Content Marketing and Storytelling Success Story

Storytelling lifts content marketing into more powerful messaging. In this week’s column at Target Marketing, I shared 10 Storytelling-in-Content Marketing Lessons Learned as a result of a content marketing series. This campaign was designed to energize volunteers and a base of followers, build a larger base of supporters, and strengthen a brand with the long-term goal of monetization through product and event sales.

During this campaign, we’ve seen, first-hand, the power of story with diverse styles of video content marketing that included interviews, behind-the-scenes stories building up to a major event, and the high viewership of the final long-form video. 

As you most likely know by now, I’m a member of a world-class international Barbershop Harmony Society champion chorus (we recently won our 12th Gold Medal competing among 31 groups from four countries in front of a live audience of 7,000 plus thousands tuning in via webcast). I handle the marketing for the organization (with assistance from my long-time colleague Perry Alexander). 

Because it’s a music-based organization, and because we frequently use video as primary messaging vehicle, we have come to realize the power of not just music, but overlaying storytelling.

Now that the six-month pre-contest campaign has concluded, we share 10 lessons we’ve learned from this campaign about storytelling and content marketing.

1. Stimulate interest. Earn trust. You audience probably isn’t interested in what you have to sell until you have stimulated their interest and earned their trust in your value to making their lives better.
2. Give them unusual access. They want to be let in on what’s behind-the-scenes. Video can deliver this experience better than any other channel.
3. Build tension/release with joy. Like any good story, add an element of tension, but let the audience experience joy. People will remember you for how you made them feel.
4. Give context in your story. As an insider, it is your responsibility, as a storyteller, to set the stage. Refrain from using acronyms and jargon, so the viewer can appreciate the importance of an upcoming element of the story.
5. Leverage the “Fear Of Missing Out,” (FOMO). Craft your story so it builds from one part to the next, so your audience, while fearing they’ll miss something, is looking for your message.
6. Let characters be a star. If you have multiple people in the story, creatively develop a delivery vehicle so everyone can participate. (We had a crazy idea about how to include over 140 people, including myself, in a video. See the result here).
7. Put your audience inside the story. Don’t be detached. Invite them come along with you.
8. Encourage comments and reviews. Your audience will tell you what they think, so invite participation.
9. The story dictates length. Many claim that videos must be short. Not necessarily true. They must be tightly edited and move the story along. The final video in this series was 36 minutes long and YouTube audience retention was higher than average, all the way to the end. Use YouTube analytics to reveal where fall-offs occur, and to improve your overall storytelling.
10. Strategically monetize. Think long-term about monetizing content marketing. In this series, coming into the all-important fourth quarter, this audience is pumped, which makes selling performance tickets, recordings, and fundraising all the easier.

Beyond building the brand (and winning the contest), tangible results of this six-month campaign includes combined video views of over 22,000 (still growing daily), website views spiking by four times over average, consistently strong email open and click rates, Facebook Fan page follower increase of 25%, and Twitter follower increase of 27%.

Bottom line: you must continue multiple reasons using circular viralocity for people to return to your website. You do that with developing a compelling story and content.

Finally, a word about music and the brain, and why this storytelling campaign was so successful. 

Recent brain imaging studies are telling us more about the importance of singing or playing a musical instrument than we’ve known before. For instance, if you’re a manager or executive, chances are that as a child you sang or played a musical instrument. A recent study reveals that early musical training can be influential in determining an individual’s success. 

And there’s more. Emotions encouraged by music activate similar frontal brain regions, and can have a significant impact on your marketing messaging.

Music has the power to create a pleasurable experience that can be described as “chills.” As chills increase, many changes in cerebral blood flow are seen in brain regions such as the amygdala. These same brain areas appear to be linked to reward, motivation, emotion, and arousal, and are also activated in other pleasurable situations.

Storytelling works. The inclusion of relevant music in storytelling can stimulate and take people to desirable emotional places. And if you want reaction, make sure the music “chills.”