Digital Marketing is Storytelling 101 and about Empowering your Customer
In digital marketing, no one’s selling a product or a service – they’re selling a story. Analyzing the most successful marketing campaigns in the last five years, a commonality shared between all them is a focus on storytelling. It can be a hard skill to learn but if you’re able to tell a story that’s relevant to your audience and seamlessly blend in reference to a product or service inside, the advantage this gives you is tremendous over the competition.
Fifty years ago, marketing and advertising was all about peddling your products or services to consumers. Door-to-door sales was common, speaking direct to the population. Advertisements focused on specific menu items, prices, services, and more. What was being sold decades ago was a lot clearer to the consumer and the general public. These days, marketing’s grown more complex. You’re selling indirectly a lifestyle and a better version of the customer. This strategy’s been used successfully by health, wellness, and fitness companies for years, and now everyone from McDonald’s to The New York Times takes this approach.
You don’t want to make the customer feel negative about themselves. You want them to feel there’s a better version of themselves waiting on the other side after they’ve purchased from you. For example, maybe your product or service can help resolve a problem they’re struggling with. Perhaps by having a product, it’s going to make them popular in some way or help identify themselves to a certain aesthetic. Alternatively, there may be a mystery or level of exclusivity to explore with your brand – such as using your brand as a status symbol. Gucci’s built a premium fashion brand off perceptions of exclusivity.
People universally love stories because there’s no direct selling involved. Don’t under-estimate audience intellect. They know when they’re being sold to and they recognize marketing when they see it. When you can sell them a story, however, you give your marketing meaning. You establish a human connection with someone when you show them parents, grandparents, athletic performance, professionals in action, people being helped, people overcoming adversity, and more.
In digital marketing storytelling, you’re giving the audience something to identify with. When it’s something that makes a customer feel good about themselves, that’s even better as they’ll associate those positive feelings with your brand and it’ll deepen their emotional connection to you. This is why social media accounts like Humans of New York are so successful. There’s a real human connection there and it makes a consumer feel good about themselves. This is also the identical strategy taken to get hashtags trending on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
People don’t want to buy products or services, they want to buy an easier, more attractive, and better version of them and their lives. Remembering this, you can develop blog posts, a website, and social media marketing campaigns based around contributing value rather than simply selling. The most powerful brands in 2019 are relying on storytelling principles 101 instead of algorithms, big budgets, and growth hacking. Find your audience by identifying the best way to tell the stories you want to tell.
To speak with a digital marketing expert to get your brand on the right track towards maximum success, contact Unlimited Exposure today. We brand through meaningful, human stories that stand for something and which can initiate a conversation around your brand. Reach out to Unlimited Exposure for more information.
