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Storytelling is critical for businesses, marketers, and anyone looking to connect with an audience and compel them to take action. But what actually makes for an effective story? As the host of “The Business Storytelling Show” podcast, I’ve had the privilege of speaking with many top experts in the field and related areas to uncover their insights on this topic.
In this article, I share some of the advice to reveal the key ingredients of good storytelling based on science and real-world experience.
- Crafting a strategic narrative
- Details matter
- The importance of clarity
- Using emotions appropriately
- Tapping first-hand experiences
- Conflict and resolution
- Transparency and authenticity
Craft a Strategic Narrative
One major area of focus for impactful stories is developing an overarching strategic narrative for your company or brand. As Kristian A. Alomá, author of “Start with the Story,” explained, “When we start to study consumers through that narrative lens, what we realize is, consumers purchase products and brands and sort of build loyalty with them, build relationships with them, essentially as ways to express their identity as ways to tell stories about who they are.”
Therefore, you need an authentic, cohesive narrative that customers can internalize as part of their own identity. On “The Business Storytelling Show,” he recommends using the STORY framework.
The framework’s narrative arc provides a structure for authentic storytelling that will deeply resonate with target audiences. It also serves as a strategic tool for focusing company decisions and content creation.
“Every really major business decision, every story that you want to tell, all the content that you want to create, you want to go back and check, does this help us tell this story? And if it doesn’t, you might want to consider pulling back on it,” Kristian said.
The right amount of detail
If you want your stories to stick in listeners’ minds and spark feelings, avoid being too sparse with details. As business storytelling coach Donna Griffit warns, quick anecdotes with minimal information often fall flat.
Donna, author of “Sticking to My Story,” stresses giving your stories room to unfold naturally to activate emotions.
To an extent, follow the Story Spine formula (without saying the actual words):
Once upon a time there was [blank]. Every day, [blank]. One day [blank]. Because of that, [blank]. Until finally [blank].
This works but gets stale when corporate storytellers use the exact words. It’s a guide, not a template to fill in and read.
“Really paint the picture visually and emotionally…make it as bright, colorful, and rich as you can with smells, tastes, feelings, sights, the whole thing,” she says.
Rushing through prevents the audience from fully visualizing events. Without imagining the scene, it’s just cold information. But when given time to breathe, stories trigger listeners’ imagination and build empathy.
Specific sights, textures, scents, and emotions turn the abstract into something tangible. So take a beat. Don’t clip or truncate pivotal moments. Let vivid, multidimensional scenes emerge so audiences are transported right alongside your characters. Sparse brevity makes for forgettable tales – only layered immersion creates lasting resonance.
Clarity
While details matter, so does clarity and getting to the point of the story so we don’t lose people.
Steve Woodruff, author of “The Point: How to win with clarify-fueled communications,” emphasizes the need to “get to the point quickly” in order to rise above the “enormous noise and distraction” competing for people’s attention. The brain’s “reticular activating system” acts as a filter, asking, “What’s in it for me?” and determining what’s important and relevant. So, storytellers must clearly convey early on why the audience should listen. As Steve says, “Getting to the point quickly is the way that we engage anybody with what we’re trying to say.”
Steve also stresses the difference between simply presenting information and genuinely communicating an idea. You can’t just “throw words out and assume communication has happened.” Good storytellers act as “communication designers” who define, simplify, and explain concepts to transfer thoughts accurately into the audience’s mind.
Using Emotion Appropriately
Rob Biesenbach, author of “Unleash the Power of Storytelling,” notes that appealing to emotions can help connect business stories with audiences, but cautions to use them strategically and appropriately.
“You’re not going to necessarily, and most business stories are not really designed to make people cry or fall out of their chairs,” he said on “The Business Storytelling Show.”
Better to appeal modestly to positive feelings like “pride, confidence, trust.” Match emotions to purpose and audience rather than going for extremes.
Tapping Real Experiences
Steve and Rob emphasize the power of sharing first-hand stories versus hypotheticals or borrowed examples.
“I really encourage people to mine your own experience for stories, something you went through or something at least you witnessed,” Rob said. “That way, you’re much more likely to connect with your audience because they can see you’ve lived this thing.”
Authenticity matters.
That can also mean giving up on the chase for perfectionism – just a little bit, at least!
“I haven’t met anyone who isn’t hung up on perfectionism,” said trainer Laura Lewis-Barr on “The Business Storytelling Show.” I think it’s part of the airbrushed culture we live in, where we tend to see final products and think that that’s what we have to be all the time.”
While I’m not opposed to using AI in content creation for certain tasks, there’s a line. And using AI only certainly won’t help companies tell their own stories. To check if the content was created with AI, use Winston AI to analyze it.
Read next: Why an emotional marketing strategy matters in B2B
Having Conflict and Resolution
Rob highlights that compelling stories require an obstacle or source of tension that ultimately gets resolved. A “bunch of data points” alone does not make a good story. The presence of a meaningful conflict – and a character who must respond to it – sets up a more engaging chain of events for audiences.
And that can and should include your company’s involvement. Paul Zak, author of “Immersion,” explains it like this:
So, lots of times, we have stories in ads that build up tension and emotion, like a 30-second TV commercial. The story reaches its peak moment right at the end, when everything gets resolved. That’s when you want your product name or slogan to come in when feelings are strongest. Either save your branding for an emotional high point at the conclusion or drop it in the middle when the story’s conflict is heating up. Put it where the audience is really wrapped up in what’s happening.
You want to fit your product into a story like this because it feels personally relevant to viewers. Showing how your product can fix their problems makes them more likely to pay attention and be persuaded. They’ll remember your branding because you connected it to the most gripping part of the plotline when emotions are peaking.
So Paul believes embedding your product logically into the story as a solution builds audience engagement and recall by making it meaningful at a high-tension moment.
Tying it back to company history and mission
Tying your company into the story can also go back to the original reason why the company exists to begin with.
Tapping into origin stories helps brands stay true to themselves even amidst change. Companies that remember their founding purpose often craft the strongest messages. Their narratives tap real conviction.
Steve Multer, author of “Nothing Gets Sold Until the Story Gets Told,” believes that companies can lose touch with their founding vision over time. As businesses grow, priorities shift to expansion, profits, and processes. Original excitement fades.
He suggests asking questions like “Why did we start this company? What problems did we want to solve?” He explains that revisiting core beliefs from early on can “recapture passion and authenticity.” When brands reconnect with their roots, it comes through in their stories and relationships.
The role of authenticity and transparency
Compelling stories can work miracles. Marketing also needs transparency, nuance, and real conversations to nurture leads into loyal brand advocates. As Emanuel Rose, author of “Authentic Marketing in the Age of AI,” explained, authentic marketing means truly caring about your audience’s pain points, treating them like human beings, and having an open dialogue to help them make informed decisions.
This requires patience and thoughtfulness. Marketers must remember that real people stand behind those faceless metrics and conversion funnels. Stay nimble, lead with empathy and have a two-way discussion. This breeds advocates who actively share your brand story.
Final thoughts
An engaging story requires empathy, authenticity, tension, and insights that illuminate shared truths. It taps our hopes through characters that we can relate to. You construct the story architecture purposefully, then breathe life into it. That’s what drives business results through storytelling!
By taking audiences on an immersive journey driven by conviction, you foster bonds that transcend transactions. Stories that stick spark lasting passion and loyalty. In the end, good business is simply about connecting around common human experiences that matter. Forging these powerful narrative-fueled links will always set apart memorable leaders and brands.
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