In my profession, there are two very effective sales techniques: personal experiences and the art of storytelling. These tactics have been established through many years of serving clients and living their life situations with them. We’ve seen the benefits that proper financial life planning has served in times of good and bad. These experiences have led to genuine stories that have become powerful conduits in sharing the benefits of planning with new clients and prospects.
Storytelling is more that just a tactic. It is something that every small business can use in their own marketing and branding. It drives customer engagement and loyalty. Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years. It’s the original way to transfer information.
The Rise of Social Media
In social media, successful small business marketing is about getting a targeted audience to connect with your brand. The best way to do that is with a story. We are drawn to stories because they elicit emotion. Emotion sells. Studies show positive emotions toward a brand will have greater influence on consumer loyalty, trust and other judgments based on attributes.
Making a true connection is the holy grail of successful marketing. But what’s the best way to do that? By incorporating storytelling is the quickest and best way to hit the important emotional hooks that make connections. In our marketing saturated world, it’s more crucial than ever for small businesses to rise above the noise. People are bored. And when they’re hit up with traditional marketing tactics, their eyes glaze over and just about roll back into their heads. Anything that isn’t even remotely interesting hit the delete button.
Storytelling and the Purchase Decision
Imagine you are faced with the decision of purchasing one of two products. They’re basically identical in price and features. Product A labels itself as the best product. Product B comes packed with a story about the founder, why the product was developed and how the company is trying to change the industry. Some consumers will go with Product A for its straightforward product description but the emotional resonance of Product B makes it a more compelling purchase.
Fortunately, with the explosion in popularity of online video over the past decade, making compelling stories around your small business brand is easier than ever. Video is unique in that it can key up emotional attachment much easier than most any form of content. It can be intimidating for a small business to plan a brand story that resonates and yet it looks so easy when it is done right. However, it’s not impossible.
Highlight the change
Stories are not static. They change, grow and adapt. Think back to childhood stories, great novels or your favorite movies. Each of them takes the audience from Point A to Point B, with plenty of great action and drama in between. Your brand is not necessarily a story on its own, but think of the ways your small business has changed over time. Consider some of the challenges it has faced, some of the opportunities it has risen to, and some of the people whose lives it has touched and how it touched their lives.
Create a character
It is extremely difficult to tell a story without a central character. Your audience needs something or someone it can relate to, and whose eyes the story can be told. Branded small business can choose to use a central character to tell a story or go a less obvious route like using its customers to tell the story. If the small business owner is the character, you will have to give it all of the aspects of that person for it to be relatable — beliefs, attitudes, desires and more.
Get the timing right
Stories unfold over time. No where is this more important than on social media. Social media is real time. Stories must be told strategically. Posts too close together will become a burden to your followers, if they are to far apart, they make the story difficult to follow and you risk losing the audience.
Use multimedia
While many great stories of the past have been told using text alone, why limit yourself? Leverage all of the multimedia that is available to you to tell your small business brand story from photos to videos to memes to graphics. Multimedia performs well on social media and it will help give your small business story more depth.
It will take time and refinement to write your story, however once you do you will have the base to grow from and engage your audience with. Great storytelling is an experience. Stories fascinate. Facts bore. Stories make us care, and when we care, we respond.
People want to engage with small businesses that they can embrace and appreciate. They are looking for an experience not just a busy opportunity. Where small businesses can take their own experiences and translate that to their customers’ experiences will achieve greater success. Using the art of storytelling to relate these bondable experiences takes time, but if employed, creates a base for future brand marketing that becomes easier to manage over that time. Embracing your small business experiences is one way of Keeping Life Current.
Steve is the SBCN Community Mentor and can be reached at steve@NorthernRiverFinancial.ca.
- Log in to post comments