Interactive Storytelling in Marketing: Is the Hype Real?

The time is now for interactive storytelling in marketing. Various factors are coming together that all point towards brands needing to find a way to break through the clutter, emotionally-connect with consumers, and expedite sales. For us, the hype is very real when it comes to interactive storytelling in marketing. Here's why...

Marketing in 2020 and Beyond: The Gift and the Curse

We believe there has never been a time to be a marketer.

The internet and social media have made it cheaper and easier for brands to reach their target audience.

Now brands large and small can compete for consumer dollars on a relatively even playing field. Never before in the history of marketing could a startup end around a large brand, but new tools have made that possible.

The challenge is competing for attention in a global marketplace. Consumers are inundated with ads & content from brands large and small.

If the marketing firm Yankelovich, Inc. is correct, the average person is exposed to 5,000 ads daily . EXCEPT, that stat is from 2007! We can safely assume that number has at least doubled over the past decade.

It doesn't stop at ads. The rise of content marketing over the last decade has lead to extreme saturation. According to a Havas study, 60% of all content created by brands is just clutter.

In an age of distraction and unlimited choice, how can you help your brand break through and drive sales?

The Rise of Interactive Storytelling in Marketing

Why storytelling?

Authentic brand stories break through.

The power of interactive storytelling in marketing is unmatched because humans are hardwired for stories.

Stories trigger a chemical release of dopamine and serotonin within the brain, flooding people with a rush of emotions, and causing them to associate those feelings with the story for all time.

Great stories get people to love your brand, feel for your brand, cry for your brand, and buy your brand.

The challenge for brands used to be reach when it came to sharing their stories. It impossible for small brands because the costs were too high, and large brands had to play within the restrictions of each channel (ie. 30 seconds or less to tell a story in a TV commercial).

Once again, tools like the internet, the advancement of web technologies, and mobile have changed the game.

Now you are able to create highly interactive stories about their brands, products and services and distribute them through dozens of different channels.

STORYSOFT and Interactive Storytelling

As a team of experienced marketers and technologist, we have felt the same pain as you when trying to reach, engage, and convert consumers into customers. That’s why we went all in on storytelling.

Our vision of the future is a story-first marketing world, where brands and consumers dance together around shared values, mutual respect, and a feeling of loyalty.

We are on a mission to enable brands to tell breakthrough digital stories, so we created STORYSOFT.

STORYSOFT is a storytelling technology company enabling brands to tell breakthrough digital stories at scale.

Through a single platform that combines a storytelling framework, marketing technology, and actionable analytics brands tell breakthrough digital stories that:

• Break through the marketing clutter to capture attention
• Forge authentic emotional connections with consumers to build loyalty
• Create a desire to buy your products expediting sales
• Collect the data you need to uncover insights and make informed brand decisions

The STORYSOFT digital storytelling platform is used by brands big & small across a large number of industries, including, but not limited to Apparel, Footwear, Beauty, Fragrance, Health & Wellness, Food & Beverage, Financial Services, and Life Sciences.

What Are Interactive Stories?

STORYSOFT stories are digital experiences. Think social media stories, but more interactive, and hosted on a URL.

Digital stories consist of a series of individual content screens strung together to create a narrative.

Screens bring content to life with digital media like images, animations, text overlays, and video.

Consumers navigate digital stories by swiping screen-by-screen in a linear flow.

Reports are based on the linear storyflow, making it easy to understand what to optimize by looking at which messages are being consumed, where people drop off, what's resonating, and what's driving action.

Get Started with Interactive Storytelling in Marketing

It's really easy to get started with interactive storytelling in marketing, especially with a platform like STORYSOFT.

1. Craft an emotion-evoking story about your brand, product, service, or customer
2. Provide STORYSOFT with your story content and media files and we create the interactive story
3. Set up campaigns for each channel you plan to use to share your story (ie. your website, Instagram, Facebook, an email newsletter, etc) - This way you can track activity back to each campaign
4. Share your story with the world

If you're tired to creating content that's being tuned out, and seeing sales decline, consider interactive storytelling. It's the next big thing in marketing because of it's human roots and the digital experiences that unfold from it.

Every brand has stories.

What are yours?

Learn more about how you can leverage the STORYSOFT digital storytelling solution for your brand, or request a demo today.