How to use brand storytelling for marketing success
The key success mantra that makes a brand popular is its engaging brand story. This marketing technique does not revolve around just advertisements or articles. It is the marketing strategy that uses a compelling story telling technique called the brand story telling. It should be more an innovative form of narrative story telling which establishes an emotional connect between its consumers and product. People will believe and easily relate themselves to this kind of a story and be attracted to the brand. It will influence thoughts and purchase decisions eventually. Your story should be a jolly enjoyable ride the consumers and listeners are hooked to. Your brand story should be consistent, honest, transparent and engaging that the consumer patronises your brand without looking at other competitor options.
The story should have a start, middle and end such that the characters are presented in the beginning, the main problem stated in middle and problem solved in the end. This story telling marketing technique avoids confusion about the brand. It can be camouflaged with a fourth element of call-to action for business benefits. A truthful idea should be woven around a story for marketing your product. This will lay the foundation of future growth and a long lasting relationship between you and the consumer.
The purpose of using storytelling in brand marketing efforts should be that you give an opportunity for your existing and potential customers to enjoy a variety of your brand stories. Industry has travelled far from going by usual story telling means. At least 20,000 brands are featured daily across the globe and a vast majority compete to make brand stories ready to publish them online. Publish stories on company websites, blogs, have industry experts talk about your product brand actively, include them in email campaigns are some ways of brand content marketing. Who carries your story or in short where the story is published, where it is viewed or shared goes a long way in spreading its reach.
Story telling mode should be continuous. What better medium to use than video to have enticing conversations with customers in your brand story. Sustain the suspense and have your potential customers come back for more. Release a teaser on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or Pinterest so that the customer will login back to check for updates, follow up or even purchase. It is as if they will return wanting more. If they like it they will even share it. Try mobile marketing through apps. Videos as brand story telling medium still reigns as a topmost brand marketing technique though its production costs still is an uncertain area to manage for many companies. Upload brand story videos on YouTube, Vimeo, Daily Motion, Twitch, Metacafe and the likes. It is the magnet which attracts customers to your website. These are some of the ways a video can be used for brand marketing success.
A successful brand will have a personality to speak for it in its story. Use of fictional or real characters weaved into the story of your brand in creative blogs or animated videos help in this direction. It need not be carried around as a mascot, but can be utilized effectively to explain or win over other competitive products’ marketing. The brand personality either animated character or a real life persona should be the good guy who represents your brand and attracts the attention of your potential customer by their human touch. It fosters the emotional needs of the target customer audience. Any day visuals gain people’s attention than plain text or audio. The video story should generate an emotional experience for the viewer that it produces a trust in your brand.
Share life journeys through your characters. People like to see experiences enacted and are able to relate themselves faster. For example brands of food products like a soup, a fresh juice, ready to eat meal, baby foods etc, can market products using the family recipe or experience in their respective storylines when they are shared by their own promoters, employees or general public consumers. This method of using authentic story telling with people and their emotions is a resourceful marketing technique. Customer success stories, testimonials etc, can also be utilised similarly. Adnam, a pub owner and brewer takes viewers through a narrative by telling a story of its green initiatives like turning brewery gas into biogas. It helped give the company a mass appeal with its narratives and local tours and interviews showcased. This is a classical example of public relations, PR linked to storytelling in brand marketing.
If your brand and company has a philosophy or a mission, let it be conveyed through your story. It will help the customer identify themselves with a brand they are happy to purchase. TOMS Shoes is a brand which realised this by having a story of a program where they donated a pair of shoes to a needy child for every purchase made by its customer. Later this year they marketed a story which had a segment of tagging bare feet on Instagram which resulted in every tag means a new donation by the company. The philosophy was simple, give as much as is earned. Here, people were willing to buy for a good cause. It presents a genuine compelling story that conveys advocacy than mere narration.
Many manufacturing specifically automobile companies go about releasing the ‘making the product’ series of certain brands. The idea behind it is to be transparent, giving a clear picture of challenging parameters, dedicated people and passion involved in realising the brand straight through idea to product. It creates a strong impact on the minds of the prospective customer audience. They are inspirational and excite the customer who follows such stories which convey a feel of devotion and commitment as it is not merely transmitting general messages. Potential customers will not have second thoughts while making a choice or short listing your brand among their favourites which implicitly addresses their needs as well. It is a progressive marketing strategy that helps retain or enhance customer base and increase revenue.
The business has its own advantage of adopting videos for brand marketing. Animated video stories as part of marketing can give your product a good market position. It increases conversion by 20%. The strength of animated video lies in the fact that it helps a human brain retain 90% of information received. Among the 5 billion online viewers least 70% of general viewer population share what they watch. Videos when shared exponentially increase the exposure the brand receives. However, on an average person watch only one third of a video. Hence it is important to tie your story to a simple yet catchy script.
The audio effect or a background music that fits the mood of the story, pleasant visual or cool graphics makes it attractive and are good ingredients of the video to capture viewer attention. These are the supporting pillars of any captivating video that touches people’s hearts. However, it is also important to craft the video such that it is good enough to capture attention even if on silent mode. An inviting thumbnail should prompt the viewer or customer to auto play. Animated video gives color to your story and lets you appeal through action. It is an active translation of the benefit the product or service it brings to a consumer. They show the result for themselves through an apt story and a faster positive response decision can be expected. Videos add power to brand searches and helps search engine optimization very well.
Many factors have to be kept in mind while crafting a video script as the brand story expectation of the viewer consumer is also rapidly changing. For future use video analytics have to deduce information, not just as to how many people watched it. It has to collect information on what they did through watching or after watching it. Did they share, download or engage with you as in posting comments? This is a good measure of how you should craft your next video story and what kind of audience may be targeted and where. The final outcome should be that you expand your brand reach and add to more conversions your way. Remember to keep the video always mobile friendly.
Keeping in mind- the success factors a brand video, be it animated or otherwise can bring, its budget has to be planned. It is not always easy to get professional help at low cost. Some of the ways the production cost can be controlled yet outcomes achieved, are by understanding and using iPhone cameras, easy to use animation software, go on a DIY route to click, and offer freebies to a pro team so that they come up with quality for less. Determining the right partner to capture your brand story is important as it takes you to unexplored avenues of potential customer base that they may be aware of or can access. Make sure your brand story speaks volumes about your product. In a video brand story, let the characters take center stage they publicize your product subtly throughout. Using intellect and emotion in the right proportion brand story creation to promote your brand and help sell your product well is the today’s need.
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