Advanced Storytelling Concepts for Marketers

Every marketer knows you’re supposed to tell a story, but do you know how to tell a story? Do you know why you’re supposed to tell a story? Do you even truly know what a story is? While many marketing presentations emphasize the value of mythic storytelling, the nuts and bolts of actually constructing a story are never explored.
The goal of marketing may be to achieve specific KPIs that drive sales, which is very objective, but the top of the marketing funnel requires a softer approach. In our data-driven results-oriented fast-paced world, marketers must quantify results, but those results will never be achieved unless prospects are first approached with humanity.

There is a common misunderstanding that the so-called “soft skills” of marketing such as language and art are unmeasurable and subjective, but while the objective measures of market research are merely 100 years old, the rules of aesthetics have been perfected over the last 2,500 years.

Great story construction is a skill that requires significant knowledge and practice. This presentation will be a review of the ancient art of story construction.

We will discuss:
• Rhetoric – The art of effective communication
• The Socratic Method – You cannot teach, but you can persuade people to learn
• Plato’s Cave – You sell products, but you market ideas
• Aristotle’s Six Dramatic Elements – The secret recipe for marketing stories

This is for senior marketers who are tasked with creating effective narratives or guiding others in the process. By the end of the session, attendees will have gained the knowledge needed to work storytelling into all phases of the buyer’s journey.

1. Advanced Storytelling for Marketers Advanced Storytelling for Marketers

2. Hello! Ed Shimp

3. Story Story Narrative Account

4. A story is … a form of communication that is comprised of a series of reactions that take place over time.

5. Change Time Story =

6. Spectrum of Academic Disciplines Subjective Objective Religion Arithmetic Marketing

7. I’m miserable. I wrecked my car, my wife is leaving me, I have four kids in college, and I’m twenty pounds overweight. CUSTOMER SALES GUY

8. CUSTOMER COMPASSIONATE MARKETER

9. I hear you buddy. That’s rough. Let me fix you up with a beer and I’ll tell you about a guy who had the same kind of problems. CUSTOMER GREAT MARKETER

10. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Marketers should do it too. Fall in love with your prospects.

11. Daniel Starch, founder of market research.

12. Pythagoras Thales Early Greek Philosophers

13. The Sophists

14. The Head Nod

15. Socrates Socrates “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”

16. Plato Plato “Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?” “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.”

17. "Nobody wants a 1/4-inch drill — what they want is a 1/4-inch hole.” —Theodore Levitt

18. Logic Emotion Desire

19. “The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor.” Aristotle Aristotle

20. Oedipus Rex

21. Opsis Melody Theme Dialogue Action Character STORYTELLING RECIPE

22. Vista – Everything you can see. Marketers Aristotle Everything you can sense. Opsis

23. Singing of the story. Marketers Aristotle The conductor of the program. Melody

24. The personalities that populated dramas. Marketers Aristotle Brand. Character

25. The script. Marketers Aristotle The writing. Dialogue

26. The moral . Marketers Aristotle The message. Theme

27. A series of reactions . Marketers Aristotle A series of reactions. Action

28. Rota Fortunae (The Wheel of Fortune)

29. Fear Pity Catharsis

30. PLOTLINE CHANGE Primary Stasis Inciting Incident Rising Action Climax Point of Release Denouement Anagnorisis The dramatic question is raised here. The dramatic question is answered here and the theme becomes apparent. Point of Attack When the monster is dead, the movie is over. – Roger Corman TIME Secondary Stasis

31. EFFICIENT

32. Thank you! linkedin.com/in/ed-shimp