If you want to become a successful copywriter and write persuasive sales copy, then you need to learn how to tell stories. Stories are the most effective way to create an emotional connection with your readers and persuade them to buy your products or services. Whether you’re writing website copy, landing pages, emails or blog posts, if you want to convert more customers, then learning how to use storytelling in your copywriting is key.
What Is Storytelling, And Why Is It Important?
Storytelling is a powerful way to connect with your audience. It allows you to create an emotional connection and drive sales by telling stories about the product or service, instead of just listing the features.
Storytelling is a way to communicate a message or tell a story in a way that is captivating and engaging to the reader. It can be done in any medium, but it’s most commonly used in writing and film.
Why is storytelling important? There are many reasons why we tell stories, but broadly speaking, storytelling is a form of communication that allows us to share experiences with one another, and to learn from each other’s experiences. It helps us feel connected with others—and even with our past selves!
Storytelling also brings people together. In particular, it can help us connect over shared values and interests—like what we want for our planet or how we want society to be better for everyone.
Where Can You Apply Your Storytelling Skills?
There are many places where storytelling can help your business grow. The list below is just a few examples of how you can apply storytelling to your marketing material:
- Copywriting – Whether you’re writing sales pages, blog posts or emails, there’s always room for some good old-fashioned storytelling.
- Marketing Materials – When it comes to marketing materials like catalogues and brochures, adding a story element can help make your brand more memorable and engaging for your customers.
- Social Media – Social media has become an essential part of any modern business’ online presence—so why not take advantage?
- Advertising – Advertisers use stories all the time in their commercials; why not try it out yourself?
- Presentations – Presentations are another great way to incorporate stories into your workday routine; they’ll also help keep people engaged with what’s going on around them!
Know Your Audience
Know your audience well: You’ve got a killer product at a fantastic price, and you know that your target market is just dying to get their hands on it. But if you don’t take the time to understand what they want and how they think, then they won’t be buying your super-cool product in 2022.
Know what they want and how to give it to them: In order for your product or service to sell, it has to have value for the customer—but not just any old value will do. What’s important is that this value meets an actual need or desire on behalf of the consumer. This can be something as simple as filling an existing gap in the marketplace (for example, creating a new kind of dog food because there aren’t enough brands out there), but sometimes it requires more effort than that (like building an entire industry from scratch).
Know their interests and how best way capture their attention: In order for people’s needs/desires/wants/etceteras being met by your business’ offerings is going work out well both parties need some sort of connection between them; otherwise all those benefits aren’t going matter much at all! One way this might happen is through storytelling–if done right–can help build trust between consumers who might otherwise feel skeptical about purchasing online products sight unseen..
Build Your Own Characters
The first step in creating a character is to create one that is relatable. Your audience needs to see themselves or someone they know in the story, otherwise it won’t resonate with them.
The next step is to make your character interesting. The more fascinating and captivating your characters are, the more likely people will be interested in what you have to say about them.
Creating memorable characters is also important for storytelling success because it keeps people thinking about what you wrote long after they’ve read it. If you want readers or listeners remembering details from your copy, make sure that each aspect of their personalities makes an impact on them as well as their actions do!
Tell a Relatable Story
Stories are more engaging, persuasive and effective. They are also more memorable. It’s not just because stories are entertaining—they help us connect with the consumer on an emotional level.
Stories increase engagement: Consumers will engage with your story if they believe it reflects their own experiences or aspirations. For example, if you tell a story about how one of your customers used your product to make life easier for their children with disabilities, it will be much more likely to resonate than if you simply talk about how great your product is at cleaning windows.
Stories increase persuasion: People are more likely to take action after hearing a relatable story because they feel like they know you or have experienced something similar themselves (e.g., “I’m like them!”). This can also lead them to trust what you say better as well as be more willing to buy from you after hearing your message firsthand (rather than just reading about it online).
