If you’re like most YouTube users, you hover impatiently over the “skip” button until you’re able to silence whatever ad was playing and get stuck into the video you want to watch. You likely take a similar approach when browsing the internet – either using an ad blocker or learning to tune out the avalanche of ads. 

As a marketer, you can use this ad avoidance to your advantage, leveraging it to reach your audience in a meaningful way. To achieve this, you need to employ the strategies used by those creating the content your audience is seeking. Below, you will find five storytelling secrets designed to help you master the art of storytelling in marketing copy. 

1. Always start with a hook

Whether you’re writing for the best copywriting agency Melbourne has to offer or simply working on your own website, you should open every piece of content with a compelling hook. 

A hook is a short and impactful concept or question that grabs your audience’s attention and makes them want to keep reading. Questions are particularly powerful as they pique your audience’s curiosity and make them want to read on for the answer. Statistics are another great hook, particularly if the numbers are surprising. Play with different styles, and don’t be shy about using humour to encourage engagement. 

2. Work with relatable characters

The best stories have at least one character the audience can relate to, and this is as true in marketing as it is in the world of fiction. Relatable characters help customers connect with your brand on an emotional level. Depending on your brand personality and the purpose of the content you’re producing, this character could be you, one of your team members, one of your customers, or a person your business has helped in some way. 

3. Use conflict to create tension

Conflict is central to most stories, and as consumers of fiction, we’ve all come to expect it. In marketing copy, it is just as important, helping you keep your audience engaged and motivated to discover how the conflict will be resolved. 

To effectively create conflict, you need to identify your audience’s pain points, and then explore them using techniques like foreshadowing, cliffhangers, and plot twists to build tension and keep your audience engaged. Finally, when describing conflict, use vivid, sensory language to help capture your audience’s imagination and build a sense of investment in the outcome. 

4. Show, don’t tell

This is one of the first pieces of advice most budding fiction writers receive, and it’s just as relevant for marketers. In the spirit of showing rather than telling, let’s demonstrate the concept with an example. 

If we were to say, “Sasha was cold,” that would be telling. By contrast, we can show readers the character’s state by saying something like, “Sasha’s cheeks flushed pink as the frosty air tickled a barrage of tiny sneezes from her nose.”

5. Use data to support your story

While fiction writers have the luxury of building story worlds to suit their narratives, marketers must ground their stories in the real world. To do this persuasively, use data to back up your claims. Doing so adds credibility to your story and gives it a major boost on the persuasiveness front. So consider engaging in customer surveys, performing market research, or accessing relevant data from reputable sources. 

Start with the tips above, and have fun experimenting with storytelling in your marketing copy. The beauty of this approach is that it makes the content more fulfilling to create and more enjoyable for customers to consume, so there really is nothing to lose.