As a corporation, it’s important for your audience and customers to understand what your organization about. The best way to do so is to use storytelling. While many corporations understand that, they make the mistake of focusing on the narrative and talk too much about themselves. You can even call it the curse of the elevator speech. The target audience and customers are then left asking “what did that have to do with me?”
Rather than go with that tried and tired approach, you need to focus on conveying the message “here’s what this means for you.” You need to make people become a part of the experience and gain value from your story. Approach the story from the perspective of the customer. For example, there have been corporations that told the story of a customer that found a solution to their problem using their products. Another could be taking the customer into the actual process of creating one of your products.
As mentioned earlier, storytelling is an experience, especially on the web. The story isn’t about just the words on the page. It’s the whole presentation, the visual design of the website, the interactive elements, and the sequence of events. That’s why web design is a very important element if you are trying to tell your corporate story in the digital front. Everything from how your website looks to how it functions encompasses the entire experience.
Stories also aren’t limited to the words on a page. Too many corporations limit their story to their about page which is often dull and boring. You need to make sure that your content is engaging, valuable and sometimes even fun. For example, infographics are great because they are visually appealing, engaging, entertaining and pack a punch in terms of delivering an immense amount of value in a short amount of time.
And there are other forms of content besides infographics that can tell a great story. Parallax design is another good example of visual content that uses interactive elements to maximize engagement. Multimedia, mobile apps, and visual story oriented websites are also effective ways to tell your corporate story. It’s all about being creative and thinking outside the ‘about us page’ box.
Stories are powerful and can be the medium for connecting people to the brand of a corporation. When a conversation about a brand or company starts taking on a life of its own, it usually stems from a story. Dove’s campaign for true beauty is probably one of the best examples the business world has seen. With that said, you need make your story count. Make it valuable to your audience and customers, and find a unique way to tell that story.