From Boring to Brilliant: The Role of Storytelling in Content Marketing

Storytelling in Content Marketing

“From the time we are born, we are told stories. It’s what draws us into the conversation. We live out stories every day of our lives. Storytelling in content is effective because it is the one thing every human, no matter race, age, background, or language, can connect with.”

Haley Slade, CEO and Founder of Slade Copy House.

Who is Cinderella? Anyone you know today probably knows about Cinderella and what she stands for. If not, there is a version of her story in almost every tribe and culture. Snow White and the seven dwarfs? Rapunzel? Puss in Boots? The Tortoise? And many more. Why do people know and remember these characters?

They are characters from stories. Stories are relatable, entertaining, engaging, and people can connect to the protagonist’s struggles. These stories have been around for generations and will be around for a long time, making them evergreen.

As a business owner, how can you take advantage of stories to grow your business? Simple. Use storytelling in your content marketing

What is Storytelling in Content Marketing?

“No matter how much technology or AI we use, buying and selling is a human experience, and humans relate to one another by telling stories. Storytelling for marketing purposes can vary, but all share something in common: social proof.” – Rocco Del Greco.

At its core, storytelling in content marketing focuses on using narrative techniques to engage with the target audience and build a connection. With storytelling, businesses can create compelling narratives that resonate with their target audiences and deliver value beyond their products or services.

Also, storytelling allows businesses to create emotional bonds between their brands and customers. Emotional bonds nurture customer loyalty over time. Lauren Keys, Owner of Trip of a Lifestyle, says that when businesses share authentic stories, they seem relatable and trustworthy, and trust goes a long way to getting your audience to take action.

Businesses can also look to generate more leads using storytelling because stories of positive experiences enjoy good reach, especially when your customers also share these via word-of-mouth.

Is Storytelling a Form of Content Marketing?

Storytelling is not a form of content marketing. However, it is a method you can combine with other content marketing forms to get better results from your content marketing efforts. Businesses can employ storytelling in videos, blog posts, testimonials and reviews, and many more. 

With storytelling, you can present complex information to your target audience and customers in memorable and easy-to-understand ways. A good story also helps you set your business apart from others in your industry while making lasting impressions on potential customers. 

Why is Storytelling Important in Content Marketing?

Numbers are great, and stats are excellent, but your audience wants to know why the numbers matter, and that is why storytelling is important. 

Robert Surdel, Team Leader at Husky Hamster, explains that storytelling in content marketing helps organizations effectively convey their messages and core values to their target audiences using narratives to simplify and humanize abstract or technical subjects. 

Complex subjects can become engaging and relatable content pieces that also provide your audience with value using storytelling elements. 

Why is Storytelling Effective?

In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, love and belonging, which comprises a sense of connection, ranks third on the list of five. This is perhaps the singular reason why storytelling remains effective in content marketing.

Teejai Kimsi, Director of Marketing and Communications at Crystal Structures Glazing, explains this beautifully. She says,

“Storytelling in content is effective because it taps into the human desire for connection and engagement. Stories can evoke emotions and make people feel a certain way. Storytelling can convey that ‘someone like me’ has had this problem or has been in this situation.”

Beyond a sense of connection, storytelling appeals to your audience’s emotions rather than logic. And we have been told repeatedly by salespersons that buying is more emotional than logical. Consumers make buying decisions with emotions, then try to justify their decision later on with logic. 

Christopher Williams, Content Marketer at Blue Ferret Communications, emphasizes the link between storytelling and emotions with the following. “Storytelling bypasses the logical side of the brain, heading straight for the creative side. This is the realm of emotion, where we make decisions quickly and then justify them with logic later. Use stories well, and you rush right past common objections!”

With storytelling in content marketing, you are able to captivate the attention of your audience and potential customers by speaking to their emotions throughout the stages of the buyer’s journey. 

What are the Benefits of Using Storytelling in Content Marketing?

We have looked at why storytelling is effective and why it is important in content marketing. Let’s look at the benefits of storytelling in your content marketing. 

1. Relatable Content

Rocco Del Greco, Chief Marketing Officer at the New York Group, says relatability is the primary benefit of storytelling in content marketing. Why? It conveys audience understanding and establishes a mutual connection between your business and its audience. 

People are drawn to stories they can identify with because it gives them a sense of belonging. Hence, your audience loves stories because they are relatable. And when people find your content relatable, they remember your message long after they’ve come in contact with it. 

