Insight
Once upon a time … how to tell the right story
January 2025
Let’s be honest: We all love good stories! So why don’t we use storytelling as a powerful tool in our marketing? Storytelling helps to position your company and emphasise your unique selling proposition (USP). By telling stories, we show the values, philosophy and working methods of our business in a lively and understandable way.
Storytelling sets us apart from the competition, attracts new customers and builds a connection with potential customers. By sharing success stories and case studies, we strengthen the trust of potential customers and show that we are able to solve complex problems and achieve top results. Storytelling is also a very effective tool that we can use to recruit new employees. It increases the commitment of our employees and strengthens the image of our company or organisation.
Why is storytelling important in business?
Good storytelling opens up a whole new level of communication and trust between suppliers and customers. We don’t have to invent new stories; we only have to tell the ones that are happening right in front of our eyes every day: the heroic stories of our customers!
The basic elements of the ‘hero’s journey’, briefly summarised, are as follows: A hero (that’s our customer) has a problem, meets a mentor (that’s us), gets a plan and goes on a journey to eventually overcome the problem. The better your customer can identify with this hero and experience you as their mentor, the deeper they will be drawn into the story.
You can use this example ‘hero’s journey’ as a template for creating your stories. Try to include the points below:
• A potential customer has a problem and feels helpless and overwhelmed. Their problem is weighing heavily on them, and they don’t know how to solve it on their own.
• But then they come across your company and immediately realise that they have come to the right place.
• An experienced advisor is assigned to the customer as a mentor and works out a plan with them. Together with their mentor, the customer embarks on a journey to solve their problem.
• The greater the obstacles, the more exciting the story becomes. The advisor is always at their side, giving valuable expert advice. In the end, the customer returns to everyday life and has successfully solved their problem.
• For them, the journey with the company was a life-changing experience. Not only did they solve their problem, but they also built trust with their advisor.
As well as communicating your strengths, benefits and services, why not tell the success stories of your customers? You can do this via your website, via social media, your podcast and via all communication channels that are available to you.
How storytelling empowers your employer branding
The company’s image as an employer plays a crucial role in talent attraction and retention. In this sense, storytelling emerges as a powerful tool to enhance your ‘employer branding’, emotionally connecting with potential candidates and strengthening the perception of your organisation as a desirable place to work.
Just as customers identify with the company, the employees’ own values should also be reflected in the corporate culture. While a decent salary and the prospect of a good work-life balance may have been enough to attract new employees in the past, job seekers today are taking an even closer look – at a company’s culture and mission statement.
We can also apply our ‘hero’s journey’ in this case, because employees are the most important heroes and at the same time the best storytellers when it comes to painting an authentic picture as an employer. Instead of theoretical arguments for corporate culture, employee stories give the employer brand many different faces. They are more concrete and more emotional – everything that makes storytelling successful and enables potential candidates to identify with the brand on an equal level.
In practice, this means that instead of a list of benefits, you should communicate your company culture: Can employees bring their dog to work? Do you watch a soccer game together? Is there a running team in the company that trains together? Is the lactose-intolerant employee happy that there is oat milk for their coffee? We are sure there are many stories like this that you can tell on your career website.
So, if you want to attract new customers and new talent, tell authentic stories about you, your company and your employees! And don’t stop telling good stories!
About the author
Simone Wesiak
Graz, Austria
Simone is responsible for marketing, PR and events at Russell Bedford’s Graz, Austria member firm Hofer Leitinger Steuerberatung. As managing partner at Denktaktik, she implements web and strategy projects for clients, helps brands and companies to become visible on the market and takes care of content design for the tax consultancy and other clients.
Simone holds a Master’s Degree in Journalism and Communication Studies with a focus on Corporate Communication from the University of Klagenfurt.