Ever wonder how to make your business stories more interesting?
You know your product or service is outstanding but you’re having a hard time getting people to tune in. For many content marketers, that’s a concern because what’s the point of sharing valuable information if no one’s going to read it?
Engaging content ignites your readers’ imagination, creates a connection and the opportunity for you and them to take a transformative journey together.
Here are four easy ways to inject some life into your sleepy content and make it more captivating.
Tell a Story
Content needs to tell a story that quickly captivates readers or inspires them to take action or want to learn more. If it doesn’t, is probably…boring.
Use storytelling to grab and keep your audience’s attention. Pamela B. Rutledge, in an article for Psychology Today, notes that
Our brains still respond to content by looking for the story to make sense out of the experience…Stories are authentic human experiences. Stories leap frog the technology and bring us to the core of experience, as any good storyteller (transmedia or otherwise) knows.
Stories help people make connections with others and understand their experiences. That’s the reason it has remained an unparalleled tool for communicating ideas and binding people together since the dawn of time.
Tell a good story and your story is likely to be told and retold. From a marketer’s perspective, that’s gold.
It’s All About Your Customer
People like to talk about themselves. It’s human nature.
While it may feel good to create content that demonstrates just how great you or your product is, that’s one sure way to lose your audience’s interest.
A great story is about something the audience thinks is important. If you don’t make your content about your audience’s needs and concerns, you provide them with a reason to tune out.
When you make your content about your customer and speak in terms they understand, it’s the equivalent of them hearing you say their name. When people hear the sound of their name, they feel recognized and acknowledged.
Make it clear you see and understand the needs and concerns of your customers.
Acknowledge their pain and then let your story paint the picture of how you can help them solve their problems.
Harness The Power Of Metaphors
All memorable stories from childhood make great use of metaphors. That’s a big part of the reason they continue to resonate with new readers year after year and generation after generation.
The story of Little Red Riding Hood, for example, could be a metaphor for good versus evil, or a metaphor for second chances.
Depending on each reader’s personal experience, each may take a different message from the same story. The message for one person might be, “Don’t talk to strangers,” or “When you don’t listen to your mother, you get into trouble.”
Stories that make good use of metaphors make the reader’s experience more powerful and memorable. In telling your business story, use metaphors to help explain complex topics and add a splash of colour to a sea of grey, bland text.
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. – Orson Scott Card
Use metaphors to elevate your content and surprise and delight your readers.
Add Visual Interest
Most people’s eyes glaze over when confronted with blocks of uninterrupted text.
It doesn’t matter how useful your content is, today’s reader will likely not stick around to wade through huge chunks of text.
Children love looking at pictures in storybooks and as it turns out, so do adults.
Hubspot reports that:
- coloured visuals increase people’s willingness to view a piece of content by 80%
- 46% of marketers say photography is critical to their current marketing storytelling strategies, and
- 65% of senior marketing executives believe that visual assets (photo, video, illustrations and infographics) are core to how their brand story is communicated.
Great content consists of telling stories that speak to your customers’ needs and respectfully shares how you can help them solve their problems.
Metaphors grab your readers’ attention and allow them to interpret your story in a way that’s personal and meaningful to them.
Jazz it up with some well-placed images or video and your content will snap, crackle, pop.
When you use these techniques, you hook your readers and make sure they stick around to find out how your solution helps solve their problem.
Interesting content does more than tell a story; it helps you build a relationship with your audience as you build your brand.
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