How To Use Storytelling To Growth Hack Your Marketing?

Stories are a universal language that everyone understands regardless of dialect, hometown, or heritage.

Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to connect with your audience. It helps to keep the audience engaged, and interested in your brand. To form a personal connection with your brand, company stories must be engaging, relatable. authentic, creative and inspirational.

Stories are a universal language that everyone understands regardless of dialect, hometown, or heritage. Stories stimulate imagination and passion and create a sense of community among listeners and tellers alike.

Components of Storytelling

Plan The Context:

Context is the idea behind the story

Why did a particular event occur?

What circumstances led to a certain situation.

Context is basically the circumstances that formed the story or situation, it adds specificity to your writing and directs the reader’s attention to a particular train of thought. To avoid unwanted interpretation.

Context can be anything, details about the character, a backstory, a memory, an anecdote, a trivial situation.

Anything that best describes the idea behind the story or something that led to the creation of the story. For brands, it can be the journey of making a product/ services from an idea. A situation from which an idea emerged to make a product or service.

Example 1: We had an emergency landing of our flight.

It’s just a sentence without information. The audience will be left with questions like

Which flight?

What was the cause of an emergency landing?

What time did the flight have an emergency landing?

Where did the flight land?

Example 2: The flight from Mumbai to Paris had an emergency landing. When the captain announced about the emergency landing an old lady started hooting around. The flight landed in Qatar. After a few hours of waiting, we took another flight.

In the latter scenario, the audience will have an idea about the flight, the place where it landed, hours of waiting, they would be keen to know what did the passengers do. They would be keen to know more.

Establish The Setting:

The setting is the environment in which the story took place. Which can include the name of the place, time, background, surroundings? Setting can be descriptive or very specific whichever is suitable for the plot of the story.

So, why is it important to have a descriptive setting?

Example 1: On July 24th, a little girl was lost in an unknown city, in a crowded place.

By this example, a reader knows the date, can imagine a lost little girl in a crowded place. By reading this sentence they can easily visualize the situation.

Example 2: A little girl was lost.

By this example, the reader cannot visualize the exact scenario. They can predict maybe the little girl is kidnapped, they cannot imagine her surroundings. It’s hard to visualize.

In example 1, the audience can easily anticipate, they can assume the next scene easily but not in example 2.

While setting a story to remember to keep a space for the audience to visualize the story, anticipate the story, and to be able to relate. If you say, a little girl was lost in space. It sounds quite impractical for the audience to relate because it is unrealistic

Establish The Plot:

The plot is the sequence of events that makes up the entire story. It introduces the audience to the characters, the protagonist, antagonist, supporting characters. The plot is the outline of the story.

For example, before the movie release, a trailer is launched which gives an idea to the audience about the characters, obstacles, their goals, struggles, etc.

Show The Struggles Your Target Audience Can Relate With:

Pain Points or hurdles are something that drives the story. It’s something that builds suspense, creates tension if everything goes smoothly in a story audience will not stick to watch or read your story.

Example 1: I had a fantastic trip to Paris.

Here, it’s just a sentence. The audience will think, “oh well, that’s good” and move ahead. Because there is no story to it.

Example 2: Hey you know what happened when I went to Paris? The flight had to take an emergency landing in Qatar due to some technical issues. And I got a chance to explore Qatar unexpectedly. But, I could not reach for the meeting on time due to flight delay.

Here, The first sentence itself creates a curiosity among the audience to know what happened when the person had an emergency landing in Qatar, they will be interested to know, what did the person explored in Qatar and then what happened when the person could not reach for the meeting on time? It will keep the audience engaged to know more till the climax.

Show solution: Keep a happy ending or show solution

While closing the story it’s important to have a happy ending. Or even if it is not a happy ending you should provide a solution to that, this could be done in this situation or this can be a solution if you face any such situation in real life.

For instance, in the above-mentioned story, a person got late for the meeting because of the flight delay. Maybe he lost the deal at the end of the story. You can provide a solution, maybe he would not have lost the deal if he would have informed his clients about his flight delay.

Everyone Likes A Pinch Of Humour:

Humour is the most important and effective ingredient to spice up a story. It makes the story more engaging. It keeps the audience stick to your story. It doesn’t put them in depression. If your story will be too serious, it will be annoying to read or watch after a while if there is no humour to it.

Example 1: When the captain announced the emergency landing due to technical issues all passengers were panicked.

By knowing this, the audience will be little empathetic towards you and might console you but there is no spice to it.

Example 2: When the captain announced the emergency landing due to technical issues all passengers were quite panicked. An old lady started hooting around the aisle, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die”.

The audience might find it funny and engaging because it is something unusual. They would definitely want to know, what happened next.

How brands are using storytelling in marketing:

Storytelling in marketing is often used as a way to drive emotional appeal. To connect the audience to the brand emotionally.

Recent Example of Storytelling in Marketing & Advertisements:

Recently, Fevicol completed its 60 Years of operations. To celebrate the occasion Fevicol has unveiled a new campaign that captures its bonding qualities.

The new ad film takes the audience on a journey of multiple generations through the perspective of a

sofa

The spot opens in the old era where we see a newly wedded couple heading home with a gifted sofa. As the story progresses, we see the sofa being handed over from one family to another, one generation to another.

The same is complimented through a peppy background score in UP & Bihari dialect. It showcases how the sofa has witnessed various events throughout its lifetime yet it’s going strong.

The closing visuals take us through the making of the sofa and how Fevicol is integral to making any furniture.

This 90 seconds ad has kept the audience glued to their screens. Indeed, Pidilite has always been very creative with their ads.

And this is how Fevicol celebrated its 60 years of operations

Conclusion:

Follow all the above-mentioned points to create an effective, impactful story. Include detailing, Create curiosity and suspense, keep a space for anticipation. Use metaphors to express or represent certain situations. Create moments in your stories, for the audience to relate.

Originally published at http://www.abaxsoft.com on September 2, 2019.