NEVER RUN OUT OF CONTENT IDEAS WITH THESE STORYTELLING TIPS
Look, I know that coming up with an endless stream of storytelling ideas can feel pretty overwhelming. So I want to share with you a story-hacking trick I use to turn your everyday experiences into client-attracting content.
This simple trick will give you an endless stream of story ideas and content that actually converts. Want in? Let’s begin…
DEFINE YOUR CONTENT PILLARS
Step one is to identify your content pillars. And by ‘content pillars,’ I mean the key topics you want your brand to be known for.
Let’s use my own business as an example. In my business, I talk about ‘building your brand.’ So my content pillars are:
Brand messaging
Positioning
Storytelling and content
Lead generation
Launching
And when you are selecting your content pillars, you want to have 3 to 5 - no more.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE KNOWN FOR?
So think of those 3-5 key topic areas you want to be known for that are valuable to your audience.
What does your audience want to hear about in relation to these key areas?
HOW TO COME UP WITH STORY-BASED CONTENT IDEAS
Okay, so you’ve got your content pillars (aka content themes). But how do you come up with lots of story ideas?
Now, if you’ve purchased Stories That Sell, you’ve got 365 storytelling posts ready to go in there. But you might want to come up with some of your own, as well.
Here’s what I do:
STORY-HACKING
I look at my content theme and if I’m thinking about brand messaging, what are the …
Problems my audience has?
Things they want to know?
Key learnings that will help them?
And I’ll do the same for each of the content pillars.
Then, like the little geek I am, I have a notebook where I jot down moments in time and stories.
As an example, consider Christmas this year. 2020 was a rollercoaster of a year. And for a lot of us, Christmas had a lot of extra things thrown into the mix.
So, for me, I wrote down a few different stories about that time. And I looked at three things in each story:
Who was the main character in the story?
What was the tension point?
What was the learning?
I’ll take you through the first story as an example.
Storytelling Hack Example #1
One of my friend's husbands bought her a gift which was really for him. It was quite an expensive fancy gift (I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing). It was a great gift, but it was really for him, not her. But what he did was position it just right. He really sold it that it was for her.
The gift was a new sports car and obviously, he wanted to drive that sports car. But he positioned the gift as … “It’s going to be our weekend getaway car. It’ll be our date night car.”
He sold her the vision of her hair blowing in the wind, sunsets, going out on romantic dates; he even put a big bow on the car and threw in some new sunglasses!
That story is a great story for me about the power of messaging and the power of positioning. I can use it to talk about brand positioning because it’s all about how he sold the present that he bought for himself as a great gift for his wife.
So that’s one little story hack.
Storytelling Hack Example #2
This next one happens to me every single year.
I’m wrapping presents at midnight on Christmas Eve. No matter how organised I think I am, I always end up madly wrapping, running out of tags, running out of tape. Not quite as organised as I want to be.
So for me, that's a great story about when you're launching. About planning in advance, about having everything organized, about having everything right. For you and your business, it might be another learning around doing things last minute or not having what you need.
I just look at those little learnings out of my own unique stories and think about how I can spin them into a lesson or a story I can use in:
Social media
A blog post
Email
A live stream
to help my audience grow their business and their brand.
Storytelling Hack Example #3
One final one which I'm sure everyone can use.
Christmas was a bit unusual for us this year because in Sydney, where I live, they put us into lockdown into two separate zones. There was a “northern” northern beaches area and a “southern” northern beaches area. And my parents are in one zone and I’m in the other.
We had planned to have Christmas day together and they were doing the entree and we were doing the main course. But the night before, we find out we can’t have Christmas together. They’re going to be on their own, we’re going to be on our own. And we realised - hang on a minute! They’ve got nothing to eat for the main course and we’ve got nothing to eat for entrees.
Of course, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of an issue. But it's a perfect example of how to improvise.
There's a story there about improvising at the last minute, what to do when life (or business) throws you lemons, and how you turn things around.
CONNECT YOUR STORIES TO YOUR CONTENT PILLARS
So look for your own stories like these and just drop them down on your phone, in a little notebook, or maybe on a whiteboard in your office.
I have a whiteboard and I just scribble them on there throughout the day - little notes about things my kids have done and different stories.
Then bring them back to your Content Pillars.
Look at your content pillars and think about how can your story fit into one of those categories to bring value to your audience.
If you’d like a little help getting started, take a look at Stories That Sell.
It’s a mini-course filled to the brim with story-telling how-to training and templates to help you create story-based content that attracts clients and converts. Oh and did I mention it includes 365 story-based posts and prompts (that’s 12 months worth!!) that you can copy, paste, edit and share to social media or to your email list in <3 minutes a day?!
Make your marketing easier this year - Get Stories That Sell For Just $37!