Revolutionizing Brand Marketing: How StoryIt Leverages Customer Engagement for Unprecedented Growth
StoryIt, a pre-seed startup based in Austin, TX, launched in the market in late July 2023 and since their marketing platform has been adopted by some of the largest global brands and their marketing teams. To make their story even more intriguing, not too long ago their founders were college students walking across their graduation stage.
Let’s dive into how & why brands are using StoryIt, and what is the catalyst for their growth…
To start, I sat down with their founders, Branson Packard and Wil Geller, to learn more about where StoryIt’s journey begins. “StoryIt is the culmination or product of about 3 years of various startups that either grew or failed horribly,” Packard and Geller said. They have been starting businesses since they were in middle school. Their first success was a marketing and talent agency that they founded in their freshman year of college out of their dorm room. Their agency focused on TikTok marketing and creator management. Within 6 months of launching, they had received testimonials from household name companies such as Netflix. Geller says, “It was through working in this new age of social media marketing geared towards Gen Z and Millennials that we discovered the underlying problems and strong need for StoryIt.” Packard and Geller remarked on how expensive marketing has become due to influencers and their associated fees, sourcing content, and rising CPMs on every major platform, which led them to brainstorm more cost-effective marketing mediums for brands.
They set out to poll businesses in Dallas and found the vast majority were struggling with cost-effective social media marketing, content sourcing, and customer engagement. Quickly, Packard and Geller realized that the solution was in plain sight. Packard said, “What if a business could engineer word-of-mouth on socials and a trusted reach through their own customers?”
In simpler terms, what if a brand could reach 100,000 people in its target audience and source 100 pieces of organic content by just rewarding 100 of its customers with some sort of enticing reward? Shortly after, the two college students built a makeshift version of their software and went door to door in Dallas to find some early partners. Packard said the best indicator of the need for StoryIt was “polling 50 business owners and 45 of them wanting the software by the end of the week.”
To quickly summarize, StoryIt is a marketing platform designed for brands to build word-of-mouth marketing on social media from their customers. Brands can offer rewards such as in-store credit, discounts, and products to incentivize social engagement. StoryIt automatically processes the offers, verifies the creative guidelines, collects the content, scores the content, and distributes the rewards to their end customers. Their entire platform is completely white-labeled to match the brands’ requirements, branding, and messaging.
Before embarking on writing this article, I decided to see for myself the wonder of StoryIt by going to Taco Bueno in Dallas. I walked in and immediately was greeted with signage announcing “Post on your story and get rewarded” with a large QR code and a sample photo. After I ordered, I was able to scan the QR code on my receipt which took me to a Taco Bueno StoryIt landing page with available offers. I accepted an offer for $5 off my next visit in exchange for an Instagram story featuring my tacos tagging @tacobueno. I posted my story and within a few hours received a message that my reward was available. The entire process was relatively seamless, taking no more than 12 seconds of my time. Unlike most loyalty programs I’ve come across, there was no app or download required to receive my reward.
Packard claims their growth is rooted in the fundamental truths and data that StoryIt is built on. “There’s no debate that consumers trust their personal networks of friends and family over the vast majority of paid ads, influencers, and brands. Now couple the inherent trust with the affordability, and you understand why StoryIt is a no-brainer,” Packard believes. He thinks brands have forgotten the most important part of their entire business: building tangible relationships with their customers and fueling their advocacy. “At the end of the day, your own customers are by far your most trusted and affordable marketers,” says Packard.
He believes that StoryIt is the ultimate growth lever, cost saver, and time saver for any marketer. Now, brands can get their customers posting, building a highly trusted & targeted reach for the cost of incentives, not thousands of dollars to major platforms. “Imagine if 100 of your customers with 1,000 followers each shared about your brand. Your brand would be reaching tens of thousands of consumers likely in your target audience from the most trusted medium there is, real customers,” says Packard.
Beyond the reach that is created, StoryIt automatically collects the content and the usage rights for the brand to be able to repurpose the 100 pieces of organic content to their own socials, website, and marketing campaigns. “Last but not least, there are now 100 customers with a discount on their next purchase who will likely want to utilize their reward sooner rather than later,” Packard says.
In just one interaction using StoryIt, a brand has created trusted reach, sourced organic content, and driven customers back to your door. Using StoryIt’s client dashboard, brands can visualize their entire community and constantly re-engage their customers to share about their new offerings and source more content.
After interviewing a few brand marketers and doing research into the current state of brand marketing, it became very clear that every brand, in some manner, has been trying to manually do what StoryIt accomplishes. Whether it be chasing customers down in Instagram’s direct messages or printing “tag us” and social media handles throughout the customer journey, marketing teams have been looking for a lever that streamlines customer advocacy, content, community building, and retention.
In conclusion, StoryIt stands at the forefront of a marketing revolution, capitalizing on the undeniable power of personal recommendations in the digital age. By seamlessly blending technology with the innate trust in word-of-mouth, it offers brands a unique opportunity to amplify their reach and deepen customer engagement. In a landscape where authenticity and personal connections are increasingly valued, StoryIt not only presents a cost-effective marketing solution but also redefines the relationship between brands and their customers. As we move forward, it’s clear that platforms like StoryIt will be pivotal in shaping the future of marketing.