Stories improve memorability: A study by Peppers & Rogers shows that recall rates for information presented in stories were 47% higher than those presented without narrative context.*
Make Your Story Timely
By telling a timely story, you will increase your chances of the most relevant and effective copy. The reason for this is simple: people are more likely to share content that is relevant to them. If you create content that readers can relate to and add value by helping them solve problems, they’ll be more likely to share it with their friends, family members, and colleagues.
When writing your sales copy or advertising material, consider the time period of your product or service and how it relates back to what people will want at different points in their lives. If you sell jewelry online during Valentine’s Day season but offer discounts on pieces you know won’t be as popular after February 14th (or even worse — after February 15th), then there is no point in marketing those items right now!
Make Your Copy Descriptive, Not Literal
To make your copy descriptive, not literal, use words that paint pictures in the reader’s mind. This can be done using metaphors, analogies and similes to show how one thing is like another. Or it could be done by using sensory language—describing things that appeal to the reader’s senses (for example: “The smell of fresh cut grass makes me feel relaxed.”)
Use action verbs when possible; for example: “I walk into my room and see…,” instead of simply saying “There is a bed.”
Lastly, try short sentences and active voice (a sentence where the subject performs an action on an object). Active voice creates an image in the reader’s head so they don’t have to guess what happened. For example: “My client was happy because I delivered them exactly what they needed,” instead of “My client was happy because we delivered them exactly what they needed.” In this case, there isn’t any ambiguity with regards to who performed which task or why they were happy about it!
Apply storytelling to your copywriting to drive sales.
You may be wondering how to apply storytelling to your copywriting. In this article, I’ll show you the core steps that will help you bring customers closer to their goals and into your store.
Stories are powerful tools. They can make us laugh, cry or feel inspired to do something amazing. A great story can plant an idea in our minds and shape how we view the world. The whole concept of storytelling is so powerful that many business brands use it to engage with their audience and sell more products or services.
If you want to learn how this works, take a look at these tips on how to apply storytelling to your copywriting:
Have a character in mind
Have a character in mind and imagine their life, challenges, thoughts and emotions.
As a copywriter, you need to know who your characters are before you begin writing any copy. To do this, you must have a clear idea of the main character’s problem, goal or motivation. What is it that they want? How do they intend on getting it? Why is this so important to them?
If you don’t know those answers yet then don’t worry! Take some time now to answer those questions—if not all of them at once then at least one at a time until everything clicks and makes sense for your story.
Use storytelling to position your product
Use storytelling to position your product as the solution to your character’s challenges.
Use the character’s problems to highlight the benefits of your product. Try to make it clear how having your product will help them overcome their challenges and make them happy, fulfilled, or successful.
Create a clear picture of what the problem looks like before you introduce the solution.
Your next step is to create a clear picture of what the problem looks like before you introduce the solution. This is critical because when people feel bad, they want to fix it. And when they don’t know what’s wrong, they won’t even start searching for solutions.
Your job as a copywriter is to help your reader visualize their problems in an easy-to-understand way so that they’re inspired to take action and solve them! But how do you do this?
In order for people to understand their problems, they need to be able to relate with them on some level—whether it’s through relatable feelings or specific situations that trigger emotion within themselves or others around them (like friends/family).
This way, if someone else says “I just had a really bad day,” everyone knows exactly what day was meant by “bad.” You can also use this technique by using simple analogies that anyone would understand without having any prior knowledge about either subject matter involved: “It’s like two-steps forward then ten steps back…but worse than both combined!”
Show us how using your product will improve the lives of your customers or solve the challenges they face.
Show us how using your product will improve the lives of your customers or solve the challenges they face.
It’s a simple concept: if you can help people achieve their goals, they’ll be more likely to buy from you. And while it’s easy to talk about what you can do for people by selling them something, showing them is far more effective.
Using stories can help you create copy that is more engaging and has higher chances of converting leads into customers.
Stories are an effective way to get your readers’ attention, because they can help you create copy that is more engaging and has higher chances of converting leads into customers.
In addition to being a more intuitive way to connect with your audience, stories can also create value by helping you:
- Tell a story in your copy that connects with people on an emotional level.
- Create urgency by creating a sense of scarcity around the product or service you’re offering.
