Our last article talked about how stories appeal to everyone, partially because they have something for every learning style. But that's not the only aspect of learning that storytelling helps.
Memory is a huge part of learning and perhaps the most crucial goal of marketing. We want our target audience to remember us and come to us when the timing is right, even if we aren't standing in the room with them.
Stories make your brand memorable.
You've likely encountered this in your experience. How many times has someone told you a good story, and then you recounted it to someone else without struggling to recall the details?
Stories make a more prolonged impact and are remembered more easily than dry facts. Research backs this up.
Organizational psychologist Peg Neuhauser found that learning stemming from a well-told story is remembered more accurately and for far longer than learning derived from facts and figures.
Similarly, psychologist Jerome Bruner's research suggests that facts are 20 times more likely to be remembered if they're part of a story.
Wow! Think of that. As a marketer, if you wanted to improve ROI 20 times on your content, digital or direct marketing campaign, just adding a story will allow you to do that.
Another element of the story is the ability to make an emotional impact. Your audience may forget what you say, but they will not forget how you made them feel, which is essential because emotions drive purchase decisions more than logic.
Ask this one question: What singular idea or message do we want to communicate?
Take what is most important and what you want people to remember long after they stop watching your vid or navigate away from your page.
Then craft a story around that one clear message.
For example, when we wanted to highlight how good of a fit we felt we would make with targeted prospects, we focussed on the clear message of a perfect pairing.
In our minds, that meant, "We go together like peanut butter and jelly."
Name a more iconic duo than PB&J. Go ahead, and I'll wait.
Once we had that central message, we added layers to the narrative that ultimately led them to a lunch meet-up with us for PB&J, of course.
You can read more about our PB&J outreach here: https://www.uviaus.com/work/pbandj
In the end, this campaign story allowed us to showcase our personality, share a few things about us, and most of all, it made a lasting impression on the minds of our targeted prospects. In fact, over a year later, we had someone tell one of our account reps that they remembered us due to that campaign with the direct mail outreach still on their desk. Now that is sticky!
