There’s a powerful marketing tool that many businesses aren’t using. It’s not something physical like inventory, or staff, or a brick-and-mortar location. It’s not digital, either.

Yet it’s essential to marketing your business.

Successful marketing isn’t built simply on facts and figures; it’s built on effective stories. People love to read and hear stories. It creates a human connection to your business or brand. People also remember stories far more than facts alone. Stories also boost customer retention.

What Is Storytelling?

You don’t need to start each ad with “Once upon a time,” of course. Let’s define a story: “It’s an account of imaginary or real people or events told to entertain.” In marketing terms, your story is your message, and storytelling is simply the art of sharing a message in the form of a story.

You tell a story to connect with others — in this case, your target audience. Your story should have a protagonist, a theme, conflict and resolution. Getting back to fairy tales, they have all these elements and also seek to teach the reader a lesson.

What Does Your Story Need?

An effective story should be:

• Easily understood
• Believable
• Useful
• Inspiring
• Inclusive

And, most importantly, it should bring about an emotional response. That emotional connection is what will draw in your customer and help you retain them. Stories make people feel good. There’s science to back this up. Storytelling is known to increase Oxytocin, a hormone that promotes the feeling of love, bonding, and well-being in your body.

Why Is Storytelling So Important for Marketing?

Marketers want to create a bond with their customers, so what better way than a method that helps reinforce that bond? And studies have shown that the vast majority of consumers want brands to make ads that feel more like a story.

Storytelling helps build a deeper and stronger connection with the audience, and it adds a human element to your content and, thus, your brand.

But it goes beyond advertising. Storytelling helps people engage with your business, which is especially important on social media. It also helps you stand out from your competitors.

What Story Are You Telling?

When thinking about a new campaign or selling a new product, the key question to ask is: What is the story you’re telling? What emotional response are you evoking? Hope? Pleasure? Trust? Laughter? Focusing on the story and not just the benefits can make your campaign resonate.

Who’s in Your Story?

Your customer is your story’s main character; your company is the supporting cast. Giving audiences a role in your brand’s story will help them connect to it.

Connection brings trust, and we buy from brands we like and trust.

Want help telling your story? Farmhouse Creative is here.