Storytelling has become an essential part of PR and marketing. It allows businesses and big corporations to connect with their audience and customers on a human level. By telling a story, you are allowing your viewers to experience emotions, which makes you memorable. Over the festive period, a number of huge companies invest in making emotional adverts that tell a story. These have become an annual event, with John Lewis usually leading the way. They are so popular because they play on emotions. If you are making people think and feel something, then you have their attention.
If huge businesses such as Sainsbury’s and John Lewis are telling stories to win the hearts of their customer, why aren’t you? Here is the importance of storytelling in your PR and marketing strategy.
It makes you memorable
As a brand and a business being memorable is key. If you have become memorable to customers, they will keep on coming back to you. The goal for any business is to build up customer loyalty to drive the profits. Therefore, you need to make sure that you are becoming memorable to your audience.
There are multiple ways in which you can make sure that your brand sticks and you become memorable. You have to evoke something. Consumers are bombarded with adverts that they have learned to tune them out. This can be a huge problem for marketers and businesses, as they can’t get through the noise and be attention-grabbing. Be different, tell a story.
The customer connects to you
A great story will take a customer on a journey, and this is a story you need to tell. Your story doesn’t haven’t to be about your product, however, it should do enough for the customer to associate the story with your brand. For example, if you are a cruelty-free makeup brand, you might want to tell a story of animal cruelty. Incorporate your brand identity in the story for the consumer to make the connection between the two.
In your story, you should have the aim of evoking emotion, whether this is happiness or sadness or sympathy. The idea is to make the consumer feel something. This will help you connect with your audience. Additionally, this should be present on all fronts of your business, whether you have a brick-and-mortar store, an online site or your presence on social media.
Bigger impact
As a business, it’s a good idea to try and make a bigger impact and contribution to the world outside of your business. For example, are you trying to help with climate change or speaking up about current political issues? You have to be careful and sensitive when dealing with these issues, however taking a stand can really make you stand out from the crowd. For example, Nike used Colin Kaepernick in their latest campaign and they saw an increase in shares. Colin Kaepernick is an American athlete that protested against police brutality in America. Nike’s collaboration with Colin made a stand and aimed to make a positive change so they were able to reap the rewards of it.
More on emotional marketing and small business marketing.
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