Chidindu Mmadu-Okoli: Storytelling can Change your Business
Chidindu Mmadu-Okoli is a healthcare provider, content creator, and editor. She is the founder and chief storyteller of Story4Strategy. Story4Strategy is a small business borne out of the passion to help individuals and small businesses create the most compelling brand narratives that connect them with their target clients or ideal audiences. How did Story4Strategy originate? Story4Strategy did not come to me by chance. I was inspired by my various experiences from the 13 years where I worked as a secretary, writer, editor, PR officer, and as an inbound healthcare marketing executive. Currently, the business offers content creation, content editing and content marketing strategy services for individuals, startups and small businesses. [bctt tweet=”Until the lion learns to tell its stories, history will always glorify the hunter – African Proverb” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Why is storytelling a key component of business in today’s world? Any business currently operating without a storytelling strategy is like the lamp hidden under the table. The question is, how can any voiceless business make the desired impact? Any modern day business seeking to build visibility or awareness, influence, and profits must first connect to the minds of their ideal audiences. The only way to achieve this connection and to build customer-centered relationships is through genuine and persuasive brand narratives. How can our Motherland Moguls incorporate storytelling into their businesses to give them an edge? Africa’s history or backstory has propelled a lot of young women to fearlessly pursue lofty dreams that they are neither afraid of nor ashamed of. But, how do we validate these efforts Young women building great businesses on this continent should see business storytelling as the tool for showcasing Africa. They can use written, visual or spoken content with calls-to-action, to tell persuasive brand stories. Though, they have to ensure they develop a unique content strategy that aligns with their business goals. Secondly, through effective use of internet, social and traditional media, women can constantly connect, engage, convert and nurture potentials who will become loyal followers of their brands. Through all this, we inspire, educate and drive positive change. [bctt tweet=”Attention is the new currency. You have to tell it, to sell it – @iamchidindu” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Can storytelling be applied to young ladies building their careers? Of course, it can! In this day and age, where Thought Leadership is ever-thriving, young career women ought to see storytelling as a means to stand out. Also, young women growing in their careers have a lot of stories to tell based on their gifts, skill sets, knowledge, and experience. Therefore, storytelling becomes a wonderful tool for grooming other young women who want to follow their paths. As long as someone is telling stories that are connecting and helping people, they will always remain relevant. What careers can young women find in storytelling? Storytelling is broad. Business Storytelling and Content Marketing are just the tip of the iceberg. Most of these career paths are wrapped around (brand) journalism, mass communications, theatre and filmmaking, arts and literary studies, information and communication technology. Young women can then take up specific roles such as content creator, editor, speechwriter, graphic designer, film and even research writer among many others. These different roles allow them to solve problems and create value. What excites you about using storytelling as a strategy? The first thing that excites me is that storytelling is human. I do not need to go develop complex machines as well as specific instructions to give them. It’s a way to connect effortlessly with people and travels faster than formulas or data. Wrapping data in a story makes it easier for people to understand a difficult concept. After all, people think in stories and not figures. The great thing about storytelling it that it’s transgenerational. It’s a strategy that worked for our forefathers and still works in the business world. Businesses can use storytelling to change people’s attitudes about a product and even the culture. What advice would you give young women trying to carve a niche for themselves? Every dream is valid! You are the one who validates the dream. When you are persistent enough to begin producing results, others will then start to validate you. So, start small, aim limitlessly. Nothing good comes cheap. [bctt tweet=”If you show up to your life’s path, life will show up for you – @iamchidindu ” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Does the intersection of helping women live their best lives, and telling their stories through the media, events, technology, and data-driven thinking sound A++ to you? If so, think about joining us at the SLA HQ. See Job openings here.
