Psychology of Social Product Launches – Part 3, Storytelling

In this post, let’s examine another key element: Stories and storytelling.

Stories are how human beings spread ideas that are important or interesting to us.  Storytelling is as old as mankind.  We tell stories in many ways – using words, images, sounds, gestures and expressions.  Storytelling is at the heart of how we communicate with one another every day.

And the human mind is optimized for storytelling.  Traditionally, oral stories were committed to memory and then passed on from generation to generation.

Jump forward to the Internet age, and the avenues available for sharing our stories are all around us:  blogs, Twitter, Facebook, forums, YouTube, email, websites, article sites, books, TV, radio, and of course, the all important and powerful – word of mouth.  The evolution of technology has made storytelling easier than ever.

As Steve Chazin, former Apple marketing executive says in “Marketing Apple”, to have your story repeated you must:

• Make your message memorable – Think Big, Write Small
• Boil the story down to its syrupy goodness
• Make your message different and worth repeating

When we launch anything to an audience (a product, a company, website or a political candidate), we need to use stories to get our message across.  These stories answer important questions for the audience, including:

• Who are these people and where did they come from?
• Why should I care?
• What’s in it for me?
• Why should I listen to you?
• Why should I take action and actually do something different?
• Why should I act now instead of delaying or just doing nothing instead?

Stories provide an interesting way to answer these (and other) questions people have about what’s being launched and how it could affect them.  Stories can be conveyed in a variety of ways, including blogging, videos, newsletters, and emails.

Crafted properly, stories don’t sell – they simply tell and teach by example.

Stories provide the information that people need to make up their own mind – about you, what you’re launching and offering and where it fits in their life.  Stories also enable readers to learn by example.

By allowing people to make up their own minds (instead of coercing them through slick offers and time-limited deals that everyone knows are lies concocted by marketers to get them to buy), people are much more willing to listen to what you have to say when conveyed as an interesting story.

And they’ll be more inclined to pass a simple, interesting story along to others, who will in turn be more interested than if you come across as selling your product.  Incidentally, this storytelling approach to marketing works well not only in launches, but also in everyday marketing and advertising campaigns.

And stories are an extremely powerful way to structure marketing campaigns and advertisements today. Stories are more effective than traditional ads because they attract the reader’s interest and convey the benefits and features of a product in the proper context – the context of a customer who’s using the product.

In fact, storytelling is so important to use in not only launches but to incorporate into your everyday marketing mix, we created a “system” for story-based marketing campaigns.  These campaigns have produced millions of dollars in sales when traditional broadcast-style, feature/benefit oriented campaigns fail.  The reason is simple. People will take the time to read and comprehend an interesting story (and continue to ignore what is obviously an advertisement).

Learn to properly incorporate storytelling in your marketing mix and you will be amazed at how well it works, not only in launches, but in your everyday marketing.

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• Story: Struggling organic farmer saves the family farm (1)
• Story marketing: Why it works and why you should try it (6)
• Product Launch 3.0 Sales Process (2)
• New Product Launch Email Campaigns Now Available (1)
• ALL BUYERS ARE LIARS: Stories we tell ourselves to get what we want (3)
• 3 Psychology Secrets of Social Product Launches (4)
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Tagged as: new product introduction, new product launch, Product Launch, story marketing, storytelling, storytelling in marketing