Leveraging Storytelling to Increase Your Conversions
Stories have always been a powerful tool for marketers to help entertain, inspire and educate people about a brand.
In fact, Arianna Huffington said, “People think in stories, not statistics, and marketers need to be master storytellers.”
This drives home the message that storytelling in marketing is an essential and modern technique employed by countless brands and businesses.
But storytelling is an art and does require some skill to be able to translate a story into improved brand engagement and improved business conversions.
In this article, we take a closer look at storytelling techniques and how they can be leveraged to help your business succeed.
What is Storytelling?
Storytelling is about communicating your message creatively using pictures, sounds, and words.
Its core element is emotion. By telling an inspiring story or sending people on a journey, it further helps captivate your target market by connecting with them on a deeper level. It helps educate them on the origins of your brand and can even shape how other people see your business.
Storytelling marketing may also further encourage users to make an actionable decision, such as clicking on the “Buy now” button.
A typical storytelling campaign that uses video, for example, acts very much like a mini-movie, sometimes with audience interaction.
A good example Take Land Rover’s 2015 Vanishing Game storytelling campaign. Its interactive digital book gained 230 million media impressions in the first week and 300,000 site visits in the first two months, with 13 minutes’ engagement per chapter.
It truly set the bar for aspiring storytellers and is worth a look for inspiration.
Storytelling Techniques – How It’s Done
If you’re ready to embark on your own storytelling campaign, here are some brief tips to storytelling techniques to help get your brand off the mark:
- Know your audience: Find out who’s visiting your site and build on that data to paint a picture of your target persona. You can start to sketch out the details of your story tailored to the audience you want to impress.
- Use Classic Storytelling Techniques: Employ some or all of the classic elements of storytelling, such as setting, characters, plot, conflict and resolution, and overarching theme.
- Bring Your Story to Life: With the use of photos and videos you give your storytelling a visual edge. Visual stories can really help you connect the dots and get people to absorb your great content and take action. You can also use influencers or regular customers for this, letting them tell the story of how your product was useful or even life-changing.
- Go Omnichannel: Aside from sharing your stories on the social channels, upload them to platforms like Vimeo to expand your audience.
- Measure your success: Monitor your stats to know how successful your campaign has been and identify any flaws.
What are the Benefits of Storytelling and How Can it Increase Conversions?
Storytelling is key to your success, because it is impactful, bringing a host of benefits that will help your brand stand out in the digital age.
Statistics tell us that storytelling makes your brand memorable, which is key to getting it to stand out from the crowd. American psychologist Jerome Bruner first cited the statistic that humans are 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it’s part of a story.
Social media posts with visual storytelling at their core will get shared more than any other type of post. Social media analytics company BuzzSumo looked at 777 million Facebook posts to discover which type was the most effective. Video won hands-down, getting 59 per cent more engagement than other types of posts.
Storytelling inspires loyalty as well by the simple fact that audiences come back to your brand to find out what happens next.
Nothing epitomises this better than the ‘What Makes Love True’ campaign by luxury jewellery brand Tiffany &Co. It created a special storytelling website where people could post images of their love story. Visitors could like and comment on the posted photos, compelling involvement in thousands of true love stories.
The campaign was viewed as authentic, inspiring and engaging. While the campaign site didn’t promote sales at all, within a month stock prices had risen by $10.
There’s Nothing like a Good Story
A good story will resonate with your audience, compel them to engage with your product, and prompt them to take action.
Storytelling acts as a self-generating advert for your company, particularly as shares from your followers are seen as authentic and real.
All these benefits add up to the ultimate aim of your marketing strategy: increased engagement, brand loyalty, and conversion rates resulting in the bigger sales that you’ve always dreamed of for your brand.
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