These days stories are the cutting edge of marketing theory. In this last of a short sequence of posts looking at approaches to marketing online, I’ll discuss two approaches to using stories on your website.
The first approach is your personal story. People will respond to your message if they trust you. They may have never met you and so they need to hear your story. The chances are they have a problem and what they need to hear is a story that shows you understand their problem.
Why a story? Probably because stories are memorable. You might be a qualified divorce lawyer with many years’ experience. But perhaps the story of your own divorce is what people need to hear to appreciate that you really understand what they’re going through. If you can find the right story, it may give you a competitive edge over other equally qualified people.
I am sure you can see the potential of this approach and its dangers. Perhaps there are people out there who can concoct a story that rings true but misleads. This is why it is important to provide other content that demonstrates you do in fact understand your topic. Caveat emptor applies online whatever marketing method is in use.
The second approach might broadly be described as case studies. These are the stories that illustrate the problem and your solution, eg testimonials. Stories are memorable and good case studies with in-depth testimonials are helpful. The usual type of thing you see where someone you’ve never heard of says something anodyne about how brilliant the product is may be better than nothing, but not much! If you can interview your customers and draw out their story and go deeper, this is likely to be much more effective.
One final point: consider using video or audio for your stories. OK it’s not always practical but it is effective. People seem to find video more convincing than text, I suppose if they can see a real talking head they find it more convincing.
So, what is the point of all this? Through stories and other site content, you aim to be divisive. You want to attract those who relate to your offer and deter those who do not. You can never appeal to everyone and so your site must communicate decisively with those who are your natural supporters. If they visit your site and don’t get it, then they will not support you. The challenge is to find the content and the stories that do this for your business or organisation.
Have you found sites that have communicated in this way to you?
