Winning Content by Leen Jones

For my first post, I want to share one of my favorite ways to take website content from blah to brilliant – telling a story.

A story appeals to our emotional and rational sides at the same time and, therefore, boosts persuasive impact. Stories give context and impart feeling to facts. Stories also follow our natural memory patterns, so they’re easy to remember. It’s the difference between memorizing facts about the invasion of Normandy and experiencing it in the movie Saving Private Ryan.

One important type of story is the customer testimonial, which shows specifically how a brand’s product or service makes customers’ lives better. For example, a recent series of iPhone commercials showcases real users explaining a situation in which the iPhone saved the day. In one instance, shown in Figure 7, a customer talks about how visual voicemail lets him easily pick which voicemails to listen to and which voicemails—such as one from a customer who owes him money—to delete.

For more about the power of storytelling, see my article “Become an Interactive Storyteller.”