How to Bring Narratives to Life: Insights on Storytelling and Strategy

Any brand can tell great stories, but that’s not enough for successful content marketing. In order for your content marketing to be effective, you have to have a strategy, a purpose, and a plan. That was the overarching theme at one of the most popular panels at NewsCred’s ThinkContent New York 2018: “How to Bring Narratives to Life: Insights on Storytelling and Strategy.” On stage were: These marketing powerhouses shared their insider strategies for telling the brand story in a compelling way that engages audiences while driving results. “Our content strategy is simultaneously educating enterprises of the benefits of an agile workforce and different trends in the future of work, while at the same time, building thought leadership and using some of that longer form content as a lead generation mechanism,” he says. But believe in what you’re doing.” For Away, publishing a print magazine was a big risk for the brand. “It’s a major investment in something we weren’t totally sure would be successful,” says Brooke Sinclair, head of media. So the key is that your definition of success is going to evolve over time.” By encouraging a culture where there is a lot of room for iteration, it allows your team to take risks in a comfortable environment, she adds. ClassPass also has a culture of experimentation, says Friedman. “Sometimes you have to assess and say ‘We could do something small today, but if we took the time for a big risk, would it have a much larger payoff?’” For example, although their consumer blog “The Warm Up” has been really successful around lifestyle fitness content that answers questions about studio fitness classes, they realized there was an opportunity to also support and engage studio partners. Use data, but keep stories human One of the most important things in content in today’s world is not actually the content itself, but the “less sexy” underlying infrastructure and foundation to make sure you’re measuring and evaluating how effective the content is, says Ackall.

Source: Insights

On stage were:

These marketing powerhouses shared their insider strategies for telling the brand story in a compelling way that engages audiences while driving results. Here are the key takeaways of their discussion:

Know where your content lies on the customer journey

Content is an important tool for informing their entire purpose funnel, says Cara Friedman, director of content and community for the ClassPass fitness membership platform. However, the focus of their storytelling is mostly on introducing ClassPass to as many people as possible. “As they’re trying to decide ‘Is this the right product and solution for me?’ our content is answering every one of their questions to help push them over the finish line to become a subscriber,” she adds.

For WorkMarket, an enterprise software platform recently acquired by ADP, content educates their B2B clients, says Mousa Ackall. “Our content strategy is simultaneously educating enterprises of the benefits of an agile workforce and different trends in the future of work, while at the same time, building thought leadership and using some of that longer form content as a lead generation mechanism,” he says. While there are different schools of thought on what type of content to gate, Ackall says the more valuable your content, the more inclined you should be to ask for customer information.

WorkMarket amplifies its message by telling the stories of its top customers like Warby Parker and Walgreens, as well as partnering with The New York Times. “Being able to tell those stories while simultaneously using some of those content for lead generation allows us to serve both functions,” says Ackall.