When you want other people to talk about your company and your products on the Internet instead of making sales pitches you should turn to story-telling. That is how true content marketing works. It is also how true word-of-mouth marketing works. And if you look at the most popular advertising campaigns in history, that is how they worked.
One of the longest-running gags in technology advertising was the “Mac-versus-PC” campaign that Apple used to successfully promote its products. Every commercial told a short, simple story about the conflict between PC (John Kellogg Hodgman) and Mac (Justin Long). In some commercials the stories were more subtle and in other commercials they provided many details.
The stories were not about the competition between Mac and Pc. The stories were about moments of interaction between the two characters. But each story opened with the same line: “Hello. I’m a Mac …”
Begin Each Story with an Introduction
Beginnings are very hard for me to write. I can usually jump into the middle of a story without any problem but I often leave people behind because they cannot figure out how the story began. So introductions are important.
In marketing the introduction is about the product but maybe where most marketers (and would-be content marketers) falter is in learning to cut off the introduction quickly enough. One of the advantages of writing in the 500-word theme format is that you know your first paragraph is your introduction. One of the disadvantages of the 500-word theme format is that in marketing a paragraph is too long an introduction.
If you have ever learned how to write a proper press release then you know that first sentence is crucial: “XYZ Corporation today launched a new series of products designed to reduce consumer cost of living by 50%” should suffice as an introduction. If you could start out every content marketing article like that you’d probably have far more customers.
Of course, no one wants to receive pushy sales copy. I have received (and thrown away) and written (and probably wasted) hundreds, thousands of sales letters across the decades. Opening up a letter that promises me I’m going to be rich, save money, change my life, jump for joy makes me wince. Why bother? It’s the same with email. Most of the promotional messages we send and receive are wasted effort because they have the wrong openings.
There are no canned openings that work every time and if you’re looking for canned openings that work a certain percentage of the time then you’re not trying to tell a story. Every story begins with an introduction and in marketing the introduction is about the product. It is always about the product. You just may not always name the product.
On the Internet Your Title is Your Introduction
Page titles have been abused and mauled by the search engine optimization industry because they have been perverted into keyword-chasing attention-seeking smarmy sales tools. A good page title has nothing to do with keywords. It tells the visitor they are about to embark upon a journey of discovery.
Having written my share of keyword-chasing titles I know from long experience that it’s virtually impossible to differentiate a perfectly fine article from all the other perfectly fine articles out there by starting with the same formulaic keyword-chasing titles that all the other fine articles are using. If you’re first out the gate with that keyword-rich title then everyone else has to chase you but by the time you see the title you want to use in the SERPs it’s too late. You need a new title.
Instead of pretending that keywords are the cornerstone of search engine optimization it is better to step back and think about what would get YOUR attention when someone was about to SUCCESSFULLY pitch a new idea to you. There are legions of examples in your memory because many people have already succeeded in getting your attention. You just don’t think about the marketing experience as if you were the consumer.
After the Title Comes the Promise
If the page title introduces the product to the reader then the first sentence has to promise sky rockets and bells; otherwise most people will just stop reading right there. And no matter how much you fuss over your bounce rates those people won’t come back. The promise is not about reducing bounce rates. The promise is about explaining why the article is relevant to someone else’s life.
You have to make the right promise so that your title doesn’t become a smarmy liar. If the title introduces the visitor to a product then the opening sentence has to promise that the product will change the visitor’s perspective in some way.
It’s a subtle promise. You’re not promising mountains of gold and immortality; you’re promising to show the visitor something interesting. Writing the promise means being direct and simple. Using superlatives is neither direct nor simple. Nor does it help to tell people how proud you are of yourself. The number 1 failing point in most sales pitches and press releases is some self-serving blurb about how proud the marketer is about blah-blah-blah.
Make a promise that is relevant to the reader, not to your bottom line. Promises are simple, direct, and sometimes subtle. A good promise that almost ALWAYS keeps my attention is where the writer — you thought I was going to tell you something, didn’t you? Think about that.
The Story Has to Set Up Conflict
There must always be a conflict. The conflict is about the consumer, not about you. You may try to build rapport with the consumer by putting yourself in the same position. That’s a common motif and it works pretty well, unless it fails. Failure is easier to achieve than success. You try too hard, come across like a greedy soul-sucking smarmy snake oil salesperson and BOOM! the reader leaves.
