Good storytelling is not only about the
marketers intentions but about their
brands and the solutions they offer.
It’s about emotions, experiences, needs
and the written and unwritten images
associated with these emotions and needs,
in relationship to what their brand evokes.
Apart from being in line with the firms
objectives, the story should be consumer
centric, which necessitates steering clear
of the traditional marketing approach,
including but not limited to focusing on
Return On Investment. It should revolve
around the life of the intended audience.
At times the audience dictates the kind of
stories they want told by the marketer, and
with the advent of social media the control
has shifted to consumers and brands have
to listen.
Any medium can be used to tell a story,
including blogs, film, print, social media
channels and multimedia. Each medium
elicits a different reaction from the intended
audience, so stories must be tailored to fit
each unique platform. The key to success
is knowing which story to tell in which
medium. Short, snappy messages work best
on television and the Internet, while online
conversations, conferences and seminars
provide a personal connection.
Some of the marketing activities that
lends themselves to storytelling are
content marketing, experiential marketing,
testimonials, and celebrity endorsements.
Content marketing is much more than
creating, distributing and sharing content
in order to engage audiences, generate
leads, improve branding, and other
marketing goals you can serve. A content
marketing strategy analyzes the different
ways content marketing can be used across
the buyer’s journey, the customer life cycle
and/or the different customer experience
touch points and still goes beyond.
When a brand is person-
ified and a story is told
that embodies human
challenges you create a
scenario that your cus-
tomers can identify with
and thereby creating an
emotional connection
with the brand.
Essentially a content marketing strategy
looks at how content marketing can be
used in a strategic way infusing other
marketing, customer and sales strategies.
When developing a content marketing
strategy the marketer must know the
intended audience persona and their
content needs and preferences. This will
look at the information they seek when
making a purchase, their buying journey
and the various touch points.
As our world becomes increasingly
well-connected through the advent
off socual media, blogs etc, consumers
have many platforms to share their
thoughts and opinions therefore user-
generated storytelling will help to increase
engagement, build trust and hugely expand
a firms reach.
Customer testimonials highlight the
customer experience with your brand
without the slick promotional gimmickry
consumers are exposed to from print, TV
and radio ads. In their less flashy and less
salesy way, they build trust by veering from
your brand “voice,” standing out as candid
and unbiased accounts of your company’s
value proposition.
When crafting customer testimonials that
will tell outstanding stories marketers
should select a compelling story that are
a testament to the struggles we all face
and that your products and services help
resolve. Let your customers’ testimonials
add the color and flare to your marketing
message, which should stick to the facts.
These third-party stories are more
believable to readers than even the most
straightforward truths delivered by a
company spokesperson. So, let your clients
tell readers how amazing your products
and services are.
The testimonials should highliht product
benefits and attributes, validate your
brand’s personal truth - what your products
promise to do for the buyer, focus on the
identified consumer need that inspired
your business, and highlight customer
needs your products and services address.
The user’s story should be replete with facts
and figures that substantiate your claims.
Keep uppermost in your thoughts that
honesty and transparency are the tools to
impactful storytelling. So, root your story in
reality and be sure your message remains
consistent across all content deliverables
and channels. In identifying characters
choose those that your audience will like
and relate to, so they want to follow in
their footsteps. If for instance you sell
primarily to seniors or to moms with
young children, aim to have characters of
a similar age, or with similar interests.
Celebrity Endorsements can also be used
in storytelling whereby a celebrity acts as
the brand’s spokesperson and certifies the
brand’s claim and position by extending
his/her personality, popularity, stature in
the society or expertise in the field to the
brand. The endorser should be attractive
to the target audience in certain aspects
like physical appearance, intellectual
capabilities, athletic competence, and
lifestyle. It has been proven that an
endorser that appears attractive has a
greater chance of enhancing the memory
of the brand that he/she endorses.
The personal credibility of the celebrity
is crucial. Credibility is defined here
as the celebrities’ perceived expertise
and trustworthiness. As celebrity
endorsements act as an external cue that
enable consumers to sift through the
tremendous brand clutter in the market,
the credibility factor of the celebrity
greatly influences the acceptance with
consumers. The success of the storytelling
depends on the compatibility between
the brand and the celebrity in terms
of identity, personality, positioning in
the market vis-à-vis competitors, and
lifestyle.
We should therefore all embrace the art
of story-telling and tell our stories in the
most befitting way because that’s the way
we were brought up!
Geoffrey Sirumba is a Brand and
Marketing
Practitioner,
currently
working as the Head Marketing
Strategy and Research at MAPRO
and Marketing Consultant at EKAR
Communications. You can reach him via
email at: [email protected] or @
geoffsirumba on Twitter.