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The goal of marketing is to connect with people, emotionally.

It’s easy to understand. Sure, you want to sell, and you can sell by telling the truth and only the truth, but facts alone don’t inspire.

Emotions do.

Try this sometime. Turn off your TV’s sound and watch the pictures. You’ll see lots of people waving their arms and making faces, or lots of pretty animals and landscapes.

That’s emotion.

Now turn up the sound and turn away. Just listen. You’ll have a good idea of what’s going on. But only that. It won’t be fun.

Without the picture, the emotional part, you don’t get the whole show. You get some facts, some data. But you don’t get the full message.

You don’t get drawn in because there is no story, only data. And without an emotional pull data stays data. No story there.

For a story, a good story, first you need a subject, interesting all by itself. Then you have to tell the story. No stumbling or mumbling or losing your place. And finally you need a good voice, some good style. Not just talking but communicating.

The same translates to your web site.

Just having a page or two up there doesn’t do much. Anybody can do that. Anybody can list some facts. You need a story that will grab people. You need to tell it clearly. You need to tell it well.

Style is your web site’s appearance. Its feel, how it drives. Without attention to this you don’t have much. It has to work. But that’s a minimum.

You also need content.

Content is a set of facts. Some images. Whatever. Whatever it is that you and your business want to present, whether you’re selling a product, providing a service, or sharing information for free. You still need this core.

And then, the third item. The emotion. The telling of the story. This pulls it all together and conveys your unique spirit. It’s more than slickness or shiny buttons. More than nice colors. More than twirly things.

The site’s content has to fit its style. But you also have to find the right voice to make sure that your visitors get the message. To make sure that they stay long enough to get it, that they want to get it, and to guarantee that they understand. That they understand how your site is relevant to them.

That’s where the real story telling comes in.

Stories are emotional. Stories are human. Your web site should be more than computers exchanging data in the dark.

Your content should be meaty. Your site design should be professional, should work, and work right. But more than that your voice must come through.

Your customers should have no doubts about who you are and what you stand for. They should be pulled in by your story and be eager for more.

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 by Dave Sailer

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