The Power of Stories
Why do stories matter for marketing?
Most of us are aware that stories form one of the threads running through our lives, from anecdotes told round the dinner table, running jokes told in bars, or bedtime stories read to children - but why do they matter in a business context? Surely, in business, what matters are results and facts, not fairy tales…
This might be true - in fact, it’s definitely true that in business, ultimately results do matter. Very few people will sign up to work with someone who can’t show that they can fix their problem.
However, no one will care about your results if they haven’t become emotionally engaged with why those results might matter to them personally. As the old saying goes, “No one cares what you know until they know that you care.” And you know one of the very most powerful tools to engage people on an emotional level, right? You guessed it - storytelling.
If you don’t ever tell stories in the context of your business, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful tools that have ever been created to generate connection and trust - and to help people to learn and retain new information. That’s a lot to choose to miss out on if you decide to skip storytelling.
These days I’m a story-driven copywriter - but in my former working life in publishing I spent twenty years working as a writer and editor. I know how stories work from the inside out.
Before I get into the nuts and bolts of what neuroscience researchers have uncovered about how our brains have evolved to depend upon stories in order to learn, make connections or make decisions, I’m going to back up, get meta, and tell you a story.
A Quick Personal Story
When I was little, I was one of those kids for whom the term ‘bookworm’ is inadequate. I inhaled books, sometimes reading six in a day (if I could keep my annoying little brother at bay for long enough). One day, when I was six years old, my mum found me sobbing on my bedroom floor as I reached the point in Black Beauty when Ginger dies. “Why are you reading that if it makes you sad?” she asked me. I was too young to put what I was feeling into words, but what I thought was, this is why I read, to be carried away by the story, to feel emotions that I haven’t felt in life yet, to have experiences beyond my own day-to-day.
Stories evoke emotional responses
Advances in neuroscience have determined that we make decisions from our emotions first, and then we go on to post-rationalize those decisions by backing them up with data. Since stories are engines for creating emotional reactions, they’re incredibly important in helping people to go from feeling mildly interested in our work to being emotionally invested in working with us. If people don’t feel any emotional resonance with our sales page, they won’t buy. (Just to be clear, no horses need to die in order for our stories to have this effect…).
Stories are how we connect with & understand one another.
But one of the hardest things to do well as a creative entrepreneur is to tell our own story.
In my work with entrepreneurs, I see so many small business websites where the copy is flat, generic and just not that engaging.
One former workshop participant was an artist who, in person, was quirky (to the point of eccentric), stylish and passionate about her art. However, in her web copy she was trying so hard to come across as professional that she ironed out everything that was sparky, memorable and unique about herself and her business.
Another former client, a coach, was a highly proficient writer who had previously been a lecturer, and who found it incredibly hard not to keep slipping into formal academic language in her website. Every time she cited studies and referenced journal articles, she felt like she was communicating her expert status, but actually she was stifling her audience's connection with her subject matter.
People want to understand what your business would actually do for them - and stories are a fantastic way to flesh that out and make your results seem real, concrete and something they could experience too.
Stories make people feel something - which helps them to understand why they might want what you do.
One of my former clients is an osteopath. I've never been treated by an osteopath, and I was struggling to understand exactly how she worked with her clients, until she told me a story about working on a man with quite a high-powered city job - and how, as her hands were working on his body, she felt a sense of deep, intense stillness within him. Even though everything she knew about his life and job was at odds with this stillness, she asked him, "have you been thinking of becoming a monk?". As the words left her mouth, she wondered if he would think she was crazy, but instead he looked astonished and asked, "how did you know?"
This story made me go from not being able to picture what she does for her clients to wishing I could have a session with her, and wondering what her hands would discover about me.
Stories have a visceral effect on us - they're not real, but they feel real.
When people have an MRI scan while they read a short story, the areas of the brain that light up when they read about an activity are identical to those that light up when they actually experience it. That's the power you can tap into by using stories when you talk about your business.
Ok, so I’m sold on the power of stories - but how exactly should I be using them in my business?
