Have you ever thought about the importance of storytelling? Writing a story is more than a group of words written on a piece of paper. Storytelling has helped humanity maintain its culture and history. We used stories to communicate long before writing. Storytelling makes it easier to relate to tragedies, challenges, victories, and fears. Just like this Forbes article mentions: “Storytelling is a fundamental human experience that unites people and drives stronger, deeper connections, is able to elevate the meaning of the brand and better crystallize how it fits into customer’s lives..”
Storytelling can be divided in phases, each one of them with its own importance. The way a reader relates to a story will always be proportional to how it is presented, explained, empathized, and resolved. In the end, all humans will be interested in knowing how something started, what happened to it, why it is important and how it was resolved.
In this article you will find how to build your storytelling structure for your future marketing strategies so you can engage with your audience.
How to Write an Excellent Story:
If you want to write an excellent story, according to the PMA, the following characteristics should be kept in mind:
Entertaining: Your story has to be something that will keep you audience at the edge of their seats. You want to make them feel like they need to stay until the end and not miss any part of it.
Believable: You can’t tell a story that is not real, because it creates distrust between you and your audience. The more facts you can give, the more interesting your story will be. People want to relate to something that they can understand, believe, and practice.
Educational: When a story has educational value your audience will not only be interested in this story, but the following ones as well. They will relate and want to learn from you.
Relatable: Make your audience empathize with you and with the story that you are telling, so they can understand the value of the story and the feelings involved in it.
Organized: Make sure to follow steps of basic writing. There needs to be a beginning and the end of the story should be clear. Know the exact point where you want to persuade your audience based on what your story is about, so you can promote your school at the right moment and create a bond.
Memorable: Remember to leave a message that will stick to your audience’s mind, something simple that they will remember and that will distinguish your school from any other.
Neil Patel, a marketing expert, gives us 3 important steps and 3 important tips in order to define how to write storytelling content with this short video. The steps he defines are:
Define your core message: Make sure to know what you will be talking about and that it will make sense. Nobody wants to hear a story that has no point or direction. From there, you will capture your audience's attention. This is an essential part since your audience will decide if they will stick to your story or not. Keep things simple and direct.
Decide what type of story you will tell: Tell a story that will “incite action”. You want your audience to be persuaded and to be motivated about taking action after your storytelling. You can use yourself or your school as an example in order for the audience to relate to you and follow you or your brand. Taking yourself as an example and what you do will engage your audience and encourage them to achieve the result you are looking for (such as more enrollments or students transferring to your school).
Establish call to action: After you tell your story and have your audience engaged you must do a “call to action” statement so they know how to direct that excitement that you built in them. It can be from small, quick actions, like “Subscribe to our social media”, “Follow an email listing for updates” to big actions like “Schedule a campus tour” or even “Start an application”. Your audience will understand and even appreciate you explaining where they should go next, so don’t be afraid to do it.
Along with these steps there are 3 tips to keep in mind when using this method:
Have characters: Make sure to talk about a person. Interactions and conversations are important. Your audience will relate more when a story is being told about a human being or even a student’s success story. This can help parents relate your story to their own situation and decide that is a good idea to enroll in your school.
Conflict: Make sure that there is an issue. It does not have to be a bad situation but an issue that was resolved by you. That way you can encourage others to follow you or know that you will move things in the right direction.
Resolution: Make sure that your story has the conflict resolved in some way. From a class bullying situation to the school lunch menu, providing a solution that your audience will like, will engage them and relate to you. Knowing as a parent that there is someone taking care of their child while studying is valuable to parents. Always come up with solutions that will improve your school.
Are You Ready to Write Your Story?
Storytelling marketing is no more than promoting your business in a very organic way by using a skill that humans have been using forever. Communicating and showing how you do things that can help other people, explaining how your school can help parents and students in a unique way, demonstrating emotions that show that you care about them are all ways that help your audience feel a stronger connection to your brand. You can add stories about your clients into your articles, in this case other parents or even other students, so that you show not only your story but also your client’s stories. The options are infinite and you are one storytelling marketing post away from persuading parents and students to enroll in your school.
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