The Art of Storytelling in Marketing—And How to Do It Right

For better or worse, "storytelling" has become a major buzzword in marketing over the past decade or so. While it's been one of—if not THE—most powerful and influential methods of communication in human history, it's only more recently been a focus of business and marketing strategy. Some companies and brands have done an incredible job of leveraging the power of storytelling in branding and marketing to achieve a number of goals...and some have completely missed the mark.

3 misconceptions about storytelling in branding and marketing

1. Storytelling is a strategy

WRONG. It's a tactic. It's one element of a bigger strategy used to accomplish a goal, and every single goal you try to achieve require a different application of any tactic.

2. Storytelling is a trend

WRONG. Storytelling has been one of the most powerful and influential form of communication in human history. It's the best way to draw out emotions, influence decisions, and inspire actions.

3. Storytelling is easy

WRONG. Talking is easy, communicating is much harder. Storytelling is an art and a science, and it requires an element of mastery to be applied effectively. It's not as simple as going from Point A to Point B, and it's much riskier than other tactics you might be used to using.

There's a common element in great storytelling called the hero's journey. (The concept of the hero's journey is based on Joseph Campbell's The Hero With 1,000 Faces.) In marketing the "hero" changes based on the end goal of your efforts. Early on you may put the spotlight on your own business to help establish the foundation for the brand and then down the road your goal will be to make the customer the hero of your story.

How to do storytelling in marketing the right way

The modern brand needs to be much more than visual consistency, it needs to be "human." The hardest part about this for new businesses is getting your audience and potential customers to understand what and, more importantly, who you are. Storytelling can be a way to help your customers connect to the human side of the brand early on. Keep in mind this isn't where you should be talking about your customers or your product but the brand, the story behind it, the people behind it, and what it stands for.

Making your brand the hero of the story doesn't mean that you're self-centered, it just means that right now you're goal is to connect. Here are a few different ways to tell your own story.

The people behind the brand

To take the human element to the extreme, you can talk about the focus of your brand and the people who keep it on track. Panera does a great job of this with their "Ode to Bakers" series. Panera's focus is bread but in this case they highlight the people who make it happen. They show their hard work and passion for what they do. This makes the viewer and the customer feel a lot better and think a lot harder about their daily bagel.

The purpose behind the brand

Building loyalty around a mission or cause offers a high reward along with a high risk. Doing it wrong can essentially turn half of your customers against you while doing it right can exponentially raise awareness and increase your customer base. Chipotle did a great job of this a number of years ago with their "Back to the Start" video. The company addressed the move of traditional farming into industrial methods and took a pledge to work with smaller farm operations.

The product itself

Some products are fun to talk about and some are not. All products can find context inside of a story; this creates relevancy for the product in the eyes of the new viewers and current customers. Even if your story doesn't make the product extremely relevant, it can create and drive interest and attachment to it. Blendtec does an incredible job of making a seemingly boring product incredibly interesting.

You can also highlight a feature of a product in a story without ever saying a word. You may think that because there's no narration or direction it doesn't count as a story, you'd be wrong.

Be warned: Having an interesting product doesn't make the storytelling any easier. You still need to create something your audience can experience and connect with. I highly recommend checking out a book called Winning the Story Wars by Jonah Sachs, as he does an incredible job of walking through the elements of a great story and applying them to modern marketing.

Disclaimer: In no way does reading this post or any other post on storytelling make you an expert on the subject. It's a skill that requires practice and application. I highly recommend adding that skill to your arsenal of marketing capabilities.

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