Storytelling- Secret to Success for IT Products and services companies
Powerful brands have one thing in common. They communicate their ethos, culture and values through their brand identity. I still remember the day Mindtree was launched and how its initial logo designed by students of the Spastics Society of Karnataka depicted its brand values of Imagination, Action, and Joy.
Similarly, imagine what brand value Thoughtwork’s name emanates. The name itself strengthens its positioning as a thought leader in domains like Agile which is further bolstered by how it engages with its target audience through visionaries like Martin Fowler
It’s often said people buy from people they trust. This is where the concept of storytelling comes into the picture. It helps a brand communicate its personality, values and vision in a more compelling way than other forms of communication, such as a website or social media posts.
If we look at the history of brands, some of the most recognized Automobile brand names like Ford, Porsche and Ferrari took the names of the founders, but that was in an era where the blitzkrieg of modern media was not present.
Now look at some of the modern brands that have captured their audience mindshare, be it Slack, Zendesk, Tesla or Salesforce. Their brand identity is easily reinforceable once they have gained initial traction.
How Storytelling can help brand positioning for IT Products and services companies
Storytelling in marketing involves using stories to communicate with the target audience. For IT products and service companies which are often positioning complex solutions or service offerings, this becomes more important.
There are many ways that story-telling can transform businesses. Let’s go back to the example of Thoughtworks, their website, blogs, webinars and books reinforce the benefits that would accrue to an organization if it engages with them. Similarly, for a long time, the Mindtree logo highlighted the story behind how the organization came to be.
Storytelling helps create meaningful connections with customers who will resonate with a corporation’s message. This can help it differentiate itself from competitors who may have similar products or services.
Let’s look at two corporations that have similar service offerings, Fueled, a niche mobile development agency and any other service provider operating in a similar domain. By positioning itself around user experience and design, Fueled positions itself much ahead of its competitors and by the visionary status that its founder enjoys it is further able to enhance its brand perception.
How storytelling can help a corporation differentiate itself in the market
Storytelling is a powerful tool that can help a tech company differentiate and achieve greater recall. A well-told story resonates with people in a way that no other marketing medium can.
Remember in the initial years when Hubspot was just starting with Inbound Marketing, it often used to highlight that cold outreach is dead. As a new entrant in a market, by taking a positioning that was well entrenched in the industry it was able to create a buzz
Let’s look at some approaches that a Tech Company can use to use storytelling effectively:
1) Identify a problem that your target audience faces. One thing to keep in mind in this approach is, a small or medium-sized tech company and have access to only limited funding don’t look at a market segment that is too large.
Remember Facebook started as a networking tool for Stanford students. In recent times by simply identifying the digital-first trend in banking Perfios became a Unicorn by focussing on a niche segment like financial data analysis for financial institutions.
2) Build customer personas and create user scenarios that resonate with that customer persona. For example, a data analytics solution will have a different value for a CFO versus a Sales Head
4) Communicate this solution to potential customers through content creation such as webinars, blogs or videos. When designing an effective communication strategy remember a couple of aspects. The old way of spray and pray approach no longer delivers ROI.
The old example of the classic sales funnel is no longer valid, hyper-personalisation and micro-targeting need to ensure that messaging is extremely relevant to the target audience
B2B Marketing Platforms like LinkedIn and Clutch can cost thousands of dollars if the segmentation is not done right. With strong anti-spam features getting ingrained in the email infrastructure Cold emailing can become ineffective if a large data set is reached out.
In Conclusion
People buy from brands they trust, the importance of being human might sound like a buzzword, but it’s not. It’s an approach that can help companies connect with customers, differentiate their products and services from the competition, and build loyalty.
