Why All Marketing Needs a Story at Its Center

Marketing is an integral part of any business and has been since the beginning of the 20th century. Business2Community notes how advertising has changed and evolved over the years. Starting from word of mouth, advertising strategies started to involve media ever since printing became more widespread. Today in the 21st century, social media has become the main avenue for marketing.

Because of the oversaturation of advertisements present today, many campaigns have started to lose the personal touch that initially appealed to customers. To counter this, marketing should have a story at its center. This can bring many benefits and help companies better connect to their audience. Here are some of the ways integrating a story in your marketing can help your campaign:

It cultivates brand love and loyalty

As mentioned earlier, the competition among businesses is tight as more and more organizations are marketing to the same target audience. Incorporating a story in your advertisements will help re-engage your community. This goes for every aspect of your campaign, whether in video or print media. Our past article on ‘Email Marketing Tips’ highlights how piquing the interest of your subscribers is important. This will get them to start paying attention to your business again and encourage them to engage with your posts. This also builds a more personal relationship between your brand and the market. Incorporating a narrative aspect that is interesting to them will entice them to continue reading the updates your company sends.

It gets your message across effectively

More often than not, marketing campaigns aim to send a message to clients. This can range from iterating how effective your product is or how good your services are. However, simply listing down facts and benefits may not be enough to make an impact. By adding a story, you will be able to do this successfully. In the book Building a StoryBrand, author Donald Miller expounds on the fact that narratives are a compelling way to get your message across. It is a human instinct to be more engaged with stories because of our natural artistic side and love of entertainment. Incorporating storytelling into your advertisements will make them all the more compelling and attract more people to your business and brand. 

It highlights authenticity

People want to know that the company they are supporting and the products they buy are the real deal. People put a lot of importance on authenticity and putting a story at the center of your marketing strategy can cater to this. As James H Gilmore and B Joseph Pine explain in Authenticity, companies should stay “true to themselves” as a way to better appeal to their audience. Narratives are a way to incorporate genuineness to advertisements– especially those that highlight the client experiences as use cases. Real stories add to a brand’s overall authenticity, proving to their audience that they are worth supporting and doing business with. 

It helps you stand out from the competition

Standing out from the competition is important now more than ever because of the saturated business landscape. As discussed above, as advertisements try to appeal to a wider audience, they lose the essential personal touch that brings in new customers and appeals to the emotional side of marketing. By having a story at the center of all your campaigns, you will be able to humanize your ads once more and better appeal to the psychology of your customers. This will make you stand out from your competitors since you are not only advertising your products and services but also your brand, ideas, and beliefs as a company. A strategic story would differentiate your brand and marketing campaigns from the thousands of generic ones being released almost on a daily basis. 

Final Thoughts

Storytelling truly is a powerful tool when it comes to marketing. It can turn average campaigns into a success when used correctly. When adding narratives to your advertising strategies, try to make something memorable and out of the box to truly set yourself apart from the rest.