Finding the Right Story to Connect with Customers

If you run a business, you have a story. If you’ve built that business yourself from the ground up, you likely have a compelling one. Even if you didn’t, you still have a story to tell, and that story can be used in your marketing efforts to help convey your message, and ultimately attract the interest of customers. Do you have a story to market? Comment here.

Your story doesn’t have to come from your own life experience (although it certainly can). You can look to others within your company, or even your customers or target audience.

In a recent WebProNews article, I discussed a little bit about storyteller marketing, which was the subject of a recent interview Abby did with Dana Todd of Newsforce:

More WebProNews Videos

I also pointed to five stories that can be told, as highlighted by Ammo Marketing‘s Gary Stein at a conference a couple years ago (via Barry Schwartz):

1. Origin – where did you/your brand come from
2. Purpose – tells us why you are a business
3. Vision – similar to origin but is where are we going
4. Education – Starbucks educated people about traditions of coffee
5. Ethics – when someone walks the walks of what they are doing
6. Connection – reaching out and talking to the customer

Storyteller marketing is by no means a new concept, but with the tools we have today, there are more ways than ever to help you tell your story, and tell it to the right people. I’m talking about social media of course. Businesses are able to find new audiences with networks like Twitter and Facebook, and can directly communicate stories through these things.

YouTube is probably the most obvious modern day tool for catering to this type of marketing. Not only does the user-generated video format work as a medium, but users have the ability to subscribe to uploads and can follow the story as new developments are made available. On top of that, YouTube caters to the viral nature of a good story (particularly through embeddable videos).

Finding the right story is the tricky part, and the biggest challenge of viral marketing in general, but the best part about is that there is a lot of room for creativity and a virtually infinite toolbox at your disposal. You can connect with customers through stories. What story do you have that people can connect with? That’s your potential angle.