A majority of marketers are guilty of creating content for the sole purpose of promotion. Using purposeful content to showcase your personality and connect with your audience on a deeper level can be extremely effective. Consider adding one of these five storytelling ideas to one of your upcoming content marketing campaigns.
“Story is the greatest weapon we have to combat noise, because it organizes information in such a way that people are compelled to listen.”
– “Building A Story Brand” by Donald Miller
Your Brand Story
Likely you have told your partners and prospective clients what you do and where you work countless times. But have you described your brand through a storytelling point of view? Build a story around your brand that resonates with your audience. Similar to a movie, map out the narrative, characters, and any challenges along the way.
What is your brand all about? What makes you different from your competitors? Tell the story of how your business began to where it is now.
Go into detail or keep it simple.
We created this piece to capture both the story and impact EVERFI has made over its first 10 years in business.
Behind the Scenes
Who doesn’t want to see what goes on behind the scenes? There is a reason at the end of a movie, there are clips of bloopers and behind the scenes antics. When giving your audience a look at what goes on in the background, it makes your company more human, more personable, and hopefully your customer likes you more for allowing them to go inside the ropes.
Make it funny, entertaining, or knowledgeable.
The employees at Olde Mecklenburg Brewery explain just how their beer is brewed, why they chose Charlotte as their home base, and much more during this laid back conversation.
Focus on The Customer
Focusing on your customer 9 times out of 10 will be in your favor. Your audience wants to know what you can do for them, success stories, and feel good content. This is a classic problem and solution approach. Your customer has a problem and you are the hero with the solution.
Build a story that focuses on how your customer can benefit from working with your company.
In this video example, WeWork does a fantastic job of showing what they can do for their customer. They present their value. In the end, the service they provide at WeWork makes their customers lives much easier. Don’t you see how a video like this could be beneficial for your company?
Your Vision for the Future
Expressing your vision through video gives your audience a way to understand, visualize, and map out the future of what your company is looking to achieve. Whether it’s a new product, service, or location. Video is the best way to tell the story of your future.
A perfect way to do this is to build momentum leading up to the launch. Map out the next steps, goals, and vision. Turn this into a video, infographic, or another visual to excite your customer about the future of what your company is doing.
Junior Achievement came to us to produce a video to support “Build on Opportunity.” This featured some of Charlotte’s heavy hitters in the business world and allowed them to share their thoughts on the impact that Junior Achievement will make in their a new facility.
A Company Culture Piece
Tell the story about the people behind the company.
Giving a little insight into everyday life can make your company more relatable to potential employees and prospective clients. Take your audience on an office tour. Showcase a day in the life of a select few employees. There are many ways you can show who you are as a company from an employee perspective.
An example of this is with our partner, EVERFI. We traveled to their Georgetown headquarters as well as miscellaneous locations across the country to craft a story about the people behind the company.
This video is used to provide background information to potential partners and employees.
