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Storytelling has been an inherent part of human culture since time immemorial. We both share our stories with the world and embrace the stories of others. Either way, stories shape our perspectives and, in turn, our shared reality. Additionally, compelling stories are provocative and emotionally resonant. Frankly, no one remembers a bad or boring story unless they remember how bad or boring it was.
This is especially true when it comes to marketing and building websites. Compelling storytelling in this context is important to make your brand stand out among other brands. An effective brand story not only increases user engagement, but also improves overall brand loyalty and therefore conversions.
But how do you create such a story on your site? When consulting with my clients, I always introduce the Hero’s Journey framework. When we apply this framework to our websites and funnel pages, we guide prospects through stories they can relate to and inspire them to take action with our services.
Related: The hero’s journey is the path to captivating your customers for life
Hero’s Journey: Overview
The Hero’s Journey, made popular by American author Joseph Campbell, outlines a universal pattern of adventure and transformation in storytelling traditions around the world. This story arc involves the protagonist embarking on an adventure, facing and overcoming challenges, and returning transformed.
When applying this framework to your marketing copy and website design, you need to position your site visitor as the protagonist of your story. From there, your brand becomes a guide or sage who helps the protagonist through difficulties and inspires change.
Apply the Hero’s Journey to your website
1. An invitation to adventure: Immediately attract visitors
Your website’s home page should act as an invitation to adventure, instantly captivating your visitors by presenting them with relatable challenges and aspirations. These challenges can be prominent problems faced by your target audience, and your brand promises to solve them. Align with the user’s initial search intent and capture their interest from the beginning.
2. Introducing the protagonist and guide: Build a connection
In the context of a website, the protagonist is the visitor. Make it clear early on that you understand their challenges and desires. Then, present your brand as a guide, an expert ally with wisdom (services and products) to help overcome obstacles. This positioning builds trust and establishes a personal connection with your audience.
3. Journey: Mapping the user experience
As you build out the different pages in your user experience, think of each page as a chapter in the hero story you’re creating. Plan your website layout to reflect your users’ quest for answers. Each page should ideally address a challenge you face and how your service can address that challenge. We do this by outlining the steps, highlighting the benefits, and presenting customer testimonials and case studies.
4. Challenges and Trials: Demonstrating Value
Pointing out difficulties and obstacles your protagonist might encounter is a great way to show that you’re both on the same page (and don’t forget to be empathetic). You can also highlight the value you provide and strengthen the emotional connection of your story by showing how your product or service provides a needed solution.
5. Transform: Demonstrate success
Make sure your website clearly shows the changes your customers will experience after using your product or service. You can do this by presenting before-and-after scenarios, success stories, and testimonials. Visitors need to understand their potential for change in order to be motivated to take action.
6. Return: Call to action
The culmination of your Hero’s Journey on your website should lead to a clear and compelling call to action (CTA). Whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or booking a consultation, CTAs are transformative steps.
Related: 5 Tips to Boost Your Website Conversions (And Why It Matters)
More principles to maximize engagement and conversions
Beyond the hero’s journey, maximizing engagement depends on presenting your story in a way that appeals to your site visitors. Well, we’re talking about paying attention to design, usability, and overall content quality. When optimizing your website, be sure to ask these four questions:
Is it smooth? It often takes a designer’s eye to make sure the right elements are in the right places. Nevertheless, having an intuitive, uncluttered, and user-friendly website is paramount to boosting conversions. No matter how compelling your story is, it won’t matter if your website is difficult to use and unappealing.
Is it streamlined? We want our pages to be as streamlined as possible and avoid multiple narratives and redundancy. When directing a user to her CTAs, ideally he should see one her CTA at a time. Displaying multiple CTAs at the same time, especially on landing pages and funnel pages, often results in confusion and lack of focused engagement.
Is it a star? Combining a focused narrative with engaging content will inevitably draw prospects deeper into your brand. Be sure to include vivid images, videos, and engaging copy that draw people in. Remember, no one will remember a boring story. So aim for something memorable, not something ordinary.
Have you done a split test? 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 attracts your audience the most. Test everything from headline copy to images, CTAs, and even his entire website.
Related: How to “split test” your website to increase online customer engagement
conclusion
There is definitely an art to compelling storytelling. As with any art form, understanding the basic principles is the key to mastery.
Whether you’re a personal brand or the head of a huge corporation, your storytelling influences how the world perceives and accepts you. Applying the right storytelling principles to your website will not only help you generate more revenue, but it will also ensure that you create a memorable and valuable brand.