What is Product Storytelling?
By Karen Barr
What is product storytelling? It’s a way of communicating information about your products to your customers through a narrative.
In this post, I’ll share when to use a product story, the goal of product storytelling, brand examples, and how to share stories through blogging.
Let’s jump right in and take a closer look!
When to Use A Product Story
Here are some examples of when to use a product story.
- New product launches
- Landing pages
- Brand content marketing
Read How to Use Product Storytelling.
The Goal of Product Storytelling
Your story must explain your products’ origin, purpose, design, and value to sell them. But it’s not just about describing the features.
The “why factor” is invaluable in telling stories about your product. Your customers and potential customers want to know why your products exist.
Most importantly, they want to know how they solve their problems or elevate their lifestyle. For this to work, the storyline needs to be compelling and memorable.
Product storytelling aims to build an emotional connection around the products and trust in your brand. This might include:
- Why the product was created
- Craftsmanship and materials used
- Design innovations and processes
- Ethical/sustainable choices
- Why the product fits into the customer’s lifestyle
Brand Examples of Product Storytelling
Here are two examples of Canadian brands developing excellent content marketing through product storytelling.
Vancouver, British Columbia-based Canadian athletic apparel retailer Lululemon does an incredible job explaining to customers why they created every product through the clickable tag “Why We Made This.”
Montreal-based Four O’Clock, a company that produces fine teas, also finds ways to craft its product stories creatively. For the company’s Green Tea, with a Japanese geisha on the box, there is a descriptive line about the herbaceous taste, followed by a historical narrative about green tea and Zen Buddhist monks drinking it in the 13th century.
Product Storytelling Through Blogging
Blogging is the best way to share your products with your customers. This way, products become part of a larger storyline. It isn’t about product pitching. It’s a soft sell. Today, you might also call it anticipatory selling.
Let me give you an example. I worked with a client who owns a supplement company. As a writer, my role was to find topics that would naturally incorporate company products into the storyline of my blog posts.
I wrote about health issues such as osteoporosis (vitamin D and calcium), skin care (collagen and vitamin C), and sleep (magnesium). Once each topic was established, I worked on writing about the problems while offering informative solutions. Then, I linked the products in the post to the online store.
While readers were all interested in health, not everyone suffered from these problems, but they certainly didn’t want to in the future. Now that they were more informed, many customers purchased supplements for preventive reasons.
One element that increased sales was an extensive email marketing list. I took elements from my blog posts and turned them into email marketing copy, each with a strong Call To Action ( CTA). By repurposing my blog content, I could continue the product storyline seamlessly.
In Conclusion
What is product storytelling?
Product storytelling communicates information using a narrative that informs, educates, and entertains your reader. Far beyond just presenting facts, product storytelling gives your brand personality.
Use Product Storytelling in Your Content Marketing
As a journalist and content marketing strategist, I am an expert storyteller. Let me help your boost your brand and sell more of your products.
