Every interaction with the outside world is an opportunity to build your brand.
Even those mundane interactions.
One could argue that the “mundane” actually offers one of the best opportunities to stand out, since others are tracking to the status quo.
This often leads to template communications, the opposite of communications guided by storytelling techniques.
Take the back and forth of subscribing to some type of media product.
The default for subscribing to a blog using one of the WordPress plugins goes like this:
You successfully subscribed to my newsletter. You’ll receive in few minutes a confirmation email. Follow the link in it to confirm the subscription. If the email takes more than 15 minutes to appear in your mailbox, check the spam folder.
Once you click on the confirmation email, this comes your way:
Your subscription has been confirmed! Thank you!
Not exactly brimming with personality.
And why the yelling with double exclamation points?
In contrast, we’ve applied storytelling techniques to the communications triggered by a subscription of our “What’s Up” blog.
Here’s our initial salvo after subscribing:
Note the conversational tone and a touch of fun with language.
The click on the confirmation email brings:
Nothing fancy.
One exclamation point gets across our enthusiasm.
The approach lets the subscriber know that there are actually human beings at the other end of the pipe.