Story-Telling Made Simple

By Jeri Denniston, Chief Marketing Strategist

We know story-telling is a powerful way to spread your message. Making stories memorable and compelling is the key.

Have you ever sat at your computer looking at a blank Word document and asked yourself, “What now? Where do I start?” You have a message to share, but you want to do it in a creative way. You want it to be interesting and memorable and still get the message across.

A year ago, Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone wrote a great blog post on the 5 steps to writing a compelling marketing story. The five steps are:

1.  You need a hero. This is your customer. Think of one of your customers or clients who has taken what they learned from you and succeeded beyond your expectations.
2. You need a goal. What was the customer’s objective? What became possible once they achieved the goal?
3. You need an obstacle. What was preventing your customer from succeeding? Was it something outside the business or internal to the business or the individual? This is what makes the story interesting and something others can identify with.
4. You need a mentor. That’s you! You are the coach, helping your client see the possibilities and overcome the obstacles.
5. You need a moral. This is the main takeaway from the story. It’s where you tell others how you can help them solve similar challenges, and tell them what action they should take next. Be direct and to the point.
6. Bonus: you need the truth!

Now, thanks to Copyblogger’s Media designer Lauren Mancke and Demian Farnworth, we have a great infographic that summarizes Sonia Simone’s defining article on compelling story-telling. Below is the infographic providing tips for structuring and writing a marketing story. I’ve saved it as a PDF to use in the future. You may want to do the same.

Download as PDF

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