Through stories, we shape our world. We convey what’s important and interesting, hoping to excite, entice or inform our audience. We call people to action or give them a roadmap to the future.

Corporate storytelling, when done well, is a valuable tool. It can humanize your brand, spark engagement with your stakeholders, create customer loyalty, distinguish you from your competition, increase awareness, communicate your values and so much more.

Bottom line: Great storytelling, through thoughtful and strategic marketing and communications, can help companies and nonprofits get the job done. According to Forbes, for example, companies with a strong brand story outperform their competitors by 20%. And branded content that tells a story is 22 times more engaging than a simple story, according to AdWeek.

While traditional narrative storytelling is essential, it should be only one of the tools in your arsenal. Here are some other powerful vehicles for getting your message across.

Add vim to your verbal stories

Often, your story is conveyed verbally, whether in shareholder meetings, investor conference calls, all-staff presentations, media interviews, client events, and much more. Every verbal engagement is an opportunity to share your organization’s story. While the exact vehicles you use must be tailored to the speaking opportunity at hand, in tone and type, here are a few ways to add oomph:

  • Interactives: Invite audience participation. Include a Q&A session. Ask for a show of hands. Divide your audience into small groups for discussion.
  • Visuals: Show while you’re telling. Display project timelines. Offer before-and-after photos. Create large-scale infographics that illustrate quarterly performance.
  • Props: No, not prop-comedian-style corny items (looking at you, Carrot Top), but what physical items can boost your verbal presentation. Is your company’s new pillow the softest on the market? I hope potential vendors at the trade show can squeeze it and test it. Let your audience see, feel, smell, taste and hear your product or service. Think taste tests, listening sessions and see-for-yourself events.

Create more wow with your words

Sometimes, a purely narrative story is the right way to go. But don’t overlook other ways to transform the written word into alternative storytelling forms that connect with your stakeholders. Consider these options to a linear, narrative telling, which can be used for your social media presence, corporate newsletter, blog, website, advertising, client or vendor communications and much more:

  • Quizzes, puzzles, games: People love a challenge. Quizzes — about a new product, an industry trend, a cool part of your sector’s history — draw your audience in. Add an element of gamification to make your nontraditional story pop.
  • Top 10s: David Letterman was the master of this. Do the words you’re trying to convey lend themselves to a countdown, a best-of list, a numbered telling?
  • By the numbers: Readers pay attention to numbers. Rather than a simple narrative, how about “3 Investments That Pay Off, and 3 That Disappoint”? Turn your story into a “5 Ways to Extend the Life of Your Appliance” or “25 Things We’ve Learned in Our 25 Years of Business” telling.
  • Contests, sweepstakes, raffles: Who doesn’t love a chance to win? Is there an opportunity to tell a story through a skill- or chance-based competition?
  • Polls, surveys: Your stakeholders all have a story of their own, including stories about how they interact with your organization, use your products, engage with your employees and so on. Ask them, and then use that information to tell follow-up stories.
  • Do’s and don’ts, if-then’s, etc.: Instead of just writing a straightforward story about the topic at hand, can it be reimagined as a contrasting Do’s and Don’ts display? An If-Then scenario? An Instead-of-That-Try-This suggestion? A head-to-head Ours-Vs.-Theirs comparison?

Find your verve with visuals

We are, of course, a visuals-first species. For many people, seeing truly is believing. There’s a reason for the cliché that every picture tells a story. Sometimes, visuals can be just the right vehicle for effectively delivering your story. Here are a few to consider:

  • Photo collages, galleries: With a few well-chosen words and a selection of great photos, you can tell quite a story. Create photo collages, rotating carousels, galleries, large-scale display art, photo-heavy display walls or window clings and more. Sometimes a single, powerful image tells the story better than countless words.
  • Videos: If we’ve learned one thing from social media, it’s that audiences love interesting, memorable videos. But keep ‘em short, and make ‘em matter. See the accompanying story “7 Tips for Vertical Video Marketing” for more advice.
  • Illustrations, infographics: Data-heavy stories lend themselves particularly well to these formats. Lead your audience through the narrative you’re trying to tell by creating informative, well-designed, visually and narratively stimulating “stories.”
  • Manuals, how-to’s: Have lots of advice to offer? Is the story you’re trying to tell heavy with nuts-and-bolts tips? Manuals, how-to illustrations and step-by-step maps or illustrated instructions can fill the bill.
  • Comics, timelines, more: Not every story is a fit, but for the right one, an animated video, single-panel comic, narrative multipanel cartoon or image-heavy timeline can really connect.

It’s good to have options

Sometimes, a simple A-to-Z, linear narrative is exactly the right way to tell your organization’s story. But, to keep things fresh, surprise your stakeholders and achieve your business objectives, sometimes a well-executed data illustration, a poignant cartoon strip or an exciting video are just what your story needs.