Write Stories That Sell in 3 Steps

Is your business or brand present on social media? Do you have a blog or a social platform to communicate with your audience?

If you answred ‘yes’ to these questions, you are most likely using stories as a part of your marketing strategy (or at least you should be doing so).

While we all know that you need to put out consistent content to grow your audience and nurish potential leads, the questions is how do you write content that converts?

What is the point of hundreds of articles on your blog if your readers are never going to take the next step?

Whether this is a purchase, a consultation call, or a signup for a newsletter, you need to start writing stories that will push your readers over that edge and get them to take action.

Here’s how to do that!

#1 Define Your Target Audience

Start with defining your target audience:

• who are you talking to?
• who is your ideal customer?
• what are their goals, interests, and concerns?
• where do they spend time online?
• how does all this tie in with the product/service you’re selling?

The first step is going to require some brainstorming. Take a pen and paper and write down whatever comes to mind as you read these questions listed above.

Here’s an example of a target audience: women, 20–30 years old, living in California, with higher education, passionate about health and fitness, monthly income of $4 000 — $7 000.

This would be the perfect target audience for a business that sells luxurious fitness equipment specifically oriented toward women.

Now take some time to visualize your target audience, if you don’t already have this step nailed down.

Find a product for your audience. Not the audience for your product. — @contentcubem on Twitter

#2 Find a Problem You Can Solve

Now that you know exactly who is reading your content, you need to find their pain point and center on it.

What does this mean?

A customer’s pain point is essentially a problem they have in everyday life that they would be happy to solve by paying for a product or a service.

Let’s look back on our fitness brand example. What is a problem women have that is related to fitness and working out?

Sit down for another brainstorming session and look at the target audience you just created. Put yourself in those people’s shoes and think about what problems you would love to get rid of in your life.

You can get some inspiration by searching for the most commonly asked questions in your niche on sites such as Reddit and Quora.

Once you find that crucial problem your target audience has, focus on creating a solution.

Your product or service should solve your ideal customer’s problem, which is going to be the main motivator for them to spend money on what you have to offer.

Sell the problem you solve. — @contentcubem on Twitter

#3 Write Stories Around That Pain Point

Now we get to the content marketing piece of the puzzle. The first two steps were just a preparation for what’s about to come.

You have your target audience, you found their problem, you created a solution.

So, what’s next?

Content, content, content, and more CONTENT!

Now you have the golden formula for high-converting content: a clearly defined audience + a solution for their problem.

Here’s the last brainstorming session for today: sit down and write down as many topic variations that are related to your customer’s problem.

Make sure each piece of content you put out highlights the problems they are trying to solve and provides some level of solution or relief.

You want your readers to relate to your stories. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine this is a problem you have in your daily life.

Do some research if necessary — find what is so irritating or inconvenient about this problem.

Then hit them with a ton of valuable content on your social media and blogging platform (if you’re using one).

Make your customer the hero of your stories. — @contentcubem on Twitter

Need Help with Your Content?

Hitting the right spot with your content marketing strategy can take time and practice. Combining these three steps will get you on the right path toward mastering content creation.

However, if you don’t have the time to invest in content planning, creation, or distribution, let me help!

Feel free to reach out to me at any time and we’ll schedule a quick discussion about your next steps in content marketing.

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