The truth about storytelling
Everybody is talking about storytelling for your marketing plan. The power of storytelling can increase also your personal brand as an author — but how can you use it?
1. Why storytelling is powerful
In a nutshell: Storytelling is the way how we connect with other people. Through telling stories people feel emotions and these emotions can be remembered much longer than just only data. I will always remember how I read the Aladdin comic as a little child but I will not remember how many pages the comic had. So, people, I included, like to read, listen and watch stories. That`s also how Hollywood earns money — through telling stories in the best way. Big corporations are using storytelling as a marketing tool, so also authors should use this as a way of communicating with their target group. So, how can you as an author include your personal story in your marketing plan?
2. How to use storytelling?
The important thing is: you have to know your target group! In my case: authors. I know that many authors, me included, have criticism by other people. I also had this, in one point of my career I got a hurting E-Mail by my journalist mentor and he criticized my writing style. This was hard for me because I thought it was well done. This criticism changed me and I started to attend to workshops, seminar and also bought video-online courses and improved my writings. For me, this moment was a game changer.
The reason why I tell this short story about my own life is that because many authors had also in one point of their life criticism. They dealt with rejections or they have to compromise some of their work in order to satisfy customers. So, the first way to tell your story through bad things that happened in your life that are related also to your target audience. When you tell this bad moment, you get this connection with your audience because they also can feel this moment. This story, by the way, has to be real; you can`t just create some story because you`re audience will fell it.
3. How NOT to use storytelling
Within marketing, we have this so-called “superhero marketing” where marketers show people rich, famous and powerful. This worked well maybe in the 90s and early 2000s but not in 2018. Today marketing shifted to authentic and real stories because the consumers are smart enough to differentiate between fake and real. You have to be very careful not only to tell about your success and your achievements because but also about your real struggles and fears. If you do this authentic and consistently people will believe you and then they will believe also your message. So, tell first your struggle which is related to your target group and then paint the big picture and show them what your book or service can do for their life.
If you`re interested in more marketing strategies about how to reach more people as an author than you can download my FREE Author-preneur Guide — How to publish, market and sell your book. Just follow this link and download your free copy: https://yakup.mykajabi.com/p/author-preneur
Ceyhun Yakup Özkardes is the creator of the online course Author-preneur — How to publish, market and sell your own book where he teaches marketing and selling strategies for authors.
