Story Marketing - Powerful, Compelling, Emotional

Story telling is a very effective way for marketing, simply because the human brain is conditioned to stop and listen, whenever someone starts to tell a story. It begins from the time we were a child and it continues into adulthood.

Story Marketing is powerful, compelling and emotionally involving. It cuts through much of the mental resistance to a sales pitch.

Stories are very Effectively used by Entrepreneurs

A smart entrepreneur, uses stories to illustrate key points about his business. Each story is beautifully crafted and presents a comparison between a business success and business failure and mediocrity.

In this blog, we will talk about the power of marketing stories to connect with your prospective customers, to pull them in and engage them.

Power of Story Marketing

Too much Marketing makes things dull and boring. Most importantly, it misses out on any emotional involvement and connection with the prospect. Most often, Marketing screams the Hype, in its attempt to press emotional triggers, albeit in the negative way. The consequences are equally predictable – overloaded claims, that makes your prospects to want to get out of there, asap.

Basics of Story Marketing

Lois Kelly (author of the book Beyond Buzz), identifies 9 types of stories that people like to talk about.

1.     Aspirations and beliefs.

2.    David vs. Goliath.

3.    Avalanche about to roll.

4.    Contrarian/counterintuitive/challenging assumptions.

5.     Anxieties.

6.    Personalities and personal stories.

7.     How-to stories and advice.

8.    Glitz and glam.

9.    Seasonal / event–related.

Each has its own charm and place.

Each story needs to be beautifully crafted. You could use a story to presents a comparison between your business success and a business failure, due to mediocrity. Or you could highlight how your higher commitment to response time, created a competitive advantage for a customer.

Example – A simple story of a logistics problem, due to a landslide and how you used your personal vehicles, taking a circuitous route, at some risk to meet the delivery schedule promised to the customer.

Putting Your Marketing Story Together

To make a story great, it has to be Relevant, Unique and Memorable.

Relevant – The story must be relevant to the audience, the situation and the situation. There is no getting away from the question "What's in it for me ?". The story must strike them as meaningful, in the first few lines, or they will be gone, like a flash.

Memorable – A memorable story remains in the mind and is repeatable. I remember a marketing class student, Soma, who had a relaxing time a day before the exam. When asked, she shared that she does start revision, the previous day. When she reads a concept, the story which I had shared, comes to her her mind, fresh as ever. The concept, the lesson and the application get understood in less than a minute. Revision over, in less than an hour !!

To make it memorable, it must have – a clear beginning, middle and a convincing, even if surprising end.

Another question, that is often asked - Do the stories have to be true ? More than true, they need to be convincing and possible that it happened.

What Is Your Company Story ?

Can you explain who is your business for, what it stands for and what it does for a prospect using stories ?

Can you use stories in your marketing to show the benefits of your services ? The features of your products are just a starting point. It is the benefits that a customer is looking for. Example – The AC has a fast cooling mode (Feature). Benefit – Within a few minutes of your coming home from the hot sun, you will feel cool, comfortable and relaxed.

Can you turn your case studies and  testimonials into stories that  people will find interesting to read ?  Can your help  them to relate, empathize,  become one with  the character  (the customer)  of your story ?

I remember I was asked to review someone's website who provided life coaching and I wrote a sample transformational story that could be used and if I can find it, I will post it (suitably disguised) so that you can see what I mean.

To make your marketing different from others and more impacting in terms of engaging the prospects, do look at story telling as an option, that sets you apart from your competitors.

Do not make up stories. Give the form of a story to certain incidents that have happened, which show you as the kind of company to do business with.

Be different. Create a connect. Engage your 

customer. Use story telling.