The Secret Sauce for Small Shop Conversions

Are you over-relying on your photography to convert your customers? Chances are yes. 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and nowhere is this truer than in the marketing of our product-based businesses.

There is nothing like the power of a beautifully lit and shot lifestyle photo to transform a simple product into an experience that our customers immediately long for and lust after. 

But many of us let these thousand words be the only words that are spoken to our customers. 

We use words for just the basics like our product’s name, price and maybe features. When in fact, we should be using words as one of the most effective marketing tools ever – storytelling. 

As humans, we are biologically and neurologically wired to connect with stories.  

“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”

— Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

So how does one integrate storytelling into marketing our products? 

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‘Hook-Story-Offer’ is a simple 3-step framework (made famous by Russell Brunson) that works for any online or offline business.  

Step 1 – Hook your ideal customer

Hooks can take many forms – an Ad Headline, an email subject line, a heading on a product page, an image that makes them stop scrolling. 

It grabs your ideal customer’s attention long enough for them to listen to / read about what you have to say.

Step 2 – Once you have their attention, tell them a story about how your product will give them a desired result 

With your customer’s curiosity aroused, it’s time to share a story that will help them connect with you, your product and your brand more deeply on an emotional level. 

The purpose of the story is twofold:

1. Warm them up for a purchase by establishing a connection with you and your brand.
2. Demonstrate how your product gives them the result they are seeking 

Stories work because they build rapport, trust and likability. They are a great vehicle for sharing messages and the actual selling happens in the context of a story, rather than using overt in-your-face selling. 

Step 3 – Make them an offer 

Once you have grabbed your customer’s attention with a hook. And built a connection with them and created a desire for your product through a story… it’s time to make them an offer. 

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Ideally the offer should involve them making a purchase but it doesn’t always have to. It could involve them taking other actions. 

Whatever it is, you need to make it irresistible! Attractive enough for them to take action. You can create a sense of urgency by restricting the time it is available for or the quantity that is available. 

Are you over-relying on your product photography? Which bit – hook, story, or offer – are you missing in your marketing? 

If you need help distilling your messaging to tell your brand and product story (along with finding your traffic and leveraging your customers’ network to engineer virality in your marketing) join our friends from the Growth Boss at their Sell Now Sell Out Bootcamp! 

Let’s Collab members get a cheeky 30% off! thegrowthboss.com/letscollab