Most of us still recall a few good childhood
stories. Whether our teachers, parents
or friends told us, one thing was clear, they fired our imaginations and
provided great satisfaction. I know it was true for me. Like a ripping song,
stories are mesmerizing because they touch us in lasting ways. “Who cares about
great content ? Your customers do !And you know what ? People never outgrow
their love of good stories.Over the past few years, marketers and public
relations professionals were caught up in over-stuffing their news with
keywords to increase search engine optimization, perhaps losing sight of what
was important:the real news. Moreover loosing target audience to the millions
of online search results, or allow them to click away because the content didn’t
engage.Google's changes in search engine optimization have enforced marketers
to re-think how they present their news.
Content is no longer confined to the written page in
the digital era. It is outspreadacross web and mobile, taking the appearance of
words, videos, podcasts, webinars, widgets, and blog posts, and empowering
people everywhere to voice their opinions. Content tells the story of your
products or services and propels your brand into the hearts and minds of your
prospectus, customers, and others. Well-crafted story telling has always been of
great importance and even more so today with Digitalization, but it means
nothing if it’s not written well. Content rules the web, we all are publishers
today. All content isn’t suitable for a global audience. Producing content is
easy. Producing effective content is not easy to do, and most brands are
failing at it (miserably).The trick is to make your content more about the
value it provides and less about the marketing and sales of your products and
services, rather finding a way to tell a story with your products, services,
and company as a whole. What are the values that drive your business ? How can
you connect to your target market in emotionally enriching, mutually beneficial
ways ?alongside you need to be empathic with the end reader in mind.
With all the “noise” and interruption, you need a
way to break through the clutter, a way that will impact people and help them
understand where you are coming from. You need a way to help customers
appreciate the authentic space that you live in within your industry, to
present your content in a way that will absorb them and get them to want more.
In the business environment, and especially with content marketing, you should
embrace and nurture storytelling. When you do, your audience will like to
engage intellectually and emotionally, and feel they are a part of your story. And
because you took the time to connect with them in a unique and sincere way, the
way that they remember from stories of long ago, they will find ways to connect
with you in meaningful, long-lasting ways.
Why are executives like Mark Zuckerberg (Co-founder
and CEO of the social-networking website, Facebook), Chad Hurley, Steve Chen,
and Jawed Karim (Co-founder, You Tube), Kevin Systrom (Co-founder of
Instagram), Jan Koum (CEO,Whatsapp), Drew Houston (CEO, Dropbox), Reid Hoffman
(Executive Chairman, Linkedin), Nick Woodman (CEO, GoPro),ChetanBhagat
(Writer), Sachin Bansal and BinnyBansal (Founders, Flipkart), Steve Jobs (CEO,
Apple), Bill Gates (Founder, Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (CEO, Amazon), and Jack Ma
(Founder and Executive Chairman, Alibaba Group)are so legendary ? In large part
because they are able to engage people’s emotions. Within the confines of your
digital presence, you can do the same thing, and you’ll indeed be able to
compete seamlessly in the content age. Crafting scenarios of possible future happenings,
using personal dialogues, and talking about experiences can genuinely get
people your potential customers to stand up and take notice. The how and why
and when of content are everything, to repair the fractured emotional
customer’s experience. If you don’t connect, you don’t sell, and that’s the
bottom line. Done strategically, logically, intelligently, and innovatively, content
marketing can provide grand return on investment ever.
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