Greg Simpson, founder of Press for Attention PR and the PR and Communications Ambassador for the IoD in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, dives into the importance of storytelling in marketing.
In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit.
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Thank you Mr Tolkien for your kind introduction to my latest column on marketing!
You see, the problem with MOST marketing is that it is all a bit, well, meh.
It doesn’t make you feel comfortable like the legendary opening to The Hobbit, nor does it make you feel UNCOMFORTABLE. In fact, it rarely makes you FEEL anything at all.
The reason? You aren’t telling stories. Thinking about it, you are probably not even consciously trying to but guess what, you really should!
Try this: “It was just after I bundled Richard Branson through a security door that I knew I loved my job!” Or perhaps: “I started the day fibbing about the whereabouts of the former prime minister’s wife.”
I’ve used these lines many times in my marketing career because they are the beginning of a story. The story of my career and how I help people with their PR. They lead onto how the dickens I got myself into that situation and they create intrigue. They entertain AND they inform. The problem is, far too much marketing that I see just focuses on the latter and honestly, it often fails to even do that.
Just as the last edition of this magazine came out, I found myself face-to-face with David Walliams and if you’ve met me in person, that will give you an idea of how tall he is (see, I’m telling a story again). After some polite chit-chat and the obligatory photo-opp (David insisted) I made a note to write about this encounter for this latest edition.
You see, David is not only the co-creator of Little Britain, a channel swimming charity hero, and panellist of Britain’s Got Talent, he is also one of the best-selling children’s authors of all time! We’re approaching J.K. Rowling levels!
He has done this because he creates memorable and often outrageous characters – as we know now, some are no longer so well received! I’m not suggesting you have to go out there and start creating Gangsta Grannies or Billionaire Boys but it might help if you started to inject some more colour into your case studies at least.
A lot of the case studies I read feel as if they’ve been written simply because a marketing expert like me told them it would help. They will, but only if they are something that will be read!
“It was a crisp February morning when we pulled onto the disused wasteland…” is a far more promising start to a case study about groundworks than the usual Client, Location, Size format!
I know that writing does not come easily to many people but we don’t need War and Peace, in fact we need anything but that. We need something that breaks the monotony, that speaks to the target audience, that resonates with them. Ultimately, we need stories.
So next time you start working on some copy for your ‘About Us’ page of your website, or an award submission or a case study, see if you can become a storyteller, even if just for a little while.
Remember, you don’t need to be Tolkien to write a white paper on ‘Elf and Safety’!
A former business journalist, Greg Simpson is the author of The Small Business Guide to PR and has been recognised as one of the UK’s top 5 PR consultants, having set up Press for Attention PR in 2008.
He has worked for FTSE 100 firms, charities and start-ups and conducted press conferences with Sir Richard Branson and James Caan. His background ensures a deep understanding of every facet of a successful PR campaign – from a journalist’s, client’s, and consultant’s perspective.
