To some, the idea of using story and storytelling in a business setting feels like some airy fairy pixie dusted exercise in touchy feely-ness. It’s understandable. For some STORY equals FICTION, and what use is fiction in business? In our practice the stories, or Buyer Legends we write and use are based on market research, real customer interactions and use cases. And the stories are not fictional, but rather speculative. In addition they serve as predictive models of customer behavior that can be tested and optimized. Don’t think of storytelling as some romantic notion, instead view it as an established construct for more effective communications both with customers and with your team.

There is no shortage of evidence that storytelling works either. A joint research study by Facebook and Adaptly found that a series of sequenced ads that tell the customer a story about the product/service far outperform those ads that sought to get people to take action immediately. Chad Brooks of Business News Daily writes…

“The researchers found that among those who saw the sequenced ads compared with those who saw the non-sequenced ads, there was an 87 percent increase in people visiting the landing page. Additionally, there was a 56 percent increase in email subscription rates among people who saw the sequenced ads.”

You, I, and your customers are wired for story.  That is not a fairy tale, that is a reality. Ignore it at your own risk.

Want to know more about unleashing the power of story in your business?  Get your copy of Buyer Legend – The Executive Storyteller’s Guide.