One of the most important things in business today is how you communicate your message with the world.

Every business out there who has a website is looking for two things: traffic and conversions.

If you want to succeed in this highly competitive world, you need to know how to get people to visit your website, get familiar with your company, emotionally connect with your brand and eventually make a sale.

One of the best ways on how you could do that is by telling compelling and engaging stories about your brand, products and services.

Storytelling is definitely one of the more powerful tricks you can find in every successful marketer’s bag of tricks. Why? – Well, because storytelling provides context. It conveys messages, purpose and emotion as well.
Like Jonathan Gottschall, a very famous marketer, once said: “A story is a trick for sneaking a message into the fortified citadel of a human mind.”

Storytelling has always been a part of us. It’s what connects us to our past, present and future. It’s just something that helps us relate.

Since the moment people developed communicational skills, we started telling stories.

Fiction or nonfiction, there’s no substitute for a good story. We all enjoy a solid story, whether it’s a novel, a movie, a powerful sales pitch, an intelligent and funny marketing campaign or simply something one of our friends is explaining to us.

The only trick is to figure out what tone, style and narrative works for what kind of audience.

Back in the day, it was historically important to tell stories because they carried what could have been life-saving information and explanations to things that were, at that time, unexplainable. Like, for instance: gravity, stars, current, The Moon and such.

Now a days, we mostly use stories to entertain us and connect us to different human beings. We use them to relive other people’s experiences in our heads, reimagine ourselves as someone or something else, endow morals and principles to other folks, express emotions, entice, provoke, distract, and help us learn.

But, next to this, there are also people out there who make a living from creating and selling stories that have the ability to grab people’s attention and make them fall in love with a certain brand.

Luckily for me, I’m one of them.

I really enjoy telling stories. Like any other human, I have a set of stories for various occasions that I use for a wide variety of reasons. First and foremost of all, I just love when I see people fully invest themselves in hearing what I have to say. It makes me feel important and it validates my belief in myself as a good storyteller.

The second reason why I create and tell stories is to communicate certain value and provoke emotions. Humans are emotional creatures and they tend to value certain projects, relationships, situations, services and products based on how they feel about them.

As a marketer who has a rich background in copywriting and content management, I’m no stranger to using storytelling as a tool to help me get my targeted audience to digest certain information I needed them to on a more emotional level.

Storytelling has always helped me create loving and lasting relationship between brands and desired audiences. How? – By giving these brands certain voices that communicate with people on daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Every good story must have the following elements:

A big, juicy, solid & shiny hook – Same like fishing, in order to catch your prey’s attention, you need to lure it with an attractive bait. If asked how does one get people to read their stories, almost every experienced writer would reply: “By writing killer headlines.”

Like in almost every other aspect of life, first impression means everything. It doesn’t matter if you’re telling or writing your story, how you “introduce” it to people will play a crucial part in its success.

That’s why, when it comes to telling their stories, most people back their content with interesting graphics, effects, teasers, taglines and all sorts of other promotional tricks that only briefly introduce what to expect for a certain tale.

A strong voice – it doesn’t matter if you tell your story in a written or verbal form, the tone of your voice needs to be clear, interesting and engaging. You, as the narrator of your own story,must have a trustworthy voice that when I read the tale, I feel like they have experienced something important that they want to share with me.

Part of what is required for me to be consider a certain author as trustworthy is the ability to provide vivid details and an interesting conversational tone.

To grab my attention, a certain storyteller need to know how to distribute his story, in a compelling manner.  He must have control of his narrative, he must not waste my time with unimportant elements or let his “delivery” become long and boring.

If you want people to look at you as a good storyteller, you need to master what you’re preaching about, with whom you’re conversing,  and what kind of tone and style will help you instantly form a connection with your targeted audience and make them register you as a trusted source.

For an example, if you’re addressing a younger crowd, it’s highly recommendable that you use a lot of slang in your story. Also, you should think about if your anecdotes will work with that specific crowd.

Use first-person narrative – For those are not familiar with the term, a first-person narrative is type of storytelling where you tell your story from the first-person perspective. It means that the viewpoint of a character writing or speaking is directly about themselves. MOZ, one of the more popular blogs that writes about SEO, SM and Inbound Marketing uses this type of narrative, and as far as I can see, they had some real success with it.

To get people to relate with your story, you need to offer them something more than just hard facts. They need to get to know you as person, to see who you’re, what you do, what are your strengths, and what are weaknesses. Only then will they form an emotional connection with your content.

