Cold, hard facts about your products might look good on paper, but your customers prefer storytelling. Through interactive content, you activate parts of the brain that are responsible for language and experience. When these parts light up, users feel like they are actually experiencing the story. This is how personal connections are established.
Knowing what stories to tell – and how to tell them – can leave you scratching your head. Where do you start? Should your story be funny or serious? What audience are you trying to reach? To help leverage your data.
Some of the top brands have found success using conversational content, and you can too. Here are five of the best brand storytellers with examples of their work and how they used data. We hope that you find some inspiration in them!
1. Zillow
“You’re not just looking for a house. You’re looking for a place for your life to happen.” That’s Zillow’s tagline, and it certainly draws out emotion. We can all relate to the process of finding a place to call home. Fortunately, Zillow has mounds of data under its belt, ranging from pricing to demographics. The company uses this data to connect its large audience of realtors, homebuyers and home sellers.
2. Spotify
It’s not easy being in the music streaming business; the competition is tough. Not to mention, people aren’t always happy to pay for music. That said, Spotify is at the top of its game, with over 140 million active users. The streaming service uses data to create custom playlists based on the current season, time of day and user listening habits. While this isn’t unusual for music streaming services, Spotify knows what it’s doing when it collects and applies user data.
3. Uber
The popular peer-to-peer ridesharing service has changed the way people get around – for the better. Arguably, Ubers are cleaner, more professional and more personalized than standard taxi cabs. There’s more. Uber has given new opportunities for Americans to make money. That’s why we love the article Ten Facts You May Not Know About Uber Drivers. It gives people insight into what it’s like to drive an Uber, strengthening the relationship between passenger and driver.
4. Mint
Thanks to Mint, millennials have something other than their brains to manage their finances. Young people often watch their bank accounts, but they don’t actually pay attention to how their money is being spent. Not only does Mint offer this service for free, but also it uses data to create tailored content for its young audience. For instance, Mint’s Millennials and Charity Infographic gave insight on charitable donations over the holiday season.
5. GrubHub
You can’t fool the folks on GrubHub with your summer “diet” plan. They know what you’re eating and where you’re eating it. While this might not sound that fascinating, the app finds a way to take the data and put it into personalized experiences for its users. You can find a number of interactive content such as quizzes, contests, polls and special offers.
These are just a few examples of brands that use data to tell amazing stories that resonate with their audience. With so many ways to go about storytelling, what ideas do you have?
