Storytelling: The Best Marketing Tool

Delivering a really great customer experience is a sure-fire way to get others to tell your Brand narrative (story).  Because when others are doing your storytelling it makes your story that much more credible and engaging.

Companies should share other people's stories as this demonstrates your authentic engagement with others. The best thing to do to endear your Brand to consumers is to share stories about the topics they care about. Putting stories together builds what's referred to as a 'brand's meta-narrative', which inspires, not only customers, but employees so they think and behave 'on-brand'.

Nelson Farris, a Nike senior executive, has the title of  'Chief Storyteller', and he and all the other Nike senior executives spend a good deal of their time relaying stories to employees. This is to remind all of Nike's staff of the brand's pillars that the company rests upon.

You need storytelling and story-doing to ensure you are building your brand authentically through actions and not just words - known as story-sharing. So, all three: storytelling, story-doing, and story-sharing need to be aligned and unified with story-building to make your brand's meta-narrative.

For example, last year, REI, the upscale sporting good store, closed all if its retail outlets on Black Friday (the busiest shopping day of the year) and encouraged its employees and customers to do something "outside" instead. This was very smart brand building as it not only generated lots of buzz for being so contrasting to the norm but it allowed REI to tell the 'story of its values' and how it supports the greater outdoors.

Storytelling is crucial to brand development and it should be used whenever possible.

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Jim Lavorato