Financial brands today need to find ways to stand out from the crowd. In a society that is increasingly digitally driven and fast-paced, it’s becoming harder to stay competitive. With the world becoming more automated than ever before, it is humanity that is now at a premium.
The human touch is becoming more difficult to find and is, therefore, becoming more coveted. This is something that financial organizations can take advantage of in their marketing strategies.
In the modern business environment, organizations can’t afford to be faceless entities anymore. To survive, they must connect with their target audience. They must engage more deeply with their audience members and activate their emotions. This is where product storytelling can be so important.
According to research carried out in 2015 by Headstream, brand storytelling showed promise as a marketing technique. The researchers discovered that, even all those years ago, brand stories could prompt conversions. Fifty-five percent of people said they’d be more likely to make a future purchase if they loved a brand’s story. Another 44 percent said they’d share the brand’s story, while another 15 percent wanted to make an immediate purchase. Over the past few years, these figures have most likely gone up.
So, how can you harness the power of product stories for your organization?
What Is A Product Story?
A product story or brand storytelling is a cohesive narrative, weaving together emotions and facts to promote your brand. It involves giving consumers reasons to use your service or product while also stimulating their emotive responses. To do this, sharing the story behind the brand is essential. Consumers need to know why the brand exists and why it’s important. Most importantly, a product story helps consumers identify with the brand and resonate with it personally.
These days, a product story should no longer be optional in content marketing. It’s an absolute essential. It is vital for maximizing the visibility, impact, and profitability of an organization.
The above infographic shows the different elements that go into creating a brand story. It involves numerous factors that all work in collaboration to strike a chord with the consumer. The trick is to balance those factors correctly to achieve the desired effect.
Making Brands Real
The above statistic shows just how important authenticity is for consumers when choosing a brand. Finding ways to demonstrate an organization’s authenticity is, therefore, becoming paramount today. It isn’t sufficient to simply have quality services and products. Rather, organizations need to be aware of how to talk about them in ways that appear genuine and relatable. This is why a product story can be so beneficial.
Consumers today don’t want testimonials, statistics, and facts thrown at them from the get-go. They want to engage with brands that are real, memorable, and thoughtful. A product story can achieve this goal.
Disguising the facts by wrapping them in a relatable story simplifies information while provoking an emotional response. Essentially, you’re using a narrative to help you share your organization’s challenges, history, values, and successes. This makes your brand unique.
Not only can product stories increase the favorability of your brand to your audience, but they can also make it more memorable. Research has shown that stories are as many as 22 times more memorable than facts.
So, where do you start with your product story? The starting point is to ask what you want your brand to be memorable for. What message do you need to convey to your target market? Which emotions do you want to elicit from your audience members when they engage with your organization? While consumers may forget the actual words of your brand message, they won’t forget the emotions they experienced.
Since the above infographic shows that emotions are more important in advertising than logic, this is highly beneficial.
Brand Stories Create A Community
A well-thought-out product story can create deep emotional connections with consumers. This, in turn, leads to trust-building and long-term loyalty, something that every organization desires. The key is to consider what your target market needs from your organization. This doesn’t just mean your services or products. It also means the ideas, values, and emotions you can offer consumers.
This is where brand stories can prove to be so helpful. They can turn brands into consumable experiences. This eventually turns consumers into a community that will follow and support your brand, returning time and again for more.
An audience that knows, likes, and trusts your brand will be more likely to choose it every time. This is how product stories can create relationships with consumers who will become brand ambassadors for the future.
Profitability and Humanity Go Hand in Hand
The above quote shows the importance of linking your brand’s story to the story of your consumer. This means making your organization appear more human. Humans love stories, so creating a memorable product story will help consumers feel more connected to your organization. It will help to create a positive and lasting impression of what your brand stands for. The key to success lies in determining what makes your brand human.
When creating marketing content, it’s important to consider how your brand touches and transforms people’s lives. What is the positive impact your brand has on society? When you identify the humanity behind your brand and convey it through a product story, consumers will inevitably respond. They will identify with the brand message and relate to its impact. This will encourage them to choose your organization first before your competitors. After all, you’ve shown through your marketing that you’re on their level. Your brand understands them as individuals and what they truly need. Most importantly, your brand cares about them, and this will attract them to you.
What Does A Product Story Look Like in Practice?
