15.12.2025

Storytelling shapes our consumer behaviors, directing our choices in services and products, revealing the role of stories in establishing brand loyalty. This evolution emphasizes the importance of emotional engagement, illustrating the necessity for entrepreneurs to skillfully balance authentic storytelling with the optimization required for digital visibility: address the message both to humans and machines.

Good stories have always had an impact on us. Familiar bedtime stories have taught us about morals, ethics, identity, and community. Myths and folk tales contain lessons about survival and practical skills that have been important to previous generations.

The power of stories is based on the human brain. Our brains are built for both logical-analytical and narrative thinking. Stories combine logical knowledge with emotional experience and help us to structure and remember information better. For example, through a relatable story, we can deal with otherwise complex situations in human relationships by creating an overall picture and explaining the causes and consequences of events.

Stories combine logical knowledge with emotional experience

In the thousands of years of storytelling history, we are currently living in a time when its power shapes our purchasing behavior on a daily basis. According to Inkinen (2018), the power of storytelling determines what services and products we buy, which brands we commit to, and which images are in line with our values. Thanks to storytelling, even a technically average product can become more profitable or the customer’s primary choice over higher-quality alternatives.

According to Perez (2022), purchasing decisions and consumer behavior are becoming increasingly recommendation-driven in the future. This means that primary sources of information are, for example, user-generated content on Instagram and TikTok instead of search-engine-based information and comparison. Perez (2022) also points to the notion that visual and experiential content is replacing analytical information gathering. This steers consumers toward fast, intuitive, and emotional-driven decision-making: a context in which good stories play a significant role.

Entrepreneurs´ high-wire act

In the modern digital landscape, marketing strategy must now be considered a demanding high-wire act. There are many different marketing strategies, but all strong brands are based on successful storytelling. What does one of Finland’s leading marketing and growth design consultants think about this?

Maria Flemmich Suominen, the CEO of Avidly, gave recently a visiting lecture at Turku UAS, and shared her knowledge about the topic by guiding that contradictory feats must be performed simultaneously: the target audience must be captivated with genuine human connection, compelling storytelling, and authentic emotion, while every piece of content must be diligently optimized to be perfectly readable by AI-driven search and social algorithms. Success requires that this ’Dual Content Mandate’ is mastered.  According to Russell M. (2025), the difference is simple: a product might be bought by a human, but whether the business is ever seen is determined by a machine. Understanding this fundamental disconnect that the criteria for valuable content are profoundly different between a potential customer and an artificial intelligence is held to be the ultimate key to visibility and growth.

All strong brands are based on successful storytelling

The prerequisites for visibility and reaching a wide audience are not accidental. When content is evaluated by both humans and artificial intelligence, certain actions taken by entrepreneurs and businesses emerge as the cornerstones of success. According to Ahmad et al. (2025) the following states must be established and maintained:

• Discoverability: High visibility is established (or made).
• Narrative Clarity: A clear story, representing an understandable narrative that interests the target audiences, must be possessed (or must be featured).
• Brand Perception: The importance of brand storytelling and customer experience is recognized (or is held to be important).
• Stakeholder Communication: Consistent communication is maintained across all stakeholder groups.

Successful stories build trust

Trust between brands and customers doesn’t just happen. Flemmich Suominen explains that it requires understanding.  Whatever the field of business, the entrepreneur who masters clear, inspiring, and discoverable storytelling is winning the trust game.

By building a comprehensive story for the company, the brand becomes easier to identify with. Flemmich Suominen gives examples that when marketing based on storytelling is “not important now, maybe later” the story doesn’t exist when needed, and it keeps changing all the time, making it hard to relate to it. As a result, the story is unclear, uninspiring, and undiscoverable. The outcome of this is clear: a strong brand strategy defines who the company is, why it matters, and how it stands apart. Without it, you’re just another voice in the noise. With it, you build credibility, focus and a foundation for scaling globally, Flemmich Suominen emphasizes.

Trust between brands and customers doesn’t just happen

Trustworthy stories need to be simple. Flemmich Suominen advises all entrepreneurs starting to tell the company’s story with everyone’s inner circle. How do you tell your mother, who is not part of your target audience, about your business, and how should you change the message for your friends who are part of the target group?

Flemmich Suominen shares also methods on how to train the storytelling skill. When approaching customers, investors, or other segments, it is a good idea to make a list of the top 10 most important players and begin from the bottom of the list, working upward one conversation at a time. By the time a discussion is reached with the number one player, the story and the way it is told has already been practiced nine times along the journey. As a result, both storytelling and the story itself have been refined through nine earlier conversations.

Monetizing Entrepreneurial Ideas: Turning Stories into Investment Capital

Storytelling turns unique inventions into products that can be sold to customers but before getting there it might need some funding and for that most of the entrepreneurs have to share their company’s story with investors. This way one of the key skills for many entrepreneurs is storytelling and delivering it effectively: the ability to pitch.

Ahopelto and Engeström (2025) define in their book success factors of a pitch as the presenter’s ability to “get the room on their side.” This refers to the capacity to create a clear connection with the audience. In the successful investment pitch presented in the book, the same elements appear as in a good story: every detail such as time management, preparation, and conversational delivery had been carefully considered. According Ahopelto and Engeström, a good pitch does not explain everything and makes the listener want to hear more.

One of the key skills for entrepreneurs is storytelling and delivering it effectively: the ability to pitch

Ervasti (2025) states in an interview that the best pitches she has seen are those that convey a sense of urgency or momentum for the topic being presented. The pitchers have truly discovered something revolutionary, and it’s palpable on their pitch.

In the book ”Pitch! The Art of Inspiring Concision,” Ervasti refers to a good pitch presentation as one that contains a certain tension or climax around which the pitch is built. “Freytag’s diagram can help you understand what kind of formula you can use for your own presentation; it talks about climax. If you can give your audience a clear vision in three minutes so that they understand why they should invest in your idea, your pitch has been successful. A clear call to action at the end of the pitch is essential. It is important to explain what kind of investment you are seeking. Or is it a partnership that would take the company’s ideas to a larger scale?”.

Ervasti (2025) states that a good pitch has a concise one-liner that explains how the idea will change the world or disrupt an entire industry. A good pitch is built around changing or explaining how the idea will solve a challenge or identified problem in an existing market. According to Ahopelto and Engström (2025), the best pitch leaves the investor with one thought: there is something bigger going on here. Just like the stories that have been told since the beginning of time.