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Storytelling has been an inherent part of human culture since the dawn of time. We both share our stories with the world and take in the stories of others. Either way, stories shape our perspectives and, thus, our shared reality. Furthermore, a compelling story is provocative and emotionally resonant. Frankly, no one ever remembers a bad or boring story unless it’s to recall how bad or boring it is.
This is particularly true when it comes to marketing and building websites. Compelling storytelling in this context is significant for making your brand stand out in the sea of others. Not only will an effective brand story improve user engagement, but it will also enhance overall brand loyalty and, thus, conversions.
But how do we craft such a narrative for our sites? When consulting with my clients, I always introduce them to the Hero’s Journey framework. In applying this framework to our websites and funnel pages, we take our prospects through narratives they can resonate with, thus encouraging them to take action with our services.
Related: The Hero’s Journey Is Your Path to Winning Over Customers for Life
The Hero’s Journey: A quick overview
Popularized by the American writer Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey outlines a universal pattern of adventure and transformation in storytelling traditions worldwide. This narrative arc involves a hero embarking on an adventure, facing and overcoming challenges and returning transformed.
When we apply this framework to our marketing copy and website design, we need to position the site visitor as the hero of the story. From there, your brand is the guide or sage that helps the hero through their hardships and catalyzes transformation.
Applying the hero’s journey to your website
1. The call to adventure: Engage visitors immediately
Your website’s homepage should act as a call to adventure, instantly engaging visitors by presenting a relatable challenge or aspiration. Such a challenge could be a prominent problem your target audience faces, which your brand promises to solve. You capture their interest from the outset by aligning with their initial search intent.
2. Introducing the hero and the guide: Building a connection
In the context of your website, the hero is your visitor. Make it clear that you understand their challenges and desires early on. Then, introduce your brand as the guide, an expert ally equipped with the wisdom (your services or products) to help them overcome their obstacles. This positioning builds trust and establishes a personal connection with your audience.
3. The journey: Mapping the user experience
As you build out the different pages in your user experience, consider each page a chapter in the hero’s story you’re creating. Map out your website’s layout to mirror their exploration for answers. Each page should ideally address a challenge they face and how your offerings can address it. You can achieve this by outlining steps, highlighting advantages and presenting testimonials and case studies.
4. Challenges and trials: Demonstrating value
Pointing out the difficulties and obstacles your hero could encounter is an excellent way of showing that you’re both on the same page (remember, empathy). You can also demonstrate how your product or service provides the necessary solutions, thus emphasizing the worth of your offering and strengthening the narrative’s emotional connection.
5. The transformation: Showcasing success
Ensure your website vividly illustrates the transformation that customers experience after using your product or service. Do this by showcasing before-and-after scenarios, success stories and testimonials. Visitors must see the potential for their transformation, as it motivates them to take action.
6. The return: Encouraging action
The culmination of the Hero’s Journey on your website should lead to clear, compelling calls to action (CTA). Whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or booking a consultation, CTAs are the steps that lead to transformation.
Related: 5 Tips to Boosting Your Website Conversions (and Why It Matters)
More principles for maximizing engagement and conversions
Beyond the Hero’s Journey, maximizing engagement relies on presenting our stories in ways that appeal to the site visitor. Now, we are talking about paying attention to design, usability and overall content quality. When optimizing our websites, be sure to ask these four questions.
Is it smooth? It often takes a designer’s eye to ensure that the right elements are in the right place. Nonetheless, having an intuitive, uncluttered and user-friendly website is paramount to driving conversions. It doesn’t matter how compelling your story is if your website is unusable and unappealing.
Is it streamlined? We want to ensure that our pages are as streamlined as possible, avoiding multiple narratives and redundancy. When leading a user to a CTA, it’s ideal to present one CTA at a time. Especially on our landing and funnel pages, showing multiple CTAs at once often leads to confusion and a lack of focused engagement.
Is it stellar? Blending a focused narrative with engaging content will inevitably draw prospects deeper into your brand. Be sure to include vivid imagery, video and engaging copy to reel people in. Remember, no one remembers a boring story! So, aim to be memorable, not mundane.
Is it split-tested? Don’t expect your first few web pages to be perfect. Continuous split testing is the key to creating a website that converts. Test different aspects of your website to see what engages your audience the most. Test everything from headline copy to imagery, CTAs or even the website as a whole.
Related: How to ‘Split Test’ Your Website to Engage Online Customers Better
Conclusion
There is undoubtedly an art to compelling storytelling. As with any art form, understanding the basic principles is the key to finding mastery.
Whether you’re a personal brand or representing a giant corporation, your storytelling influences how the world perceives and receives you. By applying the right storytelling principles to your websites, you’ll be sure to not only make more money, but also create a brand worth remembering.