Storytelling is the oldest marketing technique in the world,
and there is a reason for that.
Storytelling is the human way of communicating. It is how we make sense of the world. How we share. How we connect. How we interact and how we remember.
When we are gone, that is essentially what we all are – stories. Told by the living so they can keep remembering us.
Stories is the heart and soul in everything we do. When you ask your friends about their workday? Or why your partner hasn´t been able to clean the house? All the answers would probably be some kind of a story. We do so to explain, to be understood and to share.
Even though we tell more stories than we may realize, all stories are not great stories. You may have experienced this scenario: You ask your mom about her week, and she starts rambling on about an event, but she can´t remember if it was Monday, Wednesday or maybe even Saturday, while you lose your focus and start thinking about tonight’s dinner. This is why we need to develop our storytelling skills, to create and tell exceptional stories that cuts through the noise.
Storytelling is elementary
In a presentation at Ted Talk called “The magical science of storytelling”, David JP Philips explained how storytelling is a fundamental part of all humans.
About 100.000 years ago, we started developing language. We did so to communicate with each other. It´s not a big assumption to assume that part of this communication was used for storytelling to transfer the knowledge from generation to generation, he tells.
Though it is still discussed when cave paintings started, we know they were common around 27000 years ago. These drawings pass knowledge, and tell stories about experiences, beliefs, and ideas. Today their storytelling gives us clues about what happened so long ago. 3500 years ago, we started transferring knowledge through text. Now, we also tell stories through art, literature, games, news, movies and videos, and so on.
Storytelling is in our DNA. Emotions and instinct drive our decision making. Cold hard facts, data and rationalization do not. If they did, we would work out more often, eat healthier, take care of the environment and do more drastic changes based on all the documentation and facts we are given every day.
Effects our brain and hormones
Presentation expert David JP Philips explained in the Ted Talk how hormones are affected by storytelling. If we break down why great stories has such a huge effect on us, it is because of emotional investment. The bigger investment the less critical, objective and observant we become. It´s the same hormones and neurotransmitters that we get when falling in love.
It is hormones like vasopressin, oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. Philips further explains that dopamine makes us creative and focused, oxytocin makes us feel human and relaxed, and endorphin also makes us more creative, relaxed, and focused.
The face-paced life we live in today creates hormones like cortisol and adrenalin in our body. A high amount of these hormones makes people intolerant, irritable, uncreative, critical, and causes bad decisions and low memory function.
This is what marketers have to work against every day. This is why great storytelling that produces the positive hormones are essential in marketing, because it makes our audience more relaxed, focused and open. According to leadership consultant Karen Eber, when talking about data only two parts of the brain are activated, but when listening to a story the entire brain is involved. This is why stories are so effective and memorable. They motivate us and aspire us to act.
Content Shock
Beside a stressful and faced-past world, we live in a digital era where easy access it the norm. Almost all company´s has access to social media and Internet to spread their message. You don´t necessarily need a huge advertising company to get noticed anymore. This gives the consumers all the power and therefore makes them more selective and savvier.
Both marketers and users are in danger of getting “Content Shock”, according to Smart Insights. Every minute 500 hours of video gets uploaded on Youtube, 350 tweets are posted, and 294 emails sent, according to an analysis created by the company. It is hard to keep up. People has content fatigued and therefore only pay attention to what really resonates and stands out.
Effective and profitable
Great stories can take time to create, while storytelling skills and efforts need to continuously be updated. The good news is that investing in storytelling is not only good for creating attention. It is also profitable. The Significant Object Project proofs that. A guy bought 200 items for 129 $. He took those items, and had a story created around them. He posted the story on eBay for each object, and guess what? He sold everything for 8000 $. That is a 6101.5% increase.
As you can tell, storytelling is the most effective way to be remembered and create profit. When telling an appealing story, it can make people want to become a part of it. This will drive attention, increases sales, and grow your community into loyal customers.
There are so many companies offering the same product as you do. I know, they are not as good as you right? Your customer may not now that if they don´t understand how you differs from your competitors. You won´t get noticed if your only strategy is to show how you are better by comparison. You need a story to tell who you are, your beliefs, your mission, your values and the real story behind the product or service. The truth is that neither your audience nor your customers are only buying your product. They are buying into you. You need to keep them invested.
I like to finish of the way we started this blogpost. Storytelling is the oldest form of marketing, and the reason for this is – that it works! And we need it now more than ever.
To watch the presentation referred to in this article and learn more about the power of storytelling, click on the links below.
The magical science of storytelling
Why storytelling is more trustworthy than presenting data
mie-marine.com 
