Storytelling is found throughout every part of a human’s life. It’s how people form and build life-long and intimate relationships and move and learn as a society or community, which makes it such a powerful marketing strategy to add to your business and continue to increase your audience engagement.
Here are five ways to improve your storytelling techniques:
Don’t Make Your Brand the Start or Main Focus
Always make sure your customer is front and center of your story to make a great impact. Many businesses fall into the bad habit of thinking they are the hero and star of the show. However, that’s not the case. Solving your customer’s problems is, and the point of the story is to get them attracted to your brand. By making them the star of the show instead, this is much easier to accomplish.
Improve Your Listening Skills
Again, your audience is the most valuable resource to your business and story. They are the reason you exist. This means you need to improve your listening skills and actively hear what they are saying. Ensure you know where to improve and let your audience know you understand them by solving their problem or providing value.
Follow a Common Script or Story Arc
To create a story that makes a powerful impact doesn’t mean you need to reinvent the wheel. Follow along a common brand arc first and then expand and take more risks as you go along. Pay attention to how your audience reacts. If they like it, keep using the same structure.
Keep Them Guessing
While you want the main problem and solution to the story obvious, that doesn’t mean the journey to how you got there should be. Keeping your audience wondering “what’s next” or “how will they save the day” is a useful strategy for making a memorable and engaging story.
Focus on Building Trust
Transparency is key if you want to build a solid relationship with your audience. If your audience can’t trust you, it is unlikely they will benefit you or your business. They won’t stick around long enough if they get any ill feelings. Show them you are trustworthy by sharing customer spotlight stories or using characters and story arcs relatable and relevant to their lives.
Overall, the one key to improving your storytelling techniques is to keep trying and practice. Through trial and error, you will learn what works and doesn’t work for your target audience. While there are many different techniques, tips, and tricks to try, it’s important to remember that if it doesn’t work for your audience, it doesn’t work for you, no matter how good the advice may sound.
Over the next 60 days, we will be talking exclusively about becoming a better storyteller so you can work on increasing your audience engagement.
It’s a fact that the human brain is wired or attracted to stories. This is because stories are how the human brain learns, grows, and remembers things. Through stories, you can better remember important events and communicate or connect with your peers and audience. And, more importantly, through stories, you gain audience engagement and the action required to run a successful and sustainable business.
Let’s be honest, we know that you’re unlikely to follow us through the entire series, so here’s a little cheat for you – the entire series of articles as an ebook – our gift – no strings attached. If you’re ready to catch up on some summer reading that will actually propel your business forward then this is for you.
DOWNLOAD THE FREE E-BOOK: Become a Good Storyteller to Increase Audience Engagement
