Everyone loves a good story. How many times have you heard (and repeated) the one about Sarah Blakley, the billionaire entrepreneur? She’s the one who cut the feet off of her pantyhose so she’d look better in her white pants. Her inventiveness led to the creation of Spanx.
Learning about a business through a story is so much better than, “Let me tell you about us, blah, blah, and what we do, more blah blah blah. Stories literally affect our brains in a different way. They engage us in a way that listing benefits and features, or talking statistics can’t do.
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Identifying with the circumstance or challenge in a story makes people more susceptible to learning more and taking action.
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Being inspired by authentic, real-life stories builds trust in a product or service.
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Feeling emotion (joy, fear, empathy) through stories establishes or reinforces what someone believes about a brand.
Remember the “narrative arc”
Social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram Stories, or even the humble blog offer endless ways to “show” what you do rather than just talk about it. But regardless of the tool you use, remember, a good story follows a narrative arc: the beginning sets up the situation, followed by some kind of challenge or conflict, and finally, a resolution.
Your company “story” should follow the same format. For example, Monday.com features a story about Rendered, a water-based screen printing company in Oregon. At first, the owner can manage his small company, but as the business grows, he becomes overwhelmed by emails and handwritten notes. Before long, he finds that he’s missing stuff. Then one day he discovers Monday.com (which our group uses too). Now lives happily ever after, managing his projects and planning for the future.
So, what is your company's story?
Use stories to demonstrate your values
Your company can also effectively use stories to convey culture and values. There’s nothing more boring than hearing about how much a company cares about its employees, or believes in giving back. But show us the culture through a humorous story, or demonstrate how you give back by featuring the kids that you are helping – now you’ve got my attention.
Grab ‘em with emotion
It’s a competitive world out there. Ask yourself, what emotion do we want to pull out of our audience? Then grab your reader with creativity, boldness, and a message that makes them “feel”. Make it SO good that they send it to all their CEO friends and contacts.
Our pick of the week? This wonderful HP ad: The Wolf. Talk about the fear factor. Now, who could resist buying HP over the competitors after this story?
Finding compelling stories in a B2B environment can be a challenge, let us help you face that challenge. Maguire Marketing Group is a full-service marketing agency with a team focused on finding, developing and executing stories.
