How to use storytelling in your marketing strategy?

Thanks to the right story, we can stand out from the advertising crowd, and users will remember our message for longer, despite the amount of information.

Due to the type of narration, we distinguish two levels of storytelling:

• strategic level, i.e. communicating your ideas outside the company to customers,

• operational level, regarding internal communication with employees and organizational culture in the company.

In today's blog post, we'll focus on that first level and show you how storytelling can be used in customer-facing marketing.

Examples of using storytelling

To create a story about our brand, we can use the leader or founder of a given company, who then becomes a brand manager. A leader should be characterized by an unconventional approach to running a business, innovative ideas, charisma, and passion. In this case, keep in mind that the leader's values will automatically be associated with our brand. An example here is Steve Jobs, who is automatically associated with Apple.

Another way to do marketing storytelling is to use founding myths. The history of the company can be easily used by many institutions that do not have a charismatic leader to base their stories on. Practically every company has some kind of beginning, for example, the first desk, the first contract, struggling with a stronger opponent, or making the risky decision to leave a larger company.

Another technique is to develop a story based on a product or service, because we can always find an interesting story in them. For example, the circumstances of the invention, the manufacturing technique, a secret recipe, or the fact that the product was used by someone famous. Products with a long and rich tradition, manufactured using specific rituals, products that change people, and artistic products that develop imagination have the greatest storytelling potential.

In addition, in our story, we should include elements with which our readers can easily identify.

The power of archetypes in marketing

In marketing communication, it is also worth using archetypes, which are certain personas that connect different stories of our brand. Examples of archetypes are the sage and the rebel. Sticking to one archetype is important because consistency in our strategy can allow us to consolidate a coherent image of our brand in the minds of recipients. In addition, brands using this strategy get twice as much market share and economic value as brands not related to archetypes.

The effectiveness of narrative marketing

At this point, you may ask yourself, is this technique effective? Research shows that it does. Storytelling has a positive impact on elements such as advertising awareness, perception of product quality, content engagement, or purchase intentions, which are at a higher level in the case of narrative advertising.

I hope that this post has convinced you to reflect more deeply on the use of storytelling in business and marketing, and that this knowledge will be useful to you when working on your own advertising campaigns.

Sources:

M. Hajdas, Storytelling - nowa koncepcja budowania wizerunku marki w epoce kreatywnej

C. Augustynowicz, Uwagi o storytellingu jako strategicznej koncepcji brandingu i operacyjnego narzędzia komunikacji