Where today’s consumers’ email boxes are flooded with constant offers and promotional messages, storytelling could be that much more persuasive for such endeavors. When a company chooses to use storytelling in its email marketing, for example, relative to simply promoting what it has to sell or provide, it acknowledges to the customer that there’s more to life than the sale right now.
Therefore, storytelling in email marketing tempts the consumer to do so and ultimately complete a CTA that’s less forced but instead, an appreciated suggestion. Email storytelling focuses on the story, whether it’s a customer success story, a brand story, or simply a beginning problem with an end solution. Therefore, focusing on customer desires and motivations makes email marketing for customer success stories or problem/solution stories more effective and relevant.
Why Storytelling Works in Email Marketing
Humans are programmed to respond to narratives. Where any consumer could receive a pitch through a quasi-commercialized endeavor, a well-placed narrative connects to the neurological passages of the brain so that information is more adhesive and persuasive. However, even the most compelling email narratives can fail if deliverability issues occur, such as SMTP error 554.571, which indicates a rejected message due to policy violations or authentication failures. Thus, when an email, for example, that would seemingly not be connected to a narrative, is turned into such a narrative, it’s an email and more—it’s a journey.
For example, instead of sending out new product launches in an email to customers who have already purchased in the past, a narrative might be created in an email or sent out as a newsletter that discusses how one of its clients overcame struggles in life with the brand’s solution. Such an email appeals to the consumer, it’s humanized and relatable and as they become engaged in the narrative, they are more likely to engage with the narrative’s content of the email, trust and respond.
Crafting a Strong Narrative for Maximum Engagement
Every narrative has a beginning, middle, and end and thus, for instance, email marketing can be formatted in such a way that people read to the end. The start must hook the reader into the empathetic narrative. The middle boasts the rising action or a conflict or transformation presented in such a way that readers are compelled to go on. The end provides the denouement and effortless segue to a CTA.
For instance, the email for a workout app. It would open with a pain point, something like, “This is Sarah, the busy mom who never has time to work out.” Then it goes into a story about how she discovered the app, what she adjusted in her regimen, how she felt afterwards, and then closes with a converting call to action, “Change your life like Sarah did download the app for free today!” Something like this keeps people’s attention while inevitably guiding someone to conversion in a less obvious way.
Using Relatable Characters to Strengthen Connection
The strongest narratives utilized in email marketing involve characters with whom the reader identifies. These characters can be present customers (as the story develops), employees, or the brand itself. For example, a sustainable clothing company sends out a story where the central character is someone who purchased fast fashion and had trouble with subpar items only to discover the sustainable clothing site and become an advocate for the sustainable brand. This resonates. When brands create stories that articulate what happens to people in the world, they connect on a human emotional level, which, in the end, makes that email recipient feel vulnerable. The more someone empathizes with a character’s plight, the more they trust the notion of that brand. They’ll act on it.
Incorporating Emotion to Make Stories More Persuasive
Wherever there are emotions, there are prospects. One of the easiest ways to elicit emotion via email marketing, however, is through storytelling. Once a brand gets someone to feel happy, empowered, nostalgic, or even fearful of missing out, the chances increase that they’ll open the email and convert.
For example, a brand that gives back to charities might tell a story about someone who was helped by this brand’s charitable efforts thereby making this purchase beyond worthwhile for the consumer since they’ll be helping this brand help others. On the flip side, a story about an opportunity that someone can’t refuse may create excitement for an upcoming sale. Emotions give brands the ability to cultivate increasingly effective interactions.
Using Conflict and Resolution to Drive Engagement
A story is a conflict established and resolved. So, when one learns how to write well, one learns how to play within tension and release. It makes communication cohesive. If an email goes out saying there’s an issue but simultaneously provides how the issue has been resolved, it resonates. For example, a Software as a Service can blast an email from the problem common to the industry data entry is time-consuming and frequently laden with human error. It can explain that one company struggled for years with infectivity from a manual process until they discovered this Software as a Service. This establishes the problem with the resolution of authenticity from which the more generalized value proposition can be assessed.
Personal Brand Storytelling to Build Trust
Using the stories of the brand makes for easier subscriber relatability. Stories from behind the curtain, the founder’s journey, the business’s first venture into something else the more personal and more human the business is, the more it will flourish.
For example, a newsletter from an artisanal coffee maker can say that the founders spent years traveling the globe searching for the best beans. Such a story inspires more than a simple purchase; it fosters an experience with a genuine purchase for which the purchaser is likely to return. When brands use stories to show purchasers who they were, where they’re going, and what they stand for, purchasers feel integrated into the process.
Enhancing Storytelling with Visual Elements
But while the narrative alone still matters, the enhancement of narrative with imagery in email marketing storytelling makes it a much stronger experience. Everything from pictures to videos, GIFs to illustrations all help to enhance the narrative.
For example, a hiking equipment company could use a series of images throughout the email to show one person’s journey as they capture different elements of their hike. A video testimonial can show how someone was feeling, or a touching GIF can evoke an emotion. Brands appeal to a more comprehensive experience for readers and maintain consistent engagement until the close.
Ending with a Call to Action that Feels Natural
The call to action should be persuasive without being pushy; it should fit plausibly within the context of having read the email so that responding in such a way would feel natural. For example, if the piece is about a freelance writer who discovered a certain time management app and subsequently was able to double his productivity, the CTA would be “Get your life on track, start your free trial today.” This naturally flows at the end, after the piece and the conclusion.
Testing and Refining Storytelling Strategies for Better Results
Of course, as with any email campaign, storytelling should be A/B tested and adjusted. Through A/B testing stories, styles of storytelling, and various ways to convey information, brands can determine what works. For instance, a brand might A/B test sending an email in first-person vs. third-person to see which garners more clicks, or an email that features a customer testimonial against one that relies on a fabricated anecdote to see which yields more conversions. This allows a brand to formulate the best framework for storytelling for maximum engagement.
Conclusion
Ultimately, email storytelling makes email marketing more than an effective email marketing channel through which to spread marketing materials. When people read a story, they’re invested emotionally in the brand, connected to the content, and positioned as the person with a problem that needs solving when they have the solution. From testimonials to the story of the brand to how the brand helped them solve their problem, these types of email blasts resonate on another level and are effective.
Ultimately, effective email storytelling gets attention for more than a one-time occurrence; it establishes credibility, builds rapport, and transforms into more effective conversions. As brands realize that email marketing can be the vehicle for one of many email storytelling opportunities, they’ll begin to generate email blasts that not only provoke conversion but email blasts that inspire their readers beyond expectation.
