How to Tell Stories Your Audience Wants to Read

Last blog post we talked about putting a twist on traditional stories. It’s important to tell creative stories that your audience wants to read. But, how in the world do you know what stories your audience wants to read?

You may be tired of hearing it but it all goes back to knowing who your audience is. Repeat that out loud. Know Your Audience. If your audience loves unicorns, you had better figure out a way to make unicorns part of your story. If your audience loves order and neatness, that needs to be there too.

As mentioned previously, everyone wants to feel like they matter, are understood, belong to a group and to simply be happy. How they get to that point is different for each individual and is not universal. It’s up to you to study your audience so that you can determine how best to ignite passion in that audience for your products and/or services. Marketing with stories gives you a way to do that in a creative manner. But, exactly like all marketing, you must know who they are to do that.

Start With Your Audience’s Problems — Pinpoint a specific problem that a member of your target audience has. Craft a story around that one problem with the solution to that problem being part of the moral of the story, ideally being your product or service, always remembering to tell your audience what to do next.

Ask Your Audience What They Want — Talk to them, form open communication paths with your audience. You can do this with email, social media or through your website’s blog. But, however you do it, your audience must always be at the centre of every story, every product, every service and every thought in order to be successful.

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Give Your Audience Solid Examples of Success — Using feedback from your customers, and solid statistical research, show your audience what success looks like. Infographics, images that help tell the story and other visual elements will help make it more readable and interesting.

Entertain Your Audience with a Twist — Don’t make it boring. No one is going to read your stories if they’re boring. Create a hook and carefully craft a story that will entertain your audience on their level using marketing stories that they will want.

Audiences who read, relate and engage with your marketing story are a lot more likely to answer your calls to action whether that is to sign up, buy now or call. Stories are in our DNA, tell a compelling one that resonates and you will win over more customers that you did before. Remember, it’s not about selling, it’s about telling your story in an interesting and engaging manner – stories your audience wants to read. You can’t do that if you have not taken the time to get to know your audience.

Next blog post I look at how to use visuals to make your stories really stand out. I’m not just talking about graphics but how your text looks and how you can use certain words to draw pictures in your audience’s mind to create the stories your audience wants.