2. Emotional Connection

Infusing storytelling techniques with your content allows you to connect with your audience on an emotional level.  People see themselves in the stories they hear, and this serves as the basis of the emotional connection your audience develops when they come across your content. 

An emotional connection makes your audience view you as a human-friendly brand rather than just a business they transact with. This helps you get more conversions and can be the difference between someone stopping to read your content or swiping away.

3. Brand Differentiation

According to The United States Census Bureau, the total number of business formation applications in March 2023 alone was over 400,000. As a business owner, you have 400,000 more businesses to compete with that have started creating content like you.

Use storytelling to differentiate your business from the rest of the competition. Speak directly to the emotions of your target audience and use that to create a powerful connection that transcends logic. 

4. Better Engagement

When people come across content they can relate to, they are more likely to engage with such content and share it with their network. Using storytelling helps you get better engagement with your content because your audience finds your content relatable and can connect to the stories you share. As a result, you boost your brand engagement while getting them to return for more.

 5. Memorable Customer Experiences

One thing with stories is that they are remembered long after we have heard or read them. You enjoy the same benefit when you use storytelling in your content marketing. You give your audience value, messages, and insights they will remember. This improves positive customer experiences and puts you on top of their minds.

“For storytelling to be successful, it should be part of a two-pronged strategy. Many brands get caught up in either creating evocative content that isn’t very algorithm-friendly or focusing entirely on SEO with little attention to the content. The best storytelling combines strong structure, well-written prose, and evocative imagery with optimized keywords. This way, your storytelling will reach more people and provide more opportunities for conversions.”

Kirkland Gee, Co-Founder at Perfect Extraction.

What is Good Storytelling in Marketing and Content Strategy?

In his book, Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller highlights seven elements as the framework for effectively using storytelling in your business content. They are:

1. The Character 

According to the author, many businesses make the mistakes of making themselves the heroes of the stories they tell to their audience. If you are the hero, why should your audience listen? Make your customer the hero of your story by creating a character that embodies what your ideal buyer persona wants the most. 

Once you have the character’s ambition mapped out, cut it down to focus on a single desire. You may provide a thousand and one things for your customers, but in your story, you want them to focus on the most important one. Tie the desire to the results your customers are hoping for, which can be any of the following:

  • Saving financial resources
  • Wasting less time
  • Building a community
  • Attaining status
  • Gathering resources
  • Desire to help others
  • The desire for meaning, and many more. 

2. The Character’s Problem

An excellent way to make your business attractive and interesting to your target audience is to talk about the problems your customers face in your content using storytelling. Many businesses focus on selling solutions to external problems, but customers purchase solutions for internal ones.

To talk about your customers’ problems, you need a villain. How do you do that? By presenting your products and services as non-negotiable tools, they need to defeat the villains in their lives. The villains are,

  • Root sources of problems your customers face, not how they feel.
  • Issues your customers can relate to in an instant.
  • Singular. Don’t have too many villains in just one story.
  • Real and not made-up. There are many villains people battle with, don’t use a made-up one when you can use a real one.

3. The Guide

As mentioned above, the customer is the hero in your story. If the customer is the hero, how does your business fit in your storytelling content? Your business is the hero’s guide. The hero needs a guide to help them make sense of their problems, shape their values, provide support and encouragement, and tools to solve the primary problem.

The simple logic about being the guide is understanding that the story is not about you but your audience. Brands should stop presenting themselves as heroes when they use storytelling in their content. Instead, being the guide helps you answer the question at the top of your customers’ minds, “How does this help me win?” 

A good guide expresses empathy for the hero’s problems and demonstrates authority. Empathy helps your hero understands that you are just like them and are keen on assisting them to get solutions. Demonstrating authority shows your competence. You can establish authority with statistics, testimonials, awards, and logos of known businesses you’ve worked with.  

4. The Plan 

The plan is the series of stones your customers can step on to cross the creek of indecision and reach the point of committing to your business. The plan is the focus the hero uses to motivate themselves into taking action that could solve their problems. 

The goal of the plan you provide to your customers is to clarify how they can work with you and reduce the sense of risk they feel about making a purchase or investing in your business. 

Businesses can provide two types of plans. 

  • The Process Plan: You list all the steps prospects need to take to buy your products or service, the steps they need to take after buying your product or service, or a combination of both. The process plan alleviates any doubt or confusion your customers are facing.
  • The Agreement Plan: This is a list of agreements you make with your customers to help assuage their fears about doing business with you. 

