Storytelling has been used to communicate knowledge about the world for thousands of years, from the original cave drawings of our ancestors to today’s businesses and marketers. Storytelling is a valuable tool, yet it is underused by many small business owners. We believe that storytelling is an integral part to the success of a business. Why? Because if you can’t properly convey a story about your products, then you are not going to appeal to your audience.
Our brains value stories over anything and are hardwired to process and store information in the form of stories. They’re irresistible to the human mind because they activate our imaginations, leaving us with no choice but to follow the mental movie created in our minds. Thankfully you don’t have to be Roald Dahl to be a wonderful and effective storyteller. You just need the ability to think creatively and to the point to successfully immerse your audience.
How can you apply storytelling into your business?
As technology within our lives increases, it becomes increasingly important to have the ability to communicate through all forms of media. By implementing a storytelling technique you can communicate effectively and ensure a much desired trait of transparency with your customers.
Not only does this show investors and customers that your business isn’t a faceless organisation, it also displays your vulnerabilities and humanises it, offering a foundation of reliability for customers to find a common ground. It bridges the gap of potential disconnection between company and customers.
Storytelling can be used for many purposes in a business and should be incorporated into all your forms of content;
Your Blog – If you often use blog posts to convey company information, you can also use them as a way to share your company story, or have each blog post as a mini story showing your values and your mission statement.
Videos – Videos can be a useful way to visually present your story to clients. Moving images bring stories to life, they will make your stories much more powerful.
Website ‘About’ page – The ideal place to tell your story! This will be one of the first impressions that your customers will see of your business, so this is incredibly important in captivating the audience.
Customer stories – Enlist your customers to explain why they use your products and services, and what they truly value about the way in which you provide it all to them.
Let’s write a story…
You can apply storytelling into many areas of business, and we see it regularly with marketing from large and major corporations, such as the friendly faced children in the John Lewis Christmas adverts.
But does storytelling apply to smaller businesses? Can storytelling be practical? The short answer is yes – and here are some helpful tips on how to best apply storytelling.
- Make it personal and easy for your audience to relate to you
- Engage your readers through their senses
- Show, don’t tell
- Use visual guides and keys
- Spark the emotional side of your audiences brain
Why you should implement storytelling into your business today.
Storytelling can be a truly powerful tool in business. Journalist Rob Walker proved this in his “Significant Object Study.” Walker bought 200 insignificant objects on eBay and enlisted the help of 200 authors to write a personalised story about each item.
One item, initially bought for 99 cents, was later sold for $62,000 proving that customers respond well to the effects of storytelling. The human mind is easily altered and swayed by a simple story. It comes down to emotional investment – the more invested you are, the less critical and objectively observant you become.
We recommend you watch David JP Philips’s TEDx Talk on “The Magical Science of Storytelling” here.
Not only do we like to write a good story, we like to listen to them too. Tell us your story today, and we will get it heard by the right people. Contact thrive@418group.com for more information.
