Introduction
Any business that is willing to create a powerful brand must engage in a robust storytelling and professional visuals. Stories are an important aspect of the everyday lives of people. People have been telling each other stories since immemorial times. When done in the right way, stories can have an impact that no other marketing strategy will have. Acquiring customer loyalty will be a byproduct of effective storytelling and visual presentations that empathise with the audience. Good content will make sure that people spread the message and that is how the image of the brand will be uplifted and amplified.
Every business has a story to tell. However, it is the strategy and channel that they use to communicate it to their audience which makes the difference. In most cases, companies have big dreams and visions. Nevertheless, they are unable to form a well-crafted story with the efficient visuals that will play a key role in selling the brand. When you create your corporate marketing materials, your PowerPoint presentations, your animated slideshows, every collateral needs to share a story.
The Reasons for powerful storytelling
Among the reasons that businesses need to create good stories, combined with resonating visual content are described in the following paragraphs.
Develop a brand identity
A perfect way to ensure that the brand of a business is made popular is through storytelling and aligned visuals. As such, it is a basic step to be done in order to establish a connection with the consumers and prospects. This will create a good brand experience and hence a perfect image overall.
It is prudent to make the consumers or prospects to have the same perspective as you. A company could have pictures of the initial setting of the office and how it started. They could then do a follow up of a picture containing memories of every stage up to the level that they are currently at. This will give the target audience a sense of belonging to the company and it will automatically translate to a strong brand identity.
To make your content more lively and captivating, you should include videos, slideshows, memes, eye-catching headers, and styles, that help turn data into eye-catching stories. The pictures used should be well-edited to make a good impression. Your story needs to sound real; take the chance to tell when you failed, not only the wins. Storytelling for brand identity is about values and objectives. Make sure to emphasize the sense of belonging that surrounds the brand.
Create user engagement
User engagement should be enhanced through the use of photos, videos and contents. On pictures and videos, the brand should allow the target audience get actively involved. They could leave their own captions, comments or even suggestions. These should then be replied by the sales/customer care service. Through this, a brand will be able to create effective communication and the target audience will feel like they are part and parcel of the business. With the development of technology, these days it has become easier to engage. This is through the social media and company websites. This is the place that your business will get honest feedback and work on the negatives.
Create competitive advantage
In order to be an edge above your competitors, you need to do what is rarely done by them. On that note, you should strive to get the better part of the consumers through storytelling and visual marketing. It has been noted that the brands that engage in these practices usually end up reaping bigger profit margins. This simply means that through the stories and visual content, you are able to invest in the individuals who collectively will ensure that the business succeeds.
Drive traffic
The presence of well-crafted stories (through pictures, videos or other infographics) will ensure that your website or social media pages are full of traffic. An increase in traffic simply means that potential clients are many and this translates into profits for the business if they end up buying your products or services. In the current marketing era, for instance, the use of memes has been on the rise. A business should try and be updated on the trending memes. This way, they can always tweak the meme to fit their brand. This will translate to more popularity of the brand and an increase in the level of sales.
There is very little risk involved
Using stories and infographics in marketing is one of the cheapest yet effective methods to grow your business. Like the adage says, a picture is worth a thousand words. On the risks involved, you could ensure that the stories, videos or pictures are on the firm’s website. This way, the business will not incur much-running costs. The visuals could also be set at the physical location of the business. This will attract new clients as well as cement on the old ones.
Tips for Powerful Storytelling and Visuals
Some of the tips on how to set up a good story and visuals for your firm include:
Articulating the brand through its persona
This should be engaging the values and policies of the business in the story. The business should ensure that whatever they put in their stories speaks true of their character. This will build trust with the potential clients and first-timers.
Add consumer persona to represent the market segment targeted by the business
The story should have a piece of the consumers, problems and challenges that face the consumers and how the business aims at solving them. The business should articulate on the shared values with the consumers. This makes the various stakeholders have a sense of ownership.
Always analyzing your success rate:
After the above has been implemented, it is always prudent to look at whether your story or infographics passed out the information. This could be arrived at through the collection of feedback. The feedback could be real time or even long term. In real time, the business is able to get first-hand information from the various stakeholders. They will say whether or not they were represented in the infographics/stories. In the long run, the goals and objectives of a business should be achieved. If they are not, it shows that the storytelling through the various visual media was not effective.
Conclusion
The use of stories and professional visuals has been on the increase. Many businesses are opting to use this method to grow as it has proved to be an effective strategy. You do not need to have the better story ever, it just needs to be the correct story, for the correct audience. Place the importance in the Why rather than in the How, in order to make the consumer or prospect feel part of the story.
If your business is yet to create a story for itself, this is the perfect time to think of storytelling in business presentations. The results will speak for themselves.
