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Your next company blog post will definitely not be a New York Times Best-Seller but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy of some narrative magic.

Storytelling is more than just a #trending topic marketers are going on and on about— it’s a necessity. Crafting each piece of content you put out to represent your company requires the storytelling touch. No, you’re not writing a novel every time you publish a blog post or a white paper, but the principle remains the same: you need to tell stories in order to connect with your readers, build trust, raise awareness, and ultimately sell whatever it is you’re trying to sell.

In order to dive deeper into what your company’s content needs to include in order to be worthy of a storytelling badge of honor, we talked to an expert storyteller. Jennifer Munro is an awarding winning storyteller who has been teaching a storytelling class for graduate students at a local university.  Her students are practicing teachers or are completing their Master’s Degrees and will eventually enter the world of teaching.

We thought: what better insight than that of a storyteller who teaches others how to tell stories?

Here are six tips for telling great stories:

1. Give the people what they want: “Human beings are wired for stories – we respond more to a good story than we do listening to a report or statistics or facts.  Nothing is as persuasive as a good story,” says Munro.
2. The hook:  While this concept isn’t new, it is crucial, especially as readers’ attention spans shorten and the web becomes even more inundated with content. (Remember when Ad Week teased the notion of one-second storytelling?) As soon as your reader opens the page, you must engage him or her with a character, a situation, or a setting. “The main thing about a good story is that it centers around a brief moment in time when something in your world or the world at large shifted that led to a greater understanding\realization of yourself, another character, or the world,” says Munro. “Without this, you have no story.”
3. Do you want trust? Tell stories: Depending on what your company sells, trust could make or break. Think about two scenarios— buying products for your child and buying a $100,000 piece of equipment for your facility. Both of these situations call for a serious sense of belief that the company you’re buying from conducts itself accordingly, has all certifications, follows rules and regulations, and manufacturers a reliable product. “Therefore, if you’re trying to promote trust in your company, or trying to sell your company’s products, you need to tell your company’s story,” she adds. “You might have the best product in the world, but perfection doesn’t sell half as well as the story of the struggle that went into its production.”
4. Throw away the textbook: For Munro, she means literally when she’s talking to her students who are teaching other students from textbooks, but in the case of companies, throwing away the “stuff” that’s always been there, such as previous documentation and existing presentations could do some good. Forget following the books when it comes to sharing the passion and mission of a company. The facts are the facts, yes. We can read about specs, applications, features, and benefits all day long, but how do you relay the facts in a way that actually keeps people following along on this journey? Your component was used in the first-ever mission to space? Awesome, let’s talk about it.  Your database services help prevent really terrible security breaches? Great, let’s talk security. You launched a new product? Excellent. Why should people care? What problem does it solve? How was it made? Did it take years to develop? What was that struggle like? Why did you keep going? Obviously, someone deemed it incredibly important if they were going to spend the time to bring it to life. These stories need to be told.
5. Get vulnerable: Companies like to flaunt their products, and they should. They should be proud of what they’ve accomplished and created, but it’s also important to get vulnerable and reveal the struggles and how they’ve been overcome. Maybe it’s something as simple as the industry itself overcoming struggles or maybe it took 10 years to develop this successful product. We’re all human and have flaws. Humans identify with “real” companies and “real” people at those companies. “Inject as much humor as possible into the story.  Stories must show some sort of vulnerability, struggle, and eventual success to be effective; humor is a must,” says Munro.
6. Focus on the characters: When it comes to content marketing, the characters aren’t the same as those in fiction novels. Instead, they’re your customers, your team, and anyone who touches the thing you’re trying to sell. Munro suggests we “find out who the characters are – and bring them to life through description and dialogue.” To marketers, this means knowing your target audience and bringing them into the story by talking about things they like and dislike, their challenges, and how they measure success. Always make sure you’re speaking to them and describing them in their language.

“Those who tell the stories, rule society.” – Plato

What are we missing? Do you have storytelling tips you swear by? Let us know and we’ll share them, too.

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