What's Your Story?

byDaveSw

5.6K followers

Updated 5 years ago

I get asked this question a lot by people I meet, and generally when I try to keep it short and focused on a particular subject it goes better (think elevaor speech). Otherwise they will be sitting around for a long time listening to the many stories I have to tell (or more likely not!).

It probably is the same for you as well. As we go through life, we experience many things and have moments of joy and sadness, memories get etched into our minds, and when called up they can bring a smile and a warm feeling that can make any current situation better.

Weaving these experiences into your stories can help you convince your readers to follow your advice and take actions that you recommend. This is why they are so powerful for online marketing (or any marketing for that matter).

In that light, I was checking my email and saw my weekly update from Grammarly...

.

Weekly Data Dump From Grammarly

I like this feature that you get access to even as a free member of Grammarly, as it provides a barometer of sorts of how you are doing when it comes to productivity and telling your story. Of course, as mentioned, we are interested in using the stories to promote our products and others' products.

Storytelling is such an effective way to write too I have found. You can use a first-person writing style, the flow can be similar to how you tell a story in person and it comes across as being genuine. You appear to be someone that can be trusted.

Anyway...

The data I get weekly from Grammarly helps me understand in meta data terms how I am doing overall when it comes to telling my stories. This is only one indicator of many that you can use to track your progress...

Here is the breakdown from the last week for me:

(1) Accuracy

(2) Productivity

(3) Vocabulary

These are the weekly stats, and there are cumulative stats that they provide as well...

Here they are...

Cumulative Writing Stats Since January 2018

This is a feature and data that is just kind of nice to know and useful too. Nobody wants to hear about them (sorry for including them here but I do think the point of having them is what I am getting at) but still they are helpful as a measure for how your business is doing.

(1) Weeks of consecutive writing

(2) Number of words written over the period

Note these statistics do not include the words that have been written and checked by our VAs. This is at least another 4 million words total...

So with the average book being about 50 to 75k words, this means over the past 18 months we have published the equivalent of about 22 novels, or over one per month!

THAT is a lot of writing...BUT (there always is a but, right?)...

Putting Stats Into Perspective

While these overall numbers may seem like a lot I assure you they are not. They include comments that I make on others' blogs, and also emails and anything else that I am writing in support of my business while using Chrome...

I have a large number of websites so when you subtract the other activities this means that in regards to content that supports the websites (i.e. blog posts) I need to up my game. This requires me to drill down a bit.

We have blogs for online business, for support to offline businesses, and for teaching. This means that I now need to evaluate how each is doing when it comes to publishing related content and I need to adjust my writing production as may be indicated.

The best way to do this is to first have a map of your entire business model, determine what your avatar is for each (ideal customer) market segment, and then create a content plan that addresses all the points and areas within that plan.

So when I create any content, it will naturally lead readers into that plan and the support they can get from us, whether it is consulting, training, marketing support, video creation, chatbot creations,etc for businesses, and something else for the online business programs and tools, and yet something else for the e-commrce niches we are into...

Do you see how I have taken the data gathered from Grammarly and turned it into something that can help grow the busines?. This is all done over time, again and again. Consistency is a key factor that gets drummed into us here on Wealthy Affiliate, and with reason. It works.

I will be publshing some training on how to go through this process so you are working to create content that will autonatically relate to whatever activity that you are doing online, whether affiliate marketing or supporting brick and mortar businesses.

All of this goes back to telling your story, however. The number of words or the length of time that you have been publishing them will make no difference if there is no thread that you are tieing the stories into...

That is the secret...It is not a secret, but many people do not go through this process and they are losing out on the leveraging power that telling your stories has... .

So, What's Your Story?

Are you getting your stories out to readers and are they getting read? Using tools such as Grammarly you can better judge how much production you are getting from your efforts, and using other tools like Google Analytics you can judge how the stories are being received.

I would include assessing comments, traffic, visits, leads you may be gaining, heat maps to see where people are reacting best on your pages, and etc. in addition to this Grammarly data, but they all in totem will provide you a big picture.

It is not enough just to write your stories, you need to know how they are being received and if your calls to action are working,so you can make adjustments as indicated. So while nobody really cares about these writing statistics, I do. You should care about yours too...

By making sure that your stories are congruent with the larger message of what your business is all about, you can tie each story in a planned manner to that business, and naturally add in calls to action that lead readers to the desired action(s) that will help them and help your business...

This is all a great deal more than some stats from Grammarly, which by themseves are just some numbers, but if used properly, they can help you determine directions and more effective ways you use stories...Anyway...

Let me know what you think and expand on your own experiences with telling your story. Do you use a tool like Grammarly and are you linking the stories to the overall business that you are operating? What areas have been working and which not?

Anything related (or not) we can discuss below. This is a business, and we have to treat our efforts in that manner. Writing is just one piece, but a central piece of what we all do. Getting better at it just makes sense...

Have a great day and happy selling!

Cheers!

Dave : )