A Free Guide to Developing a Story for copywriting
When you think of writing a blog post, how do you approach it? Do you start by noting down the “key points” of your content, or do you start with an introduction? Or maybe you dive into the middle first and fill in the rest later.
Whatever your process, I’d like to try something different today. Rather than starting with bullet points or outlines, let’s try using storytelling to guide our content creation process instead. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to plan your writing by thinking about stories rather than data points or bulleted lists.
And when I say “storytelling,” don’t worry—I’m not talking about fables and fairy tales (though if those inspire you, go for it!). Instead of telling fictional stories that are made up from scratch, I’m talking about telling real stories—about your company’s history or about how a customer successfully used one of your products. These kinds of stories are not just fun for us to write; they’re also fun for our readers to read as well!
How to tell a story
How do you tell a story?
- Introduce the hero. Who is he or she? What does he/she want?
- Introduce the villain. What does this person want, and what are they willing to do to get it?
- Introduce the conflict between them. How will their goals come into conflict and how will that conflict be resolved?
- Set up your main character(s) so readers can relate to them or champion them as they face their challenges. You can also introduce minor characters who help with problem-solving or add color to your story by being funny or quirky—anything that makes readers care about these people!
The hero of your story
The hero is the main character in your story. The protagonist could be a person, a group of people, or even an idea.
It’s important to remember that the hero isn’t necessarily someone who has already gone through the transformation you want them to have—they are just at the beginning of their journey when we meet them in our copy.
The hero is also often referred to as “the central character” or “protagonist” (if they are human).
The villain of your story
The villain of your story is the antagonist, and it can be a person or a thing. The villain is the one who’s trying to stop your hero from accomplishing their goal. It’s the obstacle that they have to overcome in order to achieve their goal.
I know, I know: “But wait! Aren’t there also antagonists in stories?” Well, yes—a lot of them! But they’re not all villains; some are just villains by association (like when you’re talking about “a company with bad customer service” or “a town full of gossiping busybodies”).
And many times those antagonists are just minor characters who only complicate things for your protagonist without being real obstacles themselves (for example: if someone tries to steal something from our hero but fails).
A conflict
A conflict can be the driving force behind your story, and it can take many forms. It could be internal or external—between characters, within a character, physical or emotional. The conflict could be resolved or unresolved at the end of your narrative.
A resolution
The resolution is the answer to any conflict. It’s where the hero wins or loses, and where villains get their comeuppance.
For example, in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Offred (the narrator) struggles with her identity as a woman living under the repressive regime of Gilead. She refers to herself in third person as “Offred,” rather than “I,” because she has no self-determination under this regime—she’s been taken away from her husband and children; and she doesn’t know if they’re still alive. She comes up with ways of escaping but fails every time; eventually she grows accustomed to her life and stops trying. Eventually she gets pregnant—a blessing for women in this world since it means they can escape death when they get older—but then finds out that it was not meant to be: they are going to take away her baby at birth because it will be raised as part of their political system instead of living with its mother (and father).
The resolution comes when Offred takes advantage of an opportunity during labor (when only one person is allowed inside) by stabbing Serena Joy who helped implement this policy against women having children so that members of Gilead could have them instead…
Copywriting is more than just facts, figures, and features. It’s about telling stories.
Copywriting is more than just facts, figures and features. It’s about telling stories.
Copywriters use the power of storytelling to connect with readers in a way that engages them and helps them remember your message. They do this by using their knowledge of human psychology and behavior patterns; they know what it takes to inspire action.
When you tell a compelling story, you’ll get people interested in what you have to say—and that’s why storytelling is essential for any copywriter hoping to stand out from the crowd.
Conclusion
So there you have it – an introduction to the art of storytelling in copywriting. We’ve explored what makes a good story, how you can use them to connect with your audience, and some examples of storytelling in action. Now it’s time to put these lessons into practice!
I hope this quick guide will help you use storytelling to drive sales. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, but with the right amount of planning and research, even the most inexperienced copywriter can develop a strong marketing strategy that combines great copywriting with effective storytelling techniques.
