Remember “Choose Your Own Adventure” books? The original series ran from 1979 to 1998, and those of us who grew up reading these books would revel in the gimmick of blindly deciding our/the characters’ outcome.
Using storytelling to craft your brand’s image bears similarities to that series; you’re not starting from scratch—the products and services you offer, and your company’s history are already set—so much as choosing how to navigate your next move.
The standard warning of “Choose Your Own Adventure” books.
But when it comes to choosing your own marketing adventure, the decisions you make are highly calculated, far beyond the care-free coin flip of those books. Maximal data and strategy inform each choice you make regarding your brand’s future. Most of all, the outcome isn’t yours alone: your audience of customers is right there by your side.
Where will you take your customers on this journey? How can you most fondly frame your company’s history? And how can you best assert and contextualize your present standing in the marketplace?
At Element, we’ve found the surest path toward effective brand storytelling is to choose integrated marketing.
Integrated Marketing: Control Your Own Destiny
Browsing in the fiction section at a bookstore or online, you’ll notice the vast majority of the books are written by a single author. Most popular books are attributed to one writer, and it’s tough to fathom literary success otherwise: imagine one person writing settings, another handling the plot, the characters created by different freelancers, and the dialogue devised by scriptwriters who’ve never met their collaborators.
Integrated marketing is comparable to a book written by one author where all components of brand storytelling are orchestrated by a single, highly-efficient team, and benefit from a unified vision. This helps present the clearest public image and most compelling narrative: who/what your brand is, how it came to be, why it operates as it does, where it’s been, where it currently is, and where it’s heading.
With Element handling web design, video production, and social media, we’re able to reinforce brands’ stories across various media and platforms, multiplying their impact via consistent look and voice.
With integrated marketing, your ability to authentically showcase your brand is much greater than it is with siloed services. Integrated marketing assures more touch points and various media for communicating your brand’s story, better serving to increase your digital footprint and broadcast your story to a broader audience.
Further, content cultivated by a single agency helps customers understand and relate to your brand with greater consistency. The effect is similar to supporting your story across different sources, and strengthening its impact. Integrated marketing multiplies the effectiveness of various tactics such as social media and public relations.
Improve Brand Storytelling with Audience Feedback
Every time your customers interact with your brand is another chance not just to tell your story, but to observe how your story is being received. Are your social media accounts garnering positive engagement? Is your website producing conversions? Are you hitting some KPIs, but not others? There are countless ways to interpret how favorably (or not) users, visitors, and customers are responding to your storytelling.
This feedback isn’t intended for your audience to “choose your brand’s adventure” for you, so much as to help you improve your ability to connect with them. For example, if straightforward social media copy isn’t hitting the mark as you’d hoped, consider adopting a more relatable and approachable tone.
Marketing Happily Ever After
Effective marketing, communication, and brand storytelling amount to meeting your audience where they are, on their terms, rather than where you may wish they were. Once you’ve met them on common ground, what do you want them to know, think, and feel about your company?
Achieving conversations and gaining business from customers is a matter of their ability to understand your brand and, as a result, choosing to join you on your adventure. And there’s no better way to assure customers your story is worth their while than with the impact of integrated marketing.
The end? Not for this tale. Gather round and contact us to discuss how Element’s integrated marketing can help tell your brand’s story.