Get your facts straight – This is very important. Never talk about something that you aren’t 100% sure about. If people figure out that your “facts” are not really facts, you’ll instantly lose all credibility. So, before you decide to go public with something, make sure that you know what you’re talking about.

Take your audience on a journey from point A to point B – The stories that people best engage with are the ones that promise certain value at the end of the road. “Lose weight in 30 days by doing these exercises”, “Learn how to build your website from scratch”, “Attend this course and become a fully certified digital marketing specialist”,“Order a pizza in 3 easy steps”, “Learn how to be better at your job” – these are just some of the more common examples that illustrate what I’m talking here about.

At one point, every single one of has read or listened to one of these stories searching for that instant knowledge, or just a promise that, upon completion, we’ll have something to show for our investment.

Make your story relatable – It’s true, people best click with stories that they can actually relate to. Many of us have never fought in war, nor did we ever win a Super Bowl, or battled super intelligent monkeys that are trying to exterminate our race. But, contrary to those situations, every single one of has experienced difficulties in finding the easiest solutions for some of our everyday troubles.That’s why most successful businesses in their advertisements are constantly trying to point out problems that their products and services solve.

Define the importance of the topic — If your audience doesn’t think the idea that you’re “selling” is important to you, then why should it be important to them? Now, I don’t mean that you should come in at the beginning of your piece with a paragraph that states how you love what you do, but yes, your audience should acknowledge that you’re passionate about your work, and that you believe in what you’re preaching about.

So, to underline what I wrote here:

A true art of storytelling, especially in business purposes, is finding a narrative and tone that will really work with your potential clientele on a personal level. Without that kind of connection, no matter how well researched, well constructed or how interesting – your story has no real value.

That’s why is more than important to do your homework well, and figure out whom you’re addressing, what makes your audience laugh, cry, and jump on board with certain ideas.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope you liked what I wrote here.
Remember to share this content with your friends and colleagues. Who knows, maybe some of them could really benefit from this type of material.

That’s it for now.
See you soon again,

Have a great day,
Goran @ AltusHost B.V.

In the world of marketing, “presentation” means far more than just a powerpoint document. It’s usually used to describe any type of promotional action that represents your brand, what it stands for, and what kind of benefits does it offer to its potential clientele.

The purpose of creating such “presentations” is to distribute your brand’s or personal message to specific groups of people and get them to engage with whatever is that you’re selling or promoting.

Last week I was at this one startup conference where I watched a lot of young entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a group of investors and business development experts.

A lot of teams were quite good, but it really felt like they were all preaching the same story. To me, all of their pitches seemed like they were created by the same person. They lacked depth, originality, intimacy and personality.

But then, out of the blue, one guy came up to the stage and blew my mind. To be honest, his product was mediocre at best, no better than any other that was pitched that day, but his performance was outstanding. His gesture, the tone of his voice, stage presence, movement, the anecdotes he included in his speech, the benefits he presented, the angle he used to get us to care about his agenda, the graphics behind him, the feel of his brand – everything was so unusual, and yet so perfect. His pitch was different, he stood out of the crowd, and that’s why he got everyone’s attention.

It goes without saying that he reached his goal and got the necessary funds to make his dream become reality.

This particular outcome raised a lot of question in my head. It got me thinking: Is presentation actually more important than the quality of the product you’re trying to sell? Could a good presentation really make a difference in one company’s success?

The short answer is yes!

Having a quality product or service doesn’t mean much if you don’t know how to make it interesting to your targeted audiences.

Spamming them with generic ads and overused materials isn’t really gonna cut it anymore. You need to be constantly fresh and innovative with your marketing if you’re interested in grabbing the attention of your potential clientele.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re selling, you always have to look for new ways on how to better communicate your message with the world so that more and more people will jump on board with your idea, and eventually purchase your products or services.

If You’re Not Willing to Put in an Extra Effort, Your Competition Is

The competition is just too high these days. There’s no place on the market for those who don’t constantly evolve and better themselves, especially in such industries as web hosting and digital marketing. We’re are all constantly going head to head with each other for our targeted audiences’ attention.

Why? – Because there are so many sharks out there, and so little prey in the water.If we don’t continue to push our boundaries and redefine our old methods, we probably won’t survive. If we want to secure our existence, we need to be constantly one step in front of our competition.

This is why most companies spend a lot more money on marketing, than on product development.

