Are you using brand storytelling in your content marketing strategy to wow your readers? If you’re not, you are missing out on a fantastic conversion driver. Why? Because content marketing storytelling is a sustainable way to connect deeply with your audience persona and build long-term relationships with your readers.
It means using compelling brand stories that engage your target market in your content. Such material is a must-use marketing content tool. That is because it triggers emotion and encourages brand loyalty while building a community around your business. But what is brand storytelling in content marketing? Let us look at that!
- What is brand storytelling?
- Why brand storytelling is so important and should be a priority for marketers
- Benefits of brand storytelling in content marketing
- 3 Content marketing brand storytelling Best Practices for more conversions (with examples)
- What makes a unique brand story?
- Wrap up
- Brand Storytelling FAQs
What is brand storytelling?
Brand storytelling is the art of using tales or narratives to connect your business with potential customers. It involves adding a curve in your content by telling a brand story that stresses your products or services’ value.
As a valuable content strategy, brand storytelling taps into human psychology in ways that let you connect deeply with prospects. It also helps you build brand credibility and long-term relationships. According to research, storytelling in marketing has a forceful influence on consumers. How? Stories easily persuade listeners, and people remember exciting stories 22 times more than data, facts, and figures.
Why brand storytelling is so important and should be a priority for marketers
As indicated above, you can quickly convince your listeners with a good story. Thus, brand storytelling in content marketing is essential now since drawing users’ attention to your business is a battle of the fittest. Don’t ask me why? You already know that there is intense competition for attention in the marketplace.
For example did you know that the average reader only reads 50% of your blog content. So how can you convince your readership to stick around longer? Also, can you tell me why over 90% of B2B marketers use content marketing as a viable digital marketing asset? That is because every marketer or company wants to be seen or heard. And, believe it or not, 90% of customers see a benefit from content marketing when done right.
In view of this, you can do better by integrating your brand story into your content strategy. Thus, brand stories in the content are vital since they let you stand out from the competition. They hook your readers and keep them longer on the page. Moreover, you can use storytelling to communicate and summarize the clear benefits of your products or services.Â
That said, consumers want to know what you’re selling, and they will gladly become loyal customers if you help them understand your business’ value proposition. That way, you will attract more buyers and retain existing customers. So, it would help if you prioritized brand storytelling as part of your content marketing strategy. There’s more!
Further Reading: Brand Voice: 9 Tips on How to Create Your Own (with 7 Examples)
Benefits of brand storytelling in content marketing
The digital marketing arena continues to evolve, and so does trends and human behavior. As a result, consumer trends and buyer behavior ten years ago are not the same in 2020 and beyond. Hence, marketers strive to align their marketing strategies with consumer behavior and current marketing trends.
Some content marketing trends to add to your business include brand stories. A good narrative grabs the user’s attention with positive results. It means that the potential and benefits of using tales in your content are beyond imagination. So, let us examine a few advantages of content marketing brand storytelling.
- Storytelling lets you create a deeper connection with your buyer persona: Stories are the underlying human skills that unites people and foster healthy relationships. Even from the earliest history of man, telling stories was the primary way to connect and educate.
- Telling stories in content expresses your brand authority and personality: Effective storytelling establishes your brand personality and helps increase conversions.
- Content marketing storytelling makes your content more interesting: In the above section, I noted that the average reader only read about half of your blog post. Why? There are several reasons, and one is that they find it boring. But infusing your brand story will make your content more exciting to the reader.
- Stories trigger human emotional empathy: An outstanding benefit of using brand stories in content marketing is that it strokes human emotions or compassion. Given this, brand storytelling in your content marketing strategy will concord with your readership and eventual customers. It will move them to keep coming back and eventually convert.
Further Reading: These 14 Benefits of Content Marketing are Why You Should Invest More in Content
3 Content marketing brand storytelling Best Practices for more conversions (with examples)
One of the top content marketing trends in recent times is branded content marketing storytelling. So, as we go into this article’s meat, you will learn simple content marketing tips for utilizing brand stories to improve traction and convert readers.
1. Use brand stories to wow your audience
Because stories connect people and encourage relationships, it’s best to wow or engage your marketing persona. However, telling an engaging brand story can be the difference between a successful content marketing campaign or a fruitless endeavor. In other words, not every brand story sells.
Therefore, the story you present can have a positive impact on your ROIs or a negative one. An excellent example of a brand that makes the most of brand storytelling in content marketing is Warby Parker.
As an alternative in an industry dominated by a single high-priced brand, Warby Parker connects with consumers via content marketing storytelling. With short, sweet stories in content, they offer a humanly mindful brand that invites customers to belong.
A significant part of their story includes donating a percentage of their earnings to provide eye care and affordable eyewear for those in less industrialized countries. That’s how they connect with consumers globally and convert more customers using brand storytelling.
Further Reading: Short Form vs. Long Form Content…and the Winner is?
2. Tell data-driven brand stories
The best way to convey engaging stories is to understand whom you’re talking to and learn what excites him. That’s where data-oriented content marketing stories come to play. But the good news is that your audience data is right at your fingertips. You only need to find the information. How? Use available content marketing tools to dig out your audience’s information.
From there, you can create enticing stories that hook your readers. The more they get connected, the more loyal they become for easy conversions. For instance, WP BrandStudio’s Annie Granatstein provides information on its data-driven content strategy for brand storytelling. She suggests their brand storytelling project for Optum, tagged, “Working to End The Opioid Epidemic.” (note: content is no longer available)
According to Annie, her team created a triangular connection that brought data and brand objectives to a crossroads.
