Our last blog post discussed not only the importance of storytelling as a successful business strategy, but how the use of character in particular could help your audience become emotionally invested in your company, your products and your services.
For this blog post, we will continue the same theme, but focus on another element from the writer’s toolbox – plot.
Storytelling for business
Information overload. You know what it’s like – it’s all around you, on the television, the radio, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, in the newspaper, in your email inbox. In today’s time-starved but information-rich society, the number of companies vying for a reader’s attention, and the sheer volume of information available to individuals continues to increase and doesn’t look set to slow any time soon.
So what will make your story stand out from the crowd? What will make people stop and listen? In terms of plot, a combination of something unusual together with sticking with what people know can make a lot of sense.
Stories are familiar ground (see our previous article on why) and people like and know what to expect from a good tale. But because you are competing against everyone else’s story, and you don’t want to take up too much of anyone’s time, you need to tell yours in a way that is concise and simple, yet includes something unique to you. Here’s how:
Plot structure for business
There are many types of traditional story structure, used in everything from fiction and film to large corporate marketing campaigns. Here are six of the most commonly used in business settings:
- Quest – With this structure, the main character (the hero) is set a challenge, which they set out to meet. The goal could be real or imagined, internal or external, but it is the driving force behind the plot. Think ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’. This type of structure is particularly useful in describing the story of a particular project or for use in customer success stories.
- Boy meets girl – What it says on the tin. A straightforward plot structure where two characters meet and fall in love, but various obstacles are put in their way to prevent them being together, which they finally overcome. Always needs a happy ending! Since this structure is so well-known, it can easily be deployed as a comedic device and add a little extra entertainment and spin to your story.
- Coming of age – In this story structure, the plot events cause the main character to undergo a substantial change or transformation, or come to a realisation about something they have actually known all along. Most often used in customer success stories.
- Defeating the monster – Here, the hero must defend their home or way of life against an enemy force, whether it’s an actual monster or a moral or social force. In terms of your business, the ‘monster’ could be anything from hunger (if you sell food products), to poor health (if you provide healthcare services) or debt (if you provide financial services). This structure works best if you position your company not in the role of the hero, but rather as a sidekick or as the weapon that ultimately helps the hero (your customer) to win the day.
- Rags to riches – Often used in marketing, this structure is based on a poor but honest and hardworking hero acquiring wealth, power or love. Typically there is a point in the story where the character loses all this, only to regain it at the end, often upon the realisation that there is more to happiness than material possessions. Think ‘Cinderella’, where your company plays the role of the Fairy Godmother.
- Voyage and return – This is a story type where the main character is cast into an unusual and unfamiliar environment and left to navigate on their own. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is a great example. Your role as a business here is to help your customer/hero find their way around and return safely home (or stay there until it becomes home, of course!).
Using one of these story models will ensure that your readers will pick up quickly on what’s going on, and as long as you make the story itself compelling, dramatic or just plain funny, your readers will feel at home and stay engaged.
The plot thickens – models of storytelling for business
Whatever type of story structure you use in your business storytelling, there are various ways to implement it. From short vignettes to long-term, user-generated content, the possibilities are almost infinite. But before you decide how to create your stories, you’ll need to think about which type of media will work best for your audience. Initially this means making sure you’ve carry out your research – look at demographics, psychographics, geographics and behaviour so that you know what makes your audience tick. Understanding who they are, what they’re interested in, where to find them and what motivates them will determine where you need to focus your storytelling efforts. After all, it’s no good starting a story strategy on Vimeo if your customer base spends all its time on Pinterest.
Once you know what type of media you need to be concentrating on, you can develop your planning a little further and think about the length of time your story will run for and how the plot will best be presented. Here are five ideas to get you started:
- Vignette strategy – A series of mini-movies, unrelated to each other, but held together by a common theme or character. The full plot here must be completed within each vignette.
- Continuing story strategy – Here, your story is told over time, perhaps through social media videos or even Twitter posts (like the Nescafe Gold Blend TV adverts of the 1980s).
- Real-life stories – Demonstrated beautifully by ‘One Red Paperclip’, where Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald decided to trade one red paperclip up for items of increasing value until he could buy his own house, this strategy involves following a sequence of real-life events. The fact that the plot here is unstructured and unpredictable makes for increased social media buzz and interest.
- The audience tells the story – User-generated content can provide great material for storytelling and like ‘One Red Paperclip’, really get the public talking about your brand and fully engaged. Just make sure that you’re in control of the end of your story and decide how and when to draw things to a close.
- The end as the beginning – This is a plot in reverse, and is often told as a series of ‘chapters’ from the end of the story back to what led to those events. Of course, you could take this a step further and create video scenes in ‘rewind’…
Creating an impact
A story, of course, is more complicated than following a set of rules, and involves subplots, twists, turns and minor characters. And a plot is no good on its own, but must include attention to characterisation, setting and so on. But for the purposes of business marketing and corporate copywriting, it’s always best to keep things simple. So plan for a great story that can be quickly understood, shared and remembered.
Above all, no matter what type of plot structures you decide to use in your business storytelling, if your stories don’t make an emotional impact on your audience, they’re not doing their job. Whether you want your readers or viewers to come away from your story feeling enlightened, elated or refreshed, you always want them to feel something. And you want them to remember that it was you who made them feel that way.
If you’d like to find out how we can help your business with storytelling, visit http://www.callistogreen.com today or drop us an email at enquiries@callistogreen. For more news and blog posts, we’d love you to join us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Hope to see you there!
Callisto Green 