Business Storytelling in a Market Downturn
A market downturn can leave customers cash-strapped, forcing them to resist purchases as they look for ways to save money. It can be challenging to boost revenue when your customers are tight on cash, but businesses shouldn’t stop spending — instead, they should be investing.
Specifically, brands should be investing in communications. Strengthening business communications and messaging is more important than ever when the market is down. A clear brand message ensures your story stands out from the crowd and convinces your target audience to spend their money on your products or services. But how do you create that succinct message?
You develop it through the power of storytelling.
Below, I’ll share some actionable hacks to help your business invest in a downturn and why an investment in storytelling specifically can pay dividends for your team and your bottom line in the long run.
Why invest in storytelling?
In a climate where the market is struggling, you have an opportunity to improve your brand image, become a trusted source, and stand out from the competition by investing.
According to Harvard Business Review, you can invest by studying success cases, expanding while competitors cut back, and accelerating digital transformation. However, one key place to start if you want to increase your sales pipeline or win back customers in this challenging environment: Your story.
It doesn't matter how great your product, service, or customer support is if people are not telling great stories about your company and demonstrating its purpose. An analysis from communication firm Porter Novelli showed that 78% of consumers are more likely to remember purpose-driven companies, and you can communicate that purpose through an impactful story.
So how can you use storytelling to get customers to pick your brand over the competition?
Communication, messaging, positioning, and training are all key here. Communication focuses on how you will get your message across, while positioning ensures your story is the one that stands out. By keeping these points in mind, you'll create a unique story that positions your business well for success. It's an investment that will pay off both now and in the long run by helping companies to become more memorable, inspire their audience, and increase their likeability.
News Flash: we like to do business with a company and people we like.
Invest in your people through storytelling training
Investing in your company’s narrative requires training your team to be compelling storytellers. Doing ensures your team is on the same page, so they can engage customers and promote your brand through this highly effective tactic.
However, simply knowing the structure of a good story isn't enough — your team also needs to know how to find and make stories relevant to your customers' interests and experiences. Using the Power of the 3D Story™ framework (Desire, Difficulty, and Denouement), you can teach employees the Story MeET™ method, which helps them develop effective, emotion-based stories that engage customers and ladder up to your brand promise.
At Go Narrative, we like to get our clients’ teams in a room and present them with a series of business challenges that need to be addressed. Some to focus on are:
Raising funding
Influencing local government and politicians
Building brand reputation
Improving brand image
Converting visitors into leads
Consider conducting role-playing exercises where team members develop hypothetical customer situations and practice telling specific, relatable stories that align with your brand messaging. Regularly reviewing successful real-life examples of customer stories can inspire and guide your team's approach. With a strong understanding of how to tell relevant stories, your team can effectively connect and resonate with their audience.
Tying it all together with your Strategic Narrative
During a market downturn, there’s an added difficulty in building customer alignment and advocacy for “on-a-budget” customers. The solution is crafting a straightforward, cohesive strategic narrative — a single source of story truth about your brand. This narrative can demonstrate your brand's value and unique strengths, unite employees behind a common mission, and inspire them to advocate for the company's offerings to potential customers.
A well-crafted strategic narrative can help your business stay agile in shifting markets by providing a clear framework for decision-making and serving as a rallying point for employees. It can also be a valuable asset in gaining and retaining customer trust.
Teaching your team how to tell customer-centric stories equips employees with a powerful communication tool for building customer relationships and driving business outcomes. For example, this example from CSQ offers various ways a PR expert might use storytelling skills to draft a press release based on their audience. Multiple versions of the same story can be written for varying audiences; each version will appeal to different readers’ emotions as the story is relatable to them.
Most importantly, during times when your employees may be freaking out about their and your company's prospects, your strategic narrative helps unite team members across departments about your brand’s purpose and reason for existing. When your employees understand the brand's value and feel connected to its mission, they are more likely to go the extra mile to advocate for your products and services. By consistently reinforcing this narrative internally and externally, you can help drive customer loyalty and reduce the impact of market shifts on sales.
In conclusion…
Storytelling is a versatile tool that can be used in various contexts, from marketing to sales to customer service and even employee motivation. When you invest in your brand’s story, you put yourself in a position of strength when communicating with customers, especially during a down market. When you simultaneously invest in storytelling training and a strategic narrative, you give your employees the tools to connect with customers emotionally and build the loyalty that can help your business weather difficult times.
Remember, without a clear story about your brand, you leave the storytelling up to others — so don't be afraid to spend on your story, even if the market has you scared.
No matter the current state of the market, it’s never a bad time to invest in storytelling. Book a complimentary consultation with Go Narrative to learn more about how our storytelling tools and frameworks can help you tell the right stories to the right people at the right moment.