by Society today is uber-quick, digitally-driven, and overly-automated. There is a new premium in the market – humanity. The internet is quick to reward us with convenience and instant gratification and is making the human touch a scarce and coveted resource.
In order to survive and be remembered in such an environment, brands cannot afford to be faceless. The need of the hour is to connect with audiences and tug at their heartstrings while engaging them at levels deeper than ever seen before. And this is where brand storytelling is key.
What is Brand Storytelling?
Simply put, it is a cohesive narrative weaving together the facts and emotions evoked by a brand. Along with providing customers with reasons to buy a product or service, businesses need to start talking about the larger story behind their brand – Why does it exist? Why does it matter? – unfailingly across their communication channels.
Gone are the days when brand storytelling was perceived as a luxury reserved for the more established players in the market. It is now a need and is widely treated as the ultimate maximizing tool for your business’s visibility, profitability and impact. Working towards it as a beacon will result in the building of a brand that is captivating, yet profitable.
Here’s why brand storytelling is the future of marketing and why you should start thinking about what your brand’s next compelling narrative will be.
Most Brands have Customers. Only a Few Have Tribes.
Think about what your audiences truly need from your brand, apart from a product or service. For a brand to take off, it needs to become far more than a set of products or services. Cue, brand storytelling. Identify the emotions, values and ideas that you can offer your audience; something for them to walk away with, every time they interact with your brand. What do you want your brand to mean to them?
Start conversations, ask for engagement (with nothing in return) and involve your audience in what it is that you do. By turning your brand into a consumable experience, you convert paying customers into loyal tribespeople that will support your success, follow you and keep coming back for more. Once your audience trusts and likes you, the likelihood of buying from you increases manifold and at the very least, you will walk away with meaningful relationships.
Clutter-Breaking is the New Normal
We’ve heard this term before, way more times than we’d have liked to. But the proof is in the pudding. The marketplace is crowded to a point that some might even call saturated. With millions of content pieces being created and shared each day, it’s becoming increasingly harder to hold the audience attention for longer than a few seconds. Precious seconds that businesses worldwide are spending billions of dollars for, in competition with others who are saying similar things. It is now harder than ever for quality brands to stand out.
Virtually nobody has the time or interest to go through facts, statistics and testimonials anymore. The focus on content creation should revolve around thoughtful, memorable and real stories that transport people, simplify information and provoke an emotional response. Use the power of narrative to talk about your brand’s unique history of challenges, successes, and value propositions. Storytelling has been proven to not only increase brand favourability but also be 22X more memorable than facts.
Your audience may forget what you said but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. This is an important takeaway as emotions drive purchase far more than logic does. Consider the emotion that you want to evoke in your audience every time they interact with your brand and customize your communication accordingly.
Profitability and the Human Element
Brand stories have the potential to create a major impact. More than just connecting you with your ideal audience, they can get you noticed amidst all the marketing noise and help you drive profits.
Consumers are increasingly demanding proof of impactful efforts by companies i.e. in support of causes and achieving results beyond just profits. It’s ironic that consumers want to know that a company cares about something other than its own profit as an incentive to buy more. It’s probably no coincidence that the top 10 most empathetic companies in the Global Empathy Index are amongst the most profitable and fastest-growing in the world.
So, how does one make their brand more human? The answer again is storytelling. Remember to weave the bigger story into your marketing strategies – What makes you more human? How do you touch and transform people’s lives? How do you positively impact society?
People’s perception of your brand will influence their decision to buy from you instead of buying from a competitor with a similar product or service. In a bustling marketplace where the primary focus is on getting things done faster and more efficiently, it pays to be a brand that dares to be human.
About Clevertize
Clevertize is one of the Top Integrated Marketing Communication Agencies in India. It has worked with many national & international clients like eBay, Nando’s, David Lloyd UK, METRO Cash & Carry, Sobha Ltd., TATA Motors, Barbeque Nation to name a few.
Clevertize is an Award Winning Agency, known to marry marketing with technology.
Some of the services that Clevertize provides are:
Creative Services, Performance & Digital Media Marketing, Visual Identity & Branding, Campaign Management & Analysis, UI/UX & Website design, Video creation, Media planning & buying, Chatbot & more.
If Return on Investment is critical for you, talk to Clevertize!
