How to use storytelling to sell to an online audience
Storytelling and marketing are something we have spoken about A LOT in the last 23 weeks of the year.
NOW we are up to the next level. Storytelling and selling! Using storytelling to sell within our business.
I have called in an EXTREMELY experienced selling expert and storyteller, Dexter Moscow who shares with us, formulas, tips and strategies around selling through storytelling! He is featured on this week’s podcast and we wanted to explore that in more depth through this blog.
So, let’s get into it!
Why should we tell stories?
We’ve talked about this A LOT, but to recap - Storytelling is so important in your content. It allows you to connect with your audience and relate your lessons to a real-life experience.
Storytelling brings emotion to your content and helps you pull together your stories for your products or services and use your favourite content channels to deliver.
An important tip to REMEMBER, storytelling isn't a once-off. Once you tell a story, don’t be afraid to continue to talk about it and tell it. Practice makes perfect!
Three elements to storytelling to sell
Storytelling is your superpower in content creation. It is the way you can connect your teachings/lessons with real-life experience to relate to your audience.
It is an awesome idea to start including (if you haven't already yet) storytelling in your content to help connect to your audience differently, our chat with Dexter just helped confirm this!
Dexter showed us a 3 element module to follow to ace storytelling to sell. So what are the 3 elements?:
1. Step 1: Talk about the incident or the problem. The impact you have on the world with your offering
2. Step 2: What did you do to resolve the problem? Or the issue? Have the conversation
3. Step 3: Share the benefit. What did the benefit of your interaction have?
The 5 E’s of storytelling and selling
How your audience feels when you sell without connection or emotion is something we want to avoid. Telling a story or selling without emotion will leave your audience unsure, unmotivated and uninspired, so it’s something we want to avoid.
So, instead, Dexter also shared with us the 5 E’s of storytelling and selling to create elevated stories in your content.
Let’s have a look at what they are and what they do!
Engagement - How quickly do you engage with an audience
Enlightenment - What do they know? What don’t they know? How can you create that feeling of missing out?
Entertain - What can you do to make it fun
Excite - If we aren’t excited, how can we make others excited?
Emotional - Connect with people’s emotions, you don’t need to sell, people will buy from you
Do all of this with the stories you tell! Then you've got a strategy!
Find the logic and emotion of selling
People buy emotionally but decide logically. As explained thoroughly by Dexter Moscow, it is important to let your feelings show in your business and especially in the stories you tell so your audience can see it - this will help your audience connect with you.
It is very easy for your audience to read the emotion or lack of emotion present in your writing, so you want to make sure they know how you are feeling. This is easier done when you have an experience to link to your lesson!
Be fully engaged and passionate about your story while telling the audience, not just the story itself, but how it relates to a lesson or pain point you can fix.
We can also look at it through an example from a movie! Do you remember the scene where they talk about the art of selling a simple pen that comes down to emotion?
Well, it's so true! Selling is emotion!
Storytelling allows you to create this emotion, pull together your stories for your products or services and use one of the above content channels to deliver. REMEMBER, this isn't a once-off. Continue to talk about it!
That is how you connect logic with emotion to sell in your business!
How can you sell through your content?
Try THESE types of content ideas to sell online with storytelling!
Have videos on your sales pages of YOU sharing your story
Go live on Instagram with a transformational story of yourself or a client
Create audio content to talk about your transformations (podcasts - yours or others on someone’s podcast)
Create a love letter-type email to your audience sharing a story with a promo for your offering at the end!
Final thoughts
Storytelling and ad marketing go hand in hand, they are a vital way you can sell to your audience and connect with them. So, make sure you present your services or offers with stories and emotions behind them!
Try to start creating stories around your experience by looking at all of your products and services and writing a story for each or finding a story you can relate back to. This is a great place to start! You can also find inspiration by looking at TV commercials and shopping channels, really have a look at how other people sell - this will help a lot too.
Remember, if you need any more guidance with setting up how you tell your story, check out the Content Queen storytelling guide here! It’s all here to get your content on track and elevated!