Online Story Telling – Who do you bring?
Whenever I journey to complete some type of interaction with a customer online or even face to face, I bring five people with me to help with my advertising and marketing efforts. My friends are who, what, when, where and why. I can’t feel confident without them no matter whether I’m performing Internet marketing consulting to people in Atlanta or nationwide. I’m sure to get nervous and lose or waste time if I don’t have my team with me. The main reason why I bring them along is because I notice that people go into a trance when I can present them in a way that’s relative to their business.
The Reason Why it Works
The reason why story telling is so important has to do with childhood and cartoons. When we were children we loved to watch Bugs Bunny, Batman, Ninja Turtles, Spider Man and even Sesame Street. Even though these cartoons are different, one thing they had in common was that they were all presented in story format. If you can remember, our eyes stayed glued to the television waiting for the next word or sequence. You can also remember being afraid to turn away from the station during commercials because you refused to miss the next sequence of the story. Childhood taught us how to see the world and think, and you will find people showing the same patterns.
Story Telling – Today
Ironically, this same habit is stuck with us today. You’ll notice that every time you watch your favorite movie you must watch it without any interruptions. You can stay glued to a program for around 3 hours at the movie theater. One thing that the movies share with cartoons is the fact that they’re in story format.
Homeless & Elderly
If your still not convinced, lets look at the example of your homeless people. If you’ve ever taken out the time to speak with homeless people you’ll notice that they have the best stories. Next time a homeless person begs you for something, tell them to tell you a story in exchange. You may even ask them to explain the process of how they got into that situation. Before you notice it you’ll be emotionally involved with their life events. Notice that when they tell a good story, watch how you go into a trance and can’t help to listen.
Also, listen to your grandparents or any elderly person tell a story. They have some of the best stories that you can listen to about their life events. Listen to their tone of voice, facial expressions and the amount of passion that they place in some of the stories they tell. You will quickly find yourself lost in the middle of their stories.
Story Telling – Transferring skills online
Moreover, you can use some of these techniques to increase conversion rates on your website. One of the things that I notice on all of the websites that I’ve worked on is the majority of people coming to your website will go to your about me or about your company page. The reason why they are going there is because they want to know your story. The format for your about me section will have to include an emotional and compelling story.
You can also increase your conversion rates if you write your your sales letter in story format and have a story for each one of your brands. Once you start selling and thinking in this format, you can sit back and watch your conversion rates dramatically increase.
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Absolutely right. Interaction is what we seek. Instead of some boring static page to read, everybody prefer some interactive way of knowing you.
Very powerful point Rennell. Of all the web mktg techniques out there storytelling seems to be the forgotten one. Great job building a compelling web site!
I agree completely. When you tell a story people follow the story line and by getting agreements along the way it is much easier to close at the end. The idea is to get them to see, feel, hear and smell it; making it real is the best.