Brand Storytelling: The Marketing Tactic You Can't Ignore in Tourism

When it comes to marketing your tourism business, in today’s competitive landscape finding ways of connecting with your potential customers has become more important than ever before.

Long gone are the days when companies or brands could rely on being able to crack the right markets through simply activating slick advertising and clever marketing campaigns.

As the world compresses in size and consumers become more empowered in their tourism decision making the onus is on you, the tourism business, to capture not only the attention of the tourist but stakeholders such as your local Council, Tourism NI, Tourism Ireland, local and international tour operators and much more.

Today people want to feel, experience and embrace everything about their holiday destination regardless of whether they have travelled a few miles up the road as a staycationer or thousands of miles overseas.

Our visitors want to find the stories that bring alive the spirit of Northern Ireland. They want to find the hidden gems that hold the magic and mystery of the heart of this country.

Your customer wants to feel enriched, enlightened, entertained and enthused by your brand.

How do you capture the attention and the imagination of the world around you?

By connecting with your customers in a way that will move their spirit, excite their curiosity and drive them to want more. By using the power of story.

What is storytelling and why does it matter in your marketing strategy?

Storytelling isn’t a new thing, it’s not a digital marketing buzz phrase and it certainly isn’t an alien concept.

In fact “storytelling” is at the very core of all society, it’s what makes us human. The ability to relate and recall stories is something we teach our children from a very young age as we use storytelling to conceptualise difficult social constructs or ideas into a medium they can comprehend or understand.

We teach children how important storytelling is when we ask them to recount their day at school, experience at a party or to vocalise something that’s bothering them. We listen intently and respond accordingly allowing them to absorb how vital storytelling is in their daily lives.

It’s no surprise as we progress into adulthood we are absolutely enthralled by stories on the nightly news, in newspapers, magazines, on websites, social media, documentaries, films, drama and more.

Have you ever told someone the story of Finn McCool at the Giant’s Causeway? St Patrick and the snakes? Or the sleeping giant at Cave Hill?