The three-fold links are:
- Brand insight
- Editorial insight
- Cultural insight
These three data insights are useful for establishing your brand story. For example, brand insight reveals how Optum uses data-driven information or proof methods to combat the widespread use of opioids. The editorial analytics points to how articles related to opioids garnered more web traffic (more than 600,000) in one year. Simultaneously, the cultural data insight offers details on how consumers die from the overdose of opioids in the US.
Thus, using insightful, data-driven brand stories in content generates positive ROIs. For this, the Chief Medical Officer at OptumLabs, Dr. Darshak Sanghavi, noted that data and analytics enable them to understand the epidemic and pinpoint what is working to fight the health crisis.
Further Reading: 36 Useful Content Marketing Tools for All of Your Content Needs
More on data-driven brand storytelling
Additionally, the content included video interviews, stories of people who are struggling with the addiction. Besides, the material is a mix of educational content and emotional stories. In the end, it became part of the top five stories that amassed over 600,000 web traffic and marketing industry awards.
Moreover, the Spotify team, led by Danielle Lee, Global Head of Partner Solution at Spotify, executed a profitable advertising project. Mars Inc. labeled it, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” That is a tagline of its snickers candy bar. It illustrates all cases where a user moves away from the traditional music he loves.
Hence, while interviewing Danielle Lee, she cites their marketing content strategy for the Shopify ads as data storytelling. Then she noted that consumers produce countless numbers of information while streaming music. And these data inform Spotify or help them understand the best stories that will hook users.
Also, she declared that consumers’ data is a viable content tool for transmitting useful brand messages to customers and advertisers. Therefore, use data storytelling to strengthen your content marketing for better conversions and ROIs.
3. Audience-focused brand storytelling
Without consumers, you have no brand. And failing to tailor content materials to your target market will gradually die down your content marketing effort. In consequence, you need to shift the focus from your brand’s self-importance to the audience. Telling user-centered brand stories shows that you care. Why is that so?
In an interview with Joe Lazauskas, author of “The Storytelling Edge,” he stated that humans are programmed to react to stories. And the stories help build connections. Why? Because exciting stories make the human brain light up. According to Joe, they make us remember and make us care. That’s how you can build strong bonds with your buyer persona.
Furthermore, while writing this blog post, marketers already sent almost:
- 170 billion emails today
- Published over 4.5 million blog posts
- Tweeted more than 505 million tweets, and
- Performed over 4.7 billion searches on Google.
What does this mean for marketers?
It means that your readers have more options for content consumption; they control their content needs. So, with tons of content published daily, they can turn their backs on you if you’re not giving them value, and move on to your competitors. But infusing your content with audience-focused materials will grab their attention and help you retain them.
Given this, the best way out is to ensure that your content marketing strategy serves your target buyer’s needs with exciting stories. So, use brand storytelling in content to give value and consistently provide meaningful content for faster conversions and business growth.
Further Reading: What is User Generated Content? The Definitive Guide to Leverage UGC for Marketing
What makes a unique brand story?
As stated above, a good story fascinates your listener and makes the brain light up. Hence, a unique brand marketing story should have the following traits:
- It should unquestionably define your brand vision, objectives, undertaking, and primary values.
- Your brand story should connect with your audience and address users’ needs.
- It must not deviate from your brand goal and mission.
- The story should display in a spatial order organization in your marketing content.
- 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 magnetic content materials.
- An epic brand story must generate leads and increase conversions.
Wrap up
The way you present stories in your content can have a significant impact on your business. Interesting brand stories illuminate and enlighten your readers. As a result, they become advocates of your brand and products or services.
However, you agree that building a loyal advocacy group takes time and effort. It includes nurturing consumers with consistent value-added content that improves user experience (UX), a Google ranking factor. Having these marketing elements in your brand story will amplify your content marketing effort and boost conversions.
Are we missing something? What would you like to add to this blog post that will add value to our readers? Please, leave your suggestions and feedback in the comment section!
Hero photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash
Brand Storytelling FAQs
Brand storytelling is the practice of using narratives to connect with customers and create an emotional connection with a brand. Stories can communicate the values, mission, and personality of a brand in a way that is memorable and meaningful to customers. And, when done well, brand stories can create loyalty and advocacy among customers. One example of a brand story is the “origin story.” This type of story tells the tale of how a brand was founded and what inspired its creators.
Brand storytelling is the practice of using stories to build brand identity and connect with customers on an emotional level. Unlike traditional advertising, which relies on interruption and propaganda, brand storytelling seeks to create a positive association with the brand by engaging the audience’s imagination and emotions. In a world where consumers are bombarded with hundreds of marketing messages every day, brand storytelling can help your company break through the noise and establish a deeper connection with your target audience.
These are the 4 P’s of storytelling:
1. Plot – the sequence of events that make up a story.
2. People – who the story is about.
3. Place – where the setting of the story is.
4. Purpose – the central idea or message of the story.
As a brand storyteller, it’s important to be able to capture the attention of your audience and keep them engaged. One way to do this is to focus on creating compelling characters that your audience can connect with. Another way to engage your audience is to create a strong narrative arc that will take them on a journey. It’s also important to use rich, descriptive language that will bring your story to life. Finally, don’t forget to promote your brand story across all channels, including social media, email, and your website.
Nike is a company that has built its brand on stories. The company uses athlete endorsements, philanthropy, and innovative marketing to craft narratives that inspire and motivate its customers. For example, Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign features athletes who have overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. These stories encourage customers to set their own personal challenges and push themselves to reach their potential. Nike also tells stories through its work with charitable organizations.
Great piece. As a brand storyteller, I couldn’t agree more about adding storytelling to content. It’s a must to create relevancy with the end user.
Amen to that Pipp!
I really enjoyed the part about data-driven storytelling. I can see how that tip could take your marketing to a different level. Great insights! :)
Thanks for the comment!