Don’t Let a Good Story Ruin Your Sales Copy (A Hard Lesson in Story Seduction)

There’s power in a good story. Every copywriter knows that. Even marketers and business owners know just how convincing a good story can be.

When done correctly, a good story is an incredibly powerful engagement tool. It will push all the right emotional buttons and get your prospect to buy your product. When done correctly.

But be warned…if you aren’t careful, this powerful tool could work against you and hurt the response rate of your sales copy. The key to making a story work for you and boost sales is all in the “bridge” as you’ll see in a moment.

First, what should you do when you’re equipped with a really cool story and want to maximize it’s potential?

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3 Rules For Incorporating a Good Story in Your Sales Copy

So you think you have a good story, but is it a powerful engagement tool for the sales copy you’re writing? Here are 3 rules to run your story through to make sure it’s working to get your prospects to buy your product.

1 ) Your Story is Relevant

This goes without saying. In order for your story to work for your sales copy, it has to be relevant to your ideal customer, the problem you’re helping them solve, and to the solution (aka your product).

2) Your Story Has to be Interesting and Compelling

The best stories are always emotionally charged. Does your story spark an emotional response with your reader? Is it a positive or negative response? Both can work well when used in the right context.

3) Your Story Should Build a Strong Bridge Between the Problem and the Solution

This is the most important point! If your story passes both point 1 and 2, think about how you can utilize it to bridge the problem to the solution. This was something I had to learn the hard way.

How a Good Story Should (and Shouldn’t) Bridge the Problem and the Solution

I had a client who wanted me to write a newspaper advertorial for their new brain health supplement. The target market for this supplement were elderly men and women who were worried about getting older and the health complications that come with age, such as the decline of cognitive brain function.

During my research, I found a cool story about these 5 Tribes of Super Agers, which are 5 different ethnic groups from different parts of the world who are living active, healthy lives well into their 90s and beyond. The story is relevant to my target audience, and it’s interesting and compelling enough to rope in any reader.

Unfortunately, the advertorial completely bombed (you can read all about it in this article) for a number of reasons. After some time reflecting and analyzing the copy, I’ve pinned down the exact reason why this advertorial flopped. The transition from the 5 Tribes of Super Agers story to my client’s product was weak.

What Bridge?

After diving into my super cool story about these 5 Tribes of Super Agers, it finally came time for me to introduce the solution (my client’s product). I had hooked my readers in with this cool story and they were expecting a secret as big as the map to the fountain of youth to be revealed.

When the big reveal came, the solution I offered their problem (how to live a healthy, active life well into their 90s) was to have “better brain health”.

Better. Brain. Health.

Pardon my French, but no shit.

Instead of bridging the problem to a solution, I practically threw my readers off the edge of a cliff without a parachute.

The Solution

I wasn’t willing to change my strategy and let go of the 5 Tribes of Super Agers story. It’s a good story. So how do I work with it?

What if I was able to tell my readers that one of the main ingredients found in my client’s brain supplement is the most common thread they found amongst these 5 Tribes of Super Agers who seemingly have nothing else in common?

The answer: it changes the whole presentation of the supplement.

If I said that the ONE thing researchers discovered these 5 Tribes of Super Agers have in common is that they consume way more *insert special nutrient* than the average person, it sets the stage. This IS the secret to HOW they are living such long and healthy lives with no memory issues.

This also sets me up for a smooth transition into my client’s supplement, saying this new formula that was just released not only contains this nutrient, but it contains a higher concentration of this nutrient than any of its competitors or any other formula on the market. And it was even formulated in a way that allows for faster and complete absorption when it’s ingested.

This forms a strong, direct link transitioning from the problem my audience is facing to the solution found in my client’s product, by using the 5 Tribes of Super Agers story as a solid bridge.

In Conclusion

If you’re reading this now, you may be thinking “well… yeah isn’t that obvious?”

But while I was cranking out this copy, I got too enamored with the coolness of the story itself. I relied too much on the story to do most of the heavy lifting that I overlooked the weak connection between the story, problem, and solution.

Having a good story can help catapult your sales copy to success. Getting too carried away with it may blind you to the importance of having a good story, which is to use it to bridge the gap between problem and solution…and boost your sales as a result.