Thanks to the internet and the creator economy, there are lots of digital products and online content. So the thin line separating your content from the next person is how well you tell your stories.

Storytelling has the ability to emotionally connect with people, making your digital products irresistible to potential customers.

Let’s look at practical ways to tell stories that don’t just sound nice, but are relatable and eventually convert.

How to Sell Your Products Using Storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful tool for selling any kind of product on the internet. Here are five effective strategies for selling digital products through storytelling.

1. Identify and empathize with your target audience

One thing we’ve talked about repeatedly is the importance of knowing your target audience. If you don’t know who needs your product, how then will you sell it?

To create impactful stories, understand your target audience’s needs, desires, and pain points.

It could be as simple as checking your competitor’s audience and seeing the type of content that gets the highest engagement. Or conducting an online survey or poll to know what type of stories or content relates to them better.

Once you identify your target audience, it’s time to use the empathy card. Empathy is not just about understanding; it’s about feeling. You need to tap into the emotions of your audience and make them feel understood.

Emotions have a significant impact on decision-making. So evoke feelings of excitement, relief, or hope through your storytelling. Share stories that remind them of memories and paint a vivid picture of the transformation your digital product can bring.

LEARN: How to Identify Your Target Audience as a Digital Creator

2. Make it personal

This essentially involves creating relatable characters and narratives for your audience.

Introduce a character that embodies the struggles and aspirations of your audience, and makes them see themselves in your story. Give them a name, a personality, and a backstory.

Hauwa Lawal, a digital creator, popularly known for her funny and comic stories online uses this strategy creatively. She tells stories of her transportation experiences in Lagos, the chaos that comes with living in Lagos, and how she has to survive the chaos.

These stories may be fictional or non-fictional, but the point is they are relatable and helps people see themselves in her stories. This strategy has helped her build a large audience online and sell out her digital product.

Make your story characters relatable and likable. Your audience should root for them, see themselves in their shoes, and imagine the possibilities your digital product can bring to their lives.

Salem King, a renowned creator lists a storytelling guide that has helped him create valuable content. Here’s it;

• What do people want/need to see/hear that they can’t give themselves? That’s value.
• How can I invite people into my story without taking them out of theirs? How can it be so relatable that it makes them think of themselves?

With this framework, you can write stories your audience is genuinely interested in.

3. Demonstrate the value of your product

When it comes to selling digital products, it’s not enough to simply list their content and functionalities. Your potential customers need to understand the real-world value and benefits your product can provide.

One of the most powerful ways to showcase the value of your digital product is through storytelling that presents relatable and tangible scenarios.

Instead of using technical jargon or abstract explanations, paint a vivid picture of how your product can make a difference in someone’s life. Take your audience into a world where they can see themselves benefiting from your product.

Use storytelling techniques like suspense and emotional appeal to make the benefits more compelling. This could be creating a “before and after” scenario that showcases the transformation your digital product creates.

For example, if your digital product is a financial planning tool, you can address common financial concerns such as poor savings and budgeting habits, incessant spending, and a wrong knowledge of what saving is.

Then share personal stories of when you struggled with poor financial habits and how you slowly made efforts to always plan your finances.

Show how you took baby steps, learned how to manage your finances better, and started your journey to financial stability.

By directly addressing your customer’s pain points and providing a solution, you get rid of any doubts your audience may have had.

4. Focus on the customer journey

When utilizing storytelling to demonstrate the value of your digital product, it’s important to tailor your narratives to different stages of the customer journey.

Map out the customer journey from awareness to purchase and beyond. With this, you can develop stories that align with each stage of the journey.

In the early stages, focus on creating awareness and capturing attention. Tell stories that highlight the pain points and challenges your audience faces, emphasizing how your product can address those issues.

Your stories should capture their attention and make them realize that there is a solution to their problem.

You can share stories of others who faced similar challenges and how they discovered your digital product as the answer. Paint a picture of the transformation they experienced when they took that first step toward solving their problem.

In the consideration stage, your customers are in between getting your product or not and they just need an extra conviction to move them toward buying.

To help them decide faster, share success stories of people who have achieved results whether financial success, personal growth, or improved relationships by using your product.

As they approach the decision stage, it’s time to address any final lingering doubts or objections they might have. Focus on sharing testimonials and reviews, as this help to remove any doubts from their mind. Over 99.9% of customers read reviews when they shop online. So you want to make sure you give them something convincing enough.

5. Incorporate storytelling into your content marketing strategy

It’s easy to only think of storytelling when you launch a product or want to make people buy from you.

But storytelling is an effective marketing strategy that need not be used once. In fact, adding storytelling to your content marketing strategy opens up more opportunities to engage and interact with your audience.

As you share your stories, you can encourage your audience to share their own stories and experiences.

Then create a sense of community where they can connect with others facing similar challenges. This not only strengthens the emotional connection but also provides valuable user-generated content that you can use to tell future stories.

Everybody wants an opportunity to feel heard and seen. Storytelling is how you make it happen.

Tips for Sharing Stories that Lead to Sales

Follow these tips shared by Parker Worth, a renowned storyteller and entrepreneur to help you build an audience and sell your products.

1. Start the right way

The opening of your story is the most important part. It has to attract the person’s attention within 30 seconds.

Make the introduction:

• Different
• Shocking
• Relatable

2. Bring your character to life

You can bring your character to life and make it more relatable by:

• Using odd adjectives
• Revealing the character’s interests
• Using diverse physical descriptions
• Incorporating details from your own life
• Using descriptions from people you know in your life

The aim is to create mental movies.

3. Be specific

Details establish a deeper connection. The more details, the more your reader will connect with the story. Specificity gives credibility.

Be specific by:

• Giving dates
• Portraying scenes
• Expressing emotions

4. Be positive

Negative stories create fear. Positive stories create inspiration. Ending the story on a positive note gives your reader an emotional high. This emotional high will have them returning to your content repeatedly.

5. Use the spark

The spark, the change, & the takeaway.

The Spark:

Shows what helped overcome the conflict

The Change:

Gives the internal shift that happened for the character to win

The Takeaway:

Summarizes what to do and remember it to overcome the problem

6. Use Dialogue

Dialogue creates different points of view. It allows the reader to engage the subconscious and the conscious. This makes the story stick and again can introduce conflicts.

Remember:

Conflict=Curiosity=Interest

7. Promise Value & Deliver it

Value gives the lesson from the story. Without learning something from the story, it’s worthless.

Pack your story full of value by:

• Identifying needs
• Fixing relationships
• Cast differences aside
• Overcoming common problems

It’s Time to Tell Converting Stories

The power of storytelling lies in its ability to evoke emotions, establish connections, and convey the value of your digital product in a relatable and compelling way.

Storytelling in marketing is gold. And it’s time to hit it.

If you need a platform to host and sell your digital products and make massive sales, try Selar.

Selar is an all-in-one store builder for creators to sell all kinds of digital products and services. It has all the features you need to start and grow an online business as a creator.