The Art of loyalty: How to build brand love and engagement with content marketing
[bctt tweet=”Few people are loyal to brands, here’s how to get people to love yours with content marketing” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] What brand of seasoning cube was in your home growing up? Right now, if you took a random survey, odds are your respondents will tell you they saw only one brand of seasoning cube. When I surveyed my colleagues -mostly 90s kids- the results match up. Most remember seeing only just the Maggi seasoning cubes or the Knorr seasoning cubes. It used to be that people were faithful to brands because they have a history with their products and services. They bought only one brand of cars; one brand of toiletries or picked groceries from only one store. Lots of factors are responsible for this loyalty; top on the list being limited choices. But that’s beyond the scope of this article. The point simply is that people are buying differently than they did in the 90s or as early as the turn of the millennium. These days, few people are loyal to brands. According to Accenture, only 28% of customers are loyal to brands. When one considers that it costs up to 25x more to acquire new customers than it does to keep one, this trend provides a unique challenge for business owners. For small businesses, the way to level the playing field with tough deep-pocket competition is to build brand loyalty. Customers will return to you come rain or shine when your brand inspires loyalty. How do you solve this problem as a small business? Enter content marketing. Engaging positively and consistently with customers along their different purchase journeys will nurture brand loyalty. This is most true for millennials; 62% of whom feel that online content drives their loyalty to a brand. Triggering loyalty might just be the core of content marketing. What is content marketing? “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action,” – Content Marketing Institute. If you received an e-mail update from your spin class instructor this morning, you’ve been exposed to a form of content marketing. If you’ve read a guide on “how to make Bantu Knots when your hair is only two inches long” – that’s content marketing. Combined with a top-class customer service, content marketing will create a community of rabid fans around your brand. [bctt tweet=”Customers will return to you come rain or shine when your brand inspires loyalty” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] How do you begin? The first step is to outline your typical customer journey. There are many frameworks that explain the process from consumers’ awareness of your brand to transactional engagement with it. My favourite is Google’s “See, Think, Do, Care” framework. Understating this funnel helps you shape your message for the right customer in the right context. If you had a business selling lactation cookies, your communication at the “See” stage is to “all pregnant women.” At the “Think” stage, your communication is to “pregnant women or new mothers who are unable to lactate naturally.” At the “Do” stage, your communication is to “New mothers who want to buy lactation cookies right now”. Finally, at the “Care” stage, your communication is to “new mothers who bought and are taking lactation cookies from me.” At the last stage of the process, the goal is primarily to build loyalty. But nevermind this, elements that build loyalty should be baked into content at every stage. Shared value To consistently infuse brand loyalty triggers in your content is to develop and share content that is useful and conveys shared value. Shared value is about focusing more on people and their beliefs and less on your product. The focus on the product is why many contents from brands are ignored. According to a Corporate executive Board (CeB) study published in 2012, most consumers say that they were loyal “not to companies, but to beliefs.” From the text on your landing page to the call-to-actions on your ebook, your beliefs (and that of your audience) should shine through. [bctt tweet=”Content that engenders loyalty is more than a blog post, find out more here” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] The types of content that engender loyalty Content that engenders loyalty is more than a blog post. Although those play a big role, loyalty-driven content marketing is driven by a deeper understanding of your customer motivations, their engagement behaviors, and your company goals. Some of the short examples I will proceed to share may not fit snugly with your brand, but you can deploy them based on your specific needs. 1. Culture blogs Culture blogs reveal the safe internal conversations of a company. For our example with our lactation cookie company, a culture blog could be “Why we keep our cookie cutter in the top drawer” or “What our new teammates taught us about cookie counting.” Or consider this super-honest culture blog from Buffer; “What We Got Wrong About Self-Management: Embracing Natural Hierarchy at Work.” The core idea of culture blogs is to put the culture, beliefs and thought processes of your company on full display. Culture blogs (like all other content types) can be deployed at every level of the customer journey but are suited for the “See” and “Think” stages. 2. Newsletters Newsletters are one of the most profitable pillars of content marketing. Emails have been known to provide an overall higher conversion rate when compared to other content channels. They can often provide functional purposes along every level of the consumer journey. You can use them to share product updates or nurture your leads. How ever you use them, ensure that you are helpful. 3. Product marketing kits What series of content will help your consumer live better, do their jobs better or increase their preferred variable of customer success? Combine them into one big digital folder (or ebook) and share with your audience. These kits are more instructional than sales-y. They have high production value