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Marketing with Stories: Think Like a Fiction Writer
 I've been writing stories for fifteen years: a middle grade children's novel (currently looking for a publishing home), several short stories, and a memoir about growing up in a small, rural logging town in the Pacific Northwest.
Did you know you're in the storytelling business, too? Whether you sell cool financial products or help people find homes or solve someone's excruciating back pain, you have stories to tell. And the way you tell them will decide how many customers you get.
The average consumer sees a gazillion advertising messages a day, from the morning news on TV, banner ads on websites, and spam-filled e-mails to billboards, bus signs, and late show commercials. -To preserve our sanity, we have learned to tune most of them out. But a good story in your ad, website or brochure, well, that's irresistible. Who doesn't love a good story?
What can a fiction writer teach us about marketing? Let's take a scene from my memoir:
What I could have said: "It was a hot summer day."
What I said: "It was a late afternoon in July the summer I turned five. The sharp gravel on the Wynoochee River beach stung the soles of my feet. The leaves on the silver maples fluttered in the wind, their backsides shining like glitter on a handmade Christmas card. I pulled on my soggy gray swimsuit and it made a huge sucking noise. My two sisters walked ahead of me, balancing their rubber inner tubes on one shoulder, doing the barefoot gravel dance."
Tips for Marketing with Stories
What does good storytelling possibly have to do with marketing your business? A lot, as it turns out. Consider using some of these fiction techniques in your next marketing or sales piece:
· Show, don't tell. It's the golden rule in writing. Don't tell me it's hot. Show me with the leaves shining like glitter in the sun and the girls doing the 'barefoot gravel dance' on those coal-hot pebbles.
· Appeal to the senses. Let me see the maple trees and their silver leaves, hear the sucking noise from the pull on the swimsuit, feel the hot gravel on bare feet.
· Sprinkle liberally with details. A "child" is difficult to visualize. But a five-year-old child? Now I'm getting a picture. My swimsuit was gray. It was windy. My sisters carried inner tubes. The more specifics you use, the more credible you are. It all contributes to the scene-something the reader can see and, so, remember.
· Talk about a problem and a solution. The opening lines of this scene will lead to my near-drowning in a river with out-of-control rapids (the problem) and my dad saving my life (solution). Just remember, details about things (your product, your service) are boring, but details about people, and how they solved a problem, are interesting.
Tell Your Own Stories
Let's take a real-world marketing example.
You could say:
"One of my clients increased her sales significantly when I helped her with her marketing."
Or you could say:
"Mary Jo, professional organizer extraordinaire, can take a desk cluttered with marking pens, rulers, yesterday's takeout box of cashew chicken, lip balm, used sticky notes and 'important' scraps of paper with unintelligible scribbles, and declutter it, leaving you with a system even the biggest slob can manage. Her only problem? She was getting just two jobs a week, not enough to pay the mortgage. She called me for help with marketing and last week she averaged three jobs a day. She tells me that if the phone keeps ringing like this, she'll need to hire an assistant to manage her life. Of course, what Mary does keeps her customers coming back, but I feel good that I helped her find them in the first place."
What do you think? Which of the two is more believable? Which helps you picture a problem and a solution? Which will you remember? Try a little storytelling and add details to your next marketing piece. It just might help you turn your prospect into a paying customer.
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