The Big Secret To Writing Stories That Sell
Updated: Jan 22, 2021
I want to give you the most powerful marketing advice I know of.
Here it is…
Ready?
Use more storytelling to sell.
Sounds simple, right? Well, apparently it isn’t, because not many marketers are doing it very well.
Boardroom was founded by a man named Marty Edelston. If you don’t know what Boardroom is, shame on you. Boardroom is one of the most successful direct response marketing publishers ever.
You can do your own research, but I’ll just tell you this, Boardroom built their company on the shoulders of some of the greatest copywriters of all time.
One of which, is my personal favorites, Mr. Gene Schwartz.
In 1972, Marty decided he wanted to launch a newsletter that would teach entrepreneurs how to better run their businesses. He asked Gene to write the promo for this newsletter. Gene spent many, many meetings grilling Marty about the newsletter before he ever wrote a single word of copy.
What was Gene doing? He was finding the story he needed.
Keyword here, “finding,” not “creating.”
Big difference.
You see, most marketers create stories and use them to sell, which isn't the best way. Finding pre-existing stories from the source - people who have real stories related to the promo - has been shown to be a much more reliable method.
Gene went on to write the headline that launched Boardroom into the stratosphere of direct response history:
NOW!
READ 300 BUSINESS MAGAZINES IN 30 MINUTES!
When Gene was asked how he came up with the headline, he said he didn’t, “Marty wrote it.”
Gene simply extracted what he needed from Marty’s brain...
“It was already written,” he said.