Storytelling in Marketing
Storytelling on the Homepage By: Joan Koehne, Packerland Websites
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rom the beginning of time, storytelling has been a compelling way to entertain, educate, and inform. A well-told story is like a gift to unwrap. You don’t know what’s hidden inside until you open the box. Likewise, visitors coming to your website open a digital package to find out what’s inside. Essentially, they want to know your story. Does your company have the characters, setting, and plot to produce the outcome they desire? Customers are turned off by anything that sounds salesy, but a well-told story gives them a reason to relate to you – and to be loyal to your company. A good place for storytelling is the homepage of your website. The homepage needs to get the audience’s attention, and what better way than with images. Children love picture books, and they’re not the only ones who like stories with photos. An effective photo on the homepage shows action, creates interest, and helps define a company’s brand. Visual information is easier to process and remember than words. In essence, the homepage photos should show a solution to your audience’s needs. A campground website showing moms, dads, and kids jumping into a swimming pool tells the story of a fun place for families to be together. Compare this fun image to an image of an empty swimming pool, and you get the idea. Photos, videos, and slideshows create visual appeal and hold a viewer’s attention. Videos are so popular that YouTube is the number two search engine on the internet, with Google as being number one. Someone watching a video on your website is more engaged in your brand, so they’re likely
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to take the next step, like calling, ordering, or requesting an estimate. In addition to images, words are powerful tools on a homepage - not just the paragraphs of text, but every word that appears on the webpage. A navigation menu, headings, subheadings, and call-to-action button summarize your story for the reader. An easy-to-find phone number and address encourage visitors to act.
Your company has something that no other company has – its own story.
You worked hard to get visitors to your website, so don’t make it difficult for them to call or stop in. From a technical standpoint, make sure to integrate keywords and key phrases into your story. Although your story is written for human visitors, it’s also written for bots that determine where your company fits on search engine result pages like Google. Bots can’t see images or videos, so text is their primary means of indexing. But be careful not to overuse keywords. Storytelling should speak to visitors, not manipulate search engine results. Additionally, storytelling should be geared to the audience. You wouldn’t read your kids a chemistry textbook. Instead, you’d choose a picture book suited to their age and interests. Likewise, try to define your website’s audience. This gets tricky, because you need to speak to different audiences: current customers, potential customers, current employees, potential employees, and lots of other people. Try narrowing it down to a primary and secondary audience, and tailor your story to each.
Trout by Kerry Paulson Automatic Fisherman: A well-told story on a website includes images that show the solution to visitors’ needs. Fishermen want to catch fish, and this image on the homepage of Automatic Fisherman shows a successful catch. Owner Kerry Paulson holds a nice trout, caught with an Automatic Fisherman hook-setting device.
Your company has something that no other company has – its very own story. Essentially, your story is what differentiates you from all of the other “books on the shelf.” Storytelling is a powerful tool. Words, images, and videos convey a message, create connections, and form bonds. Stories are the reason customers want to be loyal to you and your company. Every organization has its own story. Tell yours with gusto!
