Storytelling has been a prized art form for a long time. People connect, relate, and are influenced by well-crafted stories that build emotional, human connections. When it comes to strategic marketing, brands have long capitalized on this technique to create content campaigns that can resonate with and ultimately convert consumers.
People love brands that connect with them and show a genuine interest in knowing them. And, consumers want businesses to capitalize on this– 92% of people want brands to come up with advertisements that feel like a story.
Writing a compelling brand story is an excellent opportunity to win over customers, showcase your journey, and stay true to your mission and values.
Content marketing is, by far, the best tool to share your brand story. Effective content marketing enables businesses to connect with their audience, spending more time with them to appeal to their human nature.
People are naturally more driven to buy from brands that have an emotional appeal. Research shows that emotions drive decisions with humans, and use rationale to justify their instincts. Successful brands such as Apple and Coca-Cola know the power of emotions, and they actively seek to touch people’s lives in meaningful ways.
Content marketing happens across multiple platforms in many different formats:
- Articles
- Infographics
- Case studies
- E-books
- Video
- Explainer videos
- White papers
- Motion graphics
- Microcontent
These communication tools are versatile and adaptable, giving your brand the power to command your audience’s attention, according to their content wants and needs.
Remember, you want your brand content to provide consumers with useful content, instead of forcing your brand messages in intrusive ways. This is how you’ll be able to trigger emotional responses from them. Each piece of content that you create for your audience should support your brand story, whether it is a tweet, a blog post, a whitepaper, or another form of content.
Be sure to keep the following in mind when you’re creating your engaging brand story.
Make Your Audience the Priority
You have to know what your audience wants to read and experience from your brand. Then you need to tell your story in a way that makes it easy for them to relate to it.
Use research to find and leverage essential insights gained about their content consumption patterns, their daily life problems and pain points, likes and dislikes, hobbies, and more.
This will help you gain a comprehensive understanding of your customers so that you can use your content to showcase how you’ll solve their problems more effectively.
Present Your Story in the Right Format
Every piece of content you create, and how you push it out must have a purpose behind it.
Don’t lose your way in trying to produce flashy content if that’s not where your audience is. For example, if you know that a majority of your prospects and customers use Twitter, then creating trendy Facebook posts won’t pay off. In that case, you’ll be better off trying to convert your story into a micro-content that your fans are more likely to respond.
Remember, your audience is the ultimate authority in deciding whether they like your content marketing efforts or not. Show that you value their time, attention, and brand buy-in by purposely presenting your content in the right formats.
Incorporate Visual Content
Research shows that people are less likely to remember things they hear–only 10% of that information can be recalled three days later. In contrast, when an image is linked with information, people will remember 65% of that information two and three days later.
People process images faster than regular text, so visual content holds more appeal for your readers. It keeps your readers engaged and also gives your content a fresh look.
Images, infographics, illustrations, and interactive videos keep visitors on your page and increase their time engaging with your content.
Be Authentic
As the digital marketing space becomes crowded, brands are working harder than ever to stand out and be heard. Their content may fade into the background among thousands of other marketing messages that are reaching out to customers.
Authenticity is the only way forward for brands that want to be worthy of attention. Authenticity in brand storytelling is all about sending messages to your audiences that show who you really are and what you really stand for.
It’s critical to ensure that everything your brand is pushing out and projecting is genuinely aligned with an authentic voice. If you are sending conflicting signals about your brand, your customers might become confused and disengage.
Consider Adding Video in Your Content Marketing
If you want your site’s visitors to engage with your brand, try using videos to tell your story. Video content is well-worth your while– the average user will spend 88% more time on a website that shows them videos. These could be simple explainer videos, how-to guides, live videos, event, and behind-the-scenes features, and other short and attention-grabbing video content.
Brands are transforming their stories into colorful and creative content that shows the brand journey in a captivating manner. Brand storytelling is one of the best ways to tell and show your consumers that you are more than a business – and that you want to connect with them on a more personal level instead of focusing on profits only. When content marketing is done right, your brand story will leave a lasting impression on your customers, so they will feel more connected to you and want to buy-in to the experience and what you’re selling.