Why School Marketers Should Commit to Storytelling

Strategy

I don’t know how this started, but every time I get in the car with my kids, my daughter shouts: “Tell me a new Mor’du story, mama!”

Mor’du is a cartoon bear from the Disney movie, Brave. My three-year-old is suddenly fixated on him. After a week’s worth of car rides, I start to worry: How can I keep telling more stories about Mor’du? She wants a new story each time—sometimes more than one, if the car ride is long and my stories are short. When you consider that we’re in the car at least twice per day…that is a lot of Mor’du stories.

(And if you’ve spent any time around a three-year-old, you know that telling her a new story is actually easier than telling her there are no more Mor’du stories.)

So I keep creating new stories. I shift perspectives and circumstances, times of year and locations. At this point I tell at least two new Mor’du stories each day, and I haven’t run out yet. And I’ve learned an important lesson:

We all have more stories in us than we realize.

Why School Marketers Should Commit to Storytelling

If you’re afraid to start a school blog because you feel like you have nothing to say, or that you’ll quickly run out of topics to blog about—your fears are unfounded, my friend.

Your campus is a surprisingly rich source of ideas, experiences and innovations that make great fuel for a school blog.

If your website doesn’t tell your school’s story because you feel like you simply don’t have one—you guessed it, wrong again. Regardless of how deep it’s currently buried, you have a story—and it’s the propellant that will help you reach those marketing and admissions goals.

Story matters. And I’m not just saying that because I have an obsessed three-year-old.

We are all wired for story.

Consider this:

Researchers have proven that stories actually cause a chemical reaction in our brains.^¹
Classic storytelling structures that prove to be effective today have roots as far back as Aristotle.^²
Stories activate not just the part of our brains that are linked to language processing, but all of the areas of our brains that would be activated when we were actually experiencing the events of the story.^³
Storytelling creates emotional connection, enhances memory and keeps us focused.^⁴
When we hear stories, it boosts oxytocin levels. This is the feel-good hormone—and it’s also proven to increase donations– in some studies, by nearly 60%.⁵