In recent years, “storytelling” has become a buzzword in marketing and the corporate world. Stories are an integral part of our society and culture. Everyone has a story and everyone loves a great story. It gives us a reason to communicate and engage.
Stories are a great medium to express your views, impress people and make a human connection with them. And when you tell stories in business it will help you to grow your audience.
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Why Is Storytelling Important In Business?
You’ll find stories everywhere – in movies, books, news, media, music, and religion. And this isn’t a new concept. It’s as old as humanity itself.
90% of our purchasing decisions are influenced by emotions. So, it’s critical to engage with buyers online. You can only connect with your buyer’s emotional sense with compelling photos or visuals, an interesting product description, and an attractive but genuine story.
Storytelling isn’t just your company history or journey. You can use it in all content formats like blog posts, emails, videos, e-books, product guides, case studies and more.
Think About Your Audience
Your story must appeal to your audience. Content regarding your products and services that is interspersed with stories that touch the core emotions of readers or listeners is going to do that. That’s why it’s important that your content marketing strategy includes delivers compelling stories to your prospects.
Statistics reveal that story-based content converts into leads and sales at a higher rate than content which is fact-based only. That’s because people don’t remember facts. They remember stories. It’s easier for us to recall stories than facts.
When it comes to storytelling in your communications, choose what emotion you want to communicate to your audience, and then craft your story around that emotion.
Stories stimulating positive emotions are more widely shared than those eliciting negative feelings, and content that produces greater emotional arousal (making your heart race) is more likely to go viral. This means that content that generates a positive feeling motivates readers or viewers to share it with others, as opposed to content that elicits feelings of sadness or anger.
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How To Tell Stories In Business
Now that we’ve clarified the importance of storytelling, here’s how to create an engaging and appealing story.
The following three elements will help you prepare for effective communication that inspires others to take action:
- Character
- Drama
- Resolution
Let’s look at each one of these in more detail.
1. Character
Every good story has a compelling character. Always craft your story around a single character. The character is a connection between you and your target audience. Be sure you choose a character which your audience can relate to easily. In order to do this properly, always listen to and understand the deep-seated needs of your audience’s problems, wants and desires.
2. Drama
Structure a dramatic setting in your story that addresses and then offers a solution to your prospects’ problems, needs, wants and desires. This will ensure your content connects with readers in a major way. This is why the investment of time via surveys, testimonials and other forms of customer feedback is an extremely worthwhile exercise that will repay your business back many times over.
Storytelling is all about what you’re relaying, and a little drama or conflict will only help to build an emotional bond with your audience. Remember, your story must have some drama but be careful to not overdo it. Always be genuine.
3. Resolution
When there’s drama or conflict in your story, it’s only natural that your audience will want some sort of resolution, i.e. “a solution”. Good stories surprise us, and they don’t always have to have a happy ending. The resolution should wrap up the story but should also (and this is vital) clearly call your audience to action. Resolution fulfills the purpose behind the story.
It should make them think, make them feel, and finally… make them take action.
Free Checklist: The Content Strategy To Tell Stories In Business
To generate maximum returns from your content and marketing communications in today’s business world, it’s crucial your storytelling touches the emotions of your readers and listeners in a compelling manner. To help make this process simple, download the free checklist, The 5 Step Content Strategy to discover the key content marketing tactics used by the most successful online entrepreneurs.
