It’s the most potent form of human communication and has been around since prehistoric times.
So yes, it’s as old as time.
Yet new stories are being told every single day, Storytelling evokes all of your senses.
According to storytelling analyst Lisa Cron in her book, Wired For Story: the regions
of the brain that process the sights, sounds, tastes, and movement of real life are activated
when we’re engrossed in a compelling narrative.
So, when a story enthralls us, we are inside of it, feeling what the protagonist feels,
and experiencing it as if it were indeed happening to us.
So there you have it, you can hear it, see it, smell it, taste it, feel it…
Yet it’s completely invisible.
Every culture on the planet has storytelling built into its DNA.
It’s how traditions and customs and norms are passed through the generations.
And before there was the printing press, and digital archives, and voice memos and Siri,
and YouTube, verbal storytelling was the backbone of education and advancement.
We all remember the stories that our parents and grandparents have told us about their
parents and their grandparents, and we’ll pass those stories onto our children too.
So yes, storytelling exists in every single country in the world, yet you take it with
you on your journey through life, everywhere you go.
There’s no doubt that storytelling is insanely powerful…
is absolutely critical for engaging your audience...
Especially in a saturated, and highly-competitive market.
Every good copywriter and marketer knows this to be true, and uses storytelling structures in their sales letters, landing pages, campaigns, and website copy.
It creates relatability, authority, and trust with your prospect.
But how exactly do you weave storytelling into your copy, and what are some of the best
formulas that have worked time and time again?
list of storytelling techniques,
Number One!!!"The Hero’s Journey"
The Hero’s Journey Also known as the Monomyth, The Hero’s Journey was conceptualized by Joseph Campbell in his
book, A Hero With A Thousand Faces.
This story structure has been used in films, and comics, and literature around the world.
It features a hero — also known as the protagonist — as they are called to awaken their potential by setting out on a difficult journey, and ultimately triumphing over adversity.
The Hero’s Journey, which has inspired marketers and screenwriters throughout the past century,
can be summarized into three main acts: The first is The Departure: When an external
event compels the Hero to leave their ordinary world.
Second, The Initiation: When the hero ventures into an unfamiliar territory (also known as
the “unknown world"), meets a mentor or guide and, of course, deals with a variety
of trials and challenges along the way.
And lastly, The Return: The Hero overcomes their struggles and is stronger and wiser,
returning to their Ordinary World with a sense of victory.
You can clearly see this story arc in works like Star Wars, Batman, Game of Thrones
Number Two !! "Future Pacing"
Future Pacing is a type of storytelling that allows the reader to imagine themselves in
their ideal future.
It’s a technique famously used in Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP, a unique approach to influential
communication that is used by many of the world's notable communicators like Oprah,
Martin Luther King, Tony Robbins, and many more.
Now NLP is a whole science that takes hours and hours and hours to master,
but this one particular technique can be used pretty powerfully in copywriting
The only thing you really need to know is the ONE thing your prospects are looking for.
That singular benefit.
And once you’ve discovered it, use Future Pacing throughout your sales copy to help
them visualize their dream life – or in other words, the life that they’d have AFTER
you help them overcome their problem.
Remember, your brain can not tell the difference between positive memories that have already happened or positive future dreams.
So by allowing your reader to imagine what’s to come, you’re telling their brain that
it’s already happened and therefore possible to achieve.
If you can believe it, you can achieve it, as they say.
The trick, though, is to use present tense so that their brain recognizes it as an event
that is happening or has already happened.
It’s also important to get highly specific with your future pacing.
Number Three !!"The Trouble Maker"
Trouble creates drama, drama creates attention, therefore making the story more memorable and effective
And, of course, the trouble scenarios i write about reflect the problem that his product or service is attempting to solve.
i encourages copywriters to introduce trouble early on to capture attention and
there are two ways you can do this...
The first is what I call The Build-Up: Where everything seems to be going right, you’re
setting the scene, you’re describing the main character, you’re building the tension…
Ad then, just as the reader suspects, everything goes terribly wrong…
And the second is what I call the “Sh*t Storm”: Where you start your story right in the middle of chaos.
Making your reader go- Wait?
What?
How did we get here?
What happened?
And how do we get out?
You’ll see this technique used more and more nowadays because people want trouble
right away!
Or else they get bored and they bounce.
The key though is to draw your prospects into that story world, and then turn it upside
down with trouble.
So this can be done by describing color, emotions, season, time, texture, activity, geography,
mood, sound, or even smell.
This technique is conceptualized by Blake Snyder in his bestselling screenwriting book,
Save The Cat!
Number four! " The Before-After-Bridge"
This B-A-B technique is one of the simplest copywriting tools that has been
used in advertising since the dawn of the Mad Men era.
The Before-After-Bridge works because it moves your prospect from focusing on features and tools, to how it will help them improve their life.
So here’s a quick breakdown.
In the Before: You show your reader the world before your solution.
The key is to get them to identify with the problem you are presenting.
A company that uses this technique really well is M.M.La Fleur, a wardrobe solution
for professional women who, guess what — don’t like to shop.
It goes something like this: “You’re bored of wearing boring pant suits but you have
better things to worry about than what to wear.
You want to take the work out of dressing for work.
If only there were a practical, inspired wardrobe for professional women.”
You then move on to the After.
Which is where you show your readers what their world will look like after your solution.
M.M.
La Fleur describes the After like so…
“But imagine if you could instead just focus on succeeding in the workplace and harnessing the power of your self-presentation…
While dressing with ease.”
So now you’ve now created a gap in between these two worlds, the before and the after
that your prospects want to fill.
So now all you have to do is Bridge that gap.
Enter your product or service.
M.M La Fleur bridges the gap by saying...
“Fill out a brief survey and arrive to a dressing room curated based on your fit and
style preferences.
Work one-on-one with a personal stylist, while enjoying coffee or prosecco.
Our goal is to treat you to the most productive, personalized, and stress-free shopping experience of your life.”
To their practical target audience, that sounds heavenly.
They feel heard, they feel understood, and they’re given an easy solution to solve
their problem.
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