Nearly every storyteller has experienced the frustration of telling to these audience members: the clock-watcher, the doodler, the hair-twister, the squimer, the talker, the bored acting, the heckler, ect. But these characters are reminders that sometimes we all forget the most important ingredients in our storytelling program - personal contact and meaningful interaction.
Grabbing an audience's attention is critical to increasing listeners' retention and decreasing your frustration. I've often seen storytelling marketing complete a program without ever making their audience members a part of their lives. They offered no warmth, no one-on-one interaction and no full-contact relationships. All they did was tell stories! There is more to it. You are the entertainer! To avoid that mistake, you can use these four ideas to keep even the hardest audience on their toes while you tell.
To stay on top of the internet marketing game, pay attention to change. The internet is always moving forward, so the world of internet marketing is always changing, too. Search engines change their algorithms, keywords rise and fall in popularity and a blog design that looks innovative today, may look dated next year. Keep up with trends and make sure to flow with them, because what works today may not work tomorrow. The only way to consistently be successful, is to adapt to the realities of the market.
Say Their Names
Advertising has many facets. It has evolved to becoming essential to advertise on the internet. Advertising your business on the internet is easy with the right tools and should be marketed in a completely different fashion than marketing a "brick and mortar" store. Your website is the entrance or front door to your business. Always remember that your website is the only way customers can find your business.
In small groups, storytellers have the power to use the most beautiful word ever heard by an audience member - his or her name. Before you start your program go around the room if possible introducing yourself to people. Don't be afraid to write down a name and repeating it after each person speaks. Now when you work the room, you can add peoples names to your storytelling program! Not only will you be able to associate a face and name but the audience members will likely loosen up because they are no longer strangers. A big plus is that they will wonder if you will use their name next! If you don't know how to add someone's name to your storytelling program, you might want to work on it! It's not hard! For big groups possibly using a name or two of someone well know locally always works. Note: Don't make fun of people! If you make fun of anyone, let it be you.
Make your website fun to visit. A tried and true tactic of many successful websites, is to add a section to your site based completely on being playful and unique. Install games, add funny videos or whatever makes you happy. Just make sure that these won't slow down the rest of your site and you are good to go!
Ask For Background
One great way to market your products is to play around with the keywords on your website. By putting certain words on your homepage, you can make your website more visible in search results. Google offers a service that can show you how many people search certain keywords per month, so adjust your webpage accordingly.
Find out as much as you can about the group you're telling to if possible. If it's a school, maybe a little history, if it is in a certain town, that is even easier, get the information! Never go into a program without any sense of who you're telling to. Even their age makes a difference.
It is important to keep tabs on the techniques employed by your competitors. Peruse your competitors' websites, noting what they could be doing better. If your competitors are neglecting a certain approach, take advantage of this by developing this aspect of your website.
Get the Audience to Participate
While you do need keywords to get a higher visibility, you need to make sure that you write the content on your site for your consumers first. The search engine bots are not going to buy your products. Only real people are going to buy your products, so you need to write for them.
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| Storytelling Marketing |
As you delve into your program, don't let much time pass before you involve the audience. You can even start right away by singing a song or by using a "repeat after me" opener. This starts the ball rolling. The audience will do what you want them to if you are willing to lead them along! Remember: It is your storytelling program, let them be a part of it on your terms. When you do this all of the weird stuff and noise that can happen at a program is under your control.
Before you develop your site, gather a team and come up with a concept sketch. This tool is used to form the overview of what you want your site to look like and can serve as a solid foundation for the detail oriented site that you are about to create.
The Purpose of Your Program
If your customer's sign up for a newsletter or email service, make sure that you do not spam them. Spamming can be really frustrating, which can lead to angry customers. When someone is interested in your product, they will leverage off of the knowledge they acquire, as spamming typically does not work.
Why are you telling? Is there a theme? Holiday's, birthday, ghost stories, folk tales, Cajun festival? The event you're telling at is important! I saw a teller at a Halloween program tell a baseball story that wasn't even scary! It just happened to be their favorite story! You can imagine how the audience responded. Stick with the theme! It's not that hard. If you don't have any stories to tell within certain themes, learn some! When you discover that the purpose of the program is a foundation to your stories, you will be successful!
In important tip regarding Internet marketing is to be sure to partner up with other people when planning and evaluating your marketing strategies. This is important because it is human nature to not always be able to judge your own flaws. It pays to collaborate with other people who share common interests.
Discovering the secrets to full contact storytelling isn't hard. You must act as a professional if you want to get up in front of people and say, "I'm a storyteller". There are too many tellers in the world that only tell stories, they don't get the crowd involved. That is sad. I do believe that is why some audiences don't want to hear "a Storyteller", they had a bad experience before.
A great way to get accepted for blog content again and again is to leave a comment on your own article. If a blog owner approves your request to provide content, join this blog with a different name, follow it and leave comments on your post. The blog owner will think it's in his or her best interest to have you back again.
Go out and make the next audience you tell in front of "your" special audience. Get involved.
If you are unsure about advertising a product you should try it first. This way you will be able to leave a legitimate review of the product and let the consumer know how you really feel about it. This is the best way to ensure your customers will return in the future.
Let them know you were there. They will have the time of their live's!
