Storytelling: With The Brain, For The Brain

Yes, we all know: content is king. But why, and what does it take to scale the content capabilities in a modern marketing function? I came to reflect on these two points, as in 2017 we embarked on a journey to scale the production of relevant client stories, with the objective to energize and inspire both our sales and marketing teams in Asia Pacific. 

Answers to the question around why content is king are coming from different places and are rooted in science.  What has been known from centuries by the likes of Homer (the poet, not the fictional character and American cultural icon) and Dante, is made nowadays clear by neuroscience through the use of functional MRI, which measures brain activity in the context of lab experiments. Here are three important clues:

1. Brain scans are revealing that reading activates not only the brain language region, but also other areas such as the sensory cortex, the motor cortex, and networks that are used to navigate interactions with other individuals. The brain does not make significant distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Stories can change how we act in life;
2. The brain releases dopamine when it experiences an emotionally charged story, making it easier to remember and with greater accuracy;
3. A story activates part of the brain that allows the reader to turn the story into their own ideas and experience, thanks to a process called neural coupling. Nothing is more powerful than a story to physically align on the same wavelength the brain of a story teller and its listeners.

As we engaged 40 marketers to write up 100 client stories in the last 8 months, these are my three takeaways on the road of scaling and strengthening content skills within the marketing profession:

1. Crafting a compelling story is not only about writing skills. A business narrative such as a case study requires a deep, thorough understanding of the industry you operate in, starting with the clients you are serving and their needs, clearly capturing your differentiated value proposition, then articulating the outcomes to the client benefit. You cannot easily borrow or outsource storytelling capabilities;
2. As on average we consume 100,000 words on a daily basis, you’d better make your story short and relevant. Then leverage the dopamine effect: adding drama and emotions, will make the story more memorable. Finally, as our brain processes images 60x faster than words, consider adding pictures to the narrative, and make the content structure very clear and easy to consume;
3. Don’t compromise. Iterate, iterate, iterate until you believe the story is crisp enough and captures the essence of what you want to convey. When you scale, the easiest thing is to give up on quality here and there. But doing so, you will miss two opportunities: you will share a poor story that will not be remembered, and you will not help the marketer to improve his/her storytelling capabilities. It takes time and energy, but the payoff over time will be huge.

Happy Storytelling Marketers, and a very Happy Christmas!!!