We tell stories to one another all the time: at family meals, pleasant gatherings, business lunches, and by posting photos and videos on social media.

Our brain processes language when we read a good story, translating words into meanings and emotions. We create taste, smell, color, and movement by combining what we’ve heard with our own experiences.

How storytelling works

Storytelling in marketing has been around since advertisements were printed with ink on paper. However, a storytelling email campaign in marketing is a new trend that’s just beginning to take off. When you bring in the emotional connection made by the story, the client doesn’t need to be persuaded.

Commercial storytelling serves some functions.

• Propaganda
• Unification
• Communication
• Influence

Propaganda

Stories can inspire, convince, and persuade. They have the potential to endure for a long time and cause others to engage in beneficial actions. For example, Nike promoted women’s freedom of choice in sports in early 2017.

Unification

Stories play an essential role in the culture, identity, and development of a project, brand personality, or organization. For example, Disney’s brand story revolves around values built on a foundation of family and friendship. This philosophy is echoed across every Disney property, from movies to theme parks.

Communication

Stories procreate trust, and understanding is impossible without it. Therefore, the more experience you have, the better your communications will be.

Influence

Stories help you establish credibility and trust. For example, everyone acknowledged that Steve Jobs was a genius entrepreneur, inventor, and industrial designer. TThe world regarded him as a trustworthy individual to whom one can have faith unconditionally.

Features of commercial stories

To build storytelling into your marketing strategy, you need to:

• be client-oriented
• formulate the purpose of the story
• use the “situation-problem-solution” scheme
• show the audience the value of the brand

Tell stories that people will believe

You don’t need to be a great storyteller, creative research paper writer, or director to come up with a tale. All you need is a plot, occurrence, or event that has indeed altered your life or the lives of those around you.

Stories can tell about:

• the creation of the product
• working with clients
• brand success story
• the product
• the company
• anything in general, directly or indirectly related to your business

Ways to tell a story

Marketers utilize a variety of media to tell their stories, from text and video to comics and cards. It might be in the form of offline speeches, podcasts, various content delivery formats, and even multimedia. The most important aspect is to stick to the algorithm.

Storytelling algorithm

Analysis of your buyer persona for storytelling

Many business marketing campaigns and other associated experts overlook this stage even though marketing activities begin with research on the target audience, whether putting out an ad campaign or developing a new product.

Before telling a tale to people, you should first evaluate their prior knowledge and listening abilities. Then go for the ones who are more devoted and receptive.

The main idea of storytelling

A commercial narrative captures the user’s attention and establishes an emotional connection with the brand, resulting in trust, which leads to specific consumer behavior.

When it comes to constructing a narrative in a company, keep in mind that every fact has a story. The moment a fact is revealed, its influence on future events is evident. When a fact is relevant to someone, it becomes significant for their context.

Choosing a hero for storytelling

Rather than the company itself, stories about a job or product are influenced by the client’s context: their life, habits, and interests. The main figure might be the client’s portrait or that of the relative (mother, spouse, child). It may also be a pet, a household item, or another known object.

The character is often based on a real person, and the audience thinks to themselves. When your audience reads a relatable story, they can resonate more with the brand behind it. To know exactly how they would react in a specific circumstance, you must first fully develop the character.

Choosing the plot

In commercial storytelling, it’s not so much about the story itself; rather, it is about the benefit it will provide. Therefore, it is essential in marketing to show how the brand can help customers with their issues.

That’s why storytellers integrate storytelling in the product’s usefulness to the consumer. The plot usually begins with the hero discovering a difficulty and resolving it with the aid of the company’s product.

Storytelling in email marketing

Companies that create mailing lists typically utilize numbers and a basic overview of information rather than scattering the attention of their subscribers. They believe that if consumers have already opened the letter, they should get a return on investments. Why do they need it if the company has not yet earned their trust? Without emotion, trust cannot be established.

Stories in letters that are more than just numbers and facts but also include a plot, characters, and emotional connection, can influence readings, create a link between the client and the brand, and even affect how consumers use the product.

Banners have become so inescapable that even most consumers have grown immune to them, despite their unsightly appearance. However, they are not yet used to stories in letters. As a result, such emails stand out from others.

Features of email storytelling

The majority of email content stories are lengthy, but if your story keeps the reader’s attention from the beginning, he or she is more likely to finish the message and perhaps take targeted action.

Important: The subject line and the preheader are where storytelling in an email begins. Even if the story in the body is exciting, it may not be read through if the headline is dull.

Storytelling techniques in emails

You can tell stories in the following ways:

• Blog post announcements as standalone stories
• A short story that leads to targeted action
• Stories in the article previews
• Origin stories
• Letter from the blog editor
• Quotes
• Stories in promotional emails
• Cases
• Linking text or images to landing pages
• Stories with a brand mascot
• Comics

You may also feature your customer success stories. Customers’ stories can simply be the story of your customer and how your product or service helped change their lives. You may also use video in mailings, tell jokes in emails, start a sequence of communications, and conclude each with a question to encourage the reader to anticipate the next one.

Telling stories must be intriguing and capture the audience’s imagination. If you can’t find a way to engage your readers, your message will become just another email in their inbox.

Keep putting out compelling stories that are interesting and relevant, providing the key to decoding the message, demonstrating what your product is capable of, inspiring others to relate their own stories, focusing on benefits, emphasizing emotions, and much more!