In a crowded landscape with thousands of brands vying for attention, resorting to the same marketing tactics won’t cut through all the noise. So, I ask my clients, “What’s your story?” or “What story do you want to tell?” so we can find the unique story you want to tell, because storytelling makes all the difference.
The world of marketing has changed; we are connected to more devices simultaneously than ever before, hugely impacting our attention spans. The National Centre for Biotechnology Information conducted a study back in 2002 highlighting the effects of an increasingly digitalised lifestyle on the brain. Researchers found that people lost concentration after 12 seconds. Ten years later, Microsoft Corp¹ did some similar research and found the average attention span had dropped to a mere eight seconds – that’s less than the average goldfish!
When you have less than eight seconds to capture the attention of your audience in an engaging and emotional way, your brand story is key to your success. Brand storytelling is more than what you sell, or how you do it, it’s what people believe about you based on the messages your brand sends. Keep it simple and let your real self-shine through, with all the related facts and feelings.
By telling a story, you plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into your audience’s minds. Consumers can instinctually sniff out inconsistencies, or an inauthentic story that has been slapped together. Great stories incite trust and can create incredibly powerful impressions.
Storytelling is a great way to make an emotional connection with your audience, which is crucial to establish a long-term relationship. Your story is essential to develop goodwill for your brand and create organisational resilience, no matter what business you’re in. Stories don’t have to be particularly long. Your story needs to tell people that you are genuine and trustworthy, how you are unique and what doing business with you will be like. This is the difference between talking about tactical information versus building a genuine business relationship that will last a lifetime.
Telling your story across all of your company’s marketing communications is an excellent way to help you stand out from the crowd, especially in a hyper-competitive marketplace. Remember, tell your story well, so your customers can tell it too!