Even if an entrepreneur has beautiful visual branding and a stunning site, their message will fall flat without using the power of storytelling to draw people in and make them eager to know what happens next.
You can use case studies and testimonials as mini-stories in your sales page copy, and you can tell stories in blogs and social media posts, but the number one place I suggest telling your story is on your About Page. For most people, your About Page is the second most visited page on your entire website, and yet many entrepreneurs don’t take full advantage of that fact.
Telling stories in your About Page copy allows people to connect with you emotionally, to feel like they’re getting to know you - which is also the first step in deciding that they like you and could trust you, and we all know that the know, like, trust factor is the holy grail of marketing.
My own About Page uses stories, and I’ve lost count of the number of times potential clients have referenced these stories to me during discovery calls, as reasons why they felt comfortable to set up an initial call, or felt that I would be someone who would understand their issue and could help them to solve it. Or, as one client put it, “I don’t really know what you did exactly, but your stories made me feel like you’re the kind of person I want to work with - and I want you to do that for me and my copy.”
I've taken everything I learned about writing and editing techniques in my professional experience, and combined it with all I understood instinctively throughout my decades as a devoted reader - and I've applied it to the world of online business writing.
Stories are what can make sure you get heard, in the crowded and noisy world of the internet.
“The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can."
- Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art
What is a brand story?
We’ve been talking about the power of stories more generally in your business, including case studies, anecdotes about client work, and other kinds of stories that you might tell on social media. But what’s the big deal about your brand story?
Put simply, your brand story is what makes you different from all the other people who do roughly what you do. It’s the how and the why, your unique point of view about what matters, and, perhaps most importantly, the journey you’ve taken to get to where you are now. When you get it right, it’s personal, probably a bit quirky, unique-to-you, honest and it has some emotional heft behind it.
If you can uncover your own brand story and tell it compellingly, you'll stand out from the crowd (and among many other benefits, you shouldn’t find yourself competing on price again). And then if you also infuse your web copy and newsletters and social media updates with stories, your writing will automatically be much more engaging and memorable.
Most importantly though, once you have uncovered the story that's at the heart of your business, you'll be able to express what you stand for with a clarity and conviction that draws your perfect-fit clients towards you.
This is about much more than just sprinkling some amusing or engaging anecdotes into your copy. As Bernadette Jiwa warns,
"We mistakenly assume that marketing is about adapting our story according to what most people want to hear. We go off in search of an angle that will attract the most attention today. As a result, we don't devote enough time and resources to reflecting on how we can resonate with the right people - just as we are. We fail to harness the true potential of our narrative."
I work with clients to make sure that they do harness the true potential of their narrative - so that they can own and express their story fully and ensure that their message gets heard by those who need it most.
As a result, they feel more certainty about the direction of their business, and more empowered to speak up and start being the change they want to see in the world.
Online businesses are built on words...
From your web copy to your Facebook status updates to your ads to your sales conversations, your business functions through words and stories. There are so many stories you can tell to help potential clients get a sense of who you are and what it would be like to work with you.
Understanding how to make your story work to your advantage is infinitely more powerful than hiring a copywriter to write a particular sales page for you - this is a core business skill that you can use every day.
If you want to start uncovering the stories at the heart of your business (and also hone your niche and clarify your messaging) then you might like to take a look at my signature Unlock Your Message programme.
3 things to remember about the power of stories to build your business
Stories are engines for creating emotional reactions. When we read a story, we start to feel what the protagonist feels.
Emotions are crucial to making buying decisions - if there’s one thing you need to tap into as a business owner, creating an emotional response in a potential client is it. Obviously, you don’t want to do this in a manipulative or high-pressure way - what you’re looking to create is that little bubble of excitement people feel when they finally find the exact support they’ve been looking for. This creates emotional urgency, which is something entirely different from fake scarcity.
Stories also allow people to feel that they’re getting to know you. They’re a way of building rapport with a potential client before you ever speak to them on a discovery call. Through stories you can share your values and personality, and start building the know, like trust factor.