I have been a full-time marketing professional for nearly 20 years but I actually started in content marketing back in the 1990s when my husband and I had a business in the horticulture industry.

As I was writing customer and sales communications, I had no idea that what I was doing was "Content Marketing." I just knew that education was key to helping people discover the solution to their problems and help them get their best results from our work with them. The business outcome of proactive communication was year after year growth from referrals, and crazy high customer retention rates for more than 15 years.

Today, as I work with businesses to help them attract and build relationships with prospective buyers and clients, job candidates and employees, I follow a storytelling approach to marketing because of its power to connect with people and nurture trust, persuade them to make a decision or motivate action. Neuroscience has proven that people physiologically respond to stories and framing an idea in a story helps people to understand and retain information by activating an empathetic response.

The product of storytelling is a change in the way you approach communications. Once you start thinking more about the people you want to reach in terms of their story, you’ll talk less about yourself and speak more to your prospects' and job candidates' needs and wants, and how you can take them from where they are today, to where they want to be tomorrow.

Connect with Lori on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/loriacreighton/