Blog
Craig Greenup 23/04/24, 11:49
Think about the last great film you saw. Or the last good book you read. How did that story make you feel?
Good stories always make you feel something. Stories have a unique effect on our brains. Unlike facts and figures, they trigger sensory experiences and emotions.
This is why website storytelling is so important.
Website storytelling builds an emotional connection between your brand and your audience. You make website users more receptive to your message and more likely to take action.
When you use storytelling at every stage of the customer journey, you amplify its impact. And moving customers further down the funnel gets a lot easier.
In this article, we look at how you can use storytelling as part of your customer journey and share some top-class storytelling examples, too.
Contents
Website storytelling means using storytelling principles for the copy and content on your website. The features of any good story include:
You can use these story principles in lots of different places on your website. Your home page. Your blog posts. Your case studies.
There may be one overarching story across your website. But you can supplement this with lots of mini-stories, too.
You can add stories to an existing website. Or work with a web design and development agency to build storytelling into your website foundations.
You can also use stories across all marketing materials. Ads, social media posts, emails, brochures — anywhere you want to connect with your audience.
Storytelling makes information up to 22 times more memorable. And it can boost conversion rates by a whopping 30%.
When you use storytelling techniques on your website, you keep your audience engaged. They keep reading, scrolling or watching to the end because they want to find out what happens next.
You also build a deeper, emotional connection with customers, which makes them more likely to buy from you.
You can include stories at every stage of the customer journey:
By using relevant stories across your website, you engage with your audience at every stage of their journey. This makes it more likely that customers will move from one stage to the next and — eventually — convert.
You can use stories at every customer journey stage. For example, you could tell customer success stories as part of decision stage content. And tell brand stories as part of awareness stage content.
You can also use a single story on a single-page website. Check out this beautiful example from Lunar Wheel.
This type of immersive, single page layout is well suited to storytelling websites. It moves customers through every stage of the customer journey in one go. But there are some drawbacks.
You can’t tell different stories for different segments of your audience. And you can’t target as many keywords, which is an issue for SEO. (Read more: Single page vs multi page websites: which is right for you?)
As you can see, there are some choices you’ll need to make when deciding how to tell a story with your website — and how to incorporate stories into your customer journey.
But whichever way you choose to do it, here are some tips for your website storytelling.
Every good story has a believable character that the audience roots for.
In the case of website copywriting, that protagonist is sometimes the customer reading your copy. On your homepage and service pages, they’re the star of the show.
Other characters you can use for your stories include:
To create characters that feel real, authentic and relatable to your target audience, you need to dig deep into your customer personas. Understand customer values, challenges and aspirations. Then use this info to create characters they can get behind.
In school, we were taught that every story needs a beginning, middle and end. When writing your website stories, it helps to rephrase this mantra.
For website storytelling, your story arc needs to include:
Problem > Solution > Resolution
You can apply this arc to any type of website story, from your brand narrative to customer case studies to your home page.
For your home page, you’d start with a primary customer problem in the headline and tagline. You’d then present the solution in the form of your company’s offering. You then guide users towards a successful resolution with a call to action (CTA).
A story is not a story unless it makes your website user feel something.
You can use stories to make readers feel all sorts of emotions — relieved, excited, surprised, inspired, scared of missing out. And you create this emotion using some or all of the following techniques:
Reassure website visitors that you understand their problem
Bring your customer’s pain point to life before presenting them with a solution
Focus on benefits — not product features — to paint a picture of what life is like with your product or service in it
Customers find it easier to connect with content that uses familiar, day to day language
Write intriguing headlines and get your audience interested in what happens next
Show, don’t tell is a golden rule of storytelling. Instead of saying “Jim was happy”, an author might write “Tears of happiness were rolling down Jim’s cheeks”. It’s a way to get readers emotionally invested in a story.
When it comes to website storytelling, some telling is inevitable. You’ll want to share some factual info about your product or service.
But don’t stop there. Don’t just tell your audience how great your product or service is. Try to show them the difference it’s making to customer lives.
To do this, you can use customer anecdotes, testimonials and success stories. You can choose emotive descriptions, as well as facts and stats, to illustrate product benefits.
Visual elements are important too. Things like videos, animations, infographics, illustrations and photos are a great way to show, rather than tell. They allow you to convey the characters, plot and emotion of your story really quickly and effectively.
At this point in their journey, customers are aware of their problem but they may not be familiar with you as a brand. So you need stories that paint your brand as trustworthy, reliable and knowledgeable.
Blogs — Focus on customer pain points and challenges. Hook readers in with a great title and intro. Include relatable characters and real people. Use analogies and metaphors. And use quotes from customers, employees or industry experts where relevant.
About page — This is where you tell your brand story. So talk about the real people behind your organisation. Reference any stumbling blocks they’ve come across while building the company — the best stories are never plain sailing. And ramp up the emotion by highlighting your values and your mission, along with the people your company helps.
At the consideration stage, you want to differentiate your brand from the competition. And showcase your unique selling points (USPs).
Homepage and service pages — Your homepage and service pages are a story in themselves. Start by focusing on an emotive customer pain point. Then, explore how your product or service makes that problem go away. Also, give customers all the info they need to make a decision before moving them towards a resolution in the form of a CTA.
Explainer videos — Rather than listing product features, showcase your product with an explainer video. Incorporate characters. Start with a problem, present your product as a solution and finish up by showing what life is like now the problem has been solved.
At this stage in the customer journey, you want to push customers to take action. That means countering any last objections. It also means painting a picture of the success they could soon be enjoying.
Customer success stories — Show how your products or services have helped existing customers overcome their obstacles and achieve their goals. The more emotion and description, the better. Treat each case study as a mini-story, with an engaging character and a story arc.
User-generated content — Get existing customers to tag photos of your product in action. Then use these photos as part of your product listings. You’ll show users that other customers have got the happy ending they hoped for when shopping with you.
Want some inspiration for your website storytelling? These examples of website storytelling come from some of the biggest brand names out there. And they fit with different stages of the customer journey.
Check out Dove’s About page. It’s packed with stories. Stories about Dove’s community work. Stories about body confidence. Stories about Dove’s brand values. Instead of just summarising the company and what they do, Dove uses stories to grab reader attention and raise emotion. That makes this page much more impactful than a traditional About page.
Patagonia’s blog is called Stories. And it has the tagline, “Stories to get you out there”. These stories are all about outdoor adventures and quests for sustainability. They inspire readers and build a community, helping website visitors feel part of something bigger than themselves.
HubSpot uses storytelling techniques in its case studies. Just take a look at this example. Here, the case study tells about the customer’s problem. It introduces HubSpot as the solution. It then resolves everything by sharing some impressive stats and an engaging customer quote. There’s a great accompanying video, too.
Trello has an excellent homepage. It starts by showing empathy and addressing a customer pain point (connecting and working efficiently when your team is dispersed). Next, they describe the solution, still focusing on customer problems. Finally, there’s a CTA where customers can end the story by signing up for Trello.
Stories are powerful. We’ve been listening to stories since we were tiny babies. And we can’t help but respond to them.
When you use stories as part of your website and customer journey, you engage your website visitors like never before.
They want to keep reading. They feel an emotional connection. And they feel motivated to move through customer journey stages towards an interaction with your brand.
Want to get more engagement and conversions by weaving stories into your website? Get in touch to find out how our website design and development services can help.
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