Take a look at the above infographic. It shows some of the basics of telling a product story. But it doesn’t explain what it looks like in practice. So, let’s take a look at how storytelling can work for financial organizations.
Imagine the product you’re marketing as a savings product for first-time buyers building up their down payments. How can an institution shape that product into a story that will appeal to consumers and resonate with their emotions?
A perfect example of a product story would be that of a single mother buying her first home. It could look something like this:
A single mom and her two young children are living in a rented apartment. It’s too small and crowded, and the kids have nowhere to play. The mom dreams of owning a house with a backyard and a bedroom for each child. One day, she sees a woman just like her moving into a new home on her street. She begins to think that it’s possible to achieve her dream.
She goes to the financial institution in question and opens a savings account. She begins to put away some of her hard-earned money each month. She goes through some tough times, and, sometimes, she feels like she’ll never reach her goal. However, she doesn’t give up.
One day, she sees the perfect home for sale in her neighborhood. She checks her savings and realizes she has saved up enough for her down payment. She has changed her family members’ lives for the better now that she can buy her first house. Her children can enjoy the stability of a permanent home. They can have their own bedrooms and play in their backyard. Meanwhile, she can enjoy the satisfaction of being a homeowner, decorating her house in her unique style. The whole family is happy and ready to enjoy a bright future.
The emotions this product story can invoke in the reader are obvious. It’s a tale that resonates with so many people and touches them on a personal level. Not only is it an engaging story, but it’s also a relatable one. It encourages consumers in a similar position to reach out and find out more. It persuades them to discover how the brand can help them achieve their goals, too. Most importantly, it makes them feel as if the brand cares about them and what they want from life. It sets the organization apart as one that wants to help its community succeed and thrive.
This is the power of a product story in practice.
Who Tells the Story?
There are many stories a brand can tell when it comes to content marketing. Some will be the organization’s story – how it began, its mission, and its values. But the most powerful stories that any brand can tell are those that come from the users themselves.
All stories told by a brand must be personal. They must also center around the target audience’s needs while being factual and compelling.
When done well, a consumer story can deliver optimal value. In fact, these can have the biggest long-term impact on a brand. In the story, the consumer must be the primary character. The organization should be in a supporting role, offering tools to allow the consumer to create a successful resolution. The focus should be on what the product or service meant to the consumer’s life. Any praise must be from another individual and not an organization spokesperson.
The above statistics show that testimonials are a powerful content marketing weapon when building up customer loyalty. While readers can easily forget testimonials that are only a handful of sentences, a consumer’s story is memorable. Product stories told from the user’s point of view are strong testimonials that strike a chord with the reader. Stories that delve into the personal challenges and life of the consumer resonates with the target audience. The audience can identify with the situation and note the product or service that resolves that person’s problem. This will remain in the minds of the audience members long after they’ve stopped reading.
How to Create An Effective Product Story
So, now you know the benefits of a product story. But how can you create one effectively?
This infographic above gives a step-by-step overview of how to achieve your goal. Meanwhile, the guide below helps to explain the elements you might include.
Here are a few more tips and pointers to help you along the way:
- Be honest and true to your values, beliefs, and experiences.
- Reflect the brand’s story through the consumer’s journey.
- Make sure the story is well-structured and cohesive.
- Hook the reader in with something engaging and interesting.
- Highlight key facts without dwelling on data or insignificant details.
- Consider how and why your brand helps consumers.
- All stories need conflict – a problem and solution. Include one in your product story.
- Focus on the humanity of your brand.
- Involve your brand’s community and tell the users’ stories.
- Take pride in the story you’re telling and be confident in telling it.
- Communicate the story through multiple media.
Using the Most Effective Media
Finally, it’s important to choose the most effective media when telling a product story. Many media are suitable for this type of storytelling, from blogs to film and print to social platforms. All media elicit different audience reactions, which means you need to tailor the story to fit each. You can only be successful if you know which story is most appropriate for each medium.
Social media platforms can be highly effective for sharing product stories, as the below infographic shows.
Blogs are, of course, an extremely popular storytelling medium. However, as the below statistic shows, video storytelling is rising thanks to its impressive power.
With all this in mind, it’s important to pay close attention to your target audience. It’s only then that we can choose the correct medium and story to tell. In every case, though, emotion, personal connection, and authenticity lie at the heart of effective brand storytelling. When an organization produces content that truly speaks to its target market, it can build long-term trust. This is the power of the product story.