Welcome back to a new season of the Broadening Horizons Podcast!

This season my sweet husband Mike is joining the podcast to chat about all things business. Today I’m telling him about how storytelling is taking online marketing by storm, how to show up truly authentically with your audience, and how storytelling can benefit small businesses and make advertising easier. 

Show notes:

What is storytelling in marketing?

• advertising in a way that is more than listing our services or products
  • Telling a story of a photoshoot that turned into an adventure
  • Telling a funny anecdote or moment that happened with a past client
• Show the experience of actually working with you
  • Showing BTS of client project or send offs
  • Showing testimonials in a more organic way
• A push to show commonalities between customer and company
  • This can look like sharing company values throughout marketing material
  • Showing BTS or the real person behind the business and your real life
  • Showing up authentically as yourself

What does it mean to show up “authentically”

• That’s tricky because that’s different for every business owner
  • Authentic may mean showing your expertise as a high end company + giving the best advice or becoming a trusted source that reviews new products
  • Authentic may mean showing up in your stories or lives with no makeup on
  • Authentic may mean being silly, sarcastic, or whatever your personality is
• HelloStoryTale talks about “Glass Box Martketing” and how people want to see what’s happening behind the scenes and get an inside look into a business before they work with or buy from them

Why is marketing going in this direction?

• Influencer marketing
  • People like to follow and trust others on social media that they feel like they know
  • Influencers build an audience based on their own lives, travels, families, and personalities
• People are tired of big mega corporations that seem cold or greedy
  • There has been a push for years to buy more handcrafted, one of kind items from small businesses
• People also just want to buy from businesses who values align with theirs

The benefits of storytelling marketing for small businesses

• You’ll have more ideal clients that genuinely connect with you
• You’re marketing will feel more like a conversation and less like a sales pitch
• Your content will feel “binge worthy” and potential clients will actually enjoy reading your new posts
• You’ll be able to get more mileage out of your marketing content
  • telling different stories around the same points in your business

How do we use more storytelling marketing in our businesses

• Share BTS
• Share the things you are thinking about
• Share the things that are important to you/things you are passionate about
• Share and live out your brand values in your business

We’d love to help you tell your story: we are booking branding and web clients for this year