The Power of Storytelling

Hello, it’s John McIntyre here again, the Autoresponder Guy here with another email marketing update from themcmethod.com. Today, I want to talk about stories, good old fashion stories. Once upon a time, actually just last week. I went for a drive. I live in Thailand. This is a place in northern Thailand right by the river here and last week I went on a bit of a journey.

I went off to find what I’d like to call the Holy Grail of email marketing because I thought I’d clear my habit here in Thailand. What I did, I woke at 6:00 am. I’m not usually up that early. I like to sleep in a little bit but I was up at 6:00 am that morning, it was still dark and jumped on my scooter. I could hear chicken, what was it? Chickens crawling next door, whatever, those bells from the local temple. It’s Buddhist country so there’s lots of chanting and bells in the morning and all this was going on about 6:00 am.

I decided that I would go up the mountain. There’s a big mountain, you can’t see it from here but a mountain nearby where there’s a temple up there. I was like, well maybe I’ll find the Holy Grail of email marketing up there. I went for a drive, and I drove up the mountain long winding roads, it was freezing cold, man. My hands were getting, you know, when they get so cold when you kind of, they get kind of stiff. It was a bit like that and now I get up to the top, I had to walk up all these damn stairs. I was out of breathe by the time I got to the top. There I am, at the top of the mountain in the temple, you know. There’s lots of gold everywhere, there’s golden Buddha’s around and different Buddhist gods, I don’t even know what they are called and there’s all these different things going on.

There I was looking for the Holy Grail of email marketing. I’m walking and I remember looking behind a couple of bells, looking between a couple of dragon statues. I couldn’t find the Holy Grail of email marketing. I was getting sad and a bit depressed because I needed to find the Holy Grail of email marketing because I needed to make a video about it, not this one, another video for McMasters a community that I just launched. Eventually though I did find it but I kept walking around and I eventually I found a bookshop and that was where the Holy Grail of email marketing was hidden and what was it? Think about it. You’ve got a bookshop, a bookshop has books, books have stories and stories are the Holy Grail of email marketing.

The story that I just told it’s not a Harry Potter, it’s not a bestselling story or anything but it got you involved, hooked your attention and it made you listen to this video. What’s John talking about this Holy Grail of email marketing? Why this works so well with email marketing is I believe it’s not so much how to do tips with email. It’s about telling stories and entertaining people, giving people something to smile about, to be excited about every day. When you learn how to tell stories in 200 words, 300 words your email marketing, the power of it is multiplied exponentially. Think about it, it’s the force multiply. Stories that are force multiplier of email marketing.

I just told you a story to make a point that stories are really, really powerful. You need to see if you can apply some of this. Go out today, see if you can write a story. It could be about anything. I’ll talk more about how to write actual stories in another video but that’s it for today. Okay, I’m John McIntyre. The order the Autoresponder Guy, coming to you from themcmethod.com with another email marketing update.