Corporate Storytelling

Stories have been there since the very dawn of time, since first appearing in cave paintings, the stories have been used to entertain, educate and pass messages that would’ve been difficult to convey otherwise. Good stories live through generations, thus offering whatever they have to offer to such a strong audience. This is why incorporating the skill of storytelling while pitching your ideas, products, services or whilst positioning a brand is almost inevitable in today’s day and age.

The principles behind corporate storytelling are the same as the traditional storytelling, with the only difference being in the motive. Now, the stories could be in a text as well as video form. With the latter being put more and more to use for SEO advantage.

Building a story…

Like any traditional story, there are four major elements in the arc of a story. Around these, the story is laid down with all the facts and figures that you need to put:

1. Setting: the introduction to the situation you’ll be referring to; it could be a snapshot in time, space or a circumstance. Provides the context for the entire future story.
2. Characters/Hero: the characters are mainly the people responsible for the situation or the ones immediately affected by it. For instance: customers, employees, etc.
3. Conflict: once the audience is comfortable with the setting and resonating with the characters, it’s time to drop in the conflict, i.e., the problem. They will be now involved with the problem emotionally, and try to resolve it.
4. Resolution: this is mainly you pitching you product, service. If the above three have been set up well, the audience will delve into the resolution you are offering, and your work is done.

The above steps make it clear as to how to use stories to market your strategies.

Further, here are some tips to make your stories engaging and productive:

• Simple: Think of fables, which revel around a single situation to convey one key message (the moral). Fables also featurean agile structure that fosters understanding and the audience’s attention.
• Complete: a logical structure: beginning, middle and end is absolutely necessary whether it’s a 20-second video or a 2000-word article.
• Moving: Effective narratives combine information and emotion. Your story could convey happiness, relief, joy, optimism… How would you like your clients and prospects to feel while listening to it? And how should they feel afterwards?
• Genuine: Your business stories shall reflect and highlight your corporate values as well as the value your client gets from using your products or service. Corporate storytelling is a promise – and you’ll have to keep your word.
• Relevant: for the narrative to work… The audience has to really connect with it, otherwise, it won’t be convincing enough.