By focusing on the core elements of a human-centered story, you can craft a message or campaign that sparks emotion.
The goal is to have a story so powerful that people want to share it with others, helping you to leverage word-of-mouth marketing. Here are some simple but effective tips to help you structure a compelling story:
Identify the conflict or obstacle
By knowing what someone needs, you can provide a solution. To get this understanding, you should look at data across channels (e.g. websites and social media) and get insights from departments to see what customer feedback can reveal.
You should also conduct research or do interviews with customers to get actionable insights. Even using polls on social media or doing internal brainstorming sessions can give you information about your audience. It’s helpful to know:
- What do our customers need?
- What challenge do they need help with?
- What do they feel is missing in their lives?
- What do they believe would make their lives better?
Make your customer ‘the hero’
Human-centered storytelling relies on you putting the customer at the heart of the story. They should be the hero that goes on a journey to experience a change or transformation.
Using their pain points, you can develop a story that focuses on your customers. Remember to consider segmenting your ‘hero’ character into a few scenarios if you find groups with different needs or aspirations.
Develop your story
Every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. And along the way, you need to have your character change to provoke an emotional response.
This requires a plot to map out the customer’s journey and hit key messages or milestones that create a compelling and rounded narrative.
Remember to consider different content types when developing your story. Think about the different ways your customer base likes to get information and where they view content (e.g. blog, video, sales deck, infographic, webinar or podcast).
Align your story with your brand
Your story should always align with the ethos and essence of your brand. This could also tie into your corporate social responsibility initiatives if that’s something that can weave a good story arc.
For example, if you’re a clothing brand that spotlights sustainability, make sure that message is at the heart of your story. Tap into the desire for your customers to do their bit for the environment and invest in clothes that last, rather than a fast fashion approach.