“The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.” – Ben Okri
Every person has a story to tell. A story comes from a conflict and its resolution. Likewise, every website is built from the ideas of a person who has a life experience and is set out to solve a problem. To some the problem may seem insignificant, but to the person in question, the problem is what caused him or her to change. The change can either be positive or negative. Either way, the change is the reason you became you.
In literature and from attending a Geek Girl’s workshop, a memorable story is composed of five parts: exposition & incident, rising action & conflict, climax, falling action and denouement. In terms of websites, the exposition is your home or about page, incident is the mission statement of what you are trying to solve, and the rising action & conflict is the journey it took to learn your solutions. Then the climax are the products or services you offer and falling action & denouement are the results, case study or testimonials after using your products or services.
From the narrative plot, the real use and results of your products or services comes at the very end. What is illogical about this world is how some people expect an individual to gain experience (of using your products or services) without the experience of trying it first? Logically and realistically speaking, there is no way to skip the intro, incident and rising action to get to the good parts of anything. However, there is an alternative method called storytelling where you make your potential customers learn and think about your products or services from someone else’s perspective.
Storytelling comes in different forms. Some people prefer to use books, blogs, comedy clubs, movies, music, painting, photography, public speaking, social media, video games and my personal favorite is websites. Why? A website is an all-in-one platform that combines all those different media together to form one whole entity of a business’s narrative. It is also a means to reach various people all over the world instantly through the internet.
For a story to be engaging, it must answer the following questions:
- Who is your audience or target customer?
- What does it mean for them to use your products or services?
- How would using your products or services improve their future?
- Where would your audience be when they use your products or services?
- Why should your audience care and why should they trust you?
As you can tell from the constant pattern, everything is connected to your audience’s “what’s in it for me” mentality. Since no two individuals are alike, details of the story changes to relate to their particular point of view. There are two ways to associate your products or services to people's varied viewpoints: power of imagination and/or listening. By listening, we can come up with new ideas to make your customer the Hero in all these stories. Who does not want to be the Hero?
A hero is only a Hero if you solve a problem. There would be no need for a Hero if everything is perfect. Imperfections are what creates an engaging story that reveals your struggles and how you overcame them. The journey of triumph against all odds touches people’s hearts and makes them feel exhilarated. What else makes you feel excited?
What is the main problem you are trying to solve? How did you find your solutions? How do you want to reflect the solutions onto your website? Who are you and why should you care?
