Business dynamics are changing profusely. Many businesses have now shifted their vision to a more customer-centric approach. Which includes how to ‘convince’ them to buy your product or services. Or in other words, what benefit is your product or service offering over competitors. So here is the catch: content strategy is your game changer.
With the right content strategy, you can easily enamor loyal customers for your business. But this isn’t as easy as it seems. Effective content revolves around the art of persuasion and this too stems from storytelling. Many companies have the right plan in mind but actually fail in terms of setting themselves apart. They usually follow competitors’ suit and end up pretty much with nothing. The out of the box epiphany and ideas actually revolve in differentiating yourselves. Too often companies waste time making PowerPoint slides, documents, and dry memos that eventually refutes the idea generation process.
Regarding this, Harvard Business Review Senior Editor met Robert McKee the world’s best and renowned screenwriting lecturer. His students have produced some of the best Hollywood movies including Toy Story, sleepless in Seattle, The Color Purple, and many more. However, he hashes out a few pointers that are essential for coming up with an:
Effective content strategy:
McKee strongly believes in tossing out traditional methods and engaging people with storytelling. This will help executives empathize with emotions and personal experiences. This will later help immensely with content writing that will connect with customers.
Inspirational storytelling
A big part of the content strategy revolves around how the CEO connects with the employees. In order to motivate, engaging emotions and feelings is a must. The key to inspirational storytelling revolves around finding the right cords. For that matter intellectual process is important. Which includes personal experiences, research, facts, and a few statements to make your point clear.
Ultimately the aim is to correlate your idea with a story. But this demands patience, insights, and powerful imagination. The world’s most renowned authors will weave a magical story around a major point that the majority of us can relate to. Your strategy should be the same.
A good storyteller
But what should your story ensue? A good storyteller has a way to indulge listeners. They usually bring a few incidents on tables that one of us can relate to. But the catch is, they use such incidents and tell you how they have come out stronger despite odds.
How can you be a storyteller?
Usually, we all have life stories to tell. Also, our cognitive processes enable and assemble bits of information into a story too. We all know how a few incidents can replay over and over again that seems like a movie. That’s how you start processing and turn them into words.
Moreover, it isn’t necessary that your stories end with a happy ending. Even failures can inspire people to do more. Your aim here is to keep it as real as possible or ensue a discussion. This will enable the process of idea generation. One heartfelt story will involve everyone and encourage a rather safe environment with more fluidity.
McKee also explains how the times we live in are actually depressing. In order to cope up, we rather become socially excluded or target people with sarcasm and taunts. This usually leads to inflicting negativity all around you including employees. But the key conundrum here is to fight back negativity and ensue cooperation. The more you open up about yourself the better. A relation of trust amongst peers is beneficial instead of creating a distance. Storytelling is a part of a bigger, more valuable strategy and that is what matters.
