People buy from those they know, like, and trust. Part of that is the story of the business they’re buying from and the people behind it. What’s yours?
On most websites, the About Us page is the second most visited page. It’s a great place to tell your story and engage with prospective customers from the outset.
Using storytelling on this page can help both you and your prospective customers by:
- Demonstrating your values, so you naturally attract clients who identify with you
- Explaining why you do what you do, which helps prospective customers understand you and trust you
- Sharing the flavour of your personality, enabling prospects to understand what you’ll be like to work with
- Clearly identifying your ideal customer, encouraging those that don’t fit the bill to look elsewhere and those that do to pick up the phone.
For inspiration, let’s look at some businesses that have successfully done marketing through storytelling.
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- Wufoo helps people build forms on the web. It’s undeniably geeky, but nevertheless the personalities of the team behind the business shine from every page of their website. What’s not to love?
- I am equally in love with Freshbooks. Their manifesto shows me that they understand the accounting pain I was experiencing as a small business. The text has personality while being informative, and I find it really helpful that you can get to know their team (online at least) and get a sense of how much fun they have and how passionate they are about what they do. I’ve never met any of them, but their website helps me feel like they’re a great match for me and my business.
- In a different industry altogether, vintage clothing specialist Modcloth helps customers identify with its brand by sharing the story of how founder Susan Gregg Koger started out by collecting from op shops as a uni student and went on to build a business employing over 100 staff. Even Susan’s personal style is shared, giving me a chance to see if her label is something I can identify with.
- After travelling to Argentina and befriending children who had no shoes, Blake Mycoskie created TOMS Shoes, a company that matches every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need, one for one. Making shoes a social issue and developing a community that is passionate about supporting another meant that within a year of trading Blake was able to return to Argentina with a group of family, friends and staff and 10,000 pairs of shoes made possible by TOMS customers. Kind of nice, huh? It really makes you want to buy shoes from his site doesn’t it?
Closer to home, Australian businesses doing a really great job of marketing through storytelling include Red balloon and Nudie Juice.
I hope these case studies have inspired you to start telling your own story, and I challenge you to write it from the heart. The more authentic the better.
Have you spotted any other businesses that excel at marketing through storytelling? Inspire us further by sharing the details below.