There is always a story. Or several actually, probably as many as possible. If you don’t have one – create one, or find it. Which is the challenge in itself. The burden in the story is to create a positive feeling about the product, the service, or the brand itself. To get started, be inspired by different themes for stories. Which theme can you use?
Story Themes
The Customer Case. We don’t want to be the only ones that use a product, and we would like to have a reference to someone who has bought the product and likes it. This is how satisfied customers use your products. To refer to others who use the products or service is a classic way to build purchasing arguments. Describe needs, solution, and results. Byggmax, for example uses commercials to show how their customers have used their products: “Göran and Jennie build a large terrace”.
The Unique Product. You have a product that no one else has. Then it is easy to build a story around it that your customers want to read. Raspberry Pi did the unexpected. When computers got extremely complex, they developed a super easy computer that encourages experiments. Where actually everything around the product can be a story. Design products are also fitted into this category. How does the designer think?
The Success Story by a Known Name. How the athlete or celebrity use the product and like it. Connect a known name to the product and let the celebrity talk about how good it is. Arla has children believing that milk is the best sport beverage by sponsoring the Swedish Olympic Team. Google the athlete and you will get a hit with a page where it says that they like milk.
The Company Success Story. Coca-Cola: a history page covered with storytelling with several stories to dig from. The incredible successful game Minecraft, the success story is directly connected to the creator Markus ”Notch” Persson, who is a story and myth himself. The page itself has the same simple indie style as the site. It works in this context to the target group.
The Unique Business Idea. Elvis & Kresse creates designer bags by recycled fire hose and contributes to charity at the same time. Check out their move which is a nice example of a company story that might as well be published as text. They get a unique company story, charity, and recycling in the same context. Hard to forget.
The Sponsored Story. The company sponsors an adventure and gets a story as well. In Arla’s charity venture Team Rynkeby, a team of cyclists go from Paris each year while they collect money to children with cancer. Notice that at the site for Team Rynkeby, the products are not displayed. The brand gets lots of publicity by stories.
The Charity Story. The story describes an urgent need, preferably with a personal example, and end with giving hope. The message is “we contribute to help”. Rädda barnen is one example.
A Place. A place that is connected to the company, the product, or a campaign. Write about and associate to the place. A good example is Hollister, where all products are associated to South California, which is characterized at the site and the imagery. Which makes it easy to connect stories to the place.
The Employee’s Story. I’m sure that you have employees with interesting interests. Volvo Ocean Race makes a story and lets three of their employees give tips on how to prepare for a triathlon competition. The tips are not really connected to the subject, but they all work for Volvo Ocean Race. By writing about real people, and letting them speak, a personal relation is created with the reader.
The Spin-off Story. Is your story interesting enough, others will start writing about it. That generate new stories. Volvo Truck’s successful campaign The Epic Split is known to most, a movie that combines a product’s capacity, a celebrity, and an amazing stunt. The award winning movie has received attention around the world, and has generated several articles and shares.
The Right Story or the Right Story
What do your customers want to read about? You can write the right story, or the Right story. What do I mean by that? A story can be right since you write about something connected to your product. You are satisfied. The customer buys the product, the text is about the product, but the story itself might not interest them. In a way, the story is right, but not Right with a capital R and in bold. The story must provide something extra, capture the interest, and engage. Then you will find the Right story.
High quality means that the reader remembers and shares. Low quality means a high bounce rate. Your control question is “Should I share this story?”. If the answer is no, it is probably not good enough. If you write a story that you easily can bring home and tell your friends about, well then you are at the right track. Especially if you get a good response and they start spreading it. Think about what you are triggered by when you share something you have heard at work at the dinner table. Find that feeling in your storytelling. Have in mind that your customers should get that feeling, not yourself. The things that are important to you are not necessarily as important to your customers. Knowing your customers is an important prerequisite.
The important thing is not to set it the right immediately. The important thing is to get started. Write, publish, and evaluate. Write again, publish, and evaluate. Hopefully a pattern is found with things that your customers want to read about after a few rounds that you can continue working with. Writing is as e-commerce a process. It is rarely completely right the first time. If you have patience, it will pay off eventually.
Next Part
Next time, we will show a few examples of how a story can look online. From a simple content page that works just fine, to more refined presentations.