People connect with stories. Businesses that utilise this fact prosper, particularly when their stories resonate with customers’ values. Even simple phrases have power – Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ campaign was so effective that people began to contact Nike with their own stories of how they “just did it.” Currently, many businesses are using words like ‘sustainable’ or ‘free range’ to connect their products to stories customers hear about climate change and animal welfare.
Stories resonate with clients and customers, so telling your stories effectively will help you engage with them. Learning how to tell those stories well is an essential part of the growth of your business. To tell your stories, you must be able to write fluently and clearly. Let’s look at some specifics.
Let Clients Know Who You Are
Writing well means that your clients know who you are and what you stand for. You can represent yourself – your beliefs, your moral compass, your intentions, your goals – in a way that will help sell what you have to offer. As well, these qualities distinguish you from your competitors, who are offering their own stories.
Say you’re a real estate consultant. There might be 20 others in your area – so how can your bio separate you from them? How can you compress who you are into 150 words? By writing well.
Look Like You Know What You’re Doing
How many times have you winced when you received an email, or were copied into a colleague’s? Maybe the writer didn’t punctuate correctly, or maybe they were far too chatty in a business communication.
Writing well means that you look like the professional you are (or aim to be!). This is true across businesses but also, if you have staff or colleagues, within it.
If you can write well, it means you lead from the front with your written communication, modelling the company tone and style for staff as well as clients.
Control Your Online Image
Your writing endures where personal interaction doesn’t. Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ slogan has survived long after the 1998 campaign where it first appeared. As well, whatever you post on social media stays there – just a scroll away.
So it’s important to get what you say in those spaces right. Many of us in Venus do our own social media. But how many properly utilise its power? Writing for social media has its own set of rules, its own style.
You might be thinking – but I get someone else to write my social media and marketing materials. Why do I need to be able to write?
Even if we are outsourcing a lot of our writing, it’s important to know what works and what doesn’t – and how it works (or doesn’t). The more clearly we can explain what we need, the more likely it is we’ll get it.
Write Less, Say More
Clear communication with clients means happy clients. That has two clear benefits. The first is less time spent communicating – in other words, you can stop sending emails and do more of what you’re actually good at! The other is that happy clients are much more likely to come back for more, and to give referrals. So clear communication means growth.
Telling your story will help your business grow, whatever mode or moment you’re in. It will help you connect with clients, express who you are and what your company does.
So think about these questions:
• Are you telling the stories you want in your business?
• Do you feel what’s written in and for your business – in your promos, in your social media, in your emails – clearly communicates what you’re about?
• How else could you harness the power of writing and story to help your business grow?
I’d love to chat about how to make that happen for you.