Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

As content takes its rightful place at the forefront of marketing, I'm seeing many marketers fail at basic storytelling.

Marketers are ineffective when they use the classic "customer testimonial" format and pop that onto their blog or make it into a video. "Here’s our product. It is great. Here are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product." This just doesn't hold people's attention.

How interesting would a book or movie be were it to have this plot?:
Boy meets girl.
They fall in love.
They get married.

That's what most people do with their business writing.

Effective storytelling

The best stories drip with conflict. They have a hero and sometimes a villain. There is a story arc. As a writing teacher once told me: "Writing without conflict is propaganda."

Winning entrepreneurs bond emotionally with employees, investors and customers--and dramatically increase their chances for funding and for long term success--when they hone their ability to tell meaningful stories about their businesses.

Here is an article discussing 2 examples of effective business storytelling for marketing/branding/identity purposes that really work. One is a small business (Baby Steals) and the other one is a large enterpriese (IKEA). You will notice the difference in their stories as the size of the business kicks in.

Pay close attention to what the founder of Baby Steals did/does -- because implicit in the example shared are story listening skills and how the stories she was hearing from customers/prospects also shaped the success of her company.

And then there are 10 tips for bringing storytelling into your business marketing/branding efforts. All are solid. A word of advice here -- working on several of these 10 tips takes time. The ideas you come up with during your first pass you will want to test with friends, colleagues, customers, and prospects. This is an iterative process where your focus and messaging gets sharper, clearer, and more powerful over time. So give yourself the opportunity to play. This goes no matter what size of business you have -- micro to large enteprise.

We are heading into the 4th quarter of the year -- what a great time to hone in on your business storytelling, laying a stronger foundation for your company in 2013.

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her collection of articles on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it ;