Wake up your content with this engaging writing technique
Break the curse of boring content by showing your audience not only what you do but how you help.
Rosamond was one of those girls everyone loved. She was kind, generous…beautiful inside and out. Her parents loved her so much that they did everything in their power to protect her from a curse that a vengeful godmother had placed on their sweet daughter at the celebration of her birth.
Because no one bothered to tell Rosamond about the curse, she was about to make a very uninformed decision. (Since she was a teenager, she probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.)
When her parents decided to go out of town, she did what any curious 16-year-old would do outside of throwing a raucous party. She went exploring in all of the parts of the castle she wasn’t supposed to go in.
She wound her way up a steep staircase into an old tower and pushed in the door. Inside the tiny room, an old woman sat spinning flax at her spinning wheel.
Rosamond had never seen such a contraption and asked the woman what she was doing.
The old woman beckoned her closer and whispered in a croaky voice, “Wouldn’t you like to try, my dear?”
Of course, Rosamond wanted to give it a go. And she quickly discovered it wasn’t nearly as easy to spin as the old woman had made it look. With her first clumsy attempt, she managed to prick her finger on the spindle of the wheel, which caused her—and the rest of the kingdom, including her parents who had just returned home— to fall into a deep sleep.
Only true love’s kiss would have the power to break the curse and reawaken the princess and the kingdom.
By now, you know I’m retelling (in simple terms and possibly not very accurately) the Grimm’s Bros fairy tale about Sleeping Beauty. Here’s the ending if you don’t remember…
Nearly 100 years passed before a determined prince successfully broke through the thorns and brambles. He found the beautiful princess—who hadn’t aged a bit— and immediately fell in love.
He kissed her, and the curse was broken. Rosamond woke up, along with everyone else in the kingdom, and she and Prince Phillip lived happily ever after.
A tale of transformation and awakening.
By putting the princess to sleep, the evil fairy godmother not only silenced her, she rendered her powerless. But when the prince breaks the curse, the princess regains her voice and personal sovereignty, bringing peace and enlightenment to the land.
In essence, Sleeping Beauty is a story about how love conquers evil. When the prince, who symbolizes the divine masculine, kisses the princess, who symbolizes the divine feminine, evil shrivels under the bright light and slinks away. Justice is restored to the kingdom.
We all love stories about transformation because we are also transformed by them. It’s the reason we read, watch movies, listen to music and admire art.
And in business, our audiences love stories of transformation too.
It’s human nature to lean into stories. Stories are a meaningful way to cut through the noise of an overgrown, thorny forest teeming with competing messages.
Value stories are among your most important pieces of content.
Value stories should be woven throughout every piece of content you write, from your home page to your email newsletters, presentations, blog posts, social media posts, testimonials and other marketing collateral. Because everyone has the same questions:
What’s in it for me?
Why do I need to know this?
How will it help me?
It’s the whole reason why our ancestors told stories around the campfire in the first place. No one wanted to be the parent whose kid became a snack for a sabertooth tiger.
How do you write a value story?
A value story highlights how your product or service makes a difference in your audience’s lives in a way that goes beyond facts and figures. It expresses the heart and soul of your business.
Think about basic story structure. Every story has a conflicted protagonist who needs the help of a guide of some sort to overcome their problem(s).
Position your business as the guide in the story, and you’ll naturally be communicating how you help your audience navigate and resolve their problem or fulfill a desire.
The components of a value story include:
The conflict. The conflict or problem pretty much always comes with an emotional hook. After all, if a problem didn’t cause an emotion or create tension in our lives, we wouldn’t care. Our problems generally make us feel frustrated, annoyed, in pain, stressed, time-strapped, lonely, frazzled, frightened, anxious—generally unhappy. When you can articulate your target audience’s problem (or desire), you communicate empathy. You show that you understand.
The resolution answers the question of how your product or service benefits your target audience and works to solve a specific problem(s) or fulfills a specific desire.
The transformation helps your audience envision what life can look like after working with you, your service or your product. Will they experience more freedom? More joy? Life satisfaction? Love? Connection? Safety? Good health?
Case studies are excellent examples of value stories, and they are effective across all types of industries.
Let’s break down a case study I wrote in collaboration with Operation Healing Forces (OHF), a non-profit working to strengthen family bonds to promote healing within the military’s special ops community.
OHF uses its newsletter as a vehicle to let donors know how their donations are making a difference in the lives of these elite soldiers and their families.
When Army Ranger SSG Trevor Brunell (R) of Columbus, GA, needed immediate surgery to address a dangerous infection in his leg, he wasn’t sure how he would manage the travel expenses to reach his specialist in Ohio. [Conflict] Due to the complicated nature of his reconstructed leg, other surgeons weren’t comfortable operating on it. [More conflict]
[The next two sections provide background. Not all case studies need to go into this much detail, but it was important to illustrate the extent and complex nature of the injury suffered by this incredibly resilient soldier.]
In the summer of 2016, Trevor was in Afghanistan when his team was ambushed by ISIS militants hiding in an underground tunnel. Trevor sustained machine gun fire that splintered his knee. Pinned down, his company provided cover and put a tourniquet on his leg while awaiting evacuation. “It was extremely hot and because of the tourniquet around my leg, everything below my knee basically cooked off from the sun,” Trevor says.
When he arrived at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Lt. Cmdr. Jason Souza, M.D., considered one of the leading reconstructive surgeons in the world, offered to rebuild Trevor’s severely burned leg. Over the next five months, Trevor underwent 33 surgeries and was fitted with an IDEO brace, which helped him run again, get back in shape and redeploy. But another mission-related injury, leading to more surgeries and ongoing infections sidelined him once again, forcing Trevor to medically retire in August.
[Solution showcases how OHF made a difference in the life of this soldier.]
Within a week of reaching out to Operation Healing Forces Immediate Needs, Trevor and his wife Kara were headed to Dr. Souza (R), now at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, with airline tickets, rental car fees, and lodging arrangements covered. “I was just amazed,” Trevor says. “OHF is definitely dedicated to what they do.”
P.S. If you have a heart for veterans, consider donating to this incredible organization.
Want to wake up your sleepy content with a value story?
Think about a client who had a specific problem that you helped resolve. Describe this person and their problem. (You don’t have to use their real name.)
How did this problem make them feel? How did they appear to you when they came to you? Were they frazzled, tired, sad, stuck?
How did the problem aggravate their life? Was it hurting their relationships? Were they sick a lot?
Describe the transformation after they experienced your service or your product. How did your service or product make a difference in their life? What is life like now for your client?