Storytelling presents businesses with a great content marketing opportunity.
It’s a chance to show off your business achievements, share client stories and build relationships by offering content that is interesting and useful.
And this approach is effective for presenting topics that are important, but dry, such as corporate strategies.
What does this look like?
Consider incorporating the following steps in your storytelling as part of your business communication:
1. Generate story ideas based on business-related news then add quotes, anecdotes and personal tales.
2. Create teaser-style headlines and quirky images to make your audience curious.
3. Use active verbs to describe what’s happening to draw readers into the story.
4. Anchor stories to the business strategy, so readers can see how products and services make up part of the bigger picture.
5. Use metrics to see which stories resonate the most then replicate the style or tone with new angles.
Some examples
A flexible working policy
Tell the story of the triathlete mum who trains a few mornings a week and has set up a flexible work week to suit her, her family and the business team.
Inspire your readers with the possibilities.
Weave into the story the type of questions asked along the way and problems encountered. Detail the solutions to establish a flexible arrangement.
Help the reader to work through ideas and tackle likely obstacles.
Volunteering programs
If your organisation offers paid days in the community, tell the story of the team that swapped an open-place office to help a not-for-profit organisation. And who got the most out of it.
Use testimonials or specific examples – find the pregnant employee who spent a morning sorting puzzles at the local toy library and show how regular staff involvement like this helps to build connections within the community.
On its own, the terms and conditions of a corporate volunteering program are important but may not generate action.
Storytelling techniques are a more powerful way to inspire staff to participate or small businesses to ask for more info or register.
Client wins
Showcase what your business is capable of doing for clients, and make a business leader or client the focus of the story.
Place the reader in the client’s shoes.
If you are able to interview the client, share their viewpoint.
Next, detail the problem by outlining the starting scenario then discuss the solution.
Use stories to offer a solution to your audience’s problem as they may not be able to connect the dots without a real-life example.
What will your readers resonate with?
Feature interesting or unique opportunities your business is involved with.
Use storytelling techniques to highlight how these opportunities are interesting AND valuable to your staff or clients.
Align these with your strategic goals. And save the listicles for another time.
Read widely
Hunt around for story examples and learn from them.
For example, cookbooks (that tell the history of favourite recipes); authors promoting new book releases (who often share the ideas behind a novel); and TED talks or podcasts that use stories to introduce an idea (that become apparent as the story develops).