Why Narrative Matters for Businesses
“Once Upon a Time” we all know this phrase by heart! This is how our parents started our bedtime stories, now that we are all grown up, we still like stories pretty much. In fact, people love to hear about everything in a narrative way, why? Simply because it makes us dream, we dream about the story we are hearing, picture it in our own way, making it real in our imagination. This is how our human minds are composed, we like to envision and dream in our own magical way.
Telling stories has been part of human history for as long as men had lived on earth. Storytelling came before writing, poems, and songs, it is the way we go back to our past and dream about our future, it is the way we learn to go beyond clouds and to believe in magic and wonderland. This can apply to everything, a bedtime story, a brand, a hero, or a product story does not make such a difference, we will think, picture, and dream about it all in our own way.
Why is storytelling important for a brand?
Doing my master’s degree at FH Joanneum, we had a subject about storytelling, it has immediately caught my attention to how companies exactly give a strong and clear perspective about their brands through storytelling. Stories play a vital role beyond entertainment value in communicating the brand image, perception, goals, and everything related to the audience, but in a way to be perceived by the one hearing it as he is dealing with a human brand, a someone, not only a rigid thing but a whole story of failures, success, ambition, and dreams.
Nowadays, storytelling is considered a strong and important business skill, if implemented successfully it can have a lot of benefits to the brand, as boosting brand image, improving customer loyalty, creating better marketing strategies, and of course increasing profit.
Based on the Nielsen Norman Study, 79% of people rely on visuals to understand the context of a website when they scan a piece of information.
Storytelling helps in improving brand image.
For myself, I found most of my motivation through hearing real stories about success, adventure, and real-life heroes.
Businesses consist of employees and users, and both can go a long way with narratives, storytelling if done right will make employees belong more to the story of the company, and consumers believe in the company’s mission and goals.
Business advantage
Whenever we start a business project it has a story behind it, let it be a simple one like creating a new feature or developing a whole new line, reflecting this story to the audience nicely and coherently will make the brand image boost, people will get attached to the story and they will understand why it is worth it to buy/deal with the brand.
Competitive advantage
Customers are bombarded with all kinds of products and brands all day long, whether it is on billboards, TV, social media, and while listening to their favourite song on YouTube! Making a clear human story to relate to our brand will make the brand stand out of the crowd, be distinctive, and stick in people’s minds. So, when a purchase decision should be made, people will buy the first brand on their mind, which will increase sales and enhance brand image.
Increase employees loyalty
Employees like everyone else need to feel they are dealing and working for a human brand, that there is a purpose behind their work, a success story that makes them stick to their work, increase their loyalty, and make them proud of their work.
Having a success story with ambition, dreams and setbacks will make employees more attached, and also, they will become advocates for the brand outside the company not only within.
Conclusion
With all the different brands, competition, and advertisement going on, it is hard to stick in people’s minds, successful companies have stories, that give meaning to their existence, it reflects values, commitment, success, set back and dreams, consumers like to dream, relate and succeed with the brand’s story, storytelling is a very important skill for marketers and vital asset for brands.