Contemporary marketing dictates that upfront and hard selling is often frowned upon. You see, if you just straight tell your customers to buy your product, you won’t get any attention at all. Customers now don’t just blindly buy a product. They need to be convinced, and one of the many ways to compel a purchase is storytelling.
For starters, emotional branding is a progressive marketing strategy that uses audience emotion to elicit action, and therefore increase customer retention. How customers feel about your brand determines whether they make a purchase. Read on.
The fundamentals of storytelling
Storytelling has always been captivating. From childhood to adulthood, we have always been drawn to stories and the lessons we learn from them. And putting that in the context of marketing just makes even more sense. When you craft your brand story, that’s where you put your customer as the protagonist. The story’s main character. Give your audience a role in your story. Make them the centre of your brand narrative.
What story should you tell?
Ideally, you can start by telling how your brand was born, what inspired you to create your business, and what your mission is. Furthermore, your story should be compelling and factual and as we stated above, the customer should be the protagonist, with your company as the supporting character.
The most effective medium
You can use any medium to narrate your story - blogs, video, social media, podcast, even print. Each medium will also elicit different reactions from your audience, so your story must be tailor-fitted to your preferred medium.
Using sensory triggers
The human brain is designed to recall information better when associated with a sensory experience. That’s how ads from fast food chains like McDonalds and Wendy’s work. Obviously, we can’t recreate burger-scented social media ads (yet), but words associated with your story such as “bacon” or “ice cream” or “coffee” elicit sensory triggers to your brain.
