All Marketers Tell Stories

Are you a marketer? I think you are. Certainly, you have an idea you’d like to see spread. If you’ve got employees, I bet you’d…

Are you a marketer?

I think you are.

Certainly, you have an idea you’d like to see spread. If you’ve got employees, I bet you’d like them to do more of what you’re hoping they’ll do. If you’re applying for a loan, I am sure you’re hoping you’ll get it.

Consumers pretend that they’re rational and careful and thoughtful about the stuff they buy. The reality, however, is the exact opposite.

Consumers rely on stories.

Why? Because stories matter, the materialistic value of the entity may fade over a period of time, but consumers never forget how a product once made them feel or how the salesperson treated them when they visited the showroom for purchase. The product may not satisfy their needs or their budget but there may still be chances that they buy it if the salesperson is convincing enough they could satisfy the customer with a story.

Many companies have spent their millions trying to invent television like commercials for the Web. Pretty quickly though, they discovered that if people could skip ads they would. In this digital world, the opportunity for marketers has nothing to do with re-creating mass marketing and creating commercials that can’t be skipped. It is making an intriguing clip people don’t want to miss on. It is making the consumers feel good about owning a particular product/service. It wanting people not to buy your product because they need it but because they want it or want to be seen possessing it.

Consumers also tend to care a lot about the buying process. They care a lot about peer approval and out-of-the-box product experience. Taking an example, if someone wants a coffee they might as well go to any café and have one. But the twist here is that they want to be seen holding a Starbucks coffee cup. Another example of how drastically the behavior of a salesperson influences the customers attitude towards the company is how individuals in the U.S always prefer to go to a particular location outlet of the Starbucks because the guy at that particular counter knows your coffee preference and the toppings you would prefer which is unlikely in case of going to a new outlet where you would have to explain your preferences all over again.

Every organization thus competes to tell the story better or get a better story that will stick to our minds.

Maybe this obsession with storytelling binds our past, present and future. It thus gives us hope and nostalgia, two of the most crucial chemicals used in the creation of almost every marketing elixir.