by 
Let’s talk about storytelling within your agency’s content. Despite all the hype of big data and the necessary importance of creating content, the role of storytelling helps prospects and clients put themselves in the shoes of the people within the story. My goal is to help you successively add storytelling elements to your content without compromising your agency’s blog approach.
On a daily basis, if you can convey your agency’s message through relating stories with your audience, then you’re already a step ahead in the game. With more and more content being pushed out through Google, stories help people relate to the content of your blogs. The real issue then becomes figuring out facts versus fiction- no small task within the Internet world.
A quick example would be, do you remember the movie Pirates of the Caribbean? Do you remember the scientific facts about the Pirates? The answer to that is probably no, but neither do I. Even though millions have enjoyed these movies, we probably don’t know much about the actual pirates that the actors are portraying. The reason I’m using this as an example is because with regards to content and storytelling, it doesn’t really matter whether the story is actually factual. If it’s a good story, it will allow readers the opportunity to put themselves into your shoes- and that’s how you win the content battle.
One of the easiest ways that you can add storytelling into your agency’s blogs is to summarize the topic’s history that you are covering. What I like to do when it comes to storytelling is to start my blog with a summary of what happened until now. Many times I will tell my readers how search engine optimization started (if that is the content I’m writing on), and in those days there was so much low-quality content along with tricksters out there for learning the algorithms. But with time the algorithms continued to catch up and get stronger, thus allowing the good guys to become stronger and more confident while simultaneously filtering those tricksters into areas we now know as ‘spam.’ When you talk about the history of a topic, it helps to give an overview that allows the readers to understand from the beginning moving forward. Painting this picture is key.
Storytelling from your personal experience— the course of recounting the well-known history of your story and adding more details will allow your regular readers to get more entrenched in the story. Usually the readers prefer to listen to the personal story of the people fighting against all odds to survive and thrive through that unspeakable situation. This is exactly what sells in Hollywood, and it’s exactly what sells your content.
So in order to track how well your content is doing, you need to first understand Google analytics and how your blogs’ performance is gauged by it. Measure and compare the time frame that people are staying on your blog, and if you’re seeing these times reduce, then you know you may be losing them with your content.
But let’s stop there for a moment. A key component to having successful content is visuals. If you’re neglecting to include any visuals in your blogs, then chances are you’re not gaining any traction through your readers. With the world of Google having millions and millions of blogs and content being pushed out on a daily basis, your visual content is the key to being found in those searches and keeping a reader at your blog.
Let’s get back on track and talk about two other key factors of storytelling. The next step would be to create the imagination of your story to be real-life. Real-life matters, so if you cannot allow that reader to immerse themselves within your story, then you may lose the reader altogether. This is not always an easy task, so you really need to think about your story and put in as many details as possible to allow your reader to put them into the situation. That’s why it’s easier to use fictional characters as opposed to real life examples, because it’s much easier to imagine yourself through the generic character than the real person who’s situation is pretty unique to them.
Storytelling is a major component to a successful blog in the insurance industry. Insurance agents are out there selling, so we need to be good storytellers to allow our prospects to understand what may or may not happen. The key factor of why they’re buying that insurance is to ensure that they are properly covered, and they’ll more than likely think that if they can relate to your stories. The other major reason they are buying the insurance is for peace of mind. Insurance is only a commodity at the time they purchase it, price only matters for minutes while they have that insurance, and God forbid they need to use that insurance… then price never comes in to the equation.
Get out there to tell stories and let’s see the independent agencies take back the business from the direct writers.
