The Power of Storytelling

A day in the life of a marketer often includes researching various subjects. Whether you’re studying sales figures and quotas or graphs and charts, there’s a ton of information to digest, and then communicate. At the same time, you must develop intriguing content to attract your audience and pique their interest. So how do you do all this? One of the most effective ways is through the power of storytelling.

Past, Present and Future

According to National Geographic, the earliest evidence of storytelling comes from cave drawings discovered in France dated back around 30,000 years ago. Storytelling is a big part of our past, present, and future. We use storytelling to pass on everything we learned from our ancestors, from knowledge and recipes to memories and traditions. Storytelling has evolved from elegant cave drawings to being present everywhere, including business applications.

Brand Storytelling

According to the article Brand Storytelling: What It Is and Why It Matters, brand storytelling is a popular approach that casts the reader as the main character and the hero in the story. Brand storytelling takes many different forms, from weekly podcasts and social media posts to curated in-demand content for company blogs. The essence of brand storytelling rests in the words you choose to build an emotional connection between your brand and your audience.

Shorthand.com describes brand storytelling as a technique which humanizes your business and can change the audiences’ perception of what your company stands for. You can tell stories that your audience can relate to and identify with. These stories can positively reposition your company in the consumers’ mind because they do not promote products and services. An introduction to brand storytelling written by Kimberlee Meier on shorthand.com says brand stories should focus on people and topics companies want to align themselves with.

His name is Eric

Canadian Blood Services is known for the stories they tell of volunteers and recipients sharing the life-saving plasma that flows through their veins. One of their most compelling stories is about a young child named Eric. Eric needs a blood transfusion at least once a month to live. According to his mother, he has received over 200 blood transfusions in his short lifetime. Without the kindness and thoughtful donations from volunteers, he wouldn’t be alive today. The tagline “Blood. It’s in you to give” connects beautifully with the Canadian Blood Services brand.

Sitting On the Shelf

According to Celinne Da Costa’s article on Forbes.com, brand storytelling is the future. With so much competition in the market, brands need to do more than provide a great product or service that satisfies the consumers’ needs. Brands need to stay relevant in consumers’ minds and find ways to connect with them through stories that communicate who they are and what they stand for. If you’re not sure which stories you want people to remember when they hear your brand name, it’s time to really think about it. These days differentiating your brand through compelling and relatable brand storytelling could be the difference between growing your consumer base and simply being another great product sitting on the shelf.

 

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