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What we will cover
Stories surround us, from the ancient tales that sustained our ancestors to the blockbuster films of today.
From the moment we learn to speak, these narratives shape our understanding and convey our deepest emotions, carrying us through life until our final tale is told. They can make us laugh or cry, educate or deceive, and might just make you the most powerful person in the world.
Today we will go deep into Storytelling in Marketing, and unpick the various uses for storytelling as well as the structures to help you craft better stories.
Why Storytelling Matters In Marketing
Your brand story
If you can’t explain why someone should pay more for one of yours, then your customers will always choose a cheaper option.
Storytelling can transform a brand from a mere product provider into a movement.
Take Patagonia, for example. Their narrative goes beyond crafting high-performance outdoor apparel—it’s about a deep commitment to environmental activism and sustainability. Every campaign, every piece of content, reflects a passion for protecting nature, inviting customers to become part of a larger cause.
Similarly, TOMS built its brand story around the “One for One” mission, where every purchase not only offers style and comfort but also helps provide shoes to those in need. Both brands use authentic storytelling to create an emotional connection, turning everyday transactions into opportunities for positive change.
By weaving values and purpose into your brand’s story, you can build a loyal community of customers who are eager to support and advocate for your mission.
Your products and services
There are also very good reasons to introduce storytelling into your marketing. When customers are deeply engaged with a brand, research shows they can be up to three times more likely both to refer a product or service and to repurchase it.
In fact, studies indicate that nearly 44% of highly engaged consumers tend to stop shopping around for alternatives, while about 33% say they would only consider a competitor if they were offered a substantial discount (at least 20%).
This means that effective storytelling—which builds emotional connections—can not only boost referrals and repurchase rates but also reduce the likelihood that customers will compare other brands.
If those figures are tempting you, it’s time to delve deeper into what turns a marketing campaign into a story.
The Context Of Your Tale
Communication requires context, early humans warning those around them of imminent danger will require a different approach to the embellished tale you might tell around the campfire that night.
From an elevator pitch to a brochure, your brand has a story to tell, a narrative in a big book. So before we get into the structure, it is important to consider the placement and ultimately the word count.
Speech writers may have to tell a story to inspire millions in minutes, and will agonisingly labour over every word chosen. Other stories may grant you more time with your audience, be mindful of the context and placement.
We talk at about 120 words per minute, and you have 10 minutes (tops) for any story according to this research.
After you have crafted your story, come back to these numbers and refine your word count to fit.
Who’s In The Story?
In order to create an engaging story, you need some characters and a way to make an audience care about them. These are the “who’s” that make the “what” of storytelling in marketing.
When choosing characters for your marketing story, the customer is the common and obvious choice. Brands employ this tactic to show potential customers who is a good fit. Consider this in your photography and video, put your customer in the frame.
The customer isn’t always the only (or even the best) hero. Other characters – like brand founders, employees, or even fictional characters, can also effectively embody your brand’s values and mission.
Creating Emotional Engagement
Through our lived biases, the character can serve as a shortcut to emotional engagement in storytelling, for example, we fill in the gaps of who someone is by how they are dressed or where they are placed. This can serve to speed up the context, but it doesn’t create the story.
We create emotional engagement through characterisation and creating a narrative which presents those character/s with obstacles to overcome.
When they achieve this (perhaps using your product or service), the audience shares in their happiness and celebrates with them, building that vital positive connection between the brand and who they help.
Eight Basic Emotions
Emotions are complex, and there are a lot of them. Fortunately, psychologist Robert Plutchik has makes the decision a bit easier by simplifying emotions into eight basic types. These are:
- Happiness
- Confidence
- Fear
- Surprise
- Sadness
- Disgust
- Anger
- Anticipation
Stories resonate because they trigger our emotional responses. Laregly the above fall into two camps:
- Negative Emotions: Shame, sadness, disgust – when used carefully, these can highlight challenges and create a sense of urgency.
- Positive Emotions: Joy, excitement, love, and attachment – these create connection and memorable experiences.
The element of surprise
However, out of the above, surprise and anticipation are a prequel to the others, and hugely important in our stories.
Surprise is what flips the emotional narrative.
Daniel Goleman widely recognised for his work on emotional intelligence suggests you can engage your audience by challenging expectations and delivering moments that delight and inspire.
Authenticity and Relatability
An authentic story resonates because it reflects a real need or challenge, in short, a problem.
A great product or service exists to solve it.
Use a simple framework of overlapping circles (like a Venn diagram) that captures what your audience likes, needs, values (the “good”), and what they’re willing to invest in (the “paid”). This authenticity builds trust and motivates action, and might even help with product development.
But a story isn’t just the right character and the right emotions, we are conditioned to a certain structure of storytelling.
The Foundations of a Great Story
Since Aristotle in ancient Greece, we’ve been crafting stories based on the three-act structure. While there are many other narrative frameworks to explore, and evolutions of the three act structure (like the heroes journey), these are really well explained here, for now, let’s break down this classic structure.
The Three-Act Structure
- Beginning: Set the stage with a clear introduction that draws your audience in.
- Middle: Develop the narrative by introducing conflict, tension, and key turning points.
