Storyselling: learn now to tell stories that sell
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2025 7:10 am
For a long time, companies only cared about informing their customers about prices, quality and differentials of their products and services. However, recent years have resulted in a significant change. It is not in vain that concepts such as Content Marketing and storytelling have gained more space, which is why storyselling is new .
That's right, it wasn't a typo: replace the "t" with an "s" and you teacher database have a completely different concept. It's about using the story not only to connect the reader with your brand, but also to stimulate them to buy. That is, starting from the consumer's emotion, make them relate to your company and, in this way, have a greater chance of converting.
Despite the similarity with the concept of storytelling, there are some fundamental differences that need to be understood. To help you figure them out, we have prepared a comprehensive content on this brand new concept. Below, we cover the following topics:
What is storyselling?
How does it work?
Why invest in this strategy?
How to use storyselling in content?
How about learning a little more about this concept and adding it to your strategic planning ? Continue reading this article and discover how storyselling can help you increase sales in your company .
Keep reading!
What is storyselling?
Storyselling is a writing technique that seeks to tell a story to attract the audience and present, in a more natural way, the benefits of using your products or services. Instead of simply presenting the features and advantages of your offer, you will create a story that captivates the reader and relates them to the content.
Indeed, its aim is to capture the customer's attention in a highly competitive scenario . And all this without causing them discomfort, for example, since it is a more natural approach. In addition, it is a valuable tool for converting highly technical information into attractive content. While narration only seeks to create that link, storyselling goes a step further and aims at conversion.
How does it work?
Some elements should be highlighted when using storyselling to gain more clients. Imagine that you offer services related to the performance and efficiency of web pages, the basic structure of your content should be as follows:
The first step is your client's daily experience, as they suffer daily from their slow website and, consequently, low traffic.
Then comes the trigger, the moment when your buyer persona realizes that their daily life is no longer as satisfying.
As soon as that trigger is activated, the search for a solution begins.
At this moment, the critical choice occurs, when the reader needs to make a choice by virtue of his or her pain.
At this stage, your story should present your products and services as solutions.
Finally, the moment when the character manages to resolve his pain with the solutions offered by your brand.
Why invest in this strategy?
But, in practice, what are the benefits of investing in storyselling? Still not convinced of how this technique can generate results for your team? No problem: we have listed the reasons for you to consider it in your planning. Check them out!
Humanize the brand
The great advantage of investing in storyselling is the possibility of humanizing your brand . Content Marketing already contributes to this process, but, without a doubt, using this strategy your work becomes much more precise. When the story is well constructed and close to the reader's reality, this relationship becomes closer and he can see the human side of your brand.
Awaken emotions
The main objective of using stories to communicate with consumers is precisely to arouse emotions. Technical content about your products or services can even resolve a reader's doubt, but it becomes a more rational approach. From this perspective, storyselling allows you to stimulate emotions more efficiently.
Build trust
Trust is also another significant and important gain for your company. From the moment the reader identifies with the story, its characters and its challenges, your solution arrives to satisfy that demand. Then, the user begins to trust your brand more. After all, if your offer was useful for the character in the story, why wouldn't it be useful for him, who faces the same problem?
Create a competitive advantage
The user is affected daily by a series of messages, advertisements and campaigns. As valuable as it may be, a traditional paid media campaign, for example, may not have the impact you want. In this sense, the user may perceive it as “more of the same.” Since storytelling is based on the bond that is created with the reader, this makes your brand different from the competition.
Diversify sales approaches
Whether we like it or not, storyselling also creates another alternative to the sales approaches used by your team. Traditional methods are still efficient, however, this strategy can serve as a complement (without requiring very high investments) to remain relevant in the digital environment and impact leads in a different way.
How to use storyselling in content?
Now that you know the reasons why you should invest in storyselling, how about understanding how to put this concept into practice? Check out our tips!
Choose the context
As with any story development, there are some basic elements that are needed when creating storyselling content, such as defining a context for that material. No matter how good the quality of the content is, it will not work on its own to increase sales. You need to create a story within a context in which the buyer persona sees themselves.
Find out more about your audience
It may seem repetitive, but gathering relevant information about your audience is also essential for your storyselling strategy to work. The idea is to understand what emotions need to be aroused in order for it to be impacted and converted. Depending on the elements of your story, your target audience may easily relate to the message.
If your audience is older, for example, consisting primarily of men who are fathers of young and older children, why not explore a story that goes back to childhood and how the relationship has developed over time? That same content may not work for a younger audience.
Create interesting characters
It is not necessary to create such deep and detailed characters, however, it is essential that the reader relates to them. The hero of your story should always have some kind of relationship with your buyer persona. On the other hand, the villain should not be a character, but a specific problem. If you want to convince a manager to implement a software for talent management , the villain can be the difficulty in finding qualified professionals.
Define a goal
From the moment we talk about storyselling, the goal is to achieve conversion, right? But there are different moments for a more incisive approach, so it is important to understand what stage of the buying journey the reader is in and how your story can optimize that moment.
Identify a conflict that needs resolution
For a story to be truly engaging, there must be some challenge, problem or situation to be solved. Ideally, you should try to explore stories in which your solution, product or service can appear as the way to resolve the central conflict of the message. As well as sounding more natural, it makes it easier to create a relationship between the reader and your brand.
That moment should directly address a problem that the reader actually has. This reinforces the importance of deeply understanding who your audience is and what their main difficulties are.
Add the solution to the value of your brand
Every story needs an ending, right? When using storyselling, the idea is to exploit the benefits and solutions that your products and services offer. The script, therefore, must be finalized in such a way that the final solution adds even more value to your brand. In other words, what your company has to offer is responsible for the happy ending.
