As content takes its rightful place at the forefront of marketing, I'm seeing many marketers fail at basic storytelling.
Marketers are ineffective when they use the classic "customer testimonial" format and pop that onto their blog or make it into a video. "Here’s our product. It is great. Here are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product." This just doesn't hold people's attention.
How interesting would a book or movie be were it to have this plot?:
Boy meets girl.
They fall in love.
They get married.
That's what most people do with their business writing.
Effective storytelling
The best stories drip with conflict. They have a hero and sometimes a villain. There is a story arc. As a writing teacher once told me: "Writing without conflict is propaganda."
Via Gregg Morris
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All business have conflict: lack of sales, poor service, employee malaise...
The issue is often that management doesn't want to talk about the negative but you have to have a hellish situation in order to make a story compelling.