Today’s consumers want more than just information. Yes, they want to know the specifications of a product or service, but this isn’t what actually makes them buy.
In fact, if you are just using your content to spout facts, you are missing out on important opportunities to keep your customers engaged over the long-term.
Here is why storytelling is essential for improving content engagement.
Increases People’s Interest Level
The first thing that stories do is increase people’s interest levels in your content. When a piece of content is well-written and genuinely interesting, they are more likely to pay attention to it.
In addition, people generally are more open to reading stories father than boring statistics and facts. In fact, a study done by The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice showed that the structure of a post defines its success with readers. In fact, it turned out that people prefer content that is structured as a story the most.
Builds Trust
The findings from this study also demonstrates that storytelling builds trust. While statistics and facts may actually show why your product or service will be beneficial to a customer, they’ll trust you more if they feel that you truly understand their position as a customer.
In order to jump into that role, you can use storytelling as a means to connect with the customer to show them that you really understand what it is like for him or her as a potential buyer.
Builds a Following
Most customers don’t want to shop at companies that they only like. They want to share their shopping experiences with friends, family, and colleagues. By using your content to tell stories, you give your followers something that they can share with the people who they know.
For them, this allows them to build social capital with the people who they know that shop with your brand and for your company, it helps you to build a loyal following.
A Unique Twist
Every company is different. While you might sell the same or similar products as your competitors, there are bound to be distinct differences when it comes to the customers’ experiences with doing business with your company.
As a result, you can use storytelling to set your business apart from the competition. Potential customers who are already interested in doing business with your company want to know exactly why your business is different than all of the other companies that are available out there.
They’ll be happy to engage with your brand when they see that you are making an effort to differentiate your business from the competition through storytelling.
In fact, when storytelling in business is implemented correctly, it can help grow your business or develop a new product or service, as it provides the context so that your customers and stakeholders understand why your service or product is worth buying or investing in.
Helps People Process Complex Information
If you sell a product or service that needs ample explanation before customers will understand what you sell and why they should buy it, using storytelling can help draw them in.
If you use storytelling, they are more than likely to stick with you over the long term as you use many pieces of content to go through all of the details that they need to know.
By making the journey fun and interesting through storytelling, you’ll be less likely to lose people along the way due to information overload.
Know the Elements of Good Storytelling
Storytelling isn’t about making things up. In fact, every story must contain these following elements in order to be effective:
- Timing
- Relevancy
- Angle
- Conflict
- Empathy
When you utilize these features effectively with every story that you tell, you’ll have all of the elements needed for content marketing success.
Brian Hong
http://www.infintechdesigns.com
Infintech Designs is a New Orleans based SEO & Web Design company. They provide data driven, measurable internet marketing campaigns with trackable results. Brian Hong and his small team of SEO ninjas are dedicated to increasing their client’s search engine visibility, leads, and sales online.