What is the story lead?

The story lead is the oldest and probably the most powerful lead because if you think about it, all knowledge has been passed down to us from stories.

And that’s because stories are fun, engaging and easy to remember.

They also help to build rapport thereby establishing trust between you and your audience. So this is the best lead to use on the completely unaware customers, those who don’t know that they have a problem or that products like yours even exists. You get your foot in the door with these people by hooking them in with a story.

No one can resist a good story. And even if the reader might realize that he’s reading an ad, if the story is engaging, he’ll forget about that temporarily and become emotionally involved in the story itself.

Example of a story lead

To demonstrate the story lead further, let’s look at this example of a classic ad

The headline states:

They Grinned When The Waiter Spoke To Me In French—But Their Laugher Changed Into Amazement At My Reply

The headline itself tells a powerful story. You can already picture the waiter speaking to this person in French, everyone grinning, and how quickly the grins are wiped off their faces when he replies.

Already, you’re emotionally invested in the story. What did he say to make everyone stop laughing and stare in amazement?

Your headline should arouse those same feelings of curiosity. It should pull your readers in to read the rest of the story.

If you read the whole ad, you’ll find that it’s advertising French classes. But that might not be evident in the beginning. The writer takes his time painting this whole picture in our imagination just to make one point: that he took French classes and they changed his life.

Imagine if the ad read as something like this instead:

Now You Can Learn To Speak French Quickly and Easily.

After years of research, linguists have discovered the world’s most efficient method for teaching French,

Using this unique new program, you can master French in less than a year!

You will amaze your friends and neighbors! Some may even be shocked at how well you can speak French! Plus, you can even earn extra income on the weekends!

See the difference? Both these ads are advertising the same thing. But the second one is boring and lacks emotion. Most people wouldn’t care.

Remember, the story lead is the most effective on the completely unaware customers. A more direct approach, like the second example above, might not interest them. They aren’t interested in learning French so they’ll click away.

But with a captivating headline, they are pulled in to the story. Even if they had never entertained the idea of learning French, maybe their biggest desire might be to gain admiration from friends and family.

And as the ad so clearly demonstrates, the hero from the story awes his friends and family with this new skill. To the reader seeking admiration, this will appeal to him.

It might even convince him that taking French classes is an easy way to get this admiration that he wants. So it becomes more about what he’ll gain as opposed to the product itself.

We talked about core emotions in the problem solution lead. Your story should speak to those emotions. It’s not so much about your product, but about how your customer will feel while using it. And a story is a powerful way to communicate that.

Just remember to keep the story short and tie it to the product that you’re selling.

If you would like my help in applying these and other strategies to sell your high ticket products, let me know. Just click the button below to apply for a complimentary consultation.