it can help introduce people to your brand and your story will appear more valid and trustworthy than if it's just posted on your website.
- If part of your story is caring about your community, sponsoring fundraising events for local non-profits will show you're more than talk, you act and put your money where your mouth is, which makes your story much more credible.
Your story, chosen and told correctly, will help you connect with others and grow your organization. You need to find the human element of your organization and share your stories. Want some help with that? Our marketing team can help you tell your story and use it to create the most effective marketing approaches to help your organization. Learn more about telling your story and how it can help your business reach out to potential clients and customers by calling us at 267.364.5049 or filling out our contact form today.