Putting a Twist on Traditional Stories
Last blog post I covered several common mistakes made when marketing with stories. This blog post looks at the idea of putting a twist on traditional stories to add interest, fun and excitement to your own story.
When telling your brand’s story, or your customers’ stories, a great way to pique interest is to play on traditional stories that we all grew up with, know and love. Boy meets girl can become boy meets product or service. Girl meets her Prince (Princess) Charming and can become the girl who buys her own Park Avenue suite because she followed your method to start a six figure business!
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There are many ways in which to approach this. We can take some lessons from TV shows that use tried and true methods for bringing in new audiences and exciting the ones they have. You know as well as I do that when something is good, people talk. If your story is good and told in a unique and interesting way it will be shared.
The Guest Star
Know any movers and shakers who like your products or services? Ask them to tell you and your audience their story.
The Hero
It’s fun when the story culminates with a product or service saving the day and making someone’s life easier.
Coming of Age
This is a classic story in which the main character has a revelation about a problem that changes his or her life.
Spin-Offs
Look at the “Compare the Market” commercials with the Meerkats. They have become their own little series and spun out into all sorts of merchandise. There’s even a “Compare the Meerkats“ website! The same could happen with a well-told story about one or more of your consumers with follow ups and behind the scenes additions.
Drama
If you can add some drama into your stories you can shake up your audience in new ways. You can add obstacles in the way of your main character. Then, only at the last minute, let your product or service create the solution that sets your character free.
Humour
Nothing is better than humour to sell a product or service. If you can find the humour (and your audience can too) in the needs, desires, hopes and dreams that your product or service brings to fruition or solves then you’ve got story gold.
Finally, it’s okay to use different forms of content to get your story out, in fact, it’s best. Don’t just use one way to tell the same story. Use text, audio, visual and images to make marketing with stories come alive. In truth, the biggest sin outside of not understanding your audience you can make is being boring.
Next blog post we’ll talk about how you can avoid being boring by figuring out in advance what stories your audience wants to read.