Working for quite some time in this web hosting industry, I’ve seen a lot of companies close up shop faster than you can say dedicated servers.

Why? – Well, because their marketing solely relies on coupons and discounts.

What’s wrong with that? – Everything. By going for such ancient promotional methods, they’re commoditizing their brand. They’re reducing their company’s voice to nothing more than prices, and it’s hurting them badly.

Why? – Because there’s nothing special in that. That kind of strategy won’t make them memorable, nor will it help them gain more customers.

They have to pay their customers to acknowledge their business, and that just ain’t right.

Wouldn’t it be nice if people were actually interested in your brand? Wouldn’t it be great if they all, by themselves, every once in a while came around to see what’s new with your business and if you’ve got anything else to offer them?

Go Big, or Go Home – Be Ahead of the Curve, Be Willing to Innovate

Every time this subject comes up, I’m reminded how the guys at Domino’s pizza made their fortune.

Domino’s, a multi-million dollar chain of pizza restaurants, began in 1960 with a $500 investment by two brothers in a Ypsilanti, Michigan, pizza parlor called DomiNick’s. From those humble origins the company has grown into an international chain, now operating thousands of outlets in more than fifty countries.

How? – Well, during its formative years, one of the ways Domino’s sought to increase its market share among the U.S. pizza-buying public was to offer a guarantee on the speed of its delivery, thereby enticing consumers to order from Domino’s in preference to one of its many competitors. That guarantee, which began in 1979, was “30 minutes or it’s free.” Under that policy, customers won either way: They received pizzas that arrived within a half-hour of ordering, assuring them of hot, fresh product for their money, or they received pizzas that might not have been as hot or as fresh, but without charge.

This kind of outside of the box thinking presented the brothers’ business as reliable, professional, and far more memorable than any other who was at that time operating in that same line of work.

Walk a Mile In Your Client’s Shoes

I have always admired business owners who managed to humanize their brands. That’s why before launching a certain campaign, I always ask myself the following questions:

• Would I go for this kind of service/product?
• What makes my campaign different?
• Am I offering any real value to my potential clientele with this deal?
• Will this help me raise my brand awareness?

For me, the key to creating successful campaigns and business presentations lies in thinking from a client’s perspective. Unlike many of my colleagues, I’m not interested in promoting project, services or campaigns I personally don’t love. It just feels unnatural.

How can I persuade someone to see some real value in a certain project/service or product if I don’t really believe in it, in the first place?

Before you start to spend insane amounts of money on big and expensive advertising real estate, sit down and honestly think about if you really got something worth promoting? Is your campaign in any way providing people with something new, something interesting, and above all, something actually worth paying for?

If not, burn your plans down to the ground, and start fresh again. Remember, presentation is everything these days. How you distribute your message and your values could make or break your company. That why it’s so important to always do what you believe in, and have the confidence innovate.

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read my latest post. If you liked what I wrote here, please remember to share this content with your friends and colleagues. Who knows, maybe they’ll like it too.

That’s it for now, see you soon again,

Kind regards,

Goran @ AltusHost B.V.

I can’t even count how many times I have seen good projects and great business ideas go to waste due to poor presentation, marketing and communication.

You have probably too, if you talk to a lot of people who own their business or are trying to launch one.

A lot of people out there still think that in order to succeed, all they gotta do is have a good product. You wouldn’t believe just how many business owners today still use “built it and they will come” as their modus operandi when it comes to getting people to recognize and use their products and services.

Don’t get me wrong, having a great product or service is crucial in every company’s success, but it’s not enough.

Last year I had a meeting with a friend of mine who is a CEO of a young and blooming startup firm. I won’t mention his name or the name of the company he works for in order to protect his interests.

We talked for a while, he presented me with all the cool stuff his company was working on and how he thinks they’re gonna improve their business by adding this and that feature to their product.

I gotta say, at that specific moment, all their plans seemed really interesting and inventive, but when I asked him how he plans to market their product, who’s their targeted audience, why is their product better than others who operate in the same niche, what’s unique about their service, why should I choose to do business with them and not their competitors, how they’re planning to communicate their work and message with the world – he went mute.

He just set there silently for half a minute, then he looked me in the eye and said: “We don’t need to rely on silly marketing tricks. Our products is great, people will instantly recognize for what’s it for and how to use it.”

Sure, when you read it now as a third party in this conversation, his response might seem a bit arrogant, but I honestly think that, at that moment, he was just really blinded by the product they were working on that he entirely forgot to look at it from a client’s point of view.

