With the digitalisation of everything, its vital that you breathe life into your brand by crafting well designed stories that sell on digital channels.By capturing your products and services in an interesting story, and sharing it online, you’ll create a piece that captivates your target audience to form a personal connection and increase engagement.
Straightforward banner visibility and posting on the social media platforms is no longer good enough to get your brand in front of the right people. Now, more than ever, brands need to engage meaningfully with their audience. If this storytelling is done correctly it will trigger an investment of time from the viewer, and as we know time is a valuable commodity these days.
Completing a digital marketing course will not only equip you with solid information on where and how to get the most out of your digital marketing, it will also teach you how to get going with your digital story telling.
What drives stories on digital channels?
Recent research shows that the majority of consumers want brands to turn their advertisements into stories – in other words – consumers want to be involved and invest in the story being told to them on the digital channels.
In fact, a brand is more likely to retain its followers if they are able to capture the attention of its followers with a well-thought out story, and secondly those followers are more likely to keep on following that brand if they continue to tell the story well. It’s a fact that organisations are now using digital storytelling to strengthen their brand – and it’s working.
When a brand creates an emotional tie to their digital marketing through being authentic, creative and inspirational they take their audience on a journey instead of an advertorial.
Practical steps to crafting great stories
There are many mediums available to us today to share our stories, and many ways for brands to do this. However, the most important point to keep in mind is to craft a story for your brand that is compelling and will ultimately influence customers.
Fortunately, there are a few practical steps to keep in mind when crafting stories that sell on digital channels, here are few:
- Keep it visual – Technology today makes it easier for us to create visually appealing stories as part of our digital marketing strategy. Visual stories have proven incredibly powerful for brands that keep this point top of mind.
- Data driven – Massive loads of data is being created each second, so remember to use data to when creating your stories and don’t forget you can use data to also provide detailed solutions for your audience.
- Get creative – There’s no doubt that creativity is the buzz word when it comes to posting on the digital channels and it’s never been more important than when crafting a compelling story for your brand.
- Identify a topic – Think about what your audience will resonate with and stick to a topic on that subject matter once you identified this.
- Get personal – Your story should be crafted with your customer top of mind. It is important that your brand tells its own story but always be mindful to keep focussed on your customer’s wants and needs.
- Offer solutions – Make sure your story offers its audience solutions to their problems or desires and focus on why they need your product or service. Help them understand how your company offers successful resolutions.
Types of stories
As interactive stories on digital channels continues to gain ground in today’s online landscape, you’ll need to come up with fresh and inventive ways to get your message across through storytelling. There are video, image and social interaction types of stories, the key is to craft each one with customer engagement in mind.
Here are a few type of stories that sell on digital channels:
- Mini-ads – Keep it short and create a story through a mini-ad. Attention spans on the world wide web are continually shortening so take this into consideration when telling your story.
- Infographics – You don’t always have to rely on words to craft a great story online. Use powerful, precise infographics to tell your story.
- Testimonials – Customer-led stories are a great way to stay authentic and increase real engagement.