• By michelle
• In Business Success Tips, Content Marketing
• Posted Sep 03, 2015

Brand Storytelling Strategies Your Audience Will Love

Brand storytelling—the #1 rule is show, don’t tell. You may have heard more than one content marketing expert offer that advice.

But what the BLEEP are they talking about?

Here’s the lowdown: when you show instead of tell, you provide your audience an experience—you allow them to consume the content, reflect on it, think about it. Make a connection and think how it applies to their life.

It’s a positive experience that leads to more clients and higher sales.

Keep reading to use real, actionable brand storytelling strategies that diversify your content, intrigue your readers, and help you build more credibility and make more sales.

Think about this sentence: It was cold.

Not much going on there, right? That’s because the sentence tells; it doesn’t show much of anything. To get your point across in your marketing content, it’s important to paint a vivid picture with visceral details that show the reader the situation.

Your reader needs to “feel it” before he or she continues reading.

Here’s a better sentence with more concrete details: Icicles formed across laundry lines, and above the crowd of sidewalk walkers, a cloud of hot breath danced.

While that might be slightly too poetic and aery-faery for a small business blog, sales page, or email, it does SHOW the audience what’s happening. It’s cold, and the images described place the reader in a situation.

Using a brief (and relevant) story in sales pages, website content, and emails not only gives your audience new ideas and examples to think about, but the practice also reinforces your message.

The next time you create a sales page or marketing email, embed a mini story that ups the emotional ante and reinforces your sales message.

In the example below, you’ll see a brief story in action. Our professional copywriters were tasked with writing a story that explained why the product came into existence. The result is a vivid and sensory account that’s equal parts emotional and logical. 

There’s an old saying: the devil’s in the details.

This applies doubly for your marketing content. When you give tangible details, your audience attains a real-world sense of the results that await them. Make sure you use all 5 senses. (This is especially important in product copy.)

Make sure the audience can smell the candles in the room; that they feel the leather interior of the car; that they see the shine of the woman’s hair; that they hear the meditation track; that they taste the fruit salad.

While you create this sensory experience, it’s also important to add results-driven details. Here are a few examples for various industries:

• Successful business coaches provide dollar amounts they helped their clients earn.

• Logistics companies outline the hours saved on transit time and gas money their clients didn’t have to spend.

• Architects use before and after photos to highlight the added beauty and functionality.

The takeaway is this: the more specific results you highlight, the more your prospects visualize their future as a result of purchasing from you.

Another way to provide proof and SHOW your audience what you offer is to leverage social proof. This tried-and-tested method provides more credibility and futurecasts results for prospects.

Social proof in the form of written and video testimonials, Twitter shout-outs, and short blurbs allow you to prove the wow factor of what you offer.

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