A lesson in effective storytelling
I once heard that a best man’s speech should be like a miniskirt: short enough to grab people’s attention, but long enough to cover the essentials.
I’ve been thinking recently how much that also applies to your marketing message.
It can be difficult to know how much information is too much.
Take your website for example – you want it to be informative, but you don’t want to bore potential customers.
You want visitors to read enough to pique their interest but not so much that they won’t call to find out more.
It seems the answer to clear copywriting, effective storytelling (and probably a cracking best man’s speech) is to be more like my mum.
She is, by far, is the most phenomenal storyteller I know, and she doesn’t even realise it.
Any time I see my parents, my husband’s always desperate to know what my mother had to say.
It’s the first thing he asks when I come through the door.
It’s because – just when you least expect it — she comes out with the most haunting and hilarious stories about her childhood.
These anecdotes are casually dropped into conversation without pre-amble, as if we’ve heard them before, or she can’t imagine why anyone would be interested.
They’re always in some way relevant, and she just releases them like little conversational hand grenades.
Someone had mentioned that ducks shouldn’t eat bread, when she shrugged and said… “I brought a pigeon back to life by feeding it salted peanuts in the bottom of my wardrobe.”
My questions tumbled over each other “How old were you? Did your parents know you had it? How long for? Where did it come from?”
The reply came over her shoulder as she went to put the kettle on, “I brought it back from Sunday School in my muff.”
She always leaves you wanting to know more. She’s only in her 60s now, but the way she talks about her childhood, you’d think she’d lived through the Victorian era.
So remember, your story doesn’t need to use complicated language or poetic phrases to be memorable.
And you don’t need to write thousands and thousands of words to have impact.
Look at John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’.
The language he uses is simple, direct, and uncomplicated, but the overall story has gripped and broken the hearts of readers for more than 80 years, and continues to be popular as a set text in schools and universities.
The novella sold 500,000 copies in its first edition and in 1999 sales figures for the book in the USA alone were put at 7.5 million.
Simple storytelling doesn’t mean basic.
Your copy should be loud, clear, informative and interesting enough to hold people’s attention.
(I should take my own advice and stop at this point).
Dave Trott’s books are great examples of clear and simple storytelling that really get the message across. Take a look at one + one = three.
Top tips for clear copywriting:
– Pick one point and stick to it.
You might want to list all the USPs of your product, but your message will ultimately be diluted.
– Keep it simple.
Leave the thesaurus out of reach
– Keep it brief.
Better for customers to ask for more info, than be bored.
– Don’t confuse what you want to say, with what customers need to hear.
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For a greater insight into her character, you can also read how mum made the butcher blush.
