Two men show a child how a machine works

Wielding the Power of a Story

We all intu­itive­ly know the pow­er of a good sto­ry. It’s what makes us lean in at a par­ty, binge just *one* more episode, or scroll a lit­tle deep­er on someone’s social feed. As humans, we’re fas­ci­nat­ed by oth­er people’s lives and expe­ri­ences, whether dif­fer­ent or sim­i­lar to our own. As mar­keters and com­mu­ni­ca­tors, there’s per­haps no oth­er bet­ter tool in our belt than that of a good sto­ry – to catch people’s atten­tion, influ­ence behav­ior, change per­cep­tion or dri­ve a point home.

Think about how you make deci­sions. In the past week or so alone, I’ve asked a ser­vice provider for refer­rals, polled my Insta­gram friends for help in a deci­sion, scoured reviews on a prod­uct and pulled the trig­ger on some­thing that was adver­tised to me after watch­ing a video fea­tur­ing the founder’s per­son­al sto­ry. All of this behav­ior comes from a place of want­i­ng input and sto­ries from oth­er humans, not just a com­pa­ny, brand or fact sheet.

So how do we as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of those com­pa­nies and brands wield the pow­er of sto­ry­telling in our mar­ket­ing efforts?

Stay clear on what you’re selling.

This may sound obvi­ous, but we find it’s an exer­cise worth com­ing back to time and time again, as it can serve as a com­pass, point­ing to the sto­ries that ulti­mate­ly mat­ter to people.

Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism clients we work with aren’t just sell­ing hotel pack­ages; they’re sell­ing mem­o­ries, relax­ation or won­der. Health­care com­pa­nies aren’t just sell­ing tech­nol­o­gy or ther­a­py or devices; they’re sell­ing a break­through, a health­i­er future for some­one or more acces­si­ble or afford­able care.

By stay­ing focused on what you’re real­ly sell­ing, you can more clear­ly iden­ti­fy those who embody these sto­ries — whether cus­tomers, users, founders, staff or oth­er stakeholders.

Con­sid­er where real peo­ple can move front and cen­ter for your brand or campaign.

Most of us have prob­a­bly been told, “data tells, sto­ries sell.” I’d argue that togeth­er sto­ries and proof points cre­ate a home­run pack­age for today’s savvy con­sumers. With our clients, we work hard to help them illus­trate the infor­ma­tion they want to share – pulling out the sto­ries that will res­onate with tar­get audiences.

A man stands behind a podium and speaks to a group of firefighters and reportersWe used this approach with our client, the Min­neso­ta Fire­fight­er Ini­tia­tive (MnFIRE), in its fight to pass fire­fight­er-health leg­is­la­tion known as the Home­town Heroes Assis­tance Pro­gram. Beyond just stats or gen­er­al­i­ties, we shared spe­cif­ic sto­ries with media about fire­fight­ers – those who had lost their lives and the strug­gles they faced, and con­verse­ly those whose lives were spared because of the resources that MnFIRE cham­pi­ons, con­vey­ing the pow­er and urgency of this issue. One of the most pow­er­ful sto­ries we shared was from Jen Frantz, the wid­ow of Rice Lake Town­ship Vol­un­teer Fire Depart­ment Chief Matt Frantz, who died of a heart attack at age 42. “I believe that if he were still here it would’ve been one of his top pri­or­i­ties to make sure his fel­low fire­fight­ers were stay­ing healthy, not only in body but in mind. And I know he would want to make sure that, for them­selves and for their fam­i­lies and fel­low fire­fight­ers, they had all the sup­port they could get.”

We used a sim­i­lar approach with health ben­e­fits provider Gravie. Rather than bul­let points to boast Gravie’s excep­tion­al cus­tomer ser­vice depart­ment and build trust with mem­bers, we sat down with Han­nah, one of the account reps, to share her sto­ry on Gravie’s blog about what if felt like to be a 26-year-old com­ing off her par­ents’ health plan, con­fused and over­whelmed, and what now dri­ves her pas­sion in help­ing today’s health plan mem­bers nav­i­gate their plan.

Sto­ries and spokes­peo­ple can come from almost anywhere.

Start telling!

Media crave a good sto­ry as much as your tar­get audi­ence and can be some of the best ampli­fiers of your stories.

When man­u­fac­tur­ing client Mal­co pur­chased a defunct man­u­fac­tur­ing plant in DeWitt, Nebras­ka, rather than focus­ing sim­ply on the busi­ness expan­sion or the prod­ucts, we told the sto­ries of the peo­ple in town who had worked at the shut­tered plant and were now head­ed back to work. One sto­ry in par­tic­u­lar res­onat­ed with media: Gene Tyser, a larg­er-than-life char­ac­ter with a deep voice and a mus­tache that enters a room before he does, who spent 30 years work­ing at the icon­ic VISE-GRIP tool fac­to­ry in DeWitt, until it closed and moved oper­a­tions to Chi­na in 2008. Despite the dis­ap­point­ment, Tyser remained a strong advo­cate of man­u­fac­tur­ing in DeWitt: “I tell any­one who’ll listen—before I die, I want to see anoth­er tool come out of this fac­to­ry in DeWitt, and I want to be buried with the first one that comes off the line,” he said. A decade lat­er, he went back to work at the fac­to­ry for Mal­co, bring­ing his exper­tise and pas­sion to the team.

A crowd listens as a woman speaks into a microphone

And when Lin­da Chris­tensen, the long­time but­ter sculp­tor of Princess Kay of the Milky Way and her court at the Min­neso­ta State Fair retired after 50 years, we saw it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to share her sto­ry, know­ing it would also help tell the sto­ry of dairy. The unique jour­ney she’d been on res­onat­ed with media around the U.S., land­ing every­where from CBS Sun­day Morn­ing to The Wash­ing­ton Post. In doing so, it opened the door to talk about how mean­ing­ful our client Mid­west Dairy’s Princess Kay of the Milky Way pro­gram is to the dairy com­mu­ni­ty, pro­vid­ing a plat­form for young dairy lead­ers to con­nect with con­sumers and help build trust.

Lead­ing with a com­pelling sto­ry – and a grip­ping main char­ac­ter – opens the door to share the mes­sages you ulti­mate­ly want stake­hold­ers to remem­ber. Beyond use with the media, con­sid­er where you can lead with sto­ries in your com­pa­ny blog, on social media, on your web­site, in email and direct mar­ket­ing, and beyond.

Break­ing through the bar­rage of infor­ma­tion your audi­ences con­sume isn’t easy, but with the age-old art of sto­ry­telling, we can find oppor­tu­ni­ties to cap­ti­vate, build trust and cre­ate mean­ing­ful and last­ing engagements.

Leave a Reply

Trade Shows are Back! Three Ways to Maximize your Trade Show Presence
March 22, 2023
Five women stand together on a stage
Seven Takeaways from the 2023 Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference
March 16, 2023
Graphic of three headshots in circle frames
Bellmont Partners Promotes Three Team Members to Support Continued Growth
March 10, 2023
Reporters listen to the governor speak at a ceremonial bill signing
Five Ways to Break Down Communications Barriers and Champion Change at the Capitol
March 6, 2023
Two women sit talking
Q&A With Bellmont Partners’ New Project Manager, Gretchen Sitzer
January 31, 2023
Going Green Earns Gold
January 25, 2023

Categories