Storytelling and why it is essential for modern marketing

While modern marketing does provide you with a ton of different platforms and options, tackling it is no trivial task. In fact, most marketing managers struggle with engaging their audience and gaining any meaningful online traffic. One of the newer and more effective marketing methods is using storytelling. And seeing that managers are often confused when it comes to storytelling and why it is essential for modern marketing, we are going to use this article to get a better look.

Understanding storytelling

Storytelling is simply using the story format to convey information. We, as a species, are hardwired to listen to stories and perceive them as meaning full. If you take a closer look at it, you'll see that we use stories to describe our goals, the experiences we went through and our lives in general. And when we listen to a good story being told, we can't help but be in awe. Therefore, if you are a savvy marketing manager, it only makes sense to use this aspect of storytelling for marketing.

Emotions and information

The thing that truly separates stories from standard information is that they invoke emotion. Every text, be it professional, philosophical, technical or instructional can contain a ton of information. Good texts convey that information in a comprehensive and easy-to-follow manner. But, none of those texts manages to invoke true emotions.

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While a short story may not convey much information, the information that it does convey invokes a certain feeling. While we read or listen to the story we cannot help by feeling a certain way about it. This is what makes those stories stick with us. And it is also why story format is categorically different from other types of written marketing content.

Using storytelling in marketing

There are different ways you can use storytelling marketing. From writing blog posts that follow a story format, to designing your promotional content as a story. The key thing to consider is your brand, and how your brand experience is portrayed within those stories.

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Some brands are easy to connect to a certain emotion, and therefore easy to convey in a story. Brands with a clear-cut, straightforward identity can easily find their place in story content and ensure that they are clearly understood. Meanwhile, unclear brands often struggle with conflicting messages and confusing content. With such brands, content creators often struggle as they cannot bring their content in line with what has been previously saying.

Storytelling in blog posts

Blog posts can be a great place to practise and apply storytelling. The easiest way to do it is to present your idea, not as an informative text, but as a personal story. For instance, if we were to write this article with more storytelling in mind, we could tell you a story about a marketing manager:

A young man who struggled with marketing and couldn't find a way to reach his audience. After months and months of trying different strategies, we finally decided to give up. He simply wrote blog posts where he told a story of how he tried and ultimately failed with his brand. But, seemingly overnight, his posts caught wind and became trending. Within a week, his post reached the first page of Google SEO. Within a month, he saw an exponential rise. And all due to the fact that he resorted to telling an honest story through a marketing platform.

While this story is simple, it does convey how powerful storytelling can be. And more importantly, it gives you a certain feeling while reading it. Blog posts, such as the one you are reading now, do give you more information. But, for the everyday reader, the emotion behind the information will have a much more lasting impact.

Storytelling in promotional content

Another way to utilize storytelling is to organize your promotional content as a story. For instance, if you plan on promoting a new product, you can choose to simply make a post explaining what it is, and how you are going to price it. Or, you can take a different route and separate your promotional content into three parts. The intro, where you capture the viewer's attention. The middle is where you explain what you are offering and incorporate emotion. And the ending where you present your CTA. This is just one example of how story content can be used to great effect, and where it can often outshine standard promotional content.

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Using story content

While you can essentially use storytelling in any type of content, it best shines in the story format. Instagram stories and web stories can make great use of storytelling as their format naturally connects with the story content. By combining visual elements with written content, web stories easily invoke emotions while conveying information. This means that, if you manage to properly connect them to your brand, web stories can be quite effective.

The final thoughts on storytelling and why it is essential for modern marketing

The main reason why we are exploring storytelling and why it is essential for modern marketing is that the modern audience has grown tired of standard marketing content. Everywhere we go online we are constantly bombarded with marketing content. So much so that we've grown to ignore it without much thought. Fortunately, story content isn't always perceived as marketing. This is one of the reasons why web stories are so engaging. By the time we do figure out that it is marketing content, we've already absorbed the information. So, in modern marketing, the storytelling presents an easy way to engage your audience and to avoid getting.