Definition of Storytelling

Storytelling is a form of storytelling using images, words, and videos to help listeners relate and sympathize with the story. The spread of interesting stories, directly or indirectly related to the business’s products/services.

Through storytelling, marketers act as storytellers to convey messages, information and knowledge in a way that attracts and touches the emotions of readers. From there, it helps users see the values ​​that the story wants to convey, influencing them to take an action such as liking, sharing, downloading, ordering,…

Not only that, in the era of Internet development, people prefer to use social networks, so content is no longer a one-way circulation, writers and readers. Readers can now respond to marketers’ campaigns through comments, suggestions, votes, shares,… making storytelling even more widespread.

It’s not just storytelling, it’s a dialogue and beyond that is a two-way conversation between the marketer and the target customer group.

History of Storytelling

There are 3 stages in the formation and development of Storytelling: word of mouth, reading, and transmission via the internet.

• Oral stage: People communicate verbally with each other. Therefore, stories passed from person to person will often lack factual accuracy.
• Reading stage: Humans created writing and careful records on stone, clay, leather and paper more than 9,000 years ago. From here, reading culture was born.
• Stage of transmission via the internet: In the 1800s, devices such as radio, TV, telephones and social networks began to appear. This is a period when information is transmitted across platforms quickly. Businesses quickly took advantage of this opportunity to reach and convey their messages to customers.

Distinguish between Storytelling and Content Marketing

It can be said that Storytelling is an inseparable part of Content Marketing. They are created by businesses to be extremely novel, easy to touch customers’ emotions and convey stories naturally.

In particular, the storytelling that the brand tells may or may not be related to the business’s products and services. For Content Marketing, this is a tool aimed at providing necessary information about products, services and businesses, or it can motivate customers to change their purchasing behavior through published content. .

What benefits does Storytelling bring in brand marketing?

If you have a better understanding of the definition of Storytelling, then you can partly imagine the great benefits it brings to businesses.

Storytelling makes content more engaging

One of the most frequently asked questions in the industry is “how to develop content in a boring industry”. There are many businesses that are very comfortable in using writing style to make readers feel more interesting in terms of content.

Storytelling is a tactic to avoid having boring content. Use it to tell stories that relate to the emotions and motivations of people in your industry.

Sometimes, if you’re really stuck for ideas in words and writing, there’s nothing more effective than picking up a pen and starting to list topics related to your business’s products and services to come up with an idea. perfect storytelling. Put them together and use your own common sense and experience to come up with a title that could become a hit.

Make something old or new

Are you saturated with ideas and lost direction in writing storytelling? In techniques for finding new content ideas , you can try switching to storytelling instead of just sharing information in the usual way.

Storytelling will help you solve part of the problem of ideas because it allows you to use new characters with more interesting and engaging plot developments.

Not simply a matter of focusing on the customer (considering the customer as the central object), storytelling also helps the process of polishing old ideas into new ones, making customers excited.

Attract potential users

As the name suggests, storytelling is a form of conveying messages that are natural and close to human life. It conveys the brand’s marketing message in a new, more intimate way when the story the business tells has similarities with the audience.

From there, increasing the love and sharing of stories in the community, and attracting more like-minded people. And this is also a form that helps retain and build customer loyalty, while also making your brand shine and attract many target customers.

Storytelling helps promote brands

Storytelling introduces a business’s brand in a more natural way by conveying content that is less rigid than traditional forms of marketing, and closer to the way people usually talk to each other.

If your brand story is easy to understand, interesting and “resonant” enough to attract users’ attention, Storytelling will definitely make your brand shine brightly.

Through storytelling, you can express your brand image and personality. With interesting stories built up, you can talk about the characteristics that make your brand stand out. At the same time, it helps build customer trust by delivering strong brand messages.

Storytelling formats

Here are some formats that Content Creators need to know:

Brand Storytelling

Brand Storytelling is a way of telling stories when building meaningful stories related to the brand. Most newly established businesses should build a brand story. These stories can be the history of formation and development, the origin of the idea, the founder’s journey to create the brand, the product launch process,…

In short, Brand Storytelling is to make customers sympathize and understand the values ​​that the brand brings.

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling is a form of implementing storytelling on digital platforms with a combination of one or more different platforms. For example, padcasts, websites,… or interactive games to support Digital Branding development activities.

Digital Storytelling offers many advantages in attracting customers because it can be reached across many mediums, including video, web publishing, graphics, and audio.

Data Storytelling

This is a method of using numbers or words to tell stories with the purpose of providing important information to target customers in an attractive plot. This method makes numbers and letters more interesting.

However, data storytelling is often more dry than other forms of storytelling, but if you know how to apply it, this will be an extremely realistic way of storytelling because of the data it represents.

Visual Storytelling

Nowadays, users are often more interested in viewing images and videos than reading. This is the reason Visual Storytelling is increasingly favored by marketers in all communication campaigns.

This is a style of vivid storytelling through images and videos. With the support of graphic techniques, the images and sounds in a clip become more and more unique and attractive to viewers. Through that, the business’s story also reaches customers easily.

What are the principles of Storytelling?

There are 5 principles of Storytelling that you need to know, specifically as follows:

Gue: This is called the “glue” principle in storytelling, it refers to bonding the message with consumer beliefs. This means that the messages you deliver must be consistent with what your customers perceive to be true. The technique of observing the psychology and life perspectives of target customers will help you do this well.