A couple of week ago, we meet again for a drink and just out of the blue, he started to complain how things aren’t going so well at work, and how people just aren’t responding to their product as well as they’ve hoped for.

This is happening for a number of reasons. First and foremost of all, people don’t really understand all the benefits that your product or service has to offer, unless you tell it to them over and over again. Assuming that they do, is as dumb as thinking that your dog will automatically figure out where to go potty, without you first showing him a couple of times.

I’m not saying that people are like dogs, nor am I comparing selling products with potty training, I’m just using this scenario as a metaphor to make a point.

You have to invest a lot of time and energy in distributing your value to the right people.

The question that should immediately come to your mind when sharing a certain project, product or service with the world is:

“How am I going to get people to buy this if I don’t really explain to them all the benefits of using my products or services?”

As a person who has been in charge of marketing for a couple of companies, I would not want to be responsible for marketing a bad product. I just don’t feel that you can be honest in marketing something you think is not top quality.

Good marketing cannot fix bad products, but good and creative marketing can make slightly inferior products sell. It can make people see some real value in them.

It is much harder to fix a poorly engineered product than a poorly marketed product. It could take years to re-engineer a bad product, while, on the other hand, you can switch your marketing strategy and tactics in just a couple of weeks.

Quality of service and products does play a big part in any company’s success. But, only a part.

My friend wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right either.

Education is Everything – Help Your Potential Customers Understand What it is That You’re Actually Selling

Let’s, for the sake of this post, say that you’re working for a web hosting company and your mission is to sell as much dedicated servers as possible. Your job is to get as many people as you can interested in purchasing one of those servers.

Sounds easy and pretty straight forward, right? Well….

Before you start to spend insane amounts of money and energy on creating generic AdWords and Facebook campaigns, you should always reevaluate what it is that you’re actually selling. You should always first analyze your asset and look at it from your client’s point of view: “If I was looking for a server for my website, why would I even consider hosting it on a dedicated server? Do I even know what’s a dedicated server and what makes it so great?”

Once you have done that, you’ll know how to properly market it. You’ll know what kind of problems your service or product will solve. You’ll understand the real value of it, and how to demonstrate it. You’ll know how to engage your targeted group.

The thing is, most people today are not really interested in doing research. They’re not really in the mood for spending hours and hours searching about how something works. I know that this seems lazy, but it’s the truth. That’s just how things are today. Of course, there are exceptions, but looking on a global scale – my statement stands on solid ground.

If they don’t find what they’re looking for on the first page of SERP, a vast majority of people will most likely quit. There’ll get bored and move on to the next thing.

Academic research indicates that 91% of searchers do not go past page 1 of the search results and over 50% do not go past the first 3 results on page 1.

Knowing this, can we agree that it is in our best interest to send as many use cases, product benefits, descriptions and features their way, instead of waiting for them to find us themselves?

It doesn’t matter how patient we are – things will never magically work out for the best. We need to make them.

If you don’t put in the man hours into promoting your work and teaching as many people as you possibly can how to use yours product to help themselves, you’ll end up with a failed business on your hands.

Don’t Just Sell, Communicate Real Value

Education is everything. I like to think that the person who invented the wheel didn’t just sit there and admired his invention. I like to think that he immediately gathered as much humans as he possibly could around his “product” and put it into use in front of their eyes. Once they saw what this cool round thing could do and how it could undoubtedly help them transport their goods – they all went crazy for it. They all started using.

There’s a fine line between good and bad marketing.

A bad marketing strategy is one driven solely by tactics. Marketing/product groups operating this way will often brag about being ‘fast-paced’ and having ‘no red tape’. However, this is only because they don’t really have a plan and are focused on “deliverables”, rather than outcomes.

A good marketing strategy is always tied to the corporate business plan/strategy. If your product line is answering a real market problem, half your work is done and you can focus on your go-to-market strategy which is made up of your integrated tactics and programs for customer acquisition and customer retention.

Invest in educating your potential clientele, provide real value to them, stimulate them to think about your products and services as solutions, not just something you’re trying to sell and I promise you, you’ll see your business bloom.

Thank you for reading this post. I hope I provided you with some serious insights about marketing. If you liked what I wrote here, please remember to share this post with your friends and coworkers. Who knows, maybe this sort of content will help them better their business.

Once again, thanks for reading. See you soon again.

Goran @ AltusHost B.V.