4 Dynamic Ways You Can Tell Your Company Story Effectively
Creating a story that is interesting, dynamic, and memorable can be a challenge. But with these tips in mind, you can take even a ‘boring’ story to the next level.
Telling your company story can be difficult. There’s no doubt about that, just because there are so many options and ways though it may be difficult also to stray away from the most popular. You may not know where even to start other than just starting from “the beginning”. But where do you go from there? Companies choose their company stories based on their history, what they stand for ethically and environmentally, and lastly based on the human beings who make up the company. All of these things can be expanded on and even attract prospective consumers with the right strategies which could be anywhere from adding augmented reality to your packaging to make your story more interactive to a page dedicated to your employees. Here are 4 tips on how you can begin to tell your store in a more effective and interesting way.
1. Change Up Your Packaging
Changing up your packaging often begins with researching and understanding your target audience. Once you know that you can then start to look at the competitors of your brand, figure out how to differentiate, and learn how to use good content (in the form of images, videos, text, etc) to convey your message as quickly as possible.
Past the first impression, you’ll want to keep your packaging and story consistent so you can always be recognized. This may also come down to what logo you decide on. Mixing your story into your package will only work to your advantage. The key here is to really stand out. The first impression was most likely about the aesthetics — the images, font choices, and some focal points; but once they pick up your product — it’s a different world.
Creating an experience through your packaging, whether through adding a character to be found on the box, different items pictured on it, or even text about where the packaging materials came from all do things that add to your story. These are all things the customer will be sure to look out for or even just notice on both you and your competitors’ products. Augmented reality tools may even add to this experience, but this will be covered in the next tip. If you end up doing the best out of all your competitors at making an interesting experience for consumers from the development to the actual use of the product, you will definitely see a return on your investment. Adding something that makes someone interested enough to go online to check out your company online or use an app you’ve made is always going to be a win.
2. Add Augmented Reality to Your Strategy
Augmented reality’s main purpose has always been to tell stories better — to create experiences and bring the inanimate to life, and that would be no different with your product and/or service. Once prospective customers are on your app, give them a reason to stay. This is something that needs to be taken into consideration as soon as the app is decided on. Adding an augmented reality feature, like IKEA and Wayfair did by allowing prospective customers to add augmented furniture to their environments with a mobile app, allows for you to indirectly interact with the customer and show them that you understand what they want from you. These experiences could range anywhere from adding something applicable to the environment to a storytelling experience that is otherworldly while offering facts about the company.
Augmented reality allows you to broaden your messaging. By teaching your customers something they may not know about your service or product, you give them a reason to trust your brand and stay interested. AR tools have already become a thing used for education because it increases retention in all users. AR for the classroom is being developed by many companies due to this strong point. The possibilities of AR cannot be ignored because when it comes to using AR, the world is your oyster. If you have a story you want to tell, AR can bring it to life. It also has the benefit of being applicable to other parts of your business — from an in-store experience to the packaging.
The goal with immersive technology is always to take a story and bring it to life, however that may look, because every product, place, and person has a story.
For bigger businesses with many products under it (i.e. publishing, gaming, eCommerce, music), the packaging can tell the story for you with simply a mobile device point and an app. This feature can be added to anything from boxes to envelopes to cd and vinyl record cases. Immersive technology company, ARSOME Technology, has already begun to create some of these possibilities from adding AR to a memorial statue of Mark Twain to bringing a teaching tool for kids’ characters to life. The goal with immersive technology is always to take a story and bring it to life, however that may look, because every product, place, and person has a story. By creating a full experience with your story, you can make a lasting impression on your consumers.
3. Utilize the Strengths of Social Media Advertising
Social media is always going to be one of the best ways to get to know your customers, but also to let customers and prospective customers get to know you. This is because of its ability to create and open dialogue between many people, the tagging capabilities, and the search mechanisms. Often, it’s one of the first places prospective customers will go after looking up your brand, and sometimes it’s even the first point of contact. The point here is to make your pages as “attractive” as possible — whether using coupons, giving tips, or sharing blogs, your social media pages should provide a “giving” experience for your customers.
From movie ads to ads for large corporations like Walmart and Dior, Snapchat AR has been utilized to spread brand awareness and breed interest in diverse audiences.
Once that social media good first impression is made you can begin to streamline customers from that page to your actual site, answer questions from them, get feedback, and share posts that humanize the brand. All of these steps add to your story. Think of the vibe you want to give off when answering questions. Would you characterize your brand as fun and colorful? Give off a fun conversational tone. Is your brand technical and/or science/research based? Give off a knowledgeable conversational tone.
Social media sites that may be especially effective for this would be YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram. All three of these have a focus on images and videos being the main storyteller. Snapchat even allows you to get more creative by adding augmented reality filters as an overlay to both the users’ backgrounds and their faces. These filters often include the logo and promotional material by the companies that utilize this. From movie ads to ads for large corporations like Walmart and Dior, Snapchat AR has been utilized to spread brand awareness and breed interest in diverse audiences. If you can keep the attention of people on these sites due to a pure interest in your story and manner of telling your story, they will most likely not forget it. And more importantly, they will be more willing to advertise your business through word-of-mouth marketing.
4. Remember to Keep it Human
Keep it human to make it relatable. Create your company story by incorporating the stories of your employees. By bringing some of your employees into your story, you humanize your company and become more trustworthy. People may not trust corporations themselves, but they do generally trust other people. You can create these images easily, from taking pictures at company events/picnics/cocktail hours, to images from daily home life showing how you and other employees may be dealing with working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stories come from people. That’s a very important thing to remember while creating and showing your own. And often, it is the collection of multiple stories that create the main one. By including your employees in the telling of your story, you not only stand out and look good to customers, but you create a feeling of respect and care for your own employees. By humanizing your company with a diversified story, you improve the relationships inside your company as well as the relationships formed with it.
Your company or brand’s story may seem like a tough thing to tackle, but with these tips in mind along with a focused plan and way to execute it, you will definitely see an increase in interest in your business. When it comes to your story: make it brief or make it long- the key is to make it human.
Written by Lola Oretade, Marketing Manager at ARSOME Technology
ARSOME Technology is an Augmented & Virtual Reality company based in Manchester, Connecticut. ARSOME Technology is a highly established and driven company that works for and with companies interested in bringing an AR, VR, or Mixed Reality experience to their businesses.