Whether you stick with the process or agreement plan, it is a good practice to give it a unique name (related to your offering). A unique plan name increases the value of your business offerings.

5. The Call to Action

The previous elements have set the stage for the call to action. Your audience is excited because you have identified their main problem, showed empathy, and demonstrated your authority. You need to do one more thing, challenge them to take action. Challenging your audience to take action communicates belief in your products and services. 

You can choose to make direct action calls or transitional action calls. Transitional action calls are great for prospects who are not ready to commit immediately and may need some nurturing. Free information, samples, and free trials are examples of transitional action calls. The goal is to become their choice when they are ready to make the leap.

Direct action calls invite your audience to purchase and commit to your brand. Order now, call today, register today, buy now, and schedule an appointment are examples of direct action calls. Many brands are afraid to use direct action calls, but your customers can’t read your minds. You need to tell them precisely what you want them to do. 

6. The Failure Prevention

Humans are averse to failure and want to prevent it as much as possible. An important element of storytelling in your business content is to tell your audience what they stand to lose if they don’t buy your products or services. 

The author mentions Daniel Kahneman’s theory on decision-making. The theory hammers on the fact that people are more motivated by loss than they are by gains. As a result, loss aversion can push your audience to take action more than the possibility of gaining something. Businesses can motivate their audience using failure in 4 steps.

  • Make your audience understand that they are vulnerable to a threat
  • Encourage them to take action to mitigate their vulnerability
  • Tell them the specific action they can take to protect themselves from the identified threat
  • Challenge them to take action.

7. The Successful Ending

Just like challenging your audience with action calls because you don’t want to assume that they know what to do, you also have to paint the successful picture of how your business can change the lives of your audience and not assume that they understand. 

Your successful ending should answer the question, “Where is your business taking people?” Without a vision of what your audience can expect when they choose you, your storytelling content is bound to fail. 

Avoid painting fuzzy pictures your audience cannot make sense of. Instead, be specific and be clear on what your audience can look forward to. The successful ending is a resolution to your customer’s problems. To get to the heart of your customer’s successful ending, answer the following:

  • What will your customer’s life look like externally when you resolve their problem?
  • How will resolving the problem make your customers feel?
  • How has solving the problem made the world better?

If you can’t show your audience where your offerings are taking them, they won’t commit. You need to repeatedly show them how your products can improve their lives. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just keep it simple. 

Examples of Effective Storytelling in Content Marketing

Storytelling is a creative element that you can infuse into different forms of content marketing, be it videos, blog posts, email newsletters, and many more. Not all of your content will require creative narratives, but the few times you tell your stories right, you can look forward to great results, like some examples here. 

1. Slade Copy House – Email Marketing Campaign 

Slade Copy House, a content marketing agency, uses storytelling in 90% of its client’s product or service sales. One of their clients, who had never sold her services before, experienced tremendous success with an email campaign that used only storytelling. 

The open rates for the email were an impressive 70.3%, the click-through rate was 6%, and there were multiple conversions. With storytelling, the client’s message was memorable and impactful. It allowed the client to connect emotionally with their target audience crucial for building trust. 

The client demonstrated the value of their services using storytelling in their email content, and potential customers could visualize how they could benefit from them.

2. Trip of a Lifestyle – Viral TikTok Video

Storytelling can also be a valuable asset for businesses on social media platforms. One example of this is Trip of a Lifestyle. Trip of Lifestyle experienced a surge in traffic on its website after a TikTok video went viral. The video, in which Lauren Keys and her partner thoughtfully shared their financial success story with their audience, received nearly one million views, making it one of their most viewed videos. 

Although they have created other videos with similar messaging and style, they have yet to see the same level of success as their first viral video. This shows the impact of effective storytelling in capturing your audience’s attention and generating engagement, even on social media.

3. Blue Ferret Communications – Brand Launch

Blue Ferret Communications used storytelling to help one of its marketing clients successfully reach a new market. The client’s strategy was to share stories from their existing customer base, specifically focusing on children who had successfully completed a treatment program teaching them critical life skills. 

This approach was highly effective, as their newsletter saw a significant increase in engagement, with a 65% open rate within just two issues. Additionally, their social media presence tripled in less than two months, highlighting the impact of storytelling in building brand awareness and engagement.

By sharing stories from their existing customers, the client showcased their product’s effectiveness and its positive impact on people’s lives. This helped to create a sense of credibility and trust with the new audience, which is particularly important for businesses trying to establish themselves in a new market. 

4. Crystal Structured Glazing – Marketing Completed Projects

Crystal Structures Glazing used a story-based content marketing campaign to promote a completed project and associated services. The results were impressive. They increased their click-through rates by 30% and conversion rates by 15%. 

By infusing storytelling in promoting completed projects, Crystal Structures Glazing was able to communicate the value of their services and their impact on their customers and paint a picture of what customers can look forward to as the successful ending. 

Also, the fact that they consistently receive responses to emails that include compelling stories demonstrates the power of storytelling in content marketing. When businesses leverage storytelling in their content, they can capture their audience’s attention and build a loyal customer base.

5. KarasinPPC – Alzheimer Caregivers Marketing Campaign

Joe Karasin, the owner of Karasin PPC, spearheaded a successful campaign targeting Alzheimer’s caregivers. The campaign highlights the effectiveness of putting the customer as the hero and center of the story. 

By creating a compelling narrative that resonated with their target audience, they not only earned a partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association but also gained over 1,500 long-term customers for their client’s mobile app. This example demonstrates how storytelling in content marketing can lead to significant business growth and success.

Best Practices for Using Storytelling in Content Marketing

In this section, we will explore some of the best practices for creating compelling narratives in content for your business, drawing on expert insights.

Take the Middle Course

“For storytelling to be successful, it should be part of a two-pronged strategy. Many brands get caught up in either creating evocative content that isn’t very algorithm-friendly or focusing entirely on SEO with little attention to the content. The best storytelling combines strong structure, well-written prose, and evocative imagery with optimized keywords. This way, your storytelling will reach more people and provide more opportunities for conversions.” – Kirkland Gee, Co-Founder at Perfect Extraction.

Businesses need to find a way to balance compelling content narratives while optimizing them for SERPs. Your storytelling content will only get results if it can be discovered and seen by your target audience.

Be Authentic

Robert Surdel, Team Leader at Husky Hamster, wants businesses “to be honest and forthright while telling their stories, without embellishing or otherwise distorting the truth, maintaining their audience’s trust.” 

Precious Abacan, Writer at Softlist.io, explains this further. She says, “People can tell when a story is contrived or inauthentic, so it’s essential to tell genuine and relatable stories. This means focusing on real-life experiences and situations your audience can relate to rather than using fabricated scenarios or overly exaggerated claims.”

Use Visuals

Kelly Chan, Marketing Manager at Accountant Online, says that images, videos, and graphics help to enhance your storytelling. Visuals complement and reinforce your tale, evoke emotions, and give your audience a memorable experience. She encourages businesses to ensure that visuals used in storytelling content are of high quality, relevant to the story, and consistent with the brand’s visual identity.

Begin with your Audience

Christopher Williams, Content Marketer at Blue Ferret Communications, wants businesses looking to use storytelling in content marketing to start with a clear picture of their audience. In his words, “Too often businesses try to tell a story they want to tell, not a story customers want to hear. The mismatch results in poorer sales, lost website traffic, and lower trust.”

Joe Karasin, Chief Marketing Officer and Founder at Karasin PPC encourages a shift for businesses when using storytelling. A general theme for stories in content is “Company succeed.”. He says instead, the theme should be “John and Jennifer Consumer succeed with the help of Company.” The second theme puts the hero (your audience) at the center and highlights how your business acting as a guide helped solve the customer’s problem.

Keep it Simple

Simplicity is key, even when using creative storytelling in your content marketing. As mentioned in the seven elements of good storytelling, focus on one message at a time. Identify the significant problem your customers face and how you help them reach a resolution. 

Avoid making your stories complex by trying to highlight the numerous problems you help your customers solve. If you need to, create different story-based content to address each problem. Too many storylines can make it difficult for your audience to follow along and eventually disconnect from the emotional connection you are trying to initiate.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, I would love to share this quote from the late Steve Jobs, an expert storyteller, with you.

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.”  

While you may not be setting the vision and values of an entire generation, you would be helping your business grow by taking advantage of storytelling in your content marketing. 

Latifat Abifarin

Latifat Abifarin

I am passionate about growth for businesses through creative and engaging content.

I specialize in creating custom, creative and engaging content for businesses. My goal is to help entrepreneurs and businesses increase their brand awareness, brand reach, visibility, and sales through creative and engaging content.

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