I'll tell you why storytelling is necessary in email newsletters and how to use it so that subscribers look forward to your emails as much as they look forward to episodes of their favorite TV series.
What is storytelling?
Storytelling is a way of conveying information to people through stories.
Why does everyone love stories?
Telling and listening to stories comes naturally to us. In fact, we do it almost every day — when we watch movies, scroll through social media, and tell our family about our day at work.
To understand how a story works, think of a situation where a friend told you something interesting. For example, about how he walked home across town after a long party. With a dead phone and no money in his wallet. Your attention is completely focused on his story, you literally see a picture of what is happening, you remember that you were in a similar situation and relive it again. And when your friend makes dramatic pauses, you impatiently ask: “So, what happened next?”
When we follow a story, our brain turns on palestine business email list both hemispheres at once, and they work actively. They decipher words or text, turn on imaginative thinking, sensory experience and emotions. And stories also cause the release of oxytocin, a hormone responsible for trust and affection.
It turns out that when we listen to a story, we experience a lot of emotions and impressions and also feel closer to the storyteller.
What does email marketing have to do with this?
Storytelling is good because it can be used everywhere - in advertising, social networks, newsletters. But many companies prefer to make content functional and useful. Put together a checklist on how to pack for a hike or write a text about what documents you need to collect to buy a house. Such newsletters help readers quickly understand a complex issue and solve their problem.
But utility can also become boring. Research shows that people want to feel an emotional connection with brands. And storytelling is the best way to evoke emotion and engage readers. Besides, stories:
They are remembered 22 times better than dry facts, according to Onespot.
Make your brand stand out from the crowd.
Strengthen customer trust and loyalty.
How can you use storytelling in email newsletters?
Let's look at some examples of how storytelling can solve different problems and how it can be used in emails.
Introduce your subscribers to the company and the team. A text along the lines of “we have been working in the jewelry market for 10 years and have established ourselves as a reliable company” will definitely not hook your readers. But if you tell them how 10 years ago, sitting in the kitchen, you decided to start making jewelry, went to learn this business from scratch and opened a tiny workshop in a neighboring house, the attention of your readers is guaranteed.
Show the kitchen of your brand. A person needs a person - this rule works both in life and in marketing. The audience likes to see real people behind the brand and especially - to watch how the things they buy are created. In this newsletter, the lingerie brand MeUndies tells the story of its production process - from the choice of fibers to the sewing of the products.
MeUndies Email Newsletter
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Present products and services. If you need to tell subscribers about a new bag collection or online courses, you can also safely use storytelling. This is how the Bang bang education school does it - when presenting a subscription to a design library with useful courses, the guys share their experiences in the format of a story. Because of this, you immediately trust them.
Storytelling in the Bang bang education newsletter
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Share your experience. How to do it better, faster, more efficiently. If you have something to share with your subscribers, do it in the form of a story. This will make it much easier for them to remember the tips and apply them in their work. Take a look at the newsletter from the Sailplay marketing automation platform. Here, the author explains why you need the separator function in trigger chains using a popular case as an example.
Sailplay Marketing Automation Platform Newsletter
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Teach. The era of academic study is ending — people prefer to take intensive courses that are interesting and not boring. Therefore, educational projects are using storytelling in teaching. For example, the Skyeng platform offers to learn to speak English like host Fred Rogers using the example of the film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” There are exercises and a fascinating story in the form of a film plot.
Inspire. A powerful story can change your life. It's true. But you don't have to strive for it. You can write a text that will inspire a small change or help you feel that you are not alone with your problem. The parenting portal Mel, together with the Dove company, launched a newsletter on how to raise children outside gender stereotypes. Look how well the text connects from the first sentence. All because it evokes emotions and appeals to the readers' experience.
Inspirational letters from mel.fm
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In general, Mel often shares inspiring stories. For example, the hero of this letter, a 69-year-old physics teacher, became a TikTok star and fell in love with his job even more.
Stories from mel.fm
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Entertain. After all, why not just make your subscribers smile while they're perusing their inbox? E-cigarette brand Smoking writes a whole parable about the emergence of vaping. This format is quite difficult to use, but even if you don't manage to write very well, subscribers will definitely remember you.
