Why strategic storytelling is so much more than a marketing buzzword
Everybody loves a story. Your children love one at bedtime (or more than one if they’re anything like ours). Your friends love to share a good yarn when you meet them for a drink. Your colleagues will whisper the latest gossip as you make a cuppa in the office kitchen (or message you on Slack). But what exactly is storytelling and how does it help your business? Here’s how using narrative strategically can strengthen your brand and create those all-important connections.
What is strategic storytelling?
Strategic storytelling is the deliberate use of narrative techniques to achieve specific business objectives or goals. It involves crafting compelling stories that resonate with your audience, convey your brand message, and drive desired actions or outcomes. What’s the magic that will help make your client’s life better? What intangible benefits will you provide? Storytelling is the secret sauce that will make them sit up and listen. Here’s what strategic storytelling entails:
Purposeful messaging
Strategic storytelling starts with a clear understanding of your brand’s values, mission, and goals. It involves crafting messages that align with your brand identity and communicate key themes or ideas that you want to convey to your audience.
All about your people
Effective strategic storytelling requires knowing your audience inside and out. It involves understanding their needs, preferences, and challenges, and tailoring your stories to resonate with their interests and emotions. By speaking directly to your audience's experiences and aspirations, you can create stories that capture their attention and build meaningful connections.
Emotional engagement
One of the hallmarks of strategic storytelling is its ability to evoke emotions and create memorable experiences for your audience. By tapping into universal human emotions such as joy, empathy, fear, or inspiration, you can make your stories more relatable and impactful. Emotional storytelling can help forge deeper connections with your audience and foster brand loyalty.
Picture it like a bridge. Your audience are on one side of the bridge, knowing, feeling and doing certain things in their current state of now, needing your service or product but not having bought it or having worked with you yet. And you’re going to try and walk them over the bridge to a different place where they will know, feel and do something different. You can do this via telling stories that will resonate with them.
Authenticity
Authenticity is key to effective strategic storytelling. Audiences today value authenticity and transparency in brand communications, so it's essential to tell stories that are genuine and true to your brand’s values. Authentic storytelling builds trust and credibility with your audience and enhances the overall impact of your messages.
Most of the businesses that fall into the trap of being bland are big corporate brands trying to be your best friend or are small businesses backed by venture capitalist money. The reason they don’t appear genuine is they are often not.
For those of you who are freelancers, sole traders, creatives, or family-run ventures, you have a huge advantage in that your brand is completely synonymous with you as an individual. So be honest about:
Who you are
Why you set up your business
What you have overcome to get to where you are
What your vision is
What you find funny
What you’re passionate about
What you do to unwind
What you’re reading, listening to, watching
Honesty goes such a long way in storytelling content and is an easy place to start. This doesn’t mean you need to start dissing the competition or revealing your innermost secrets. It’s about being open and genuine. Your customers want to get to know you before they part with their hard-earned cash. Let them!
Transparency
The words and phrases you use in your communications need to be backed by a point of view, otherwise, they risk sounding like empty promises. Most people who have set up their own businesses are passionate about them. They have created something unique because they have spotted a gap in the market. Channel that passion into your communications: the authenticity will shine through.
Creating your own brand narrative
Having a sense of purpose is really important when it comes to creating your brand narrative. The best brands are really clear about where they are going and why, and this fits in really well with storytelling techniques.
As the journalist George Monbiot describes in his recent Ted Talk, the most compelling stories are based on the same narrative, which goes something like this:
“Disorder afflicts the land, caused by powerful and nefarious forces working against the interests of humanity. But the hero will revolt against this disorder, fight those powerful forces, against the odds overthrow them and restore harmony to the land.” George Monbiot
To figure out what your narrative is, think about the following:
Disorder: What is the problem that you’re trying to fix?
Nefarious forces: You might not have a ‘baddy’ in your story, but if you do – use it!
Hero: What’s your solution? Why is it better than anyone else’s?
Harmony: How will your product or service restore ‘harmony to the land’?
Being your own editor
Strategic storytelling should ultimately drive action or inspire a specific response from your audience. Whether it's encouraging them to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, or support a cause, your stories should include a clear call to action that prompts the desired behavior. By guiding your audience towards a specific action, you can maximize the impact of your storytelling efforts
When we worked on newspapers and magazines, the questions we were always expected to have an answer to were: “Who cares and why now?”
This is the best test of any story idea you might have and is the only way to establish whether it’s worth shouting about. Many businesses assume that because they have created something new it is newsworthy. It often isn’t. Put yourself in the shoes of the reader and ask: “Will anyone care?”
PR expert Lucy Werner talks about this in her insightful book Hype Yourself. She lists the following as stories not to issue as news to the media, although some could work on your own channels.
New branding or website – nobody really cares; it won’t change their lives. The only time this could be a story is if the design is phenomenal, and then it might only be of interest to people in your trade, not your customers.
New hire – this can sometimes be of interest, but only if it’s a new CEO of a big company like Apple. If you’re keen to promote a new hire, do it on social media or write a blog about it, but make sure you think about the purpose of the announcement. If it’s to boost your SEO and position your business as a great place to work, then go ahead.
Award wins – great as a hook for something bigger, but not necessarily news in itself. So many businesses win awards!
New product launch – this in itself is not exciting. Again, use this as a way to talk about something else that is of interest.
New company launches – thousands of businesses are launched every year.
Remember, there is always an angle that will enable you to promote whatever it is you’re promoting: the key is to think creatively about how you present that story. Always think about your audience first: Why should they care, and why now?
In essence, strategic storytelling involves using narrative techniques to deliver messages that resonate with your audience, align with your brand values, and drive meaningful outcomes for your business. By crafting compelling stories that engage, inspire, and motivate your audience, you can create a powerful connection that strengthens your brand and drives success. Everyone has a great story to tell: you just have to figure out what it is and how to tell it. Need help in shaping your story or getting it out there? Get in touch!
