Earlier in 2008, I wrote about the power of storytelling in permission marketing and how these techniques had enabled me to:
- Generate more than ten times as much interaction and comments posted to one of my blogs
- Triple our new sales during the month I ran a single story-based campaign to my lists
- Double new sales during an entire quarter this same story ran on our websites and auto-responder
I think I giggled like a little girl when I saw all those blog posts coming in the first time! And I remember we celebrated tripling our sales with that first story-based campaign. I know there was alcohol involved, I just don’t remember what kind or how much 
Anyway, these great results caused me to dig deeper into how and why storytelling worked so well, and how to use the power of storytelling most effectively in all kinds of campaigns.
In the process, I discovered that certain neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) techniques can be combined with storytelling to do what I’ll call “amplifying” the impact a story has on the reader – which stirs the deep emotional responses needed to get people to stop what they’re doing and take action; e.g., read and post comments on blogs and buy products online.
At first this NLP stuff seemed like hocus pocus or something. I remember when I told one of my PhD friends (who now leads usability research at Microsoft) what we were doing… He said:
“Storytelling and NLP, eh? Throw in some herbal healing, drums and rattles and you have the basic formula for shamanic ritual — that’s been in demand among homo sapiens for millions of years… should be a winner!”
Well, this kind of reaction to NLP seems to be fairly common. I suppose NLP has both positive and negative connotations on the surface. Nevertheless, storytelling certainly HAS been used by humans as long as we’ve been on this Earth – and probably will continue to be.
And NLP simply provides us with a proven methodology for anchoring our product’s benefits, key features, etc. into the story and tickling some key emotional responses (sorry – no hocus pocus here).
Interestingly, while discussing this with some top marketers at a major online software business recently, I learned how they’re beginning to incorporate NLP in their telemarketing efforts (in particular, “embedded commands”). It’s becoming clear that a number of “advanced marketers” are quietly using NLP increasingly in their marketing and sales motion, for one simple reason - because it works.
Anyway, these early successes led me to hook up with my long-time friend and former collegue, Jeff Sulma, an accomplished copywriter and screen play author (screen plays are basically stories), to learn as much as I could about these techniques. I wanted to have an expert on storytelling on board to supplement my own capabilities in this core area.
Jeff introduced me to the standard techniques that Hollywood writers have used in crafting their stories for decades – proven story “models” and methods used to create blockbuster movies, shows and the like (I had no idea this stuff even existed – but it makes sense now that I’ve seen it).
This isn’t “rocket science”, but there are definitely some best practices and formulas that are proven to work and that should be used to generate above average results and to ensure your stories remain interesting and achieve their intended results.
So, why do stories work in our marketing?
Foremost, because they’re more interesting than other methods of communicating.
I think most people are “bored to tears’ by the majority of advertising and marketing we’re exposed to. Let’s face it. It’s hard to get passionate about many of these products, too!
But when you discuss how a product affects someone’s life, by way of a story, it’s now much more interesting. Stories bring the “human element” of real life into focus, enabling us to “bond” with the character in the story, often without even realizing it.
Because stories are much more interesting than most advertisements, product web pages, data sheets, case studies and the like, they capture people’s attention and draw them in – into becoming “consumers” of the information.
And once a person becomes an information consumer of the story, they’re probably ”hooked”. And in this age of information hyper-overload we live in today, that’s half the battle – getting people to give you a few minutes of their precious time and actually “listen” for a change.
A-I-D-A
AIDA is an acronym that stands for Attention-Interest-Desire-Action, a process we marketers go through to grab a prospect’s attention, build interest and desire for what we’re selling, then trigger the prospect to take action (e.g., opt-in on our landing page, click through to read our offer, click the Add To Cart button, etc.)
Stories begin by grabbing the prospect’s “Attention“, as described above. Next, when properly crafted they create “Interest” and drive a curisoity to know more (e.g., to know how the story turns out). Next, stories can actually build “Desire” for your product within the mind of your prospect; e.g., they see the benefits the character in the story is getting from your product – and they begin to want those same benefits.
Stories “frame” the opportunity our product represents within the mind of our reader (prospect), and can be used to stimulate the prospect to take “Action” – to buy a product, to subscribe to your list, etc.
A Product Is Born
It didn’t take long for Jeff and me to realize that we were onto something big here. I mean, a formula that enables marketers to break through the spam, market noise, sales resistance and advertising fatigue we’re all suffering from today… and get people to Listen and Buy…
I quickly recognize a product opportunity when I see one, and this one didn’t take a genius to figure out! In fact, as I recall, Jeff and I were on a fishing trip this past summer at my lake house, discussing the amazing results these campaigns were achieving when we realized – we should package this stuff up and make it available for other businesses and marketers to use!
With my Web marketing and corporate marketing background, coupled with Jeff’s copywriting and storytelling knowledge, we turned all of this knowledge and experience into a simple “system”, or methodology, for marketers to use in creating these powerful story-based campaigns.
Jeff was insistent that we make the system dead-stick simple – easy enough for anyone to put to use in their business quickly. So that’s what we did…
We now call this product “The Precision Marketing System”. The product contains virtually everything (that matters) that we know and have learned about developing story-based marketing campaigns that get results. The product is for anyone who’s responsible for developing marketing campaigns, writing copy, or developing ads – for email marketing campaigns, direct mail, and more traditional ads.
What’s really interesting about all this is we actually discovered something unexpected. Stories “break through” the noise and apathy level in the marketplace and get a marketer’s messaging both heard and consumed – certainly something nobody else is claiming today!
Assuming you have a meaningful message and a product that resonates with your target audience, this precision marketing system enables this “tuned out” audience to be reached and sold – it’s that simple, when you follow the step-by-step instructions and “playbook” we created.
There’s also a 2 hour overview video that explains everything and takes you through exactly how to apply these techniques in your business.
Pretty cool! This was a fun product to develop, and it’s also turning out to be a lot of fun helping people learn it and apply it in their businesses. I’m certainly looking forward to 2009!!
Read the rest of the Precision Marketing story here to get more details…
Tags: Precision Marketing, story, storytelling
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