Add Prospects to Your CRM Database Using Storytelling

Customers are the lifeblood of any successful business. Having a strong customer acquisition strategy helps brands fill the customer funnel. It starts with lead generation, and adding prospects to your CRM database.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.

Once new prospects have been added to a CRM database, you can use compelling text and email content to transform prospects into customers.

So, that begs the question, what's the best way to add leads to my CRM list?

What's The Biggest Lead Generation Challenge Brands Face?

In today's digital world, