BUSINESS

Storytelling Can Improve Your Business.

Tell your business the right way with storytelling. Here is what it is, how it must be done to be effective, and the advantages it allows to obtain.

Telling your business in the right way can make a difference to a company’s success. For this reason, learning how to do storytelling in the correct way is essential. Here is the complete corporate storytelling guide to understanding how to tell your business.

What is corporate storytelling, and what is it for

The term “storytelling” generally refers to the science and art of communicating something by telling stories, using the principles of rhetoric and narratology. Effective storytelling is one characterized by a narrative with an internal structure familiar to the listener (so that they can identify with the story), characters with clear roles, and aspects that arouse emotions.

In the more specific field of marketing, we speak of “corporate storytelling” to define the persuasive use of stories, which is helpful in attracting the attention of a specific audience of customers (or potential customers) and also in conveying to that audience a message that stimulates them to take a specific action (purchase).

The best strategies for corporate storytelling

Drawing up a list of general rules that can exhaustively explain how to do storytelling marketing is a complicated undertaking because the effectiveness of a company story depends on many factors: from the type of company to its audience, through the tone of voice, and many others. Wait, Joe Lambert comes to the rescue, who has identified 7 identifying elements of the specific subject called digital storytelling, which should also be kept in mind by those who intend to use storytelling for marketing purposes. Here they are below:

adopt a personal point of view in the narration in order to reduce the distance with the listener);
insert engaging content ;
evoke emotions ;
be “cheap” in the narrative, that is, use a few words to convey many concepts and messages;
have a narrative rhythm consistent with the story ;
use a tone of voice appropriate to the narration ;
harness the power of music to add depth to the narrative.

Going now to look, more specifically, at how business storytelling is done (or, at least, how it should be done). Business owners who intend to leverage the principles of storytelling marketing to improve their business must:

Analyze the company’s strengths and weaknesses. It is necessary to understand which elements to tell because, at times, even events that at first sight may seem marginal are able to characterize a company and make it stand out from the competition;
Choose your niche. Once you understand what to tell, it is important to know who to tell it to, where your audience is and which are the most suitable platforms for your narration;
Let users enter the universe of the company. Once the mission and values of the company have been defined and the concepts and keywords that can convey a strong and attractive identity of the company have been identified, users and potential customers must be involved in the narration of the company’s reality in order to make them an active part of the narrative itself;
Show the human side of the company. We must not limit ourselves to narrating our successes but to describe the way in which we have reached them, to tell the ‘behind the scenes and reveal the protagonists of the company;
Don’t forget Propp. Company storytelling must also keep in mind the narrative actants identified by Vladimir Propp: generally, the brand or products are identified with the roles of the hero or the magical helper.