Did you consider your brand story when you designed your website?
Did you pick a theme and think, well, 6 pages would serve. Let me think: About, Contact, Home, Services, Blog + one for luck. Is that about right? If you answered yes then you need to read this and consider your brand story. If you answered no then you should read this blog anyway to check if your hunch about storytelling was right.
[Tweet “Do you actually know what brand story you wish to tell?”]
Did you begin with a pen and paper to work out what message you wanted to convey? No? This is quite possibly the reason why visitors might not feel convinced by your content. [Tweet “Any brand’s story must come before anything else.”] Forget broadcasting across every social media network with inappropriate material you have to get the brand story right otherwise how can you align a content strategy?
Would you read War and Peace to a 7 year old for example?
Have you ever thought about your target audience? What would their reaction be? In fact if you have ever been on bedtime story duty you will understand the power of repetition. Look at books for toddlers, it’s all about colour and prediction and yes, repetition. Children like to guess, they like to see what’s coming next, they like to predict. Guess what? We are not so very different and we all love powerful stories.
Look at comedy sketches that use the same brand format
We laugh in advance expecting the punch line. We almost have a shiver of excitement when we recognize what is coming next. ‘It’s behind yoooooo!’ we all shout in terror as the baddie appeared unbeknown to the heroine.
We are all toddlers now!
So consider how you might gain your toddler’s attention when there are so many interesting things in the world that might take their interest. [Tweet “The thing is, we are all toddlers now.”] I can’t keep my mind on anything for a moment before Skype interrupts, an email lands or the phone rings.
So what does a writer have to do to grab her audience?
Educate, engage and entertain
She needs to be a story teller and she needs your brand story to tell. Like a bedtime reader I need to create something colourful, engaging that has hooks and excitement to maintain interest. Without a good story to tell any double readership techniques, bullet point and attractive images will be wasted. You can say: [Tweet “‘I can’t afford to pay a quality content writer.”]’ But think how often visitors will read your story. Remember, people look once and if they are unimpressed they won’t return. It’s hard enough to attract website traffic without sending it away empty handed. It’s that simple. We all love a powerful story. [Tweet “How do you feel when someone says: ‘Once upon a time…..’?”]
Further Reading:
5 steps to telling engaging stories
Powerful brand story telling Watch the video in this link.
Photo credit Menachem Ganon. To buy prints please click here
Photo credit for once upon a time stampington.com
