Yes, we agree, the overarching goal of effective marketing is to help increase sales. Whether it be through customer awareness, gaining market share, driving site traffic, or increasing followers, at the end of the day, most clients have dollar signs in their eyes.
While this is often the case, having sales as your end all be all goal doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be shoving a sales pitch at your customers every chance you get. You can if you want to but we wouldn’t advise it …
When it comes to content marketing, best practice is to create “authentic” content. That being said, oftentimes consumers have varying opinions of what authentic content is. To some, it might mean utilizing influencer marketing to develop a sense of dependability and reliability. To others, it may consist of proving your authority by sharing your expertise and knowledge.
A study found that although 92% of marketers believe most or all of the content they create resonates as authentic with consumers, 51% of consumers say less than half of brands create content that resonates as authentic. So the question becomes, how do you create content that not only YOU consider to be authentic, but that your consumers consider to be authentic?
Brand storytelling is essential to authentic content creation.
Think of brand storytelling as a casual way to communicate with your audience in a way that they actually want to hear. Imagine you’re watching a show or movie on live TV (we know, who even does that any more?). When a commercial comes on, you get up to refill your glass of chardonnay and grab a snack. After all, commercials are annoying unless it’s the Super Bowl, right?
In this scenario, your TV program is storytelling-style content marketing. The commercials that you’re not interested in are the sales pitch style marketing efforts most people have become averse to.
So what is brand storytelling and how do I make it work for my business? Some of the most important aspects of brand storytelling include defining your audience, your brand voice, and the solution your business provides. It’s impossible to develop an effective storytelling plan without starting with the basics.
It’s critical that when creating content, you appeal to the audience that you’re targeting. Imagine marketing a product to grandma and only investing your marketing efforts on social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. I don’t know about your grandma but there’s about a 0% chance that my grandma is gonna see that …
Knowing what your audience likes, dislikes, needs, and how they spend their time is critical to producing successful content. For example, when searching for informative, knowledge-based information, you might go looking for a scholarly article from a reputable source. Whereas if you’re looking for beginner-level instructions on how to poach an egg, a video by an at-home chef might be more in line with what you’re looking for.
Don’t lose your brand message in content creation.
As you begin to develop content that appeals to your target audience, it’s important that you don’t lose sight of your brand. While it’s important to appeal to your audience’s wants and needs, what you’re doing and who your audience is should stay in line with who you are at the core.
At Digital Storyteller, we start each of our client partnerships with a Brand Storytelling Session. In this session, we challenge our clients to answer the question “what business are you in?” Oftentimes we’re met with complex rehearsed elevator pitches about the nitty-gritty details of what they do.
That’s not what we’re looking for. Starting with the bare bones of what your business does helps you identify the basis of what you don’t want to lose sight of. Challenge yourself to simplify your business to something as simple as we: provide loans, create sustainable clothing, develop organic digital content, etc.
Defining your business in its simplest form helps ensure that you truly understand the message of your business. Albert Einstein understood this best when he said “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
We get it, at the end of the day, you want to make your sales and reach as many people as possible. But you want to do so by giving the people what they want. Appealing to your audience and staying true to your brand identity is critical to successful content marketing. While a traditional sales pitch might feel like the easiest way to reach your sales goals, it’s likely not the strongest payoff over time.
For more information or support in developing an organic content marketing strategy, reach out to our diverse team of marketing experts at Digital Storyteller.
