Storytelling in marketing – WilkinsRoss Communications

Written by Janice Hunt

20 August 2025

Reading time: 1,8 minutes

Go back to basics for storytelling success in marketing.

Story time. How evocative are those two words! For most people they’re positive, possibly a reminder of cosy or exciting or fascinating times – whether as a child, teen or adult – spent listening or reading and experiencing something new.

Stories have always been a part of people’s lives and they’ve played an important role in our communication, bonding, learning and understanding since time immemorial.

Interestingly, despite this illustrious history, storytelling has only been a powerful part of marketing communications since it was espoused as a concept by marketing guru Seth Godin sometime in the early 2000s – according to LinkedIn. In a 2017 blog, it states that storytelling had been a fringe concept pre-Seth. “Then, very suddenly, things changed,” states the blog in appealing and dramatic storytelling tone.

“In early summer 2011, the number of marketers listing storytelling as a skill on their LinkedIn profile was minuscule. It effectively didn’t exist as a marketing discipline. Just two years later, storytelling was a key part of the profile of almost a quarter of a million marketers, 7% of all marketers worldwide, in fact.”

That’s LinkedIn’s story derived from zillions of bits of data and it’s interesting, possibly mainly because it’s surprising. Whatever the reason for this delayed embracing of the power of storytelling by the world’s captains (and minions) of marketing, it is now very big in all forms of marketing. All.

Now that it’s a marketing must, the leading question is, how to do it effectively in your particular space. Your first step, to make all this workable, is to make sure that you have ‘great storytellers’ available to you – who understand your stories and have the skills to tell them effectively.

For the next steps, despite the millions of newer online articles on using storytelling to sell, it makes sense to revisit Seth’s early and astute ideas in his article, ‘How to tell a great story,’ that are as fresh and relevant today as they were back then. He kept it simple, and that must surely be one of the secrets to storytelling success.

This 9-point checklist paraphrasing Seth’s main points can be used by you and your storytellers as a guide to boosting storytelling brilliance in your marketing activities. He starts with, “Great stories succeed because they’re able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences.” We can’t argue with that.

A great story is true … because it’s consistent and authentic.

Great stories make a promise … that needs to be bold and audacious. It’s either exceptional or it’s not worth listening to.

Great stories are trusted. Trust is the scarcest resource we’ve got left. (And possibly scarcer still today.) … no marketer succeeds in telling a story unless they’ve earned the credibility to tell that story.

Great stories are subtle. Talented marketers understand that allowing people to draw their own conclusions is far more effective than announcing the punch line.

Great stories happen fast. First impressions are powerful.

Great stories don’t always need colour brochures or face-to-face meetings. Either you are ready to listen or you aren’t.

Great stories don’t appeal to logic, but they often appeal to our senses.

Great stories are rarely aimed at everyone. If you need to water down your story to appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one.

Great stories don’t contradict themselves. Consumers are clever and they’ll see through your deceit at once.

A final point, and I’m sure Seth has said this somewhere, somehow in the intervening years, enjoy your storytelling. It will show in the stories you tell.