Storyselling is therefore another strategy that your team needs to consider when looking for better results. At a time when the relationship with your audience is increasingly relevant, investing in that connection is the path to success. By following the tips listed above, you will reap numerous and long-lasting benefits for your brand.
That's right, it wasn't a typo: replace the "t" with an "s" and you teacher database have a completely different concept. It's about using the story not only to connect the reader with your brand, but also to stimulate them to buy. That is, starting from the consumer's emotion, make them relate to your company and, in this way, have a greater chance of converting.
Despite the similarity with the concept of storytelling, there are some fundamental differences that need to be understood. To help you figure them out, we have prepared a comprehensive content on this brand new concept. Below, we cover the following topics:
What is storyselling?
How does it work?
Why invest in this strategy?
How to use storyselling in content?
How about learning a little more about this concept and adding it to your strategic planning ? Continue reading this article and discover how storyselling can help you increase sales in your company .
Keep reading!
What is storyselling?
Storyselling is a writing technique that seeks to tell a story to attract the audience and present, in a more natural way, the benefits of using your products or services. Instead of simply presenting the features and advantages of your offer, you will create a story that captivates the reader and relates them to the content.
Indeed, its aim is to capture the customer's attention in a highly competitive scenario . And all this without causing them discomfort, for example, since it is a more natural approach. In addition, it is a valuable tool for converting highly technical information into attractive content. While narration only seeks to create that link, storyselling goes a step further and aims at conversion.
How does it work?
Some elements should be highlighted when using storyselling to gain more clients. Imagine that you offer services related to the performance and efficiency of web pages, the basic structure of your content should be as follows:
The first step is your client's daily experience, as they suffer daily from their slow website and, consequently, low traffic.
Then comes the trigger, the moment when your buyer persona realizes that their daily life is no longer as satisfying.
As soon as that trigger is activated, the search for a solution begins.
At this moment, the critical choice occurs, when the reader needs to make a choice by virtue of his or her pain.
At this stage, your story should present your products and services as solutions.
Finally, the moment when the character manages to resolve his pain with the solutions offered by your brand.
Why invest in this strategy?
But, in practice, what are the benefits of investing in storyselling? Still not convinced of how this technique can generate results for your team? No problem: we have listed the reasons for you to consider it in your planning. Check them out!
Humanize the brand
The great advantage of investing in storyselling is the possibility of humanizing your brand . Content Marketing already contributes to this process, but, without a doubt, using this strategy your work becomes much more precise. When the story is well constructed and close to the reader's reality, this relationship becomes closer and he can see the human side of your brand.
Awaken emotions
The main objective of using stories to communicate with consumers is precisely to arouse emotions. Technical content about your products or services can even resolve a reader's doubt, but it becomes a more rational approach. From this perspective, storyselling allows you to stimulate emotions more efficiently.
Build trust
Trust is also another significant and important gain for your company. From the moment the reader identifies with the story, its characters and its challenges, your solution arrives to satisfy that demand. Then, the user begins to trust your brand more. After all, if your offer was useful for the character in the story, why wouldn't it be useful for him, who faces the same problem?
Create a competitive advantage
The user is affected daily by a series of messages, advertisements and campaigns. As valuable as it may be, a traditional paid media campaign, for example, may not have the impact you want. In this sense, the user may perceive it as “more of the same.” Since storytelling is based on the bond that is created with the reader, this makes your brand different from the competition.
Diversify sales approaches
Whether we like it or not, storyselling also creates another alternative to the sales approaches used by your team. Traditional methods are still efficient, however, this strategy can serve as a complement (without requiring very high investments) to remain relevant in the digital environment and impact leads in a different way.
How to use storyselling in content?
Now that you know the reasons why you should invest in storyselling, how about understanding how to put this concept into practice? Check out our tips!
Choose the context
As with any story development, there are some basic elements that are needed when creating storyselling content, such as defining a context for that material. No matter how good the quality of the content is, it will not work on its own to increase sales. You need to create a story within a context in which the buyer persona sees themselves.
Find out more about your audience
It may seem repetitive, but gathering relevant information about your audience is also essential for your storyselling strategy to work. The idea is to understand what emotions need to be aroused in order for it to be impacted and converted. Depending on the elements of your story, your target audience may easily relate to the message.
If your audience is older, for example, consisting primarily of men who are fathers of young and older children, why not explore a story that goes back to childhood and how the relationship has developed over time? That same content may not work for a younger audience.
Create interesting characters
It is not necessary to create such deep and detailed characters, however, it is essential that the reader relates to them. The hero of your story should always have some kind of relationship with your buyer persona. On the other hand, the villain should not be a character, but a specific problem. If you want to convince a manager to implement a software for talent management , the villain can be the difficulty in finding qualified professionals.
Define a goal
From the moment we talk about storyselling, the goal is to achieve conversion, right? But there are different moments for a more incisive approach, so it is important to understand what stage of the buying journey the reader is in and how your story can optimize that moment.
Identify a conflict that needs resolution
For a story to be truly engaging, there must be some challenge, problem or situation to be solved. Ideally, you should try to explore stories in which your solution, product or service can appear as the way to resolve the central conflict of the message. As well as sounding more natural, it makes it easier to create a relationship between the reader and your brand.
That moment should directly address a problem that the reader actually has. This reinforces the importance of deeply understanding who your audience is and what their main difficulties are.
Add the solution to the value of your brand
Every story needs an ending, right? When using storyselling, the idea is to exploit the benefits and solutions that your products and services offer. The script, therefore, must be finalized in such a way that the final solution adds even more value to your brand. In other words, what your company has to offer is responsible for the happy ending.
Storyselling is therefore another strategy that your team needs to consider when looking for better results. At a time when the relationship with your audience is increasingly relevant, investing in that connection is the path to success. By following the tips listed above, you will reap numerous and long-lasting benefits for your brand.