A Guest Post by Rick Klade.
Behind renowned brands like Coca-Cola, there is a powerful voice telling a story in a way that people have never heard before. Perhaps it is why, Maya Angelou, a celebrated Poet, once said, ‘People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but will always remember how you made them feel.’ Disruptive technologies are changing the way markets for companies like Virgin Australia tell stories in ways never imagined possible.
Today, brand storytelling has got a facelift, thanks to increasingly innovative ways of putting the message across to clients in a way that they feel part of it. Whether you run a small business or a large enterprise, there are many marketing technologies to choose from, and still get the message across to audiences, powerfully.
This post will explore how you can combine brand storytelling and technology in the marketing arena to package messages. Remember, the customer is always the hero, but, before going into the details, let’s clarify a few things.
Understanding Brand Storytelling
There are millions of brands the world over, and so, you may want to ask; why is Toyota or Coca-Cola, for example, doing better than most, if not all? What do they undertake differently making their brands stand out from some of the best products in the world? The truth is; Coca-Cola’s popularity is not a happenstance.
The company saw an opportunity and grabbed it, and its brand story is one that has continued to reverberate connecting with the feelings of consumers worldwide. The company and many other that do tell their brand story the right way have always factored in the following:
· Emotional Response
Car manufacturing companies like Ford, Rolls Royce, and Toyota always partake in brand storytelling, and as technology continue to disrupt how they do it, creativity in passing on the message remains a powerful way of connecting with audiences. In a nutshell, when selling your brand, the best way to do it is by telling a story so inspiring and emotionally appealing that people watching it on TV or reading in on a blog won’t forget.
· Creative marketing strategy
It is not always a story crafted out of creative imagination that captivates the imagination. You must always take note that telling a story isn’t going to be enough until you come up with a powerful strategy, while also appreciating the fact that it is always going to be about people’s underlying emotional responses. Coca-Cola’s ‘Share the Feeling’ perfectly captures this aspect of brand storytelling.
· Engaging Audiences
Another aspect of telling a story about a brand is engagement. Every day, people come across thousands of messages marketing a product or a service. In this regard, you must ask some questions such as the following:
- Will the audience immerse itself in the message, thereby engage with, and feel part of it?
- Or, will they simply scan and move to the next story?
The catch here that, however beautifully designed a story is; it won’t get past the ears or eyes if it lacks the ingredient of engagement. It must be relational, in which case, drawing on human interest, authenticity and facts must be part of a marketer’s efforts towards winning audiences.
· Technology
Today, everyone appreciates technology, and even in marketing brands, there is no way you going to ignore this and expect a desirable response from audiences. Marketing techs vary, and you must choose one that will fit into your strategy for the best story. From Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Social Media, Email, Search Marketing, Mobile to Analytics, there is always something that will fit into your campaign and deliver the best results.
A summary of Brand storytelling strategy
The best strategy always works, and with the aforesaid, regarding packaging, a powerful story, marketing a brand effectively can be summarized as below:
- Work on the minds and hearts of people. When telling a story, you must be able to evoke emotions of inspiration or happiness because it is always going to be more effective this way than rational or plain content.
- Talk about customer experience, and it is important that you separate this from customer service. Why do people like engaging with your brand?
- The customer always wins or is the hero. In your story, the protagonist is a customer who is seeking a solution to a problem and eventually finds it. Show there is a need to be fulfilled and then, a happy ending.
- Humanize your brand by showing clients who you are, or about your company and its mission.
- User experience is another factor, and which should come out in a powerful way. The reactions on the faces say a lot about your brand.
- Give value to your audience. How will it transform their lives?
- A call to action is always going to be connecting your brand to audiences in the most powerful way.
Combining Marketing tech and Brand storytelling
There are so many marketing technologies today that one is always going to be spoilt for choices when choosing the right one. This post emphasizes the best solutions for your brand storytelling. Take a look.
· Augmented Reality (AR)
AR is a technology that is making marketing fun, powerfully engaging and appealing to emotions. Come to think about it. With an AR App, customers can view your furniture store in 3D rendition, zoom in to the products and even use the App to find the right scales for the interior fittings.
· Optimizing marketing content for Smartphones
The smartphone revolution is here, but it isn’t going to make an impact if you do not know how to deliver a brand story to millions who access marketing content via mobile phones. While it puts you ahead of clients, building a mobile-ready website with the best design appeal is a trick that has worked for many companies.
· Virtual Reality (VR)
With emotionally packed messages being key ingredients in marketing, VR technology is making it easier for marketers who never had the best idea on how to bombard audiences will valuable messages. According to Virgin.com, VR helps create messages that bring about transformative experiences, not to mention that, for some time now, it has been named the future of brand storytelling.
If say, you are marketing new watch brand, creating a 360-degree video in VR space telling the story about the product and also how it is made is going to evoke emotions, interactive and powerful. It is one of the best marketing techs that make viewers feel part of a story.
· Social Media
The advent of social media meant people were going to meet and interact in ways never seen before. However, that is not the case anymore because platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat have literary changed the narrative. Marketers rely on social media to boost their campaigns, and in a big way. The question is; do all campaigns know how to package their messages in a way that it appeals to audiences on social media?
Well, it is imperative to note that marketing on Facebook or any other platform is going to be about engagement and big data. Once you are able to segment audiences, use the right tools to measure social media engagement and analyze the behavior of each towards a message, you will be able to serve them the right information about brands.
· Using Geo-Fencing to deliver real-time marketing content
Developed by Mobile Roadie, Geo-fencing is expanding the potential of marketers so that they are able to deliver real-time messages to audiences in specific locations. Matchbox Twenty, a US band has used this technology to up its digital campaign. It works best when integrated with social media and AR so that marketers are not only to talk to clients but also encourage them to share content using hashtags.
Geo-fencing makes it possible to detect the location of a mobile in a given event/venue then serves the user with a real-time message. Soon, an upgrade to this technology will make it possible for a marketer to detect if a mobile user is viewing products on an online shopping platform, and then may, serve them with hot offers such as discounts.
· 3D rendering and Touch Screen Technology
Adidas has successfully used this marketing tech in its adiVerse virtual storytelling. By rendering real boots on a shelf into 3D virtual products using Intel’s computing and Touchscreen technology, people can explore a product by rotating it at any angle and zooming in the details.
It is marketing tech worth using in your next brand storytelling because viewers can also read textual content and access product insights. This technology also helps display shopping trends, recommends related products and demographics, hence provide a personalized shopping experience while also serving value to clients.
Summary
The future of marketing is going to be bigger than now, thanks to transformative technologies. While Google glass directs eyes of consumers to specifics of a product in a virtual setting, we can anticipate even more mind-boggling tech to disrupt the marketing sphere.
Author Bio:Rick Klade is a marketing guru and tech enthusiast. He has written several books on how markers can use marketing technologies to transform brand storytelling strategies. He also helps students craft top-quality business papers at Thesis Rush, a professional essay writing service.
