Learn why storytelling is the most powerful marketing tool in 2015.
Presentation by VI Marketing and Branding's Director of Marketing Strategy Shannon Porter
10. How do we incorporate storytelling
into our marketing?
11. What exactly is content marketing?
Content marketing is a marketing technique of
creating and distributing relevant and valuable
content to attract, acquire, and engage a
clearly defined and understood target audience
— with the objective of driving profitable
customer action.
Why Storytelling Is The Most Powerful Marketing Tool Today
Today we’re going to talk about how storytelling has become one of marketing’s most powerful tools. But first, a little background on storytelling… Since the dawn of humanity, people have used stories to communicate, build relationships, teach lessons, make a point and persuade.
Even BEFORE the written word, people were telling stories through drawings.
Don’t believe how powerful stories can be? Just by looking at this picture you can probably remember which Aesops fable this was and what it was trying to teach you. Influencing a person’s behavior is easier when you say “let me tell you a story” instead of “let me tell you what you need to do.” Marketers are now understanding that correlation.
Remember when advertising was all about a product or service’s unique selling point and their features and benefits? Brands told us what they wanted us to hear. Brands weren’t interested in building a relationship or connection with their customers. Marketing was a one way street.
Then on New Year’s Eve in 1983, Apple Computers and Steve Jobs (the ultimate storyteller) aired “1984” and changed the face of advertising forever with one of the first TV commercials to use a story versus just showing the product and talking about the features and benefits. (Play video)
Then, 20 years later, social media changed the way that we think, work and want to receive information from the brands we use. Unfortunately, marketers have been slow to react to this change and it has created a divide in the way people WANT to receive information and the way marketers are GIVING them information.
So what DO customers want? They want connection. With each other and with the brands they use. They want to be engaged.
How do we build that connection? Through storytelling. To tell stories is to be human.
Research tells us our brains crave storytelling. According to a 2012 Nielsen Study, our brains are far more engaged by storytelling than by cold, hard facts.
When reading straight data, only the language parts of our brains work to decode the meaning. But when we read a story, not only do the language parts of our brains light up, but all the other parts become engaged as if we were actually EXPERIENCING what we’re reading about.
The consumer is now in control. Marketing is a two-way conversation where consumers want to be engaged. They want brands that are less like marketing machines and more like 'friends’ who tell stories and share experiences. So how do we incorporate storytelling into our marketing? Through content.
Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience — with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
Content marketing uses a variety of different tactics. This chart illustrates B2B content tactics and how much they are used.
But wait! Now we have a new “best new thing!” Over the past year, the buzz has become about storymaking, where the brand makes their audience the storytellers. Storymaking is today’s answer to word of mouth advertising. Word-of-mouth has long been considered the Holy Grail of marketing. WOM took center stage in 2013 when Nielsen reported that 84% of consumers say they trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family above all other sources of advertising, Branded websites, the second most trusted source, trailed WOM by 15 percentage points.
Now I’d like to show a video from NewsCred at the “Think Content” 2015 Content Marketing Summit.
After the video I’d like to get your thoughts and opinions on content marketing. (PLAY VIDEO)