When it comes to content marketing, we marketers hold dear this mantra:
Tell your story.
It is said so often that many times, marketers just nod their head absently while thinking, of course.
It sounds so simple.
In fact, deceptively simple.
Because when you really get down to it, “telling your story” is the toughest thing to do for most businesses. It automatically sounds frivolous to the bean-counters and for the creatives, they dance around it but rarely nail it down.
What does it mean exactly… to tell your story?
Content Marketing: In the beginning
We know how stories start in fairy tales.
Once upon a time…
It is said that J.R.R. Tolkien started his passion for all things Hobbit when he penned the line, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” on a blank page of a paper he was grading for his English class.
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with paneled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats – the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill – The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it – and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.
This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained-well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.
Now… isn’t that a wonderful beginning for a story about an adventure?
However, as much as I love Tolkien (and forgive Peter Jackson for not including Tom Bombadil in “The Lord of the Rings” films), my point for including this excerpt is to demonstrate what a good story can do.
Good content arouses curiosity
A good story immediately catches your attention and arouses curiosity. It makes you wonder what will come next.
The first line of The Hobbit immediately has the reader wondering, “what exactly is a hobbit?”
Tolkien immediately employs the storytelling maxim, “Show, don’t tell.” He doesn’t tell you what a hobbit is. Instead, he shows you how hobbits live and the one he’s going to tell you about is rather wealthy. You gather that hobbits enjoy comfort and that the character Tolkien will soon introduce you to enjoys visitors although his family has a reputation for being respectable and playing it safe. No risk-takers in this crowd.
Which makes these lines fascinating:
“[he] found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained-well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.”
It makes you want to discover more about this adventure that pulled the main character out of his normal way of life.
Good content sets the direction
In just a few short paragraphs, Tolkien sets the direction for the book. It is a story about a reluctant hobbit who has an adventure.
The rest of the story unfolds with twists and turns, but from the very start, you know that the main character is going to surprise himself again and again by doing things he never dreamt he’d be doing.
Tolkien is building momentum, and shows how one seemingly insignificant choice leads to more and at times, graver choices. You know from the beginning, though, that these choices are not easy for someone like Bilbo Baggins. After all, he’d rather be entertaining guests in his hole in the ground.
Discover the “why”
Simon Sinek gave a TED talk that quickly went viral, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.”
Although he wasn’t talking about how to tell a good story, it was referenced at times within his talk. Most notably, his explanation of why people buy Apple products served as an excellent example of telling a good story.
Whatever it is you do, you need to find a way to articulate why you do it.
This is the seed of your story.
Steve Jobs didn’t just want to create computers. He wanted to create an elegant way to get work done. He wanted to challenge the status quo for what computers could do. And he did.
There is a reason you started your business, a reason why it was born. If your founders are long gone, try to find something in the company’s history that reveals the “why.”
Usually, companies are born because the founders think, “There’s got to be a better way to do this and I’m going to provide it.”
This was after looking at their competition and realizing there were gaps.
Entrepreneurs see those gaps. They decide something important has been overlooked and they’re the ones who will discover it, shape it into an outstanding product and then sell it to a hungry crowd.
For instance, your story isn’t that you sell homes. It’s that you make the “American Dream” affordable and simple to acquire.
Your story isn’t that you provide car repairs, but that you run a clean, orderly shop that is totally transparent with every step of the process.
Your story isn’t that you design websites but that you have a streamlined methodology that helps clients identify quickly their desired outcomes so you can give it to them faster and painlessly.
Whatever can make someone’s life easier, faster, better, less of a hassle—and makes them feel good— that is the foundation for your story.
As Sinek said, the goal is not to do business with everyone who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with those who believe what you believe.
When crafting your story, don’t worry that it will exclude certain people. If it’s a good story, it will. For those who are just interested in finding the cheapest product on the market, they’ll pass you by as they continue their search.
But for those who are looking for a business that resonates with their own beliefs, those are the buyers you want.
Because once you have them, they’ll be loyal for years to come as long as you continue to produce an outstanding product with outstanding customer service. And if that’s not worth figuring out your story, then I don’t know what else matters.
