Storytelling is an art, and it’s changing the way businesses think. Today’s consumers show very little interest in the typically branded advertisements.
According to a study conducted by Meaningful Brands, 74% of brands have no actual meaning in consumers’ lives. This goes to show generic content is going out of style fast.
Captivating visuals are important to catch your target audience’s attention. However, it is the words that allow your audience to relate with your brand on a more profound level.
But why Brand Storytelling?
The modern consumer evaluates a brand by how it makes them feel. Emotions and positive experiences drive sales. When you tell a true story, your message is perceived as authentic.
So, what makes storytelling so powerful? Stories make it easier for people to relate to your content, because a story told well would create a vivid picture in the minds of your target audience. If the audience can relate to your story and your brand, it would strengthen their connection to your brand.
According to research by Headstream, if people love a brand story, 55% are more likely to buy the product in the future, 44% will share the story, and 15% will buy the product immediately.
Brand Storytelling involves adding a curve in your content by telling a brand story that stresses your products or services’ value.
Brand storytelling is no longer a nice to have but a need to have, to up your content marketing game and is what will ultimately maximize your business impact.
A recent study by social media magnate Neil Schaffer reveals that 90% of customers see a benefit from content marketing when done right.
Because of this, a business can do better by integrating its brand story into its content strategy.
Moreover, a business could use storytelling to communicate and summarize the clear benefits of your products or services, resulting in further enhancing effectiveness driven to increase conversions.
Benefits of Brand Storytelling
- Storytelling lets you create a deeper connection with your buyer persona: Communicating through stories can give your brand a powerful voice that your customers can relate to.
- Telling stories in content expresses your brand authority and personality: Effective storytelling establishes your brand personality and helps increase conversions. It also helps you stand out among competitors while standing for something they aren’t.
- Content marketing storytelling makes your content more interesting: Incorporating your brand story will make your content more exciting and people are more likely to remember your brand.
- Stories trigger human emotional empathy:An outstanding benefit of using brand stories in content marketing is that using storytelling; you can put your brand and products in front of your potential customers in a way that won’t disengage them.
How to use Brand Storytelling to increase Conversions
1) Formulate a Content Strategy
Developing a well-planned content strategy can help your business attract / customers and increase sales.
Creating high-quality content can simultaneously promote your business and give your followers valuable information that increases your business’s conversion rate.
The content structure gives you ample opportunity to boost the effectiveness of your content strategy.
And, you can easily achieve that by leveraging social media. Taking inventory of the leads that you acquire, the sales that you get, and the underlying trends in your industry is critical, when you’re developing a content strategy.
2) Share the “Why” of Your Company to Connect with Your Audience
To differentiate your business from the competition, you must be able to find your purpose. Purpose relates to your “Why” as a business. Purpose involves everything you do. To fuel their interest and connect at a deeper level, you must be able to tell a compelling story about what motivates your business at the core and its driving factors.
3) Let your customers tell their story about their experience with you
Research conducted by Nielsen revealed that 92% of people will trust a recommendation from someone they know while 70% will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t know.
This means that we’re more inclined to believe what other people say about a product or service.
Without consumers, you have no brand. And failing to tailor content materials to your target market will gradually kill your content marketing efforts.
Businesses need to shift their storytelling to focus on the brand’s importance to the audience. Telling user-centered brand stories shows that you care.
4) Tell data-driven brand stories
Data is key to developing consumable content and telling a story that matters to your audience.
By adding data to your storytelling, your marketing can identify what sticks, and be more strategic with every piece of content you create.
The best way to convey engaging stories is to understand whom you’re talking to and what excites them.
The good /s is that your audience data is readily available. You only need to find the information. How? Use available content marketing tools to dig out your audience’s info.
From there, you can create engaging stories that hook your readers.
Thus, using insightful, data-driven brand stories in content generates positive ROIs.
5) Lead With Dialogue
As stated by Neil Patel, ‘’The harsh reality is that if your story is great, but you can’t tell it well, no one will believe you. All marketers tell stories, but only those who have mastered the art of storytelling catch our attention’’
But that being said it’s also important to keep in mind that no amount of marketing or storytelling will help when your product isn’t worth talking about.
Both the content and the product have to be highly useful first, and then everything else follows.
6) Measure the Impact of Your Story
If you’ve ever wondered why most brands get media publicity with ease, while others stay on the sidelines, it’s because they were able to use storytelling to its full potential.
You have to measure your success, because it’s critical to making smarter content marketing decisions.
Planning, execution, and consistent learning are key factors that will help you increase your conversions. But, you have to measure the impact of your brand story.
Measuring social media activities is easy. But, measuring the impact of storytelling is a little more difficult, because it has so much to do with emotional communication. However, as a start, track your audience’s engagement and ensure to note the difference in conversions before and after your heartwarming campaign!
What makes a unique brand story?
As stated above, a good story fascinates your listener. Hence, a unique brand marketing story should have the following traits:
- It should define your brand’s vision, objectives and primary values.
- Your brand story should connect with your audience and address users’ needs.
- It must not deviate from your brand’s goal and mission.
- The story should emphasize your marketing message’s most vital aspect: your business’s value proposition.
- Your brand story must stimulate consumer’s fear of missing out (FOMO) through content materials.
- An epic brand story must generate leads and increase conversions.
Conclusion
So there you have it! How to Leverage Brand Storytelling to Increase Conversions!
Let us know what your thoughts and suggestions on some of the other approaches businesses could undertake to improve Brand Storytelling in the comments section.
Let’s talk.
and we’ll help figure out what is required to take your business towards your next phase of growth