How to Elevate your Sales Campaign Through Storytelling

No matter how far you plan your sales campaigns, there’s always this element of luck. There’s an unpredictable factor that you can’t 100% predict.

However, is it possible to directly elevate your sales campaigns using 1 technique? It actually is, and it’s called storytelling.

People are wired into enjoying stories, everyone believes they’re the main character of their lives, and as such, they’re going to resonate much better with your campaign if you’re pushing forward that narrative.

Why Should You Use Storytelling in Sales Campaigns?

There really are multiple reasons why storytelling is going to boost your sales pitch or campaign.

The most important reason is that it allows you to form an emotional connection with your prospects.

No matter how much we believe we think logically, and how meticulously we calculate our spending budgets and leverage the pros and cons of whatever we buy, ultimately, it’s our emotions that control our actions.

And that’s actually great from a business standpoint, you can form positive emotional connections with your prospects, which is going to lead to higher sales simply by connecting your brand with a story, theirs.

Nobody Remembers What You Say

 Back in the day, the bullet theory reigned supreme with mass communication, it’s where it was considered messages transmitted through media to shoot through all distractions and enter the mind of your audience like a bullet.

This isn’t the 1950s, and with the new digital age, it’s getting harder and harder to connect with your audience when they’re actively trying to tune you out.

That’s why, you should forego trying to sound smart or impressive, with modern sales campaigns, the word-for-word doesn’t matter as much as the way you make your audience feel.

That’s because nobody remembers what you say, but if you have a successful sales campaign, everybody’s going to remember how you made them feel. 

That’s where successful stories come into play.

What are the Elements of A Successful Sales Story?

Unlike kindergarten, you can’t just sit down for 10 minutes and come up with a story that you can submit.

A story that’s going to be successful in connecting with your audience on an emotional level builds upon unchanging elements in order to send your message across:

The Hero

A lot of entrepreneurs get the first element wrong, they believe that they themselves are the hero that’s solving the problem for their audience.

That’s a false assumption, mainly because you’re not going to resonate with someone if you keep implying that you’re the one that’s helping them.

The true hero of every successful sales campaign story is the audience, or whoever’s being introduced to the campaign at the time.

You should tell them that yes, they are the hero of this story, and there’s something they need to be doing.

The problem

Shortly after the hero is introduced in any story, there’s always a problem that changes the status quo, while we’re not trying to create an epic tale, we’re trying to make a marketing campaign, it’s important to highlight the problem just after you introduce them as heroes of the story.

The problem can come in the form of an issue they’re facing, something that until now, they’ve found no solution with, and the second trap that entrepreneurs fall into when they’re trying to create a convincing problem is that they directly position their product as the solution.

If not now, then when does your product come into play in the marketing campaign?

The Guide

Just like how Yoda is to Luke, you and by extension, your product are what help the hero overcome that problem, it’s important to make sure that the audience knows that they’re using your guidance, not your product.

After all, nobody likes the main character that gets a helping hand that fixes everything, they want their hero’s journey to fix the problem you pose to happen after your guidance, and that’s why you should play the role of a guide.

How Can You Incorporate Storytelling into Your campaigns?

Now that we’ve set the tone for the story we’re about to create for our marketing campaign, how do you actually incorporate stories into sales campaigns and pitches?

Do you start with a “One upon a time~” or is it a little bit more subtle?

First of all, we’re not going to be telling stories in this over-the-board fashion (But if you feel like it’ll work with your brand then go for it!). Here are some of the things you need to keep in mind when you’re trying to integrate storytelling into your sales campaigns.

Leave out filler content

The third type of trap that entrepreneurs tend to fall into is that they tend to toot their own horns a little bit too much.

If your product is going to solve its problems, why would you describe all of its features before explaining the value it gives?

Nobody wants to know that your new phone has an absurd amount of megapixels, they want to know that they’ll be able to take great family pictures with it.

Similarly, nobody is interested in the features of your product, they’re only interested in the value that they’ll get from it.

So if you’re introducing your product in the sales campaign, leave out the fluff, and hyper-focus on the value.

Nobody Likes Bland Stories 

The problem with attaching a story to your marketing campaign is that it has to be just as good as your product or service.

You need to engage the audience, not just tell them a simple story, exaggerate the issue, give them the worst-case scenario, and have them imagine what that problem is going to look like in 10 days, maybe even 10 years.

Explain how your product can guide them to solve this issue, almost instantaneously, and help show them the best-case scenario before leading them toward it.

That’s how you can make engaging campaigns. Essentially, you need to be bold and solve their issues in the most expressive way possible

Think about how Tesla revolutionized the electric car industry, they made electric cars go from being something that’s boring and unimaginative to literal sports cars using electricity.

Personalize their story

The final method you should employ in order to boost your sales campaigns using storytelling is to personalize the story based on whoever is going to b be introduced to your campaign.

There are some ways you can employ in order to do so:

Start With The Pain, Then Describe An Opportunity

You should never start with the best-case scenario because then the viewer would inevitably get disgruntled that you took away their great feeling.

You should always start with their pain points, and afterward, explain said best-case scenario they can have after solving that issue

After that scenario, you tell them that it’s unlikely to happen, or that it will take a lot of effort and time without your help, and that your product actually helps them reach that scenario, but what’s next?

Walk Them Through Their Complaints

After they’re introduced to your services, they will inevitably have their own objections, and that’s when storytelling does its biggest impact on your campaign.

Instead of directly addressing their objections and sounding way too corporate than you want.

You can walk them through their objections one by one.

It could be that they don’t trust you or the product you’re offering, in that case, you can tell them about their hero’s journey, and how they can use your product to fix their issues.

Perhaps they feel that the advantages of getting your product aren’t really worth it, and in that case, you could always tell them about the worst-case scenario, what if the problem was left unchecked for a long time?

And finally, they might not believe in themselves, maybe the solution you offer works with everyone else, but not themselves? In that case, you’re free to explain how they can be the hero of their own journey by using your product.

Help them imagine solving their problem using your services

People are more likely to buy things that they’ve already imagined wearing them.

If there aren’t any dressing rooms in clothing shops, does that stop people from buying from their favorite brands? Absolutely not.

They’ll just imagine themselves wearing that piece of clothing, just that act alone can help convince them to invest in your brand.

And that’s another reason why storytelling can be so impactful, they can imagine themselves already using your product.

If you’re selling a skin care cream, and you explain how their skin might look terrible in a few years’ time, and you tell them how it’ll be silky smooth by using your product, wouldn’t they have already imagined themselves after using it? That’s how they can convince themselves to buy your product.

We hope this article helped you understand the best ways you can market your product, and that’s through storytelling.

With Cosmic Agency, you’ll be able to employ constantly up-to-date marketing techniques such as this one that can drive your brand upwards, not forwards, into cosmic scales.