4 Tips to Get the Most Out of Great Brand Stories
Everyone knows how to tell an interesting story, right? Well, judging from some stories I have seen and heard, maybe not. Telling great stories is incredibly important for people and businesses to relate to, move and inspire each other.
For businesses, the development of new marketing channels from the universe of digital media (i.e. social media, blogs and online publications) has created opportunities to engage with and influence target audiences. Additionally, B2B tech companies are communicating in increasingly crowded markets, and frequently to a growing crop of technical professionals and engineers moving back to the region. For many, simply telling a great story is no longer good enough if the right people aren’t seeing it.
Over 60% of the marketing and communications professionals we speak to in the region believe that they could be doing more with their content.
Crucially, about three out of five also say their expectations aren’t being met with current digital content marketing efforts.
We get it. Communicating the value of an intangible business solution to the appropriate audiences can seem more complex in today’s environment. These four tips will help organizations on the path to confidently reaching the right audiences with their compelling content.
- Make stories that connect with consumers’ real-world concerns
We all want to feel that we’re making purchases from brands that understand our priorities and needs. This desire does not change when making purchasing decisions for business. In fact, B2B purchases are even more emotionally driven than B2C purchases, as they carry more risk, and can have greater consequences, than a personal purchase.
A deep awareness of who your business’ potential customers are within the organization, as well as their motivations and online behaviors, are crucial for effective engagement throughout their purchase journeys.
- Create content that is succinct and purposeful
Passion for your solution or service is great but if the primary message is getting lost, chances are so will the sale. More content available means less time to read it all, and the fact is: the world’s attention span is shrinking.
Marketers must engage and capture the attention of target audiences with quick and powerful stories that stay with them. This content should have messages that reflect a knowledge of the audience – and their consumption habits on each channel too.
- Use all available channels to deliver tailored messages
Think about your organization’s last marketing campaign. Did the team effectively use the materials that were created? Were all of the company’s owned channels utilized? How were the campaign messages shared across paid, earned and owned channels? Even more important, were company executives and employees mobilized and encouraged to disseminate the messages from their social media accounts?
In other words, did you make the most of your assets? Without considering each of these questions, marketers lose valuable opportunities to reach additional relevant customers, partners or prospective employees.
- Extend the life of contributed content
Too often, when an article is published in a media outlet by an executive leader, it is seen as the last step in getting the insight into the public. However, when content is developed with only one destination in mind, opportunities to extend the life of that article’s message, and increase viewership of the story, are lost.
These are great moments to not only cascade these stories, with the help of corporate digital channels and employee social media accounts, but also acknowledge the content’s publisher. This content can also work well being shared (without coming across as self-promotional) in professional forums, such as LinkedIn groups.
Is your organization getting the most from its brand stories?
Multi-channel marketing is not a new concept, but the potential value and effectiveness of these campaigns are becoming evident in Asia. There is so much potential to share great brand stories more effectively with intended audiences – and I’m sure a little more ROI from these efforts would be welcome for any marketer.
Do you think you could be getting more value from marketing efforts?
We will do a deep dive into multichannel marketing in future blog posts. Sign up for our email newsletter to get this in-depth content right away.
If you are interested to know more about how we can help you with your content, reach out to us at enquiries@changemandate.tech today.