Many of the gurus suggest you stock your swipefile with a different kind of copywriter. It may be Joe Sugarman or Drew Kaplan. New economy marketing guru seth Godin is a fan of storytelling copy. I recall it was copywriting guru Dan Kenedy who turned me onto the catalog copywriting of J. Peterman. You quickly notice these examples are different from the normal formula: They’re stories.
The difference is using storytelling as copywriting. If you still aren’t familiar with the style, here’s an example.
Philosophy.
"People want things that are hard to find. Things that have romance, but a factual romance, about them.
I had this proven to me all over again when people actually stopped me in the street (in New York, in Tokyo, in London) to ask me where I got the coat I was wearing.
So many people tried to buy my coat off my back that I've started a small company to make them available. It seems like everybody (well, not everybody) has always wanted a classic horseman's duster but never knew exactly where to get one.
I ran a little ad in the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal and in a few months sold this wonderful coat in cities all over the country and to celebrities and to a mysterious gentleman in Japan who ordered two thousand of them.
Well, the coat is magnificent. Simple, functional, handsome, extremely well made, affordable and, yes, romantic.
I think that giant American Corporations should start asking themselves if the things they make are really, I mean really, better than the ordinary.
Clearly, people want things that make their lives the way they wish they were."
People do want to make their life the way they wish it were. And those people use what they buy to change the story they tell themselves about their lives. J. Peterman customers aren’t just buying a shirt or a frock, they’re buying something to make their own story less ordinary.
How To Tell Your Own StoryMany companies tell the details they hope will win business the way a prisoner gives up a “name, rank and serial number.” Others drone on about things their customers could care less about. Clearly, it’s easy to go wrong with storytelling.
Tell your story from the customer’s perspective. Whether you’re doing an About Us page or writing catalog copy, think about the problem the customer is trying to solve. Message to market match is crucial, your copy must demonstrate your knowledge of the customer’s world view.
Drama, action, romance, challenges overcome. All those elements which make for the storylines you enjoy work to hold the reader’s interest long enough to tell your full story. An experiment also showed people remember details in story form much longer than other forms.
People tell the stories they like. Story-based copywriting is especially effective on the web, where people link to things they like and shun blatantly self-serving hucksterism. People will link, refer, and repeat a good story.
After all, everybody knows the Kebler Elves, Marlboro “Man,” the Snapple Lady. Well, there really is a Sandy, the Snapple lady. What could have been a sterile bureaucratic communication was given the authenticity of personal communication. And whether fictional or not, authenticity is crucial for telling your story. The persona of a J. Peterman can outlive the person with that name.
Excedrin Headache #214 isn't a medical condition, it's a story. But the scenario or situation is something which identifies the customer's pain in a way they can identify with, find credible and
authentic.
Do You Have An Interesting Story Buried In Your Business?Almost every business has a great story. Often it gets buried in policy, procedure, features, and buzzwords. Or the company is so into the storyline they tell themselves, the customer gets a little lost.
The first place to start is with your Unique Selling Proposition. The USP isn’t a story, but it can be the differentiator your stories should center on telling. And building a USP requires building some competitive advantage, the very thing you’ll want to tell customers about in your story.
Imagine your company as a superhero, with your service or product as your "super power." The basic storyline starts with you swooping in to save the customer from the status quo of your industry.
