The Science of Storytelling in Advertising: How to Engage and Sell

Only the lazy do not talk about storytelling now, but not everyone has managed to succeed in it. It is especially difficult when it comes to creating materials for a huge corporation where everything is boring and regulated. Where should you get breathtaking stories if you work in a harsh production or in a large company that has nothing to tell about except its greatness? We have studied the main methods and some techniques that will teach you how to use storytelling in advertising.

We live in a hellish information noise. Social networks, messengers, news websites, etc. Each channel tries to give us its portion of useful or not-so-useful information. Over time, we have learned to filter content and only perceive what is really interesting to us. The ability to read selectively is good for the user but bad for the marketer. The audience, already sick of direct advertising, stopped responding to calls to “Buy!” Then, smart people decided to turn to storytelling.

By the way, if you are a student who studies marketing and who needs to write an essay about storytelling in advertising, the following information will be helpful for you. But if you don’t want to deal with your paper on your own, you can get marketing assignment help from professional writers.

Storytelling: What Is It?

Storytelling is telling gripping stories in which the reader either recognizes themselves or at least sympathizes with the main character of the story. Why is it necessary?

The human brain is designed in such a way that it perceives information better through stories. The listener unconsciously puts themselves in the hero’s place and partly lives their experience, becoming emotionally involved. That is why we read books and watch TV series with bated breath.

Stories are as old as the world, but they have only recently begun to be widely used in advertising. The term “storytelling” was needed to define the new role of narrative.

6 Tips for Good Storytelling from a Writing Coach

A renowned writing coach, Daphne Gray-Grant, has some advice for writers, journalists, and copywriters who want to find and skillfully tell stories about their companies. We have gathered these tips for you.

All writers—even those writing for large corporations— should sprinkle interesting stories into their texts. If you’re determined to get into storytelling, here are some tips.

Find the best places to hunt for stories

If your job involves only communicating with the company’s top management, you won’t collect many stories. Here are the best sources, in our opinion:

• Contact personnel (people who communicate with clients directly – salespeople, call center operators, etc.)
• The product consumers and the company’s clients themselves
• Retired company employees
• Suppliers and companies that are friendly to the one you are writing for.

Know that storytelling is less about writing and more about interviewing

To become a good storyteller, you first need to learn how to get stories. Good stories will tell you everything about themselves if you just find the right source and ask the right questions.

Did you fail in your mission to gather quality stories? You’ll have nothing to tell.

Talk to people; don’t interview them

If you’re talking to people, your questions should be based on what they told you in the interview, not what you wanted to ask before you even met them. This format of conversation is more natural and puts the interviewer at ease. Ultimately, this approach will give you the story you were looking for.

React

During a conversation, don’t be a silent listener or a questioning machine. Give the person feedback on what they’re telling you.

If you hear something surprising, don’t be afraid to say, “Really? How interesting!” and if the person shares a difficult experience, express sympathy (“I’m so sorry about that. How did you cope?”). Be a human being in the conversation, not a machine, and the person will be more inclined to tell the real story.

Avoid superlatives

Any questions that include words like “best, worst, most, hardest,” and so on will be very stressful for a normal person and, at best, will make them think for a long time.

Of course, for a person who is looking for a story, it is a terrible temptation to start asking such questions because we hope that this will help us find the most interesting thing in the person’s story. The bad news: for people, such questions seem very difficult and daunting because they basically have to run through their entire life and somehow select the experience that may seem “the most-most.”

It is not bad to ask for specifics. But you do not have to ask for the very best. It is enough to ask a person to simply give one memorable story from their experience.

Ask for examples and funny stories

You won’t get anything unless you ask for it. Don’t expect the interviewee to read your mind. Ask the person for an example, a funny story, or a telling story related to the topic of your future text. It will likely find its place in your storytelling.