The Art of Storytelling in Marketing

Since the time when the earliest homo sapiens created paintings on cave walls using clay and berries, humans have been telling stories in one way or another. Stories have passed on information, family culture and education – generation after generation.  Fast forward millions of years and storytelling has morphed from something done with small children before bedtime to a clever marketing tool that has many benefits in today’s tech centered world.

Let’s think about the amount of information a typical consumer may process online each day.

• A typical consumer may process more than 100,000 words each day online.
• Google reports a massive 700,000 searches per minute.
• Internet users are exposed to over 5.3 trillion advertisements every year. (Source: Digital Marketing)

With this massive amount of information, images and ads that inundate users daily, it is understandable that many viewers skim over online data rather than read thoroughly.  So, how then, do marketers capture the attention of viewers?  Storytelling!

Storytelling is one such technique that can capture the attention of consumers, connects the viewer to the product or service, and helps the viewer identify the brand.  Storytelling can give a soul to your product, introduce the product in a new light, or even create an emotional connection that may be missing from regular digital advertising. While creating a story to tell about your brand will be unique to your company, TOMS Shoes is an excellent example of storytelling in marketing that illustrates how to use storytelling to connect with viewers.

TOMS Shoes promotes a story that is dedicated to something they call “One for One.”  What this marketing story tells is how a company that started in an apartment as a side business has grown into a multi-million dollar movement that gives away shoes, eyeglasses and clean water to needy areas.  Whenever customers buy a pair of TOMS shoes, eye-wear or coffee beans, they can feel like they’ve become part of something meaningful. The TOMS story has since become a worldwide phenomenon that has captured national attention and obviously consumer’s hearts.  This is how storytelling can be a game changer for marketing teams.  For further information on storytelling and how it may benefit your company see the following links-

Top Companies Using Storytelling

iScoop – Storytelling Benefits

Forbes – Secrets of Storytelling

Categorised in: Blog, Marketing