- End: Provide a satisfying wrap-up that not only concludes the story but also calls your audience to action.
Act 1. Beginning
In every great story, from ancient epics to modern blockbusters, the beginning is all about setting the stage.
This is the exposition where the world, characters, and initial conflict are introduced, then the hero receives the call to adventure, inviting conflict for them to step out of their comfort zone.
Only when the audience understands the status quo can we see the emotional wrench to do something differently.
This phase captures the audience’s attention by establishing context, defining stakes, and hinting at the transformative journey ahead.
Act 2. Middle
The middle of your story is where the magic happens—conflict builds, challenges intensify, and the journey truly unfolds.
This is referred to as “the rising action” that escalates toward the climax, in this phase the hero will be meeting allies, facing formidable tests, and learning crucial lessons.
Confrontation, surprise, challenge and change are what force us to adapt and evolve. In a marketing context, this is the part where your brand values and solutions are really put to the test.
Act 3. End
Here we have the climax, that epic moment of success. Clever storytelling will weave multiple personal narratives with a community benefit, to maximise that dopamine hit. For example, Frodo overcomes his battle to destroy the ring, the ring being destroyed saves whole of Middle Earth (and elsewhere) Aragon fulfils his potential to become king.
Next comes the “rising or falling action,” depending on the outcome. For example, the hero may return transformed, embodying growth and change, or, in the case of ancient Greek tragedies, descend into catastrophe.
This stage signifies either a realization coming true or a dramatic shift that alters the status quo introduced in Act One.
In marketing, the end of your story should reinforce the transformation your customer experiences, solidify trust, and invite them to join your brand’s ongoing narrative.
How To Use Marketing Storytelling: Crafting the Narrative
While structure, characters and emotion are all critical components of what makes storytelling in marketing, it’s important to remember that narrative isn’t just about evoking feelings—it’s also about clear communication of your task, message, and audience. Ask yourself:
- What is the core message or call to action?
- Who is my audience, and how do they communicate?
- How does this story fit into the larger chapter of my brand narrative?
Energy, Clarity, and Humor
Your story should be both warm and clear. If you want to be remembered, use humor. Getting this right can be tricky, consider:
- How to warm to your audience with relatable emotions.
- Enlighten complex issues by offering a fresh perspective.
- Maintain clarity with brevity and levity, ensuring your audience is never overwhelmed.
Medium and Method
Whether it’s a blog post, post, or video, how you go about this will vary on the medium you’re using. Consider:
- Each platform may require a different approach, but the underlying storytelling principles remain the same.
- Remember attention span, and use “but” to create tension.
- Your narrative should adapt to where your audience goes, how they read, and even how they talk.
Don’t miss a beat
The concept of a “beat” in scripting has its roots in theatrical traditions, where directors would mark a pause or a shift in dialogue to signal a change in mood or direction on stage.
Although Aristotle’s Poetics laid the early groundwork for understanding narrative structure, it wasn’t until the evolution of modern theater and later film that the term “beat” was adopted to denote these small, pivotal moments in a story.
Screenwriting pioneers in the 20th century then formalised the idea of breaking a script into discrete beats. Educators like Syd Field and Robert McKee further popularized the “beat sheet” as a planning tool, helping writers map out the narrative’s key shifts and emotional turns.
Ultimately, using beats allows marketers and storytellers to craft content that unfolds with natural pauses and heightened impact, ensuring that every moment advances the overall message.
These filmwriting Resources like the Beat Sheet Calculator and Save the Cat’s Beat Mapper can help you break down any story into its core beats.
Targeting the Right Audience
It wouldn’t be marketing if we didn’t come to the “right” audience in here somewhere! Different audiences process information differently.
A child settling down with a storybook requires a different style to be convinced of its worth than a business executive listening to a pitch. Here’s a useful steer:
- Consider the five different decision-making styles that resonate at the executive level.
- Cater to the four different archetypes that companies embody.
- Obsess over your audience. Where they go, how they read, and the language they use, this will ensure your story aligns better with their expectations.
Bringing It All Together
The goal is to have your audience ask, “And then what happens?” at every turn of your story. A skill that takes time to hone.
Writing is a muscle to exercise, as we do it more we get better and better at it, if this structure is alien to you at first, sit with it and enjoy playing the structure of your words.
Our award-winning client, Mark Diacono once said that writing is rewriting. Don’t be discouraged by the first draft, just get it out, then refine it.
Storytelling in marketing is about more than just relaying events – it’s about building an emotional bridge between your brand and your audience.
By using a clear structure, crafting a narrative that balances emotion with clarity, and continuously refining your approach, you can create stories that not only capture attention but also drive action.
As you embark on your storytelling journey, remember to:
- Start strong with a compelling hook.
- Build tension and deliver surprises that flip negative emotions into positive outcomes.
- Refine your story through rewriting until every word carries weight.
- Always keep your audience in mind and align your narrative with their decision-making styles and needs.
We hope we have helped uncover what is storytelling in marketing, remember the art of storytelling isn’t just a marketing tool – it’s a way to connect, inspire, and ultimately, drive success.
Embrace the storytelling animal within and prepare for the ride of a lifetime.
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