Storytelling.
Storytelling is conveying content in the form of a story with a character, a conflict and a resolution. In marketing it makes a company's offering, values and experience tangible by showing what has changed for a person.
Storytelling — Explained in Detail
People remember stories better than lists. Storytelling uses this by putting information into a sequence: a character has a goal, encounters an obstacle, makes a decision and experiences a change. This basic structure appears in fairy tales as well as in commercials. In marketing the character is usually not the company but the customer; the company acts as a helper who makes the journey easier.
Storytelling is not a text type of its own but a technique found in many formats. A case study tells a customer's journey, an About page how a business came about, a video how a job is carried out. A product page can tell a story too, for example by opening with the situation in which someone needs the product. In content marketing, storytelling ensures that content is read and shared rather than merely informing.
The most important limit is the truth. A story about a customer must have happened, and details must not be embellished until they are no longer accurate. Anyone inventing a scenario to explain a principle labels it as an example. Invented customer stories presented as real can be considered misleading under the Swiss Federal Act against Unfair Competition (UCA, SR 241). This is an overview, not legal advice. Quite apart from that, they destroy trust as soon as someone asks.
Good marketing stories are concrete: a place, a moment, a problem, a decision. They fit the positioning, because the cases told show who the company is there for. And they follow the brand's voice: a law firm tells stories differently from a food truck. A common mistake is a story in which the company is the hero and the customer merely the audience.
The building blocks of a marketing story
Character: who experiences the story? Ideally a person the target group identifies with. Starting point: what is normal before the problem? Conflict: what stands in the way, what is at stake? Turning point: which decision or help changes the course? Resolution: what does it look like afterwards, backed up and without exaggeration? These five building blocks are enough for an About page as well as for a case study.
The structure also works in a single sentence, for example in the introduction of a service page: 'When the boiler fails on a Sunday evening, you do not need someone who calls back on Monday.' How stories fit into an editorial plan is described by our content marketing agency in Zurich.
Example: a bakery tells the story of its sourdough
A constructed example, not a client case: a bakery in St. Gallen bakes its bread with its own sourdough and long fermentation. The old website said 'traditionally baked with love', as many other bakeries do. The new page tells a story instead: the baker took over the business from her uncle, the sourdough is older than the bakehouse, and every night begins at three o'clock with feeding the starter. Photos show the dough, the time, the hands.
A second, shorter story is told from the customer's perspective: a restaurant that buys the bread, with a quote approved by the owner. Both stories fit the positioning as a craft bakery and the brand's calm, personal tone. The visual framework for this, meaning imagery, typeface and colours, is developed with a corporate design agency.
Related Page
Content MarketingFrequently Asked Questions About Storytelling
Storytelling in marketing conveys offerings and values as a story: a character, usually a customer, has a problem, makes a decision and experiences a change. This makes abstract services tangible and is more memorable than a list of benefits.
As a clearly labelled example, yes. If an invented story is presented as a real customer case, it is misleading and may breach the Swiss Federal Act against Unfair Competition (SR 241). Real stories also need the approval of the people named.
Yes. In B2B, too, people make the decisions, and they want to know how a project went at a comparable company. Case studies, project reports and the story behind an offering are typical forms.
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