We tell stories every day. Whether you’re simply relaying our day to a loved one, or promoting your company to a potential client – it’s all about how we tell it. Some of us might be better than others, we can’t all be public speakers after all. But it is a skill you can improve upon and doing so will certainly be beneficial to your business.
As something that’s part of our daily lives, it seems like a fairly good place to start when it comes to developing business tactics. As a business advisor – Surrey, I’ve seen first hand how utilising storytelling in the right way can boost your strategies. From improving customer loyalty to increasing profit, we should all be aiming to get better at it.
Why is storytelling important for you?
When you’re marketing your company’s product or service, the aim is to get yours to stand out amongst the competition. If you’re doing so in the middle of the road, bog-standard way – it won’t get you any higher above the rest. This it’s why it’s important to build the skills necessary to evoke real emotion and interest in your potential customers.
Building trust and customer loyalty come from how they interact with you. If you sound like real people who know what they’re talking about and are passionate about it, you’re going to come across far better than a robotic string of ‘this is what we do, please buy from us’. It’s not enough to have something great that solves a problem, you need to be unique. Stand out from the crowd.
Competitive edge
Unless you’re doing something completely new that no one else in the entire world is doing or has done before, you’re going to have some sort of competition to overcome. But you can use this to your advantage. And it’s my job as a business advisor – Surrey is to help you do so. There is so much information out there for you to compare. So look into how everyone else is promoting themselves and think of ways you can do it differently. What stories do you have to tell that will draw the attention of customers?
When we talk about “stories” we don’t mean you have to make up something just to impress potential clients. You’ve been on a journey to start your business so what could you tell people that is unique and relatable? Decision-making is emotional more than it is logical. This is why it’s so important you can capture the emotion and imagination of people to stand out from the others in the industry.
Although you may go through similar paces as your competitors to get to where you are now, no one will have the completely same story to tell. A heartfelt attachment to your business will give people a reason to choose you. Market yourself in a way that your customers will relate to and connect with. This way, they’re not buying the product so much as they are the brand.
Keep their attention
If you can tell an engaging story, you’ll keep people hooked. I’m sure you heard a school teacher once say – “if the first sentence doesn’t draw me in and capture my attention, I won’t keep reading.” They’re absolutely right. If someone doesn’t get anything out of your content within the first couple of seconds, they’ll keep scrolling and look elsewhere.
Being a business advisor – Surrey, people always tell me that they aim for their content marketing strategy (or any form of marketing for that matter), is keeping people engaged and present for as long as possible. You’re measuring engagement and so want to see people spending more time with you than anyone else. It’s not always the words you use that are going to keep customers engaged, but the way you tell it while incorporating yourself and the customer in the story.
A good book is one where, even without illustrations, you can see what it’s like in your mind. You don’t need visual elements to complete the story because the way it’s told is enough. Using this strategy will see a boost in your engagement, alongside customer retention! They’re going to come back for more if it’s something that really grabbed their attention.
Trust and transparency
You wouldn’t buy from a brand you didn’t trust, so give people a reason to trust you. Storytelling is an invaluable tool in marketing and advertising. And it’s usually traditional methods of these that the average consumer doesn’t trust. We get adverts popping up everywhere nowadays and because of this, people have developed an aversion to your typical marketing methods.
Create brand campaigns that are transparent. Use your struggles to tell stories that people relate to. No business built from the ground up will be completely seamless – people know that! So use it to your advantage and prove how real you are. You’re normal people doing a job to make your company the best. Most people out there are doing the same!
Evoke the emotions you need to capture their attention. You’ll gain trust by telling the truth and it allows them to see the company as a whole. Building your brand around its entire story will get you much further than only showing the ‘professional’, business-centric parts. Be the voice of your business and let potential customers be a part of it too.
Boost employee productivity
So many people are becoming more disengaged with their work because they aren’t in line with the business’ values and goals. Storytelling in the workplace goes beyond sharing your visions and targets. Use it to get your team stuck into the history of the company and the struggles you face every day.
You can start conversations about what’s important to you as well as to your employees. They’ll feel more involved with how the place is run and you’ll give them something to believe in. With this in mind, they are more likely to strive for their best and work hard to match the values you share. Make them part of the story and you can boost creativity – giving them new ideas for content or strategies that could suit the company even better.
Pass on knowledge of storytelling and make sure everyone is on the same page with your brand voice. This way, it can be utilised company-wide to produce thought-provoking, emotional content. You probably measure success based on numbers, so evaluate your new strategies and see what difference storytelling makes to your results.
Humanise yourself
A lot of the time, we don’t really know what goes into creating a business or who is behind it all. This can detach a brand from its potential customers and see a lack of certainty in its purpose. Storytelling does the opposite of this because it shows how empathetic and real you are. You’re not just churning out content for the sake of advertising. You actually want people to see who you are as a whole.
A lot of successful brands started with the ambition to change the world. In one way or another, they’re probably on their way to achieving this if they haven’t already. You know who they are, what they do and what they stand for because they approached the market with a clear, pioneering goal that resonated with the general public. We’d all love to change the world – but only with a vision and a story to tell will we do that.
People buy from companies that show they care. Not only do they care for their customers, but their employees and other people outside of the business too. Storytelling emits emotion and empathy so by using it in your marketing you can show people how much you care for what you’re doing and you could become a much more profitable business.
More advice from a business advisor – Surrey
Making yourself memorable to potential customers is a difficult job. We’re more likely to remember a well-told, engaging story than we are basic statistics about a company we might not even buy from. So if you can use strategic storytelling to advertise and promote yourself, people will empathise with and trust you. This is how you convert leads to sales.
Provide meaning and give your customers a purpose. Stories will direct them to take action in a way a traditional CTA never could. It makes them want to do something and feel like they have a reason to. Make them want to buy, don’t tell them they have to.
Are you in search of a professional business coach that will help you implement storytelling strategies and new ways to market your business? Do you want to see how we could transform your business together? Contact me at graham@grahamgarman.com or complete this contact form, and reach your full business potential now.
