Why you should use web stories in digital marketing

It doesn't take much more than a quick look at modern digital marketing to learn that tackling it is no easy matter. Even with prior experience, you still need to adhere to modern trends, utilize modern tools and find ways to stay ahead of the curve. If you manage it well, your brand and your company will thrive. Manage it poorly, and you will likely see little to no revenue, regardless of how good your business is. With this in mind, we will use this article to cover web stories as a new and powerful marketing tool. Hopefully, this should give you some insight into how to incorporate them into your digital marketing campaign.

Marketing benefits of web stories

There are essentially two reasons why you should use story content in your digital marketing campaign. First and foremost, they hold tremendous marketing potential. Even relatively simple web stories can yield an audience, capture their attention and see them convert to paying customers.

The second reason why you should make use of story content is that it is fairly easy to create. StorifyMe, and tools similar to it, make creating a web story easy, simple and intuitive. Yes, there are still benefits to working with a graphics designer. But, with all the visual elements you can purchase online, creating them shouldn't be much more than finding ways to combine premade elements.

But, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Instead, let's first elaborate on the marketing benefits of story content.

Improved SEO

We've already covered the value of web stories in SEO, so we won't go into much detail here. The important thing to note is that both using, and integrating story content with prior content stands to yield great SEO benefits. Google places great value in story content, which is why using it can be considered a modern SEO hack. Of course, it is not enough to simply create a web story and put in a couple of keywords. You will, after all, have to follow the SEO standards, and do your due diligence in pushing your brand ahead of your competitors. But, if you are looking for a cost-effective way to boost your SEO rating, story content is an easy answer.

Higher user engagement

The one truly great thing about web stories is that they are terribly engaging. In the modern era of marketing oversaturation, story content stands out as one of the few types of content that viewers are actually willing to see to the end. The physiological reasons for this are still not completely understood. But, there is no denying that people are far more willing to view a web story and absorb its content than they are for any other type of marketing content. Combine with this the interactive elements that story content often entails, and you'll soon see why engagement rates skyrocket once a brand starts using story content.

Making use of user attention span

While there is some dispute as to how long the user attention span is, or whether it is something that we can accurately measure, there is no denying that modern users have a relatively short one. Place a modern viewer in front of any type of content, and you can hardly expect them to pay attention for more than 8 seconds. If they grow interested, then yes, they will pay attention for longer. But, those 8 seconds are the only reliable time window in which you can grab viewers' attention. Fail, and they will already forget what your content was all about.

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Marketing managers are well aware of this, which is why they are constantly trying to find ways to grab viewers' attention as quickly and firmly as possible. Fortunately, story content can be of great help here. Even a simple web story will likely capture the viewer's attention and have them go through its entirety. When it comes to promoting other, longer content this is a dream. After all, what better way to present a blog post or a new product than to describe it in a short, engaging format of web stories.

Promising ROI

You wouldn't be handling your marketing responsible if you didn't wonder how much does invest in web stories really cost. Well, coming up with an exact figure is practically impossible. After all, creating a web story can range from using free visual elements and working with StorifyMe, which is free. To hire a graphics designer and spend months on brand research and content planning, can cost a lot. The one thing that remains the same is that web stories have terrific ROI (Return Of Investment). The more you invest in them, the more likely you are to gain increased traffic and increased revenue. Of course, the more your marketing is reliant on visual content, the easier it will be to make use of story content. But, there is hardly a brand out there that doesn't stand to gain plenty from the proper use of them.

Improved retention rates

Acquiring decent retention rates is one of the biggest problems that marketing managers have to tackle. On the one hand, having good retention rates is tremendously important. By being able to retain your viewership you can look to deepen your marketing content and not solely rely on viewer acquisition. On the other, improving retention rates can be terribly difficult. People seem to forget brands as fast as they are able to find new ones. So, if you have relatively notable competition in your area, you can rest assured that retention rates will be a problem. You will likely have to utilize all the available tools to find the ones that produce results in your target demographic.

