Marketing genius Seth Godin made a great point with the title of his book; “All marketers tell stories.” He’s right. As small business owners, we each have many stories to tell, as we seek to connect with, inform and of course engage our marketplace. Our ability to get the message right, so that our story has the desired impact, is pivotal to this.
A great story
My 5 year old son recently wrote a story, called; “The Robot and The Guinea Pig.” His storytelling contained a number of elements that really impressed me. His title was very catchy, which is why I used it here. The story wasn’t too long and it showed a lot of creative thinking. It’s wonderful to watch him develop his vocabulary and creativity.
I wrote a while back about Earl Nightingale and how he used to talk about the inoculation theory of education. It’s where young adults study, get qualified and then use their qualifications / graduation as a way to inoculate themselves from having to study any more. I believe that as business owners, we need to adopt a very different approach. We need to constantly strive to learn more about the elements of our business that matter, and in the 21st century, this includes the ability to create interesting content.
Over on Internet Marketing Jam, I talk a lot about content marketing. One of the cornerstones of content marketing, is to produce valuable information, (blog posts, newsletters, videos, articles etc) as a way to inform your target market, build your reputation with them as an expert. You then need to convert them from being a (passive) reader, to being an (active) participant. You want them to get active, so they; subscribe to your blog, join your newsletter list, email you for information on your services or buy from you etc.
Building your storytelling muscles
With content playing such a pivotal part in the success of your marketing, it makes sense for you to invest as much time as possible, learning how to share your story and earn people’s interest. For example, we should always bee seeking to improve how well we:
- Capture people’s attention with our titles and headlines.
- Inspire people to share our material with their social networks.
- Compel people to pick up a phone and call us or email us for more information about our products or services.
- Motivate people to buy from us or hire us.
I genuinely don’t believe that there are any quick fixes to learning how to be a great copywriter, but I do know how you can massively increase how well you write in the medium and longer term.
Are you ready?
Do it – And do it often!
One of the best ways to improve your ability to produce great content, is to practice. Get your best written material out there and measure the feedback. Listen to what the marketplace is telling you, something that is especially easy with online copywriting. You can see, very clearly, how a page on your website or how a post on your blog is working.
Even basic tools like Google analytics will allow you to see how many people read that page and what they do once they arrive. You can tell how long they stay on the page, and what exit route they take. You can literally watch how “traffic” flows through your site and see what’s blocking people from getting in touch with you, subscribing to your newsletter or buying from you.
If your content is NOT getting the results you want, make one change and then measure the impact. By repeating this process, it’s possible to significantly increase your online results and learn how to write the kind of content you need.
IMPORTANT: If you want to make more sales, boost your profits and grow an amazing business, this will help you!