The Art of Storytelling

Content is the mother of all marketing. It has been the core ingredient of every marketing activity of the past and in this age of chronic attention deficit; its significance has grown more than ever.

Content marketing helps brands engage with customers using clear, concise and compelling information that is useful for them. Information is the core differential between traditional and modern consumer behaviour.  

People are constantly Googling for information on products and services based on their needs or wants. This combined with the educated decision making pattern that has got into people, makes content marketing inevitable for modern businesses.

Brands need to put out their story on the World Wide Web and give themselves a chance to engage with customers and create a relationship of trust, loyalty and love. They need to be available with useful information within consumer reach; at their fingertips.

Content marketing is the art of storytelling that engages consumers through various forums thereby bringing in profitable relationships for the business. Creating compelling content on the internet is like leaving petrol near the fireplace. Useful content travels across boundaries and spreads like a wildfire to earn leads, likes, followers, tweets and most importantly an active customer base. This makes every piece of content created by a company important on a strategic level.

Though internet has become the greatest carrier of content, it doesn’t make sense for marketers to shout their brand story at a whopping 3 billion people who use the internet. And this is where content meets our concept of inbound marketing. Companies don’t have to tell their story to 3 billion people; they need to share it with only those who care. Content marketers need to optimize their content both for social media and search engines so that is easily available to prospective customers who search for them.

While your content is put up for the whole world to see, content marketing on the internet focuses on the individual. It is an online target marketing strategy delivering to the needs of people who show interest in your story thereby winning hearts, minds and wallets.

KFC India took to content marketing recently using pictures of crisp zinger burgers and compelling web feed which talked about its quality measures, company values and kitchen secrets. They urged customers/readers to use #KFCTasteTheNew and the result was phenomenal. Thousands of people used the hashtag on Twitter within a week, followed by more than 15,000 social shares across different internet platforms. The content from their web feed engaged hundreds of thousand people generating love, feedback, questions and discussions on their comments page.  

The art of effective storytelling is a story in itself. Every campaign driven by good content is a strategic step towards engaging people who make choices that bring profits to businesses. It is vital that marketers deliver content that leverages their “choosability”.