Tell a story
A story? Don’t people just want to know the details of my product or service? Like price, start date, the tons of free extra’s they get, material etc.? Well yes, but that’s not the reason people (want to) buy your product.
You buy a feeling
What? ‘That’s just baloney’, I hear you think. ‘It’s all about the money in the end’. Well no. People don’t buy a bunch of numbers, they buy a solution, a feeling.
And that’s where storytelling comes in. No matter what product or service you sell. I’ll give you two examples one for a ‘boring but necessary’ product, the other for a very personal product.
Sell the relief of accountancy
1. An online administration program. Doesn’t sound sexy, I know. But it brings such a relief to your fellow not-organized entrepreneurs. That’s what you want to tell. So do a series of pictures for instance going from a stressed out entrepreneur behind her computer when taxes are due again, up to a woman running in the forest or a few women having lunch. Because they now have time to spare thanks to your online program.
Take them by the hand during tax season. Show them what used to be a stressy time, but now is easy peasy because it has never been easier with your program. An accounting program that not only makes their entrepreneurial life easier, but also makes them understand better and thus empowers them. Giving them a feeling of being in control even when the subject seems mind boggling sometimes.
Create an arty buzz
2. Art. A very personal thing. You buy a painting or print because it speaks to you. It brings up emotions: whether that’s comfort, happiness, relaxation, success. Storytelling can help customers finding your web store by creating a buzz, a journey. How? Well for example with a travel – photo – journey where you take your painting with you and take pictures capturing a buzzing city live (on the wall in a café / next to a window looking out on the street / behind a desk / in the background of a Friday evening end of the week party with friends).
It can also help your client envision what the art could bring to their day-to-day life. By having photos of the art in different places in a house, this way showing how the art can oomph up their house. With a painting photographed in a living room in the evening: your customer can see herself coming home, sitting on the couch and relax because that is what that painting represents to her. Or a photo of an office with a framed print on the wall behind the computer: your customer can see herself sitting in her office looking at the little framed print that boosts her energy, productivity, confidence.
So take your clients on a journey. Envision them what your product brings to their day-to-day life.
Sell the feeling – sell your product.