But what’s even worse is the story where the reader is drawn into the conflict only to find no resolution. The resolution may be a cry for help but, frankly, you’re not selling anything if you’re asking for help. In marketing the conflict doesn’t cheat the consumer. It’s real, it’s honest, and it exaggerates only a little. Sometimes it leaves out small details (such as the inconvenient fact that Macs have always been susceptible to viruses just like PCs).
The conflict is what hurts the consumer. Remember from past marketing lessons that you’re looking for the other guy’s pain. In this story you know what his pain is. You’re tailoring the story to his pain. Maybe his pain is that he can’t catch fish because his fishing line is always tangled up. And it just so happens you have the rod and reel that prevents that from happening.
The pain is never yours so don’t try to own it. You’ll come across as disingenuous if you do that.
The Story May Include a False Resolution
False resolutions are simply misleading. We call them red herrings. Some people call them midpoints. The false resolution works if it matches the consumers’ experiences. You don’t want to beat a dead horse with the obvious but you do want to use the false resolution to show that you understand why the consumer’s problem is so painful.
False resolutions serve to validate your knowledge and set up your expertise. You can use false resolutions to earn trust as long as you unmask them gracefully. Don’t spend too much time on the false resolution and don’t stuff as many false resolutions into your story as you can think of. 1 is almost enough, 2 is sufficient, and 3 mean you don’t believe in yourself.
If false resolutions delay the consumer’s journey of discovery then they don’t belong in the story.
The Story Should Include an Innovative Twist
This is one area of story-telling that many marketers badly mangle. Instead of being clever they wind up boring their readers to tears. “I finally hit upon the right solution, though, and it was so simple that I nearly cried because I had spent YEARS looking for this solution. But now that I know what the right answer is I am going to share it with you. But first, here are a few more oblique testimonials to reassure you I’m not just long-winded but also insanely stupid and boring….”
In an infomercial you have already seen the solution by the time you get to the pointless vague testimonials. In real content marketing you have left the path of content marketing if you introduce even a single vague testimonial.
Testimonials are not innovative twists. When used properly they vindicate the consumer’s decision to trust you; nothing more.
Innovation in the story means that you bring the consumer to the brink of realization without distraction. It’s a very quick, brief moment in the tale and almost always a necessary one. It’s a way to help the consumer shed those old ideas that stand between you and the conversion. The conversion may not be a sale; it may only be an inquiry. All you want to do with your content marketing is to spark some interest that wasn’t there before. So the innovation doesn’t have to be elaborate; it just needs to move the story forward.
The Resolution is NOT the Conclusion
You have to get to the resolution quickly and efficiently. You can spend a little bit of time explaining it but in reality the resolution is not your goal. You use the resolution to show the consumer that your product is the answer they want. If you used your innovation effectively then by the time you get to the reveal the consumer is already anticipating the feeling of relief at seeing your product. Yes, it’s real! Yes, it works! Yes, this is what I need!
You can spend a lot of time on the resolution but that is probably not necessary. You just need to convey enough information about the resolution to ensure that most people will understand what it is and how it works. By this point you should have lost most of the people who are not going to convert. All that remains is for you to close the deal.
The Conversion is the Conclusion
In classic content marketing the conversion consists of getting the consumer to come in to look at the products in person, or to subscribe, or to reach out to you in some way.
Reaching out may be as simple as searching the Internet for your Website. It may be as complicated as searching for more information about you.
The conclusion just has to wrap up the deal in such a way as to leave the consumer knowing what the next step is. They will convince themselves to take that step. It’s not your job to do the convincing.
The story has led the consumer to the point where they make the choice for themselves. Content marketing trusts the story; it doesn’t force the conversion. You will have to tell this story again and again and in doing so you need to be fresh and innovative every time. Forcing the conversion makes the conversion the whole point of the marketing campaign, in which case you only need one story. For the consumer and the marketer alike what makes the campaign interesting and worthwhile is the fact that you can take a thousand journeys together because you have a thousand stories to tell about the product.
And when consumers enjoy your endless stories enough they will begin telling their own stories for you. That is how it works.
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