Marketers have always created ‘Content’ as a means to  raise awareness, motivate an action, build a brand. It is what they do in an effort to hook into the behavioural patterns of their customers in order to build a relationship and generate revenue.

Human beings learned to tell stories as a means to communicate the things that are important to them way before they learned to record things on clay tablets.

So, ‘Content’ is not new, the form has just morphed over the last 20 years with the emergence of digital tools as a more efficient way to spread the ‘content’. We also know that the ubiquitous bullet points may simplify things, but they are easily forgotten, whereas a compelling narrative is remembered.

It is just the way our brains have evolved to work.

Content should be organised as stories, marketers should know this by now, and mostly do, but often fail to give us stores that are memorable and relevant, that touch an emotion.

The old story of the poet and the beggar makes the point.

The beggar asks the poet for money, but the poet having none himself offers to re-write the beggars sign, which just says ‘Blind. Please help.” to ‘Spring is coming, but I will not see it’. A week later, when the poet sees the blind man again, he is not surprised to hear the donations have soared. A simple change of word from a fact to a story that touches the emotions.

Our brains are wired to recognise and recall stories, details are remembered, so when you relate the story to others, all the colour, movement and emotion of the original remains.

Stories take a lot of development and telling, they are very hard work and are optimised over time. Attention to detail, selecting stories and story lines that really dig into the emotions are crucial.

Marketers are now required to measure everything, stories are no different. Generally the conversion rate that is relevant is the best measure. How many finished the story, how many then did what you wanted them to do.

Mediocrity rules, the 80:20 rule is really 95:5 in stories, as only the great ones  get read, create engagement and sharing, and to do this, it is all about quality, not quantity.

Ever wonder why some content goes viral?

Well for one reason or another it is in the 5% that is worthy of  the attention and sharing, aim to be in the 5%, which means that the effort has to be organic, you cannot outsource passion and commitment, it has to be in the DNA of the business.

(Sorry about the ickky  word in the headline, I have even stopped playing 500)

Cartoon credit. My thanks again to Tom Fishburne, the Marketoonist. Another marketing story told in a cartoon

P,S. This morning, in my inbox was this new ‘storybook’ by the great Hugh McLeod and Brian Solis, supported by Linkedin. It makes my point better than I ever could. I encourage you to download it and have a look. I love Hughs work, as any reader will know, I often have his cartoons as headers, as the say so much in a few lines.