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This guide will help you understand why storytelling works so well as a marketing tactic, what makes a compelling story, and how you can be an effective storyteller in all areas of your business — from social media posts to email campaigns and website copy.

Storytelling is a powerful tool for marketers. You can use it to engage your audience, build trust, and convey your brand’s unique value. But it’s not always easy to know where to start or how to use storytelling in digital marketing.

This place has the best advice for you to make your marketing more interesting. Whether you are new or have been doing this for a long time, it is the best place to find out what to do.

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Benefits of Using Storytelling in Digital Marketing

Build Rapport With Customers

Storytelling is a great way to create connections. People can relate to stories, so it’s an effective way for brands to build trust and show their human side.

Rapport builds greater affinity towards the brand — crucial in today’s competitive market where consumers have more choices than ever before.

When people feel connected with your business, they’re much less likely to switch because of price or quality issues.

Increase Sales and Conversions

When you engage with people emotionally, it’s easier to convince them to buy your products or services. After all, stories help you remember information better.

So if someone tells the story of how they discovered a brand and what they like about it, there is a higher chance that person will buy from that brand again in the future.

Boost SEO Rankings

More and more search engines are using storytelling as a ranking signal. After all, it makes sense that engaging content and a compelling story will get shared on social media channels.

Resultantly driving up traffic to your site and raising visibility in the SERPs as a result.

It’s important to note that as Google uses machine learning and AI, this does not mean you can throw together any old story to rank better. The content must be high-quality.

This fact means you should proofread for spelling and grammar errors, use original language, thoroughly researched with lots of citations, and formatted according to the rules of your industry.

Improve Customer Retention

Telling stories about your customers helps them feel better. This makes them want to buy from you again. You care about providing high-quality products and services, so they’ll want to buy from you again too.

When sharing these stories, remember authenticity matters! If you’re going to share success stories from genuine customers, then make sure that they’re trustworthy and that you have their consent.

Tips To Help You Get Started

Build a Case for Storytelling as a Marketing Tactic

It can be challenging to convince people at your company to give up precious budget or time from other initiatives, so explaining why this is beneficial will help gain support. Of course, the ROI of using stories should speak for itself once implemented.

Don’t Try Too Hard

The issue with marketers today is they’re trying too hard. Good content speaks for itself — let it do what it does best without forcing anything. It’s important not to overcomplicate things because if something feels unnatural, then most likely, no one will want to read or watch it.

Keep It Simple

The best stories are often the simplest. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that adding lots of bells and whistles will make something more engaging. But, it would be best if you always aimed for clarity from the start. Otherwise, your story may be too complicated for people to understand, which could lead them away from your brand instead.

Be Consistent

To build rapport with customers, they need consistency across all touchpoints. If someone gets exposed to different messages or tones and styles, this can confuse and undermine trust, so try sticking to one style throughout all channels whenever possible.

Remember: Storytelling isn’t only about digital marketing. Don’t get stuck on this one tactic alone. If someone gets exposed to various marketing channels, they may feel confused and question what your brand stands for if the messaging isn’t consistent.

Don’t Be Afraid To Try New Things

It’s important not to get stuck in a rut when it comes to storytelling. Like all other forms of content, you should know that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions, so different tactics will work better depending on your industry, product, or service.

Likewise, it would be best not to assume that every story needs an image or video either — sometimes simple text can do the trick.

R&D Before Publishing

Before telling stories about customers on the internet, make sure you research and test how it would look on different devices. You want to be sure that your content gets optimized for search engines, mobile users, and other platforms.

What Makes an Effective Story?

Many brands make the mistake of thinking they need a Hollywood scriptwriter on their team or start by brainstorming ideas about dragons, magic swords, or zombies. But this move isn’t going to resonate with most people outside of sci-fi fans.

While these stories may work for some brands, they might not be genuine, essential to success.

The first step should always focus on your customers because stories should resonate with them, so try asking yourself the following questions:

What problems do your products and services solve?

Who are you appealing to, and what are their struggles and frustrations?

How can you help make life easier for people?

These are all great things that you should keep top of mind when telling a story about how your brand has helped someone or made an impact in their lives.

If you don’t tell personal stories, another option would be to use customer case studies. This option may sound similar, but there is one key difference between these two types of content.

Customer case studies are helpful because they can give people a glimpse at how your brand solved someone’s problem. But, these usually involve real customers who get compensated for their participation. As a result, the content isn’t as authentic or personal as it would be if you were telling a story about them, yourself.

What Makes an Effective Storyteller?

Many brands like to hire actors and actresses to make high-quality videos. This tactic will work for some industries but not others. So don’t think that it will help your business grow overnight because you hired a celebrity.

While some brands may feel more comfortable hiring someone experienced in storytelling, this isn’t necessary either.

The most important thing to remember is that you can be an expert in your field, but people won’t listen if you can’t communicate this online.

Yes, this means anyone can tell a good story as long as they are passionate about what they’re promoting and willing to learn how to do it.

To improve your skills, try watching TED Talks or similar videos on YouTube, which will give you some insight into what makes for compelling content. You should also find someone within your industry who already has an exciting story to share and ask them how they do it.

You may want to work with a marketing agency if you can’t get started. There are many companies out there that can help. But not every company will work with storytelling, so you should think about what is best for your company.

In other words, if people aren’t interested in buying products from a particular brand, they won’t pay attention to their stories.

When you create a story, you may need to experiment with the different ways to tell the story. In the beginning, people may not like your content or how you say it.

This is normal because there are always some people who disagree with what you say. But if there is a problem with your content, this might not mean anything wrong.

Getting Your Story Out There

The most important thing is to tell a story. You should have a simple message for the people listening, so they understand what you are talking about.

Always be confident and don’t fear to speak up on what you truly feel. For example, if you find yourself discussing a story concerning something you don’t like, there are chances that people will also notice and take in the message negatively.

The more authentic your content sounds, the better chance you’ll have of engaging people online, so don’t be afraid to look outside traditional advertising channels to find new ways of promoting yourself through storytelling.

If you need help finding great ideas for this type of content, don’t hesitate to contact us today. At Neptune Digital Space, we love to hear from our customers. Also, if you have any queries and concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out at any time. We’d love nothing more than to help businesses by telling stories that people want to read.

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