Every Great Business Has This

There’s a story and a reason behind every great product, every outstanding customer service experience, and every positive impact on the community. Your business, products, and service are the result of a rich history, one filled with adversity, struggle, and ultimately success. Telling that story is best way to increase your customer base, improve brand recognition, increase profits, and build long-term relationships with customers. It humanizes the entity, and reminds everyone that businesses are made up of people who share challenges and dreams. Just ask Dodge, who nailed it with a brand new campaign to remind people of the company’s human story. However, you’re probably not a billion-dollar company with money to spend on flashy advertising campaigns. You have to find other ways to tell your story.

People talk, and share their experiences. A smart business will use this to its advantage, as word-of-mouth marketing is one of the best ways to have your story told. Your story doesn’t have to be comprehensive or complex, but simple details about how you run your business and how people felt during their interactions with you can be unbelievably powerful. Through word-of-mouth, customers exchange meaningful stories about your business in a manner more genuine and effective than traditional paid advertising. In fact, according to the Nielson Company, third-party recommendations (from friends and family) are the most trusted form of advertising in 58 different countries.

While word-of-mouth marketing through friends and family of consumers is perhaps the most effective form of marketing, third-party conversations about your business are effective at building your value, credibility, spreading your companies name, and impacting your reputation.

The media is a great tool for creating buzz and starting conversations about your company among your target audience. Reach out to journalists and local news stations about your business’ story. As your business touches more people, more and more people will begin noticing the epic tale that your company has to tell, and more people will be willing to share it.

As good as your business’ story may be, if nobody notices it, nobody will talk about it! Getting noticed is important, and something that requires conscious effort. If you’re at a loss of where to begin, start by getting on all the major social media sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Here, you can begin forming connections with member of the community. Then, start engaging members by offering contests, asking for feedback, and commenting on others’ posts. As mentioned above, don’t forget to reach out to journalists and media experts without your area too – doing so is an easy way to get your name out there, and can result in a huge payoff.

Consumers are inundated with advertisements on a daily basis, ranging from TV commercials, to radio ads, to pop-ups on the Internet. However, many advertisements don’t work; if you want to attract more consumers to your business, you need to engage a third-party in telling your unique story.

I got my start in public relations when I was a firefighter. It might seem odd, but it’s true. As firefighters, our service was to put out fires. That was our story, one that we needed to communicate constantly to both the media and the general public. We were called out to Arizona to fight a forest fire, one so fierce it blew ash miles and miles away. The sight of ash falling over cars and homes naturally had citizens terrified and in search of answers. It was here I learned just how important it is to have the right person tell your story. The citizens were frightened for their families and homes, and just wanted to know if they needed to evacuate in order to stay safe. By providing the right information to the media, they were able to convey our message to the citizens and deliver the story they needed to hear.