Have you ever wondered how many blog posts are published on a daily basis? Over 2 million. Every day, more and more information is shared and we may find ourselves lost in the middle of a jungle –only the strongest will survive.

This month, I am going to talk about how to stand out of a huge ocean of online messages. Storytelling is one of the trendiest terms used in online marketing. It is high time to benefit from it. Keep reading!

• What is storytelling?

Within the field of marketing, storytelling is a technique aimed at explaining certain events through narrative. Storytelling is used as a tool for engaging emotionally a target audience with your business and promoting therefore customer loyalty.

In order words, it is the art of creating stories that reflect the core and essence of your business, so that your client may identify emotionally with them.

• Why do translators need storytelling?

As translators and interpreters, we all belong to this category of “communicators” or people that communicate and facilitate communication in different scenarios. We all love writing and spending hours conveying messages from one language to another.

As business owners, we always try to reach as many people as possible through what we write. We try to reach clients in different countries and from different cultures; that is why we spend hours learning about marketing and trying different methods to innovate and stand out of the crowd.

So, why can’t we combine both? Why is it that effective?

• By using storytelling, you will be implementing a different way of doing marketing. It will be a clearly distinctive sign of your business. Remember, each of us has our own stories behind our business.
• Stories are connected with our customers’ experiences. It is the human side of our business. We are telling our clients that we are people that understand them.
• Storytelling is a good way to show how your products solve problems. Every story has a hero, and the hero of ours is the services that we provide.
• We can prove that we understand our clients’ need through narrative. Sympathy and an emotional factor work perfectly in business. We all loved this ad, didn’t we?

• How can we benefit from storytelling?

1. To remain in your clients’ mind. I have recently read an article about this lecture in which a professor told her students to create an elevator pitch and expose it before the rest of the class. All of them included impacting figures and facts. All of them, except one. This one narrated a story. By the end of the class, the professor told her students to write down everything that they remembered about the elevator pitches’ of their classmates. Only the 21% of the class could remember some of the figures mentioned that day. However, a 92% of the class was able to remember that story.
2. To make your clients understand what is behind your business. Stories help us understand the world; this is why we always read the kids a story. And they love them!
3. To show how you product can be the solution. This is your chance to introduce your product as the hero of the story. Tell your clients how you are going to solve their problem through a story.
4. To promote the uniqueness of your message. The backdrop that lies behind your business is different from the rest. Bring it to light!
5. To pursue a goal together with your audience. This is how you can encourage your clients to follow your steps and reach together a common goal.
6. To engage with your audience. People like emotional content. Thus, your will be more likely to be viral and visible on the Internet.

Have you ever used storytelling within your business? I want to hear from you!