Today I’m excited to share a guest post from Tara Gentile, editor of Scoutie Girl. Tara really understands how storytelling can make a difference in marketing your business, and today she’s sharing tips on how to brainstorm story ideas that relate your personal experiences to the needs of your customers. (And that will give you content for months to come!)
At the heart of marketing your creative business, is telling a story. It’s the story of a product, a maker (that’s you!), an inspiration, a use, a problem, a need. It’s the story that connects the customer to the purchase. It’s the story that separates one business from another.
In order to tell your story – and have it resonate with the most people, you have to know what to say. You need to brainstorm and identify the parts of your business story that will be useful or touching to potential customers. These are the stories that don’t just languish on your blog or your twitter stream, they’re the ones that get comments, links, and retweets.
So let’s get down to it! Brainstorming is the very beginning of the writing process, the way you start building your library. It’s where you take a broad, nebulous idea and twist it & turn it & coax it into a concrete idea with a story arc and take-home point.
Are you ready to brainstorm?
I love brainstorming. I love starting at one spot and working my brain until I’ve arrived at another point. I love seeing all those ideas on paper (why yes, I do brainstorm on actual paper) and repeating the cycle.
It’s invigorating.
It’s hands down my favorite part of the design & writing processes. And brainstorming is one of the key ways you can create a steady flow of content for your blog or other content-driven media.
Because marketing your product isn’t just relating the ups & downs of your life or sharing mundane details. You need to identify those snippets, ideas, and stories that lure people in and keep them coming back for more.
The Brainstorming Process
- Consider the interests, problems, and needs of your ideal customer. Choose a few that you feel comfortable with, that interest you too.
- Also list out a few of your business keywords such as the services you offer or the techniques you use.
- Beside each keyword, interest, problem, or need, list several personal stories/anecdotes (just a note is fine) that relate back to your own experience.
- Next to each of those, list the lesson or knowledge derived from that experience. This is the key to your story. This little tidbit is what makes your business story more than just another self-serving promotion. You are offering value to your customer.
- Finally, write a “quick” blog post title that includes the interest, keyword, problem or need that the story relates back to.
The best part of this process is that if you do it well once, you won’t have to do it again for a long time. This kind of brainstorming can sustain your social media sharing for months to come.
Allow yourself to get the spark of an idea, nurture it, write it, publish it. Then revisit it, use feedback to expand it, ask new questions, feature more stories, start a conversation, and build a fire.
Your stories aren’t once & done pieces of marketing. They are cycles that come back around creating a more complete picture you, your business, and the problems/needs that you can solve.
This post is an excerpt from Tara’s new ebook, Storytelling for Creative Biz Success. (affiliate link) You can pre-order your copy today at a special price through Tuesday, May 25.
{image credit: Paul Lowry}
This is key…and with practice it becomes easier and easier. If you had asked me 2 years ago, there’s no way I would have ever thought that I would become a blogger. Granted, I write alongside many others as a conglomeration, but still, the thought never would have crossed my mind. Now I get inspiration all the time from my surroundings, thinking ‘I could write about this or that’… then I manage those thoughts with an editorial calendar and brainstorm constantly about the content within those posts. Just make sure you write things down when you get a brilliant idea, if you have memory loss like me, you’ll appreciate it later!
so so so true, Courtney! I have so many little places for note-taking and brainstorming. Some live on my computer, some on my iPhone, and MANY others on real live paper!!
I’m a big believer in adding actual usable content to a website via a blog or other related venues. You have to offer viewers more than direct marketing kinds of pitches. Whatever you are selling probably has several related areas that you could write about to provide much needed information. Sell gardening aprons? Why not do a blog post about gardening tips or write about the newest easy-to-grow perennials? Those kinds of topics are easy to research considering all of the seed catalogs sent out. Just be sure it’s your own materials and not belonging to someone else, unless you post links and credits, of course!
Or you can write about the history of X (insert whatever is related to the product you sell). Sell bath beads? What about a history of oils and perfumes in bathing? Or a blog on aromatherapy. That’s much more interesting than a blog about why to buy my stuff.
faith – i think that’s so true, and it’s something i try to do more and more of. It’s also the key concept behind some really great business books like Inbound Marketing and The Ultimate Sales Machine.
Right on, Faith. Couldn’t agree more. I think relating your useful content back to a personal story gives you both a way to make your content more relatable and a way to remind the reader about your brand. But the emphasis should definitely by on the usefulness of the content!
You’ll get more traction from a piece that’s link-worthy in the long run!
Great tips Tara! Brainstorming really helps keep your blog fresh. I tend to get my best ideas just before I fall to sleep. I really got to keep a notebook by my bed.
i tend to get a lot of ideas right before i fall asleep too – i use the notes feature on my iphone because it’s the only thing i have nearby!
That’s a great idea. I always have my iphone by my bed.
Tara- thanks so much for this post. I just started a blog and have been thinking a lot about how to balance a community spirit with my take on life and what I create. You guys are way ahead of me when it comes to the bloggin’ biz, but I hope to be a quick study and create something that’s useful to people from my own experiences. Thanks so much for sharing! Lookin’ forward to your new e-book.
Thanks for this! I started a blog a couple months ago along with the launch of my etsy business. I assume my audience/customers are similar to me and therefore I simply blog about things I am interested in. But sometimes I worry my blog lacks a real focus. Hopefully this brainstorming exercise will help. It seems like it will.
I was reluctant to start a blog because I didn’t know what I would say. But I just took a trip to Italy (and I sell jewelry made from Italian glass) and I thought my customers would enjoy reading about my adventures in Italy. Now I need to brainstorm some other aspects that they might enjoy. Thanks for the outline to keep me going!
Really like this simple format. It is a very good way of identifying your target customer and relating to their needs. Just done one for my aprons and pinnies and will now start to use this for the various products that I make and write a little intro for each page of my website.
Thanks again for your help