As human beings, we’re naturally led by our emotions. Our emotions are powerful assets that help to guide us through the world, but they’re not always reliable. In fact, our emotions can be exploited, and the best marketers know that. They use it to sell their products, and you can do it too.
When we establish an emotional connection with a product or service, we’re much more likely to make a purchase. In the same way that we’re more likely to give to a cancer charity if one of our loved ones has had to deal with the disease, we’re more likely to spend our hard-earned money if we’ve established an emotional connection.
Of course, not all emotions are positive, and it’s entirely possible to create negative associations in the minds of your potential customers if you make a mistake. That’s why if we have a bad experience at a restaurant, we tend to not go back, even if we know that whatever caused the issue has been fixed. The goal for marketers should be to try to keep the number of negative emotions to a minimum while creating as many positive emotions as possible.
Storytelling
Knowing that it’s a good idea to tap into people’s emotions is one thing, but being able to actually do it is quite another. Luckily, marketers have a secret superpower, and that superpower is the power of storytelling. Stories engage our senses and help us to see the world a little differently. They also help us to remember information and entertain us, even when they’re pushing us to make a purchase.
Stories traditionally have a beginning, a middle and an end, and it can be a good idea to adopt this model if you want your stories to resonate with people. That said, rules are made to be broken, and when you’re using social networking sites to tell your story you can find yourself constrained by character limits and other factors. It’s all about doing what you can with the resources available to you.
Don’t forget that you don’t have to tell your story yourself. In fact, the rise of social networking and user-generated content has shifted the balance of power forever and made it possible for consumers to tell stories about the brands that they love. Smart brands have recognised this and launched campaigns that are designed to guide the direction of conversations while still empowering consumers to have their say.
Conclusion
Using storytelling to sell products isn’t a new idea, but what has changed is the access that we have to different tools to help us to get our stories out there. The good news is that telling stories about your brand can help you to cut through the noise without seeming overly self-promotional, and then you can hit them with a sales message and a call-to-action once the story is over. So if you haven’t tried integrating storytelling as part of your marketing approach, give it a go. You might just be surprised by the results.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.