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By Rereloluwa Adetimehin

Months ago, I read a book about a lady who was set to be sentenced to death by hanging for murder. She devised a brilliant plan of telling the king a story and told him that once the story was complete he could proceed with the execution.

This story went on for over a thousand nights because the king wanted so badly to hear the end. By the end of the story, the king had changed his mind about executing her. That is the power of a great story.

In 2021, brand storytelling is no longer a nice to have, it’s a must have. A good story can ultimately change the awareness of your company, grow your profit margin and create a more lasting impact. Many tech companies make the mistake of selling the “techy” and “functional” parts of the brand rather than the “what can your tech product do for me, your user”. It is also very easy for the leadership of product led companies to think they know what the user wants, which always takes away from the real value that a good story can bring.

The power of a story that connects is GTB, a brand that started off in Nigeria as every other corporate bank. Then they took a step back, deciphered the audience they’d like to appeal to, identified what matters to them and went ahead to create a lifestyle bank just for them. They’re telling food stories with GTB Food & Drinks, adding Life + Style through GT Fashion week, and churning out engaging content on Ndani TV. The real hack is 737 – a full blown song that is now a club rave but also a channel for people to tell their stories. They told stories with their branch structure, they became so in tune with that audience that you’d randomly hear people say “how won’t you have a GT bank account?” Talk about using stories to create fomo and drive massive brand awareness.

Here are 3 ways, tech companies in Nigeria can make more money from telling better stories:

1. Don’t talk tech, tell stories

The universal language of the world is storytelling. That is why you can watch an indian ad, without understanding the language but from the acting you can give a pretty good summary of the intended story. It’s easy for engineers and product managers to talk about their products using terms and concepts that are familiar to them and not the lay user who sees the ad.

Your users are the key factor when building marketing strategies as a tech company, so how can you tell a memorable brand story that your user can connect to? A story that feels familiar and that can drive a desired action from them. Think about what makes your brand human? Does your brand have a soul or is it just a tool? What is the impact you want to have on the people that come in contact with your brand? When you can successfully answer these, then know that you’ll be able to tell a story that people will buy from.

Another thing many tech companies forget is that you can tell a story at every user touchpoint – through customer service, on your app or website – which is why the UX team should work closely with the brand team to tell great stories even from the flow to the copies used. The experience they visit your physical location and even through how you treat your staff because these are the immediate ambassadors of your brand. Every opportunity should be a chance to make your user feel something because it’s the experience they get from you that determines how they react to you.
In a market where everyone wants to appear faster, the most efficient and automated, be the brand that dares to be human.

2. Test the market, your audience is different

The easy thing to do for most brands is to tell the same ol’ story everyone is telling. The “aspire to perspire” story, you can make it, try this or try that – when instead you can tell the more realistic side of things. It is also easy for marketing teams or agencies to sit down in a well lit boardroom, band rainstorm for hours until the “big idea” lands on someone’s lap and they high five each other, celebrating their victory. The hard part comes when results are measured post campaign launch, and the anticipated outcome falls way below their expectations. Tech brands should not get sucked into telling a story where only good things happen, when you can tell a story where “real” things happen.

How can you avoid this? Test your users. Identify the demography of people you want to sell to and get a few of them to test with. It’s simple – create two ads with different messages, or even visuals and send them out to your small sample size.

Test which one has more likes or click-throughs, if possible ask what they liked about it. If you test on two platforms, find out which platform is doing better because that is probably where most of your users are.

This is called A/B testing – a randomized experimental process where you compare the performance of two or more versions of a variable. People don’t want to leave their comfort zone, so hack how to meet them there. Don’t be the brand that disrupts their routine, be the brand that finds how to fit into their already existing routine.

3. Forget the why, talk about the how

Now, I know that we’ve all heard the TED talk about asking “why” five times, well that does not apply much here. Your users are more interested in the how not the why. Research shows that the average person spends less than 6 mins watching or reading something before they lose interest. The internet has democratized marketing by making it a global village but in the midst of this it has made it more difficult for great brands to stand out. So the question is how do you show your customer how you can help in less than 6 minutes?

Instead of throwing facts, statistics and big tech-speak at your audience, focus on making your brand thoughtful, memorable and real.

Find a way to tell a story that carries the “how” of your brand, that simplifies all the information you’re trying to pass because what you want is that your call to action (CTA) is so easy that at the point of need/use for anyone they have it saved in their heads. Take Airbnb for example, they understood that people will not read the lengthy stuff about apartments, so they tapped into the fact that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. How did they do that?

The company went to the homes of their hosts, got professional photographers to take great pictures, and that’s what they advertise on the website. What this did was increase their profit by % in just years. How?

They showed people how staying in a lovely apartment while on vacation made more sense than booking a hotel. For your brand to sell, it needs to become so much more than your product and service – and that’s where storytelling comes in.

In today’s world, to sell, you need to connect. To keep your sales, impact and awareness up, tech brands need to connect with their audience, pull at their heartstrings and engage on a deeper level than they currently are.

*Rere Adetimehin a marketing professional writes from Lagos