Even when stories are clearly fictional and are presented as such, if they are well-crafted, they add value to the services and products they support.
Stories Add Value
Even when stories are clearly fictional and are presented as such, if they are well-crafted, they add value to the services and products they support. People perceive an object as having more value when a story accompanies it.
• Credibility and Believability: Stories present information about products and
services in a way that makes data more believable to the audience.
• Create Connections: Stories create connection and trust among buyers, sellers,
employees, management, and investors.
• Strengthen Relationships: Stories strengthen business relationships and create
communities increasing the chance for loyalty instead of one-off transactions.
Stories Communicate Efectively
When listening to stories, people assimilate information much more rapidly than they do when listening to a list of facts or figures.
• Provide Enjoyable Listening: Well-crafted stories are engaging to listen to and
enjoy. Stories that stimulate the senses are more memorable than tables of facts and figures.
• Communicate Quickly: It’s much easier and quicker to communicate an important message within the context of a story than any other way. Complex information is more accessible to the layperson when it comes wrapped in a story.
• Great Stories Are Shared: When you hear a powerful story, you’re more likely to share it with someone else. This doubles or triples the effectiveness of stories
compared to other ways to relay information. It gives them the potential to “go
viral.”
Stories Stimulate Action
Stories are inspiring. Well-crafted stories can empower the audience to take steps toward specific goals.
• Spark Conversation: By sparking conversations within your organization or around the world, stories can be a catalyst for transformation.
• Imagine the Future: Stories can paint a vision of the future that’s attainable with audience participation.
• Problem Solving: Stories that show how others have collaborated to solve problems can inspire employees to strive for greater innovation and creativity. Stories make abstract concepts more tangible to the audience. Stories can help individuals and organizations learn more rapidly.
Stories Are More Sticky
Most consumer decisions, over 90%, are unconsciously made. Stories appeal to the senses and heart and are therefore much more sticky than other ways of conveying information.
• Connect with the Senses and Emotions: When your story connects with people’s needs or emotional states, you have a higher likelihood of staying in their consciousness for longer periods of time.
• Stories Stick: Think about powerful stories you have heard. Many of them may
have been told to you in childhood and stuck with you for decades. Inspiring
business stories stay with you for much longer than slideshow presentations with no support stories. Stories are filled away in your subconscious and influence your behavior.
• Captivate Interest: Because stories captivate your listeners, they become more
attentive and retain the information you are conveying. Also, stories guide the
audience to draw their own conclusions, which empowers them and makes them active participants instead of just passive listeners.
Stories Help with Unique Selling Proposition
Many companies use storytelling to convey their brand. Some select companies use stories as core ways to organize all the action they take both within the company and as their outward face to customers. When stories are used the second way, they have more lasting impact at all levels of an organization.
• Diferentiate Yourself and Your Organization: Stories help you to communicate
to the consumer why you and your organization are unique.
• Communicate Values and Passions: Stories with their supporting images help you communicate your values and passions to a wide audience.
• Establish Economic Value: By using stories, you can establish the economic value of your products and services with your end user. It helps the end consumer to develop an appreciation of all that goes into the work you do.
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