Reward: You must let customers know what benefits they will receive from using the product, and after using it, will they achieve the goal like the character in the story. This is the driving force that helps customers buy your products and services.

Emotion: A story that appeals to the viewer’s emotions will help them have a good impression. Similar to the Glue principle, you should learn to understand the psychology, emotions, and emotions of customers to be able to build an effective story.

Authentic:  No matter how good the storytelling you create, if it lacks authenticity, it will not convince customers. Therefore, each story you tell must be truthful and based on real events about the quality of products and services. That way, you can convince customers to trust your story.

Target: The story only becomes appealing to a specific audience. Therefore, you need to identify the right target audience to research and learn clearly about customers to create stories that are relevant to them. You should not target many audiences for one story because it may not be very effective.

How to write engaging Storytelling

Here’s how to write an attractive Storytelling for customers, you can refer to.

Choose the right plot

The plot has content from bad to successful: This is a form of “before – after” storytelling, which is a way of comparing before and after a certain event occurs. This plot will help viewers recognize suspicious changes in themselves.

The plot has the content “overcoming monsters”: This is a storytelling plot that describes courage, daring to overcome things that scare and haunt you over a period of time. After struggling, the character in the story decides to overcome obstacles to achieve better values ​​in life. This is a plot that often easily touches the hearts of many audiences because everyone has their own fears and does not have the courage to overcome them.

“Hero’s journey” plot: This is a more advanced type of storytelling plot. Tells about the process of overcoming monsters with scenes from the beginning, encountering hardships and overcoming difficulties to achieve success. This is a type of plot that aims to motivate viewers.

Storytelling with the content of “conquest”: Storytelling of conquest is a type of plot that builds the image of the main character full of desire and hope to achieve his ambition. The content revolves around planning, goal setting and implementation efforts. This type of plot hits hard on subjects who are cherishing big dreams for the future.

“Nostalgia – truth” plot: This is a type of narrative storytelling plot, recalling personal memories or a certain memorable experience. The story about friendship, love and family affection also belongs to this type of plot. When choosing this type of plot to tell a story, you should avoid boasting and be more oriented towards the viewer.

Determine your perspective

There are always two audiences when telling a story: the main character mentioned and the listener. So when building a storytelling, you need to identify these two objects.

The main character can be a brand, a product or a typical customer in the target customer group. Ask questions like: What is the main character’s personality? How do their behavior and psychology evolve? What are the events that impact the main character?

Besides, you should stand in the perspective of the listener and customer to understand their personal wishes and preferences about the story you will tell. In short, you should put yourself in the shoes of both audiences to best present your content.

Plot outline

You should sketch out the plot in your storytelling in advance so that there is a logical connection between the content parts. A perfectly crafted and carefully crafted plot will help viewers understand the entire meaning of the story. You should determine the content and message you want to convey so that the plot can be deployed in the right direction.

Exploit the deep things

If you want the content to be impressive, you should focus on exploiting the details hidden deep in it to impress viewers. To do this, you need to carefully research the insights of your target customers to find aspects that can be exploited and persuaded viewers.

Convincing evidence

A piece of storytelling, if convincingly evidenced, will make viewers trust your brand more. First, learn about events that happen in everyday life to find the connection between realistic elements and the link to your story when building the plot content.

Creating “heroes”

The “hero” you need to create here is someone who overcomes difficulties, challenges, or more simply, a character who overcomes many difficulties in life to achieve a set goal. In addition, a “hero” can also be someone who brings a lot of joy and help to others. These characters will make viewers excited, love the character and the brand.

Techniques to create engaging Storytelling

Take time to prepare: Every job always requires solid preparation and research, including Storytelling Marketing strategies. Please carefully research many aspects of the brand, psychology, and behavior of target customers and ensure a deep understanding of these aspects. Through that, you can easily create suitable stories to publish in many forms on various media.

Consistent storytelling: You need to tell the story in a consistent style, you should not mix multiple storytelling methods in one story because this makes it difficult for viewers to feel the message of the whole story.

Leverage the power of digital platforms: The strong growth of the Internet is an opportunity for brands to convey stories in the form of Storytelling. Therefore, businesses should take advantage of every platform, especially those that their target customers frequent, to publish their stories.

Add emotion to the story: You need to create a highlight or climax for your storytelling that makes viewers admire it while enjoying it. This makes your story and message more unforgettable.

Build barriers: A story that doesn’t create suspense will make readers feel bored. Therefore, barriers are an extremely important factor if you want your storytelling to be engaging and dramatic.

Control the rhythm of the story: If storytelling is told in a slow style, you will make the audience impatient. But if the pace of the story happens too fast, the viewer will not fully understand the message the narrator wants to convey. Therefore, you need to control the pace of the story in a reasonable way and not make it boring.

Add visual elements to the story: If your storytelling is published in text form, you should add other elements such as images and vivid illustrative videos that truly represent the spirit of the story.

Do not end the story with teaching lessons: If you end the story with a teaching lesson, it will make the customer feel “lectured”, so try to deliver the message as tactfully as possible.

Epilogue

Storytelling is a very unique way of marketing, every Marketer can create success from here. Hopefully the article we have  compiled will bring useful information to you in the process of telling your brand story.