Every business is a storyteller. As the leader of a business or organization, everything you publish about yourself involves characters, sets a tone, and establishes a problem/solution plot line. And, in the end, it’s a brand’s story that causes its readers to act—or not act—that determines whether customers come back for more, or get hooked on a new story.
Intentional storytelling is the key to successfully communicating with your audience. It’s the mark of greatness in marketing, just as it is in book writing or script composition. When executed correctly, this kind of intentionality is what draws your audience to you and away from your competitors, and it’ll keep them for the long haul.
Who’s Your Audience?
Speaking of keys to marketing success, here’s another: developing buyer personas. If you make the best product in your industry, but you don’t speak directly to a specific audience, you’re not going to drive the kind of traffic that you need.
It’s not effective to take a bullhorn out to a busy parking lot to inform the masses of your product or service. What’s much more effective it to spend some time understanding your ideal buyer—who they are as a person, what motivates them, and what makes them tick. Once you establish a profile of detailed buyer personas, the marketing magic begins.
Where do you start when creating buyer personas? Ask yourself these questions:
- What are their problems?
- What are their passions?
- What do they fear?
This will require some research on your part, but with buyer personas in hand, you can start telling an informed story to a pinpointed audience that represents the essence of your brand. And the more specific your target audience, the easier it will be for your brand to engage in the intentional storytelling that drives engagement and, ultimately, conversion.
What’s Your Frame?
Knowing your buyers well means that you understand their worldview. And if you successfully leverage this information, your buyers’ beliefs will be reflected back to them in your content. This allows your storytelling to resonate deeply with your audience.
At its core, it’s a much-needed refining of a large crowd made up of indifferent or uninterested customers at one end of the spectrum, and ready-to-convert customers at the other end. It connects you with those who not only will benefit from your product, but will really believe in your brand.
What’s Your Premise?
The premise of your story is the plotline itself, the explanation of the problem and the introduction of your solution. And it’s where you differentiate between good and great—attention and action.
Your premise also includes how you frame the messaging in your content, fitted with tension and relatability. It’s so important to not only understand your audience’s worldview or belief, but to also be able to express that worldview or belief through your content marketing back to them.
Not doing so means omission of the execution of all the research that led to your understanding of your audience’s worldview, and is therefore void.
Content Marketing as Storytelling
Here at Uptick, we are big fans of Seth Godin and we love what he says on this subject:
“Marketing succeeds when enough people with similar worldviews come together in a way that allows marketers to reach them cost-effectively.” – Seth Godin
Enter content marketing. When it’s done correctly, it’s the most cost-effective online marketing method available. And through it, your “people” aren’t just coming together. They’re coming together around your brand.
And we can help you achieve this! Uptick supports a staff of expert content marketers whose passion it is to fulfill everything we’ve mentioned above. Need help in this area? Contact us today!
