The Challenge of Storytelling in International Markets.
Using Storytelling as a key business development tool
Storytelling is a hot subject for marketers and has become a significant tool that marketers want to use to portray their brands. Storytelling can be used to help with international sales and applied in most sectors. It is great way to help with successful new market entry. There are some sectors that fit in particularly well with storytelling, such as some consumer products, travel and tourism. Storytelling can also be used with most technologies and industries. Through storytelling people understand how that technology fits into their lives. Even when selling B2B, storytelling can be powerful because you are actually not selling business to business but selling human to human and stories, that people can relate to, will always resonate.
Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of art in the world. It is about delving into people’s memory and getting them to recount something that can be spread by word of mouth. Many companies view social media as an ideal place for storytelling but it can be used not only in social media but in most of your marketing. Storytelling needs to be not only about telling your story but also about selling your story and it can be used to bring your business to new international markets. Through storytelling you not only grow your brand awareness but you also increase your reputation and credibility. People believe stories more. They feel that there is not the hard sell.
Using Storytelling for Successful Market Entry
Why use storytelling to increase the visibility of your business as you enter into new markets? By using storytelling it helps sustain the objectives of your business in the new markets. It keeps you close to the fundamentals that make your business different. It differentiates you from your competitors. It explains to your target market the essence of your company and product/service. It gives your customers a feeling of security.
A lot of companies want to measure the impact of the storytelling and want to know ways in which it can measured. The use of storytelling in your marketing is a long term investment. It is an investment in strategy, understanding and knowledge and it will be only over time that you will see if it has an impact. However the experience you are creating with your storytelling must be authentic, sincere and trustworthy or otherwise there will not be a positive impact on revenue. Reality must mirror the story. In travel storytelling must be an integral part of your services and creates the experience that your customers will have. Storytelling is about putting the dots together and connecting everything so that the reader gets a comprehensive picture of what this brand stands for. It puts all the sequence of events and disparate pieces and helps create an image of your brand.
Storytelling as a tool for International Sales
When moving into a new market which possibly has a different language but definitely a different culture, how should you use storytelling? Storytelling can be used for all markets but you need to be clear of who you are speaking to and what the objective of the storytelling is. Again it depends on your product/service. For example in tourism using storytelling about your product can be very good as travel is all about different experiences. With other products/services you do need to keep in mind the culture when you are telling your story and ensure that it meets with the cultural norms of your new market. In any language, you need to have passion when doing storytelling. Language or culture does not change this fact.
If your product or service is new & innovative, storytelling in new markets can help build a community around your product/service. Your storytelling needs to create emotions and when you are developing your story you need to keep the market in mind for whom you are writing that story, as different cultures will have different emotions to different stories. Storytelling is all about emotions. It is the emotional part of the story that you are trying to convey as that will make it all the more persuasive to your target audience. It has a start, a middle but hopefully no end because with an end, your story is finished and so is the development of your brand and the need to start looking at alternative ways to market your brand in foreign countries. Storytelling, especially the part through social media, direct mail and even through PR is a great way to market to your new markets in a cost effective way as the creation of these stories are in the DNA of your company.
Storytelling should be used for all markets as integral part of your marketing strategy but culture and objective need to be considered when writing the story as how people react emotionally can vary from market to market.