The Power of Story Telling in Marketing!

Great Content is at the heart of any successful marketing campaign. But how do you go about creating awesome content that gets and holds the attention of your audience? One thing I have learnt from studying the greatest business leaders in the world past and present is that they have the ability to tell a great story. Think about it Warren Buffett, Gary Vaynerchuck and Steve Jobs are some of my favourite story tellers.

Why Stories are Used

Stories can be used to grab the attention of an audience, increase their focus, build a connection with your audience and make them laugh.

Grab Attention and Increase Focus

You can use suspense to release the dopamine chemical in the brain of the audience to increase. This is shown to great effect by David JP Phillips in his Tedx talk in Stockholm. This tactic is great for making a point.

For example one thing I’ve learnt in life is whatever you do don’t do it half heartedly. This is great advice but if left it at that and continued on with this article you’re not likely to remember it as I haven’t prepped you properly by using suspense to grab your attention and increase your focus.

On the other hand if I was to make my point like Mike (from Breaking Bad) does in the video below it’s going to stick with you. Have a watch and see for yourself.

The point is the same but by using a story to make his point it grabbed your attention increased your focus and gave you that dopamine rush you love so much.

Build a connection

A great Ad which is a “real tear jerker” as the Wall street journal calls it is an ad created by True Move in Thailand. I’m not going to explain what it is just watch it for yourself below.

This ad went viral and is still relevant today because theres a message behind the ad and it makes feel empathy with the characters.

Make People Laugh

Using comedy in story telling increases creativity, relaxation and focus. One of the best comics I’ve seen does this very well, below is a video where Dave Chapelle tells a story about a baby in the ghetto. Check it out and have a chuckle.

This can be used in marketing to again help people remember your marketing content. You see people don’t really remember what you say, they remember how you made them feel. Now that last statement is very important because the whole point of using a story is to make people feel a certain way that way they remember the ad and remember your company.

How companies can use story telling in Social Media Marketing

Companies use stories in their marketing all the time. Thats how they convince you their brand is better than their competition. Lets take a look at everybody’s favourite company Apple. More startups want to be able to market like Apple than you can count. But when they promote their new Iphone’s features, what do they do? They tell you a story. They tell you what the problem was, what the obstacles were around solving they problem how they overcame those obstacles with new technology and finally why it’s now a better product for you as a consumer.


When it comes to building a brand a company needs to tell a story about where they’ve come from, where they’re at and where they’re going. A company is just a group of people and the brand is what your company stands for so when building a brand companies need to tell stories that get certain people who are their target demographic to relate with them. Once you’ve done this then you can charge a premium for your product.

People want to be part of something bigger than themselves they want to feel a sense of belonging a sense of acceptance. So when building a brand you need to know your WHY. Why do you do what you do and you need to communicate that effectively. As Simon Sinek put it people don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it?

In conclusion you can use stories to build trust by making people laugh, empathise or just to make your point in a dramatic fashion either way it’s going to increase your audiences focus and increase the chance of them remembering your ad and brand going forward.

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