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Stories have a way to drag us into the narrative and keep our interest until the very end. The power of the stories made the marketers thinking, can we use it for business purposes? And the answer is yes.
The effect of such content has turned storytelling an imperative in marketing. It can help you to connect with the customers, build trust, and drive customer engagement. What makes some businesses hesitant about storytelling is their doubts about how they can compose compelling stories that revolve around their brand. If you are curious about how you can make that happen, take a look at the following tips.
1. Analyze Your Target Audience
You won’t be able to write a good story if you don’t know what your audience wants. Since you are using storytelling to affect a specific target audience, you need to know who they are.
Learning about their demographics isn’t enough. What you should also focus on are their interests, preferences, likes, and dislikes.
Use their social media profiles to gather information about what books or movies they like. That will show you what type of story will be the most effective.
You can also use Quora and ask the audience about movie/book preferences. Just make sure to specify what type of audience should answer the question (age, gender, location, likes, dislikes, etc.).
2. Share Different Stories
There are different things you can talk about in your stories.
If you are wondering which topics you can use in the business storytelling, here are some options:
- Your brand (the beginning, the struggles, your path to success, etc.)
- Your products (how you came up with them, a creative story about their purpose, etc.)
- Your employees (who they are, what is their job, funny stories about their experiences in the company, etc.)
- Your customers (stories shared by satisfied customers or stories about satisfied customers)
Always thrive to explore your originality and think of new stories and new topics to cover.
3. Use Your About Us Page
The corporate website is the business’s basis. One of the first things your prospective clients will visit on your website is your About Us page. That is your chance to get their attention.
Use your findings about your target audience to construct a story they would like. There are numerous story options. You can mention your rocky beginnings, or simply use a motivational and inspiring tone throughout the story. It all depends on your audience.
The story you tell on About Us page needs to be perfectly written considering that it won’t be changed for a long time.
If you aren’t the best writer, make sure that you hire a professional writer to help you with this part. Review websites such as Top Writers Review can help you browse through different writing services and pick out the best one.
4. Use Social Media
Social media – what a great place for boosting customer engagement. Team up social media power with storytelling and you’ll have your winning combination.
For example, post an Instagram Story that shares a story about your product and encourage the users to share their opinion through a poll.
You can also repost your customer’s posts that share stories about your products.
Social media is a place where customers feel most comfortable to engage with brands so be consistent with your posting. You can even make a series about your employees, for example.
5. Enhance Stories with Visuals
Approximately 65% of the population are visual learners. Considering that, enhancing your stories with images or videos will have a great effect.
For example, instead of writing a story, create a short video. Storytelling through videos is a good choice for advertisement.
Whenever there is an opportunity to enhance a story with visuals, take it.
You can use images that support your story and that provide evidence. Images also make it easier for users to imagine the story you are telling and therefore, memorize it easily.
Infographics are also an option that you should consider. They are easy to make but they support your claims and give your stories some color.
6. Improve Your Email Marketing
Emails are a more personal way of communicating with your customers. Use this to share stories with the users and encourage them to engage with you.
One of the things you should consider is to address the user by its name before you get to the story.
Take a look at how Charity Miles does it:
In this way, the customer will feel like you are friends, sharing stories about your life, ups, and downs, business success, etc.
Creating a close connection with your customers is one of the best ways to drive engagement and ensure customer loyalty.
7. Make The Stories Customer-Centric
Ultimately, people love stories that are somehow about them. When they can relate, or when they can see some benefit for them, that is when people will pay close attention.
A customer-centric approach to stories helps successful brands to boost engagement. Just take Coca-Cola for example. Their Christmas storytelling commercials are always about happy customers and we all love them!
This doesn’t mean that you should strictly focus on customer stories or stories about customers. It means that the point of the story can revolve around them.
Let’s say that you are writing a story about your brand, how it came into existence or something similar. When talking about what inspired you to start your business, mention your thoughts about how your products can benefit the customers.
The customer-centric approach can also be used at the end of the story, by stating your business’s intentions to make customers’ lives easier.
Some Final Thoughts
The art of storytelling can help you drive customer engagement, raise awareness about your brand, and ultimately, increase sales. When applying these tips in your pursuit of customer engagement, remember that you should let your business’s personality stand out.
The stories you tell should bring you closer to your customers and encourage them to engage with your business. In order to do that, you should stay true to your brand and emphasize your authenticity.
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