7 Steps to Craft a Story That Sells

7 Steps to Craft a Story That Sells

Does your company story sell?

Shout it Out!

You may be thinking you don’t want to sell.

You want to connect, help people and trust that they will buy when the time is right.

That’s the essence of attraction marketing, where we make ourselves so appealing to our target niche that they come to us.

This is the opposite of traditional marketing and advertising, where we sell features and benefits to push or manipulate people to buy, often by stirring up fear, desire and other powerful emotions.

Good stories still use the power of emotions.

Blue Zoo believes in the attraction principal. We offer great products and services, great value, positive attitudes and awesome customer service. Our story is evolving from our vison to be the premier source for online presence management and web design in Northwest Arkansas, building a global network of innovative professionals.

Blue Zoo Creative loves working with people who have a deep passion for what they do, just like we have a passion for helping businesses thrive online.

Blue Zoo goes “beyond the website” and empowers overwhelmed businesses to organically find, connect and engage with their ideal clients online.

Make sure that your story inspires people to take action and buy your products. Here are my 7 steps to craft a story that sells.

Get clear on your goal. What do you hope to accomplish? Sell more products? Educate your audience? Entertain your fans? Expand your email list? Then craft a message that speaks clearly and directly to that goal.
Know your audience. If you don’t know who you’re writing to, then you don’t have much chance of selling them anything. Social media is a great way to “listen” to your audience to discover their wants, needs and problems that you might solve.
Create an outline for your story. Your story needs a roadmap for you and your readers to follow. This helps make writing, speaking and formatting easier too. Delivered with style and passion, you might just create a best seller!
Put passion and details in your story. Emotions help connect you to your audience. Features, benefits and dry facts no longer sell an audience. Help them to see and feel what would happen if they buy your product. Will they feel great, look better, have more sales? If your story helps them imagine a good result, there is a better chance they will buy.
Find awesome images that speak to your brand’s core values and vision. Read this blog for more details on finding the right image.
Be honest and real. Relationships, online and off, are what sell. People like to buy from people they know and trust. Help them get to know the characters in this great story. What are your passions, strengths and weaknesses. Passions motivate us, and weakness can actually make us more appealing. They show our audience that we are regular folks with imperfections and challenges too.
Ask for the sale. Surprisingly, many marketing messages forget to ask for the sale. This is the story ending or close. Yes, we created a great story that will attract people to our company and products, but we still need to ask our audience to take action and buy.