Storytelling Template for Writing Effective Technology Content
Storytelling Template is an effective way to create persuasive and easy-to-understand technology content. Here is the world’s most used storytelling template for technology companies!
Once upon a time, the sales performance of technology companies depended on how good the sales team was. Today, technology buyers base their vendor selection decisions more on online content. Storytelling is an effective way to create persuasive and easy-to-understand technology content. Here is the world’s most used storytelling template for technology companies – originally developed by Aristotle!
What is Effective Technology Content?
If digital content is the most crucial component in the sales lead generation process, it better be great. Effective technology content is a mix of several ingredients such as relevant substance, insightfulness, inspiring visuals and engaging storyline. It addresses customers’ real business goals and challenges, and it is Search Engine Optimized (SEO) for not to be missed by Google.
Effective technology content is also emotional and evokes feelings of trust, reliability, credibility and a sense of partnership. All this is wrapped up into a persuasive and easy-to-understand package by Storytelling techniques!
How Storytelling works?
Since the beginning of time, people have told stories to share knowledge. And, great stories have lived over generations and lasted for centuries. Storytelling is an effective way to make messages understood and remembered.
When the brain is exposed to a report, textbook or a list of facts, two parts of the brain are activated, Broca’s area and Wernike’s area. These two areas of the brain are responsible for turning words into meaning.
A well told story fires up and engages the brain in more areas. So, for example, if the narrative has descriptors related to smell, the brain’s olfactory cortex is engaged. And if the narrative includes movement, the motor cortex is activated.
Research has evidenced that different organic chemicals such as cortisol, dopamine and oxytocin affect the brain by keeping humans alert and attentive and generating feelings such as empathy and pleasure, when exposed to engaging storytelling.
This is why it’s so much easier for people to recall stories than facts. When so many parts of the brain are engaged, an experience is created – and people are likely to remember experiences better than facts.
Classic Storytelling Structure
Aristotle concluded that the narrative, mythos, is the most important element of a story. Based on this theory, Gustav Freytag, a German writer, defined the five stages of drama in 1863. This 155 years old plot of a story is also known as the Freytag’s pyramid.
Storytelling always follows a certain structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.
Storytelling Template for Technology Content
Still today, the five stages of storytelling can be applied to technology content marketing to closely follow the classic story plot. Is consists of the following stages: opportunity, challenge, solution, benefit and value.
First Storytelling Stage - Opportunity
In a typical technology content marketing context, the dialog begins by describing the business opportunities that target customers are aiming at, be it tapping a new revenue source, gaining lucrative cost savings. The first stage, exposition, or opportunity essentially describes why a company is in the business, and why it should evolve itself by making new investments (in the technology products the vendor sells).
Second Storytelling Stage - Challenge
Once the reasons to aim a business goal are clear, the story continues by describing the various challenges the customers are likely to face on their journey. The challenges are naturally defined so that the vendor can solve them with its technology and products. This stage identifies customers’ real pain points and issues in a creative and attention-grabbing manner.
Third Storytelling Stage – Solution
The opportunity and the challenge together form a conflict, which is an obligatory component to set a scene for a classic story. In the conflict of the story, the customer should feel hopeless about his own possibilities of reaching the lucrative business opportunities, until the perfect solution is served at the climax of the pitch.
In technology marketing context, the description of the product, or solution providing the perfect match between customers’ needs and vendor’s offering is provided at this the stage of the storyline.
Fourth Storytelling Stage – Benefit
The solution stage is followed by describing and itemizing the key benefits and value of the solution in an understandable way. When possible, always quantify the economic value of the benefits.
Fifth Storytelling Stage – Value
A good technology marketing story ends by picturing how well the customer’s business has performed since taking the product in use. Don’t settle for generic benefit statements but describe the gained business value using detailed, numerical and tangible expressions. Creating peer pressure by telling success stories about similar companies that have already made the same investment always provides a powerful conclusion for technology storytelling.
Use the Storytelling Template and Create Stories that Sell!
Effective technology content requires of course much more than just great storytelling. However, since Aristotle, the power of storytelling has been evidenced by practice, as well as the modern science. Applying the 155 years old storytelling template often is the best way to start making the technology content great. Anyway, it is a question of your sales success!
Turn your technology content into engaging stories – Contact Grip Agency!
