What is Story Marketing and How You Can Master it

/in /by

Story marketing is a strategic marketing approach that creates a brand experience through audio, visual and immersive storytelling whereby the customer becomes the center of the story to drive profitable engagement.

Act I: Clarifying your brand story

The four primary story elements are a unique market position, emotional promise, authentic personality and compelling purpose. The six other strategic narrative elements of our proven Story Cycle system include audience, stakes, disruption, antagonists, journey, moral and ritual.

Act II: Story capturing

The second element of story marketing is what I call story spotting: finding stories in the wild that support your brand story through actual events, moments and aha experiences that are products of your customer engagement.

These stories, found both internal to your organization and external with your customers and vendors, are real-world examples of how you live into the promises your brand makes and keeps with your audiences.

It’s not as easy spotting stories as you might think. We were raised on rote learning and are so conditioned to features-and-benefits communications, that our default is facts, stats and jargon. In fact, most of us tell stories in a dissertation of “this happened and then this happened and then blah, blah, blah…”

This is NOT a story but a linear recounting of events.

A story, as outlined in Shawn Callahan’s book Putting Stories to Work, typically have a specific timestamp (when something happened), a location stamp (where it happened), a central character (protagonist), action (something specific that happened) leading to an aha moment (a lesson).

The last point is a biggie. Because yes, your business and brand stories should actually make a point. After all, when was the last time you were bored into buying anything?

Once you’ve clarified your brand story, and then captured stories in the wild to support your new business narrative, now its time to reveal them to your audiences.

 

You might also like
Distinguish between the three major components of an offering—product, price, and service
Analyze and discuss a set of results or findings that show how a particular activity contributes to the knowledge within an organization. Your analysis should also acknowledge any limitations or weaknesses in the current work or operation of the organization.
Why budget plays a significant ROLE (ELABORATE IN 9 POINTS ) in advertising? What are the CRITERIA FOR SELECTING THE BUDGET (ELABORATE IN DETAIL) to make advertising a success?
What impact can brand groups or communities and social networks potentially have on the brand of a company. Consider a company such as Fiat motor cars for your evaluation.
Does a company’s approach suggest an alternative view regarding the relevance and importance of an effective marketing strategy in the overall context of its business operations?
Explain and outline the different stages a country might undergo to develop a market. Why is it important for global marketers to understand the principles of economic growth and development?
“What marketers know about consumers is comparable to the tip of an iceberg.” Do you agree? Elucidate citing contemporary examples of product launches, success and failure.
Demonstrate what impact globalization has had. Discuss the cultural factors that have affected individual organizations in terms of the global economy, global markets, and the competitive environment. Say whether you think a particular organization of your choosing should employ a uniform globalized strategy for their business operations.