About a month ago we published an article titled “Creating a Meaningful Marketing Story for your Business” and in it we discussed the value of using positive stories to market your company. See the article here. This narrative must be compelling, but it also has to touch your potential customers on a deep and personal level.
After some reflection and pleas from our clients for further elaboration, we’ve decided to share some examples of meaningful marketing stories in action, so you’ll know point blank just how to implement them in your own business.
Example #1: Use Charity and Goodwill to Bring Attention to Your Company
This first example is an excellent way to create a meaningful marketing story for your business and provide a tremendous benefit to your favorite charity all at the same time.
In this example, let’s say that the company with the meaningful marketing story is named Sally’s Sweets, and it’s a company that sells chocolates and other types of candy. The business is doing reasonably well, but it needs that extra something to help take it to the next level.
Sally, the owner of the company, came up with a brilliant idea. She thought of a promotion that would not only bring more business into her store, but it would also create a way to add serious value to her favorite charity, Act for Kids.
She began writing lots of content for her blog and company website talking about the special promotion that she was running. She decided to give 25% of the profit of all sales during the month of November to the children’s charity Act for Kids.
She began letting all of her followers on social media know about the charitable event. She began telling as many people as she could when they came into the store. She began promoting videos on YouTube talking about the charitable event. It created a huge buzz around this promotion.
Here’s the great thing… She really wanted to help the kids. She was so successful with this promotion because she really cared about the cause that she was trying to help. And this drove her to do more and more in order to push the promotion engine forward so that as many people as possible could find out about the great charitable service that she’s providing to the Act for Kids charitable organization.
Guess what? All of those customers that found her because of the charity event continue to buy sweets from her store now that it is over. She sells fantastic sweet treats and people really seem to like them, so they buy her candy the time. Her business is now thriving and it’s seeing success that she could only dream about in the past, all because of this one simple idea that she had.
Sally’s success is a shining example of how to use a meaningful marketing story to create a win-win situation for your business and local charities. But the story does not necessarily have to revolve around charities, so let’s take a look at another example that uses this type of story in a totally different way.
Example #2: Creating a Buzz in Your Local Community
In our second example, the fictional company XYZ Paper Mill was under heavy fire from environmental organizations. These organizations spoke poorly about the company because they cut down trees that helped to support the environment.
In an effort to combat the environmentalists in a positive way, XYZ decided to put together an event where they bought hundreds of trees and planted them all over the local community. They even teamed up with the environmental organizations in this endeavor, and got together with these groups, met face-to-face and listened to their advice about ways to run their business in a more environmentally friendly way.
All in all, XYZ Paper Mill created positive PR for their company and did something fantastic for the environment. And not only that, but the local community recognized that this company really cares and many of the people and businesses that attended the event ended up becoming long-term customers.
Final Thoughts
There are many ways to promote your business. But one of the most effective ways is to create a meaningful marketing story. If you need help with this or other online marketing challenges, feel free to call us at any time.