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5 Storytelling Trends Marketing Leaders Should Know About

Storytelling is a key component of digital marketing and the most effective way to improve user experience. A good story has the power to evoke emotions and strengthen the bonds between the brand and its fans, which is critical in the online world that suffocates users with salesy and pushy messages.

According to the report, 5.3 trillion ads are shown online each year. It’s a huge figure that explains why more and more people use ad blockers every day. In such circumstances, storytelling becomes the only tactic to grab the attention of the target audience.

In this post, we want to show you five storytelling trends that marketing leaders should know about along with real-life examples. Let’s take a look!\

1. Create Video Stories

As a marketer, you probably know that humans are visual beings who process videos and imagery much faster than textual content. People simply love motion picture content as Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021.

James Mayfield, a content creator at Essay Writing Lab, says it’s a clear signal that today’s stories have to rely on the visual component in order to fulfill their marketing purpose: “Videos make a message more actionable and dynamic, completely immersing viewers into the story.”

Just take a look at Google’s Year in Search 2018. The largest search engine in the world does not highlight its global popularity, but rather tries to prove that users appreciate good news more than anything else. Doing so, Google sends a powerful message to the world while subtly promoting the brand itself.

2. Innovation

Customers like innovations and brands that can offer something fresh and exciting. As the digital universe keeps expanding and coming up with new tools and gadgets, you should definitely try to take advantage of it and create an offer the audience has never seen before.

You just need to pack it into a nice story and enjoy the results. Take IKEA as an example. The world’s biggest furniture retailer designed the so-called IKEA Place mobile that takes user experience to the whole new level.

They added a small but quintessential dose of Augmented Reality to the app, so customers can test products before buying: “You see the scene as if these objects were real and you can walk around them and interact with them, even leave the room and come back. It’s really magic to experience.”

The IKEA innovation story is simple, but who says it needs to be complicated to win over the audience?

3. Social Proof

Do you know that 92% of consumers trust peer recommendations over advertising? The word of mouth marketing is not a novelty anymore, but it’s getting increasingly important for storytellers as well. If you want the story to be perfect, you can add user testimonials to make the content more authoritative and convincing.

This is exactly what Starbucks does in a video that explains why a simple coffee serving joint became a global brand. Some of the company’s regular customers shared their personal stories and insights about the whole Starbucks experience, speaking of first dates, memories, acknowledgment, etc. After hearing their stories, you can’t help but go to Starbucks immediately!

4. Mini Ads

Modern consumers are very impatient. They hear and see too much content every day, so you cannot afford to bother them with long-form videos. A study reveals that videos less than 90 seconds in length see an average retention rate of 59%, as compared to videos over 30 minutes long that retain only 14% of viewers.

But the trend is to make videos even shorter. Marketing leaders now shoot mini ads that last less than 10 seconds. As a matter of fact, six seconds seems to be the ideal length as now everyone is trying to create meaningful but extremely short stories.

5. Social Responsibility

Storytelling and corporate social responsibility make a wonderful combination. It’s a huge trend that lasts for a while already, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to disappear any time soon.

Baron Fig figured it out a long time ago, which is why they launched a campaign called Buy a Book, Plant a Tree. The brand tells a story about “a responsibility to leave the Earth better than we found it,” while planting trees is their way of giving back.  

What seems to be the point of this story? Well, we all want to make a profit, but it must never be our only priority.

Conclusion

Content marketing can only get you so far if you don’t support it with interesting and emotional details. Modern consumers hate ads and commercials, so it’s necessary to follow the latest storytelling trends and thrill the audience with amazing brand stories. In this post, we showed you five storytelling trends marketing leaders should know about. Make sure to use our tips and let us know in comments if you have any questions or suggestions about this topic—we would love to see it!

Jacob Dillon is a writer at best essay writing service, where he helps businesses with show correspondence and marketing. He is also a content manager at write my essay and write texts for dissertation service. Find Jacob on Twitter and Facebook. I look forward to your reply and feedback. Sincerely, Jacob Dillon.


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