What Is Story Selling? Definition and Examples

The Story Selling Formula Explained

What are the benefits of story selling?

There are several potential benefits of good story selling. Here are some examples:

What is story selling and how does it work?

Instead of discussing a product’s costs, models, features, or applications, sales and marketing professionals will instead tell stories that highlight the benefits of a product or service. Using actual accounts from customers about how a good or service benefited them, story selling is effective. However, story selling can also be successful by creating fictitious accounts that demonstrate to customers the advantages of acquiring and utilizing a good or service.

How to create a strong marketing story

Review the following guidelines to learn how to develop a compelling marketing narrative for your business:

1. Establish your key objective

You must first decide your ultimate objective before you can direct the direction of your marketing story. You can choose the storyline you want to develop and the products or services to include in the story by understanding the goal behind story-selling initiatives.

2. Review your target audience

Make sure you have a clear understanding of your target audience(s) before creating a good marketing story to support your story selling initiatives. This includes information about their age and gender, their values and beliefs, and the kinds of issues they deal with on a daily basis. You can make sure that your marketing story resonates with them and entices them to interact with your company by identifying one or more target audiences.

3. Determine the channel(s) to publish your marketing story

You can share your marketing story during sales pitches with clients or customers, but you can also do so in other formats like videos, blog posts, and customer testimonials. Additionally, you must choose where to include your marketing story. This can be done through your social media accounts, business website, newsletter, blog platform, or video platforms. When selecting publishing techniques, take into account the regular channels that your target audience uses.

4. Decide whether to use a real customer experience or fictional narrative

You can either use a real customer and their experiences to create a marketing story, or you can develop a fictional narrative that details a typical problem your customers face and how your products or services solve it. Therefore, before you go any further, it’s crucial to think about these various story angles.

5. Establish your characters

The characters in your marketing story must be established before you decide whether to use a narrative or a customer experience. This usually consists of a protagonist (the client), an antagonist (the person or thing causing the issue), and other characters that move the plot along.

6. Define the conflict the protagonist faces

Consider a challenge the protagonist encounters that needs to be resolved with the help of your product or service. Your target audience should identify with this issue and be motivated to pay attention to your marketing message.

7. Introduce the product or service

You need to introduce the specific product or service that your business offers once you’ve established the primary issue that a customer faces in your marketing story. Examples of this include the protagonist discovering the product on their own or receiving a recommendation from a family member or friend.

8. Highlight how the product or service solves the protagonists problem

Making the connection between your company, its goods or services, and how they address the protagonist’s issue is crucial to your marketing story. At this point in the narrative, the main character begins utilizing the good or service and demonstrates how it makes their daily lives easier.

9. Make the ending positive and inspiring

Like any marketing narrative, yours ought to have a satisfying climax and a call to action that encourages customers to check out your website, read customer reviews, or possibly make a purchase from your company.

10. Get reactions from real consumers

Consider asking consumers to participate in surveys and holding focus groups to read or watch your marketing story before you publish it. This allows you to evaluate its performance and gather feedback from actual users who share characteristics with your target audiences.

Story selling examples

These are some examples of story selling:

Example one: Fitness technology company

An app developed by a company that specializes in fitness technology alerts users when it’s time to go outside, drink more water, and take breaks for stretching or exercise. No matter how much time a person has in a day, they want to show that everyone can gain from purchasing the app. Here is a story selling example for this situation:

Protagonist: Hardworking professional, Sam

Antagonist: Demanding job that requires Sam to work long hours

Sam wants to change his lifestyle because he spends too much time in front of the computer, but he doesn’t know where to begin.

Alex, a friend of Sam’s, listens to their concerns and suggests the app so they can begin making positive changes to their daily routine.

Sam begins using the app, and as a result, they take short breaks throughout the day to go outside, go for walks, do quick stretches, and re-fill their water bottles. Sam observes that as a result, they feel happier, have more energy, and are able to replace instances of burnout with increased productivity.

Example two: HR staffing firm

By developing a narrative that highlights their hiring, onboarding, and recruitment services for small business owners, an HR staffing firm hopes to increase the number of clients they serve. Here is an example of their marketing story:

Protagonist: A small business owner, Jordan

Antagonist: Limited HR staffing and budget

Problem: Poor hiring, onboarding, and interviewing practices lead to high employee turnover.

Solution: Jordan contacts the HR staffing agency after seeing an advertisement for it. They discuss their predicament, limited resources, and hiring practices for HR personnel. The HR staffing company representative outlines their services and goes over small business owner discounts.

Conclusion: Jordan starts to improve their hiring practices, onboard qualified candidates, and keep employees because they have access to priceless professional resources through the HR staffing company. As a result, Jordan is able to grow the company and create a productive HR division.

FAQ

What is a selling story?

Storyselling is the practice of promoting your good or service by means of a narrative. But this simple definition encompasses so much more. It gives the conventionally dry and uninteresting idea of selling a human perspective. Instead of connecting a faceless corporation to its supporters, it links people to people.

What makes a story sell?

Simplicity (how simple is your story to understand and repeat?) Authenticity (does it sound genuine or like a sales pitch?) Visibility (show it to your target audience) are the four main components of a story. ) Relevancy (Make it something people are interested in. ).

How do you sell a story in marketing?

1. Retelling a news story that naturally supports your sales positioning.
2. describing a personal struggle you overcame that your prospects can relate to
3. constructing an analogy between the state of the market today and a historical occurrence

How do you write a selling story?

1. Retelling a news story that naturally supports your sales positioning.
2. describing a personal struggle you overcame that your prospects can relate to
3. constructing an analogy between the state of the market today and a historical occurrence