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.
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.
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?
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.
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…
(What follows is the outline I wrote in advance of recording the video. They’re my talking points. Not a regular post or article. Just an outline.)
This question is from Julia, who took my course on Selling With Stories.
She asks, “You say a business story has to be true. But can’t a good fictional story be used to teach a valuable business lesson?”
Ouch… Julia, you’re right. You got me.
As you say, I have said that a business story should be true. And I say that to discourage people from making up stories that are obviously false and manipulative.