Stories Sell Pt.2: Follow the Yellow Brick Road

byAJTrimble1

9.1K followers

Updated 5 years ago

First things first. I want to apologize for not getting this post up yesterday as promised. I had a bit of a medical emergency.

In my last post, I introduced the idea that by creating stories to go along with your articles, you will see better results that just expressing facts and data exclusively.

The truth is as humans we are all attracted to stories, and have been since the days of sitting around campfires in caves. As such, everyone knows that stories are important… but very few know how to tell a good story.

Before we go into how to incorporate story into your posts, let’s first discuss story in general…

What Makes a Good Story?

NOTE: Spoilers ahead…

Screenwriter, Michael Hauge, defines story as the ability to “enable a sympathetic character to overcome a series of increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable obstacles to achieve a compelling desire.”

If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of great storytelling, I previously mentioned Chris Vogler’s “The Writer’s Journey” as the go-to guide. The book is HUGE, over 400 pages, but I’ll summarize the typical story elements.

The first thing every good story needs is a character. Whether the character is a person, a parrot, or a particularly intelligent shade of blue (bonus points to the first person to mention that reference), a story needs to be about someone or something.

Next, your character must have a problem. As you’ve probably noticed, most stories start out with the character living what is referred to as an “ordinary” day. Then some inciting incident —i.e. problem — occurs that sets them on a different path.

Somewhere along the way, your character usually meets a mentor that helps guide them. Think Fairy Godmother (Wizard of Oz), Gandalf (Lord of the Rings), or Morpheus (The Matrix).

With the help of the mentor, your character comes up with a plan about how to handle the situation, then takes action, which either results in success or failure.

Sure, most stories end in success (”They lived happily ever after.”), but some do not. For a great example of one that ends in failure, but is still an absolutely amazing story, watch the film, No Country for Old Men.

How to Apply Story to Your Articles

Traditional marketing follows a formula known as AIDA: Attention (or Awareness), Interest, Desire, Action. The idea is to get the reader's attention, build up interest in your product or service to the point they want it (desire), and then entice them to take action.

We are going to use a similar pattern, combined with the elements of storytelling, to make your articles irresistible to your readers.

Step 1: Attention (Attention)

The very first thing you should do with any post or article is capture the reader's attention. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is through the use of a good headline or first sentence.

While there are several ways that work — a promise, a question, etc. — perhaps one of the most most effective is to identify your target reader, which sets them up as the main character, and shake them out of their ordinary world by mentioning a problem they may be experiencing.

For example, my target audience is generally aspiring writers looking to earn an income from doing what they love. Thus, my Wealthy Affiliate review begins with:

“Attention Creative Writers…”

Then I identify their biggest pain point:

“How You Can Create A 6-Figure Online Income in Less Than One Hour Per Day WITHOUT Being a Starving Artist or Sacrificing Your Creativity”

Now, the question you may be asking is how I know what their pain point was, as well as why a headline like this is so effective. It’s because I am a writer, and those were the exact pain points I was experiencing trying to earn a living with my passion, and all the writers I know had the same problem. In other words, I know my target audience. (Hint, hint.)

Step 2: Empathy (Interest)

Humans don’t buy with logic. We buy with emotion and then justify that purchase with logic. Once you have your reader's attention, begin to tell your story with emotion. The goal is to build empathy with the reader; show them you know exactly how they feel because you’ve been in their shoes.

Don’t hold back. Tell the whole story. What happened. How it affected your life. And most importantly, how it made you feel… because chances are they are feeling that way, too.

Step 3: The Crossroads (Desire)

As you can see, here is when you enter the reader’s story as the mentor. At this point, your reader is probably thinking, “Okay, if I don’t change, life will continue to be awful. And if I do change, life would be absolutely amazing. So, I want to change… but how?”

Your reader is at a crossroads. He or she must make a choice to go one direction or another, but perhaps they don’t know which way is best. Your job as mentor is help guide the reader to a proper solution, which for our purposes as affiliate marketers, is the product or service you are recommending to address that particular concern.

So, how do you get them to go down the correct path? Again, tell the story…

First, show them what the failure path looks like. What would their life look like if they didn’t take action to solve their challenge? In fiction writing, this is referred to as the “Dark Night of the Soul” moment.

Next, give them hope. Paint a vision of the success path and what is possible if they make the right choice and are willing to change.

Step 4: The Rescue (Action)

The last step of the process is to throw out the proverbial life line. This is your Call to Action.

Much like Fairy God Mother’s offer to help Dorothy get back to Kansas, or Morpheus convincing Neo he was The One (and Neo finally believing it), you present your offer and encourage the reader to take action.

And please note, the key word is “action”, not necessarily sale. A CTA can be any number of things. Ask them to leave a comment. Offer them the opportunity to receive your newsletter. Give them a link to subscribe to your YouTube channel. Your Call to Action is whatever action it is that you wish for them to take.

But, of course, that also includes asking for a sale. A general rule of sales and marketing is that people won’t buy unless you ask. ;-)

Conclusion

So, there you go. A simple, four-step process that you can follow any time you are creating content that you hope will impact your reader's and, more importantly, get them to take action to improve their lives.

Please leave a comment below and let me know if you were able to come up with any good “stories” you could incorporate into your next post.

Thanks.

P.S. Does story work? You tell me. I began this post with a short “story” about my medical emergency. I actually had an accident and sliced one of my toes. Was it life threatening? Nope. But it did require a bit of treatment and lot’s of empathy from my wife.

The point is, it was a story that was hopefully compelling enough to catch your attention and entice you to read the rest of this article. And if you’re still reading right now, I’d say it did its job. :-)

Keep Writing.