Storytelling

How stories add emotional appeal to your AI-assisted copy and content.

by
the power of stories in copywriting

I use GPT-4 every day. I use it to brainstorm ideas, research topics, come up with content suggestions, and to outline longer-form content.

Once I’m done researching and outlining with GPT-4, I open up Nick-4 and look for ways to add Emotional Intelligence to whatever I’m writing. (Yup, Nick-4 is me.)

In other words, I’ll never just start writing based on the output of GPT-4 alone.

AI tools are great for improving our productivity, but they’re not good at genuine empathy, cultural sensitivity, or nuanced emotions.

They’re not human.

One of the best ways to add the human touch is to tell a story or two.

Read the full post…

Should you be selling the product, or the story?

by
Sheaffer pen cap

Imagine walking into someone’s home, looking around and seeing a family photo on the wall.

Not a posed family portrait. More of a goofy shot. Not terribly well composed. Maybe even a little bit out of focus.

Seeing you study the picture, your host comes over and says, “Oh my goodness, let me tell you the story behind that photo!”

It isn’t the photo that has the true power… it’s the story behind the photo.

It’s the story that carries the true emotional punch.

Read the full post…

Tell a simple story that engages your readers emotionally.

by
woman wearing mask in store

It doesn’t have to be a big, dramatic story.

It can be something simple.

Like how my wife cried when she walked to the local corner store to buy chips, but realized she didn’t have a mask with her. So she couldn’t go in.

Her tears weren’t about the chips.

We know that.

Her tears were about the relentless grind of living through a pandemic, where something as simple as buying chips is sometimes out of reach.

Read the full post…

4 Ways to earn and maintain the trust of your audience.

by
Young boy expressing trust by holding man's hand

Edelman is a communications agency, well known for what it calls its “trust barometer”.

They track the public’s levels of trust when it comes to business, the media, institutions and government.

As you can imagine, the results over the last few years don’t paint a pretty picture. Trust levels overall are down.

Even while people are looking to inform themselves with the latest news, Edelman reports that 73 percent are worried about fake news being used as a weapon.

And we need look no further than companies like VW and Facebook to understand why our trust in companies and large corporations is being eroded.

So… what is one to do?

Read the full post…

How Dangerous Dave and Big Brian drive conversations for this artist.

by

Big Brian pain brushes

I write and talk a lot about the power and benefits of conversational copywriting.

Today I want to share an example of how the power of conversation extends way beyond just the words we write as copywriters.

Let me introduce you to Dangerous Dave, Big Brian, Flat Phil and Miss Rigger.

As you may have already noticed from the photo above, these are the names of four different paint brushes.

These four brushes arrived in the mail because my wife is an accomplished watercolor artist, but still likes to take classes. And one of the instructors she likes to follow is Andrew Geeson, from Wales. Andrew, as well as being an artist and instructor, clearly has smart marketing skills coded into his DNA.

Read the full post…

3 Things you have to get right when selling with stories.

by

Selling with a good story

Recently I’ve been seeing a surge in the number of companies jumping on the “story” bandwagon.

A few days ago I was traveling back from the UK. At the airport I saw three references to story. One on a poster, one in a duty-free flier that was thrust into my hand just after I got through security, and the one you see in the photo above, on the pages of an in-flight magazine.

All mention story, but not one of them actually told a story.

It’s as if the writers believed that just using the word “story” would make some kind of difference.

It doesn’t.

If you want to tap into the true power of storytelling in your marketing, you have to actually tell and share a real story.

And to give your story power, it has to get three things right…

Read the full post…