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Fortunately, web stories show great promise even here. Due to their format, they are great at rekindling interest in customers that are already familiar with your brand. A single web story can easily stir up your former customers to once again do business with your brand. And, if you are addressing a single high-paying customer, a personalized web story can be a terrific thank you note. Speaking of personalized content in marketing.

Personalized marketing

By all estimates, personalization will become the marketing norm as current trends progress. More and more companies have to rely on personalized content to strike the right chord with their audience and ensure decent marketing results. For easy personalization, your content needs to be adaptable, easy to design and effective through relatively little effort. Luckily, web stories are all of those. Through modern tools, it is fairly easy to create a personalized web story that you can later present to a specific group in your audience. Once you, and your team, get a hang of it, you can even make personalized story content with surprising efficiency. Therefore, we wouldn't be surprised if web stories became an integral part of your marketing personalization. Especially if you want to stray away from the written content.

Ease of creation

The second benefit of web stories (one we've already hinted at) is the ease of creation. A surprising number of marketing managers still believe that story content is difficult, costly and time-consuming to create. While in practice, a web story can be easy, intuitive and fairly straightforward to create. What you need to do is to use the right tools, and to understand what creating story content, with all its visual aspects, will entail.

Using modern web story tools

Tools like StorifyMe have gone a long way in allowing you to create web stories with ease. Before, the only easy way to create a web story was through social media platforms. And while there is some benefit in still using social media stories, there is hardly a reason not to use modern tools. The more notable advantages are:

• You own your own story content (while previously the social media platform owned it).
• You can post and showcase web stories wherever you like for as long as you like (with social media platforms you were limited to only their platforms and your stories got taken down after 24 hours).
• Integrating story content with your brand and your SEO has become possible (with social media platforms this was quite limited).

Unfortunately, while intuitive tools are quite available, they aren't really enough for you to create effective story content. For that, you need to understand what story content design is all about, and how to approach it with due care.

Brand integration

While we are on the subject of integrating story content with your brand, we should mention how important it is for the proper design and usage of story content. Namely, all the advantages that we listed so far will be for nought if you don't integrate your story content with your brand. If you tackle it properly, web stories can do wonders for your brand development. But, it is paramount that you understand what your brand is about, and how it connects to the web story format.

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Not all brands have a straightforward connection to story content. Those that are more reliant on visual elements usually have a more natural connection. After all, it is fairly easy to incorporate specific visual elements within a story format. But, professional brands that primarily focus on written content might have a harder time making use of web stories. Don't get us wrong. It is our firm belief that every brand can make some use of web stories. It is just the case that some brands need to work harder before their distinct style.

Consulting with a graphics designer

Brand integration is one of the main reasons why consulting with a professional designer is a good idea. You may feel that you have a good idea of how to create effective web stories. You may even have a knack for visual content in general. But, never the less, we would still advise you to at least have a talk with a seasoned graphics designer. As story content is the type of content that relies heavily on visual elements, it can be surprisingly difficult to design to look professional. Yes, you can get away with using professionally made assets and by following advice from experienced designers. But, at the end of the day, if you truly want top-level content, you will have to find a graphics designer and rely on their expertise.

Keep in mind that your story content needs to have a distinct style. Ideally, your audience will know that a web story is yours from the moment they lay their eyes on it. Achieving this is no easy feat. You need to find a way to stand out among the crowd while maintaining a design that your customers will find appealing. This delicate balance is something that only professionals know how to tread. And if you add to that the fact that you need to incorporate both your logo and your core idea into your web stories, you'll soon see why graphic designers are well worth the investment.

Conclusion

By now you should have a decent idea of why you ought to use web stories for digital marketing. The changing landscape and the increased reliance on informative, bite-sized and personalized content necessitate the use of story content. Even if you aren't looking into the future, the current SEO benefits alone should be enough to convince you that they are a must-have marketing tool. But, while they are easy to create through StorifyMe, they can be sometimes difficult to properly utilize. If you plan on integrating them with your brand and connecting them with the prior content, you will have your work cut out for you. For top-level content, we strongly suggest that you consult with a graphics designer. That way you can ensure that your story content is in line with your brand.

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