This is the second part of a tour through the power of storytelling – and how organisations can use its techniques to connect with new members.
In the last instalment, we considered the prevalence of storytelling in our lives throughout history. So now let’s look at how we’re wired to communicate in stories.
An idea that came to prominence in marketing 14 years, when it was proposed by the author and leadership expert Simon Sinek in his book Start With Why, was that all business communications are about influencing people to do something.
Usually, we’re planting an idea in people’s heads that will make them know, understand or believe something that – eventually – inspires them to take some desired action. Hopefully, in our cases, that action is joining our organisations.
Businesses that communicate well, Sinek said, are engaging different parts of the brain from those who communicate poorly.
A biology lesson!
If you look at a cross section of the human brain, what you are seeing is that it is broken into three major components.
Our newest brain is called the neocortex. It’s responsible for all of our rational and analytical thought and language. But it’s not the part that is responsible for decision-making.
The other two sections make up the ancient mammalian part of our brain, including the limbic system. Our limbic brain is responsible for all of our feelings, like trust and loyalty.
When you communicate in a way that sparks emotions, like fear or happiness, hatred or love, this is the part of the brain that lights up. It’s also responsible for almost all human behaviour and almost all decision-making.
It follows that, if you want to provoke decision-making, you have to spark emotions and if you want to spark emotions, you do that with stories and not just any-stories – but stories that resonate with the people you want to engage.
So what makes a good story?
There are four key strands. The first is insight. It’s obvious that membership organisations need to find out what members believe about their brands, their products and their services. But, actually, we also need insight into what those members think about the world they inhabit, their values and core beliefs about everything that matters to them, from family relationships and career plans to hobbies and cultural preferences. Even their ethical positions.
The second element is the application of that extra insight. Too often, businesses limit the subject of their stories to their own products and services. This is not inspiring anyone. You should work to craft stories that don’t just chime well with your organisation’s brand aspirations but reinforce and resonate with your members’ core beliefs about the world they inhabit.
The third element of good storytelling is clever and creative distribution. It used to be that PR people would use established and trusted media brands to carry their messages to their audiences. But, in 2021, loyalty to media brands has collapsed along with particular preferences for distribution formats and even the hardware itself. In other words, we care less and less who produced our podcast, TV series or article or how it got in front of us…so long as it entertains, informs or educates.
For membership organisations, this means the demise of the ideology that online success can come with little investment, that tweeting can be left to office juniors, and that social media calendars should be filled up with everything and anything. Quality is what counts. And so to the most important thing to know about successful, powerful storytelling. It has a structure.
And the all-important structure of powerful stories is what we’ll be covering in the third and final instalment of this series.
Cloud9 Insight provide membership-specific Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions, delivered by an experienced team of Microsoft-certified consultants.
Leave A Comment