Storytelling is a marketing powerhouse.
It goes beyond communicating with potential customers, and helps you to make an emotional connection. It gives your business a sense of humanity; of a person (or people) behind the logo. It helps showcase your company’s values, and establish a sense of trust of your company in the customer.
That trust is essential in such a competitive market. Storytelling helps give real-life examples of your expertise and reliability, even if the product, like many travel tech products, are a little more complex and new to potential customers. It can help simplify technical jargon and reach a more diverse audience.
“People think in stories, not statistics, and marketers need to be master storytellers.”
Arianna Huffington, Founder of the huffington post
Storytelling is your way of connecting one-on-one with hundreds, or even thousands of people at once. But if you don’t know how to tell those stories, they’re going to fall flat. That’s where a freelance writer can help.
Why Storytelling Matters In Marketing
Storytelling is a more natural, less salesy-feeling way of connecting with potential customers. It draws people in, both emotionally and intellectually. Think about a young, female traveler; let’s call her Emma. Her whole life, Emma has dreamed about exploring the vibrant Barcelona streets. She spends hours combing social media, living vicariously through pictures and stories from accounts like yours. That connection evokes a sense of joy, of nostalgia, or whatever you’re trying to convey, which makes your brand more memorable.
But as Emma browses, she feels overwhelmed by the sheer volume of available options. How will she be able to choose the right travel app to plan and book her adventures? This is where brand identity comes into play. Storytelling can help you express your brand’s identity, values, and overall goals. If customers can relate to your stories, it’s more likely to foster a sense of brand loyalty. For Emma, a brand that shares stories of real travelers—like her—makes the experience feel more personable and relatable.
Stories are also a great way to foster engagement. Whether customers relate to your story, or have their own two cents to share, they’re far more likely to interact than with simple facts and statistics. This helps builds a sense of trust in Emma, seeing other people share their positive experiences with certain companies. And that trust is essential in such a competitive market. Comments, shares, or even just post reactions help extend your reach, and (again) help build brand recall and loyalty.
“Purposeful storytelling isn’t show business, it’s good business.”
Peter Guber
Whether your product is a booking platform or a smart water bottle, stories are still a key means of marketing. Storytelling is a more casual, but helpful way of simplifying complex ideas. For travel tech companies specifically, teaching people to understand and use a new technology is not always an easy task. By demonstrating how others have used your technology through telling their stories, you make potential customers more comfortable with trying it themselves.
How Does Storytelling Make Businesses More Relatable?
It starts with understanding your target audience. Having a user persona helps you know who you’re trying to relate to. That way you can share stories that you know will resonate deeply with your target audience, because the stories breathe life into your user persona.
As she searches, Emma finds a travel app that not only offers booking services, but also shares stories from previous customers who enjoyed using the app for their travels. Through reading stories from other travelers, Emma learns about some hidden gems in Barcelona she wouldn’t have found otherwise.
Reading about other people’s adventures gives Emma a feeling of connection to their experiences, which stokes her emotions and encourages her to take action. As I said earlier, storytelling can stoke emotions that resonate with travelers, such as excitement or nostalgia. This emotional impact can help give that extra push for a customer to go from considering to sold.
So How Does A Freelance Writer Help?
Hiring a professional brings a variety of targeted skills to the table. A freelance writer can, obviously, write clear and engaging content. Having quality content that not just piques, but maintains interest is a critical step in creating a strong first impression. As Emma continues to read, a well-told story keeps the brand in her mind, leaving a lasting impression.
From there, as I explained previously, a good and well-told story keeps you in the customer’s mind. You want to leave a lasting impression on your customer, and this is one of the best ways to do it.
There’s also the boring but necessary stuff, like SEO and strategy. It may not be a part of the romantic image of the passionate writer, but we still need to know it and implement it! This is the stuff that gets your content in front of your ideal customers, like Emma, and make sure you’re hitting the right audience for your product.
On top of all that, having a freelance writer with experience writing in the travel industry gives you an extra step up. We know the industry, and we know how to create content that is relevant and entertaining to the customer. Even if your specific product is something we’ve never worked with before, we’re already well-versed in the general information you need and we’re quick to learn the nitty gritty details of what you’re offering.
If you’re curious about how we can reach a wider audience for your business through storytelling, like the next Emma who is planning their dream trip, drop me a line! We can chat about possible next steps for your written content, favourite summer drinks, or carry-on vs. checked baggage.