Storytelling with data is about framing results within a narrative that reveals the most relevant and actionable insights to your audience. It’s about using context and commentary to help people understand what the data says and why it’s important, and then leveraging visuals to expose key insights that would otherwise remain hidden beneath the complexities of tables and charts.More info:storytellingwithcharts.com
The first step to crafting a data story is to identify the target audience you’re trying to reach. This will dictate how you approach the narrative and what language you use. It will also impact what data sets you choose to include and which ones you leave out, as well as how you communicate the scale of your data and any units used. Be careful not to cherry pick data points or manipulate statistics to suit a narrative; doing so can undermine credibility and lead to misinterpretation.
Visualizing Success: Data Storytelling in Marketing Campaigns
It’s also important to consider how the audience will consume your story, particularly in terms of what medium they’ll be reading it on and when they’re most likely to access it. This will dictate how much text you include, the types of visuals that are most effective, and what sort of tone you use.
The most effective way to engage an audience with a data story is to start with a hook that captures their attention and imagination. This could be a problem that a business is facing, the opportunity to improve an existing process or service, or a question or conundrum that needs to be answered. For example, Oxfam’s data storytelling around female empowerment in developing countries enables audiences to get behind their cause and see its impact on real lives by highlighting the facts and figures that support it.