Tell A Story And Grow Your Business

The 21st century has introduced us to many wonderful new things. We carry “phones” which are more powerful than most computers of the 20th century. Robots roam the surface of Mars with regularity. And social media has empowered a whole new wave of communication, including the way businesses and customers interact. The future of business will only continue to skew towards Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the rest. Customers not only want a great product they want to connect with a company. As modern as social media is, the best way to create a connection relies on storytelling, an ancient human ritual. Is your business telling a good story?

Brand awareness is made super-strong by using storytelling techniques in marketing. Mostly gone are the simpler days where a commercial rattled off its beneficial talking points. Today’s customers have been trained by Hollywood to seek more sophisticated ways of selling a product. All this means is following a few basic rules of storytelling to connect with customers from around the United States and the World.

Establish the World

You see this all the time in beauty ads. The world is filled with beautiful people because they use this product. Smart ads will convey this message without using a word. The imagery plays into basic human instincts. It’s techniques used in advertising now for decades, however, in the social media age, it’s more vital than ever.

Present a Challenge

The next step in storytelling is submitting a problem to overcome. Car ads do this today with “the obstacle course” which often shows the car speeding between clones or sometimes even blowing through walls. It’s a purely visual dilemma that conveys the message, “this car can handle anything.” To continue the example of beauty ads, it’s also a simple challenge “are you up to these standards?”

We’re Your Solution

The final step is showing the viewer what they need to overcome the challenge — your product or service. In beauty ads, the “plain” looking every-person wipes the makeup across their face and becomes a supermodel.

Show, Don’t Tell

If you noticed, there was emphasis put on showing and not telling. Bad marketing will dryly say things, often hoping the product speaks for itself. But the best modern advertising needs to be short-and-sweet. It needs to be memorable, and it’s easier for the human mind to remember a series of images than it is dialogue and exposition. This is not to say the written word is unnecessary. Visuals will make an ad memorable, but it can also still include more information deciphered by customers who connect with your ads and your business.

Purpose Driven Brands

One important part of creating brand awareness is being a brand that’s more than only making profit. Today’s customers want to support a business that supports things greater than itself. Whatever the purpose, a brand benefits from strengthening the connection between a visually captivating ad and a greater purpose.

Make It Viral

A business today needs social media to connect with new customers. Social media is also a tool that allows the smallest of companies to reach out to a global audience. But social media also created a virtual roadway of non-stop information. Creating brand awareness means standing out with a strong story, told in a visually clever way, that makes people want to share it with other people.

Using social media is still new to many businesses no matter how big or small. But understanding the basics of storytelling, particularly in visual ways, is vital for creating brand awareness. The 21st century has created a desire in customers for connectivity, and your business will grow if you tell a story that’s memorable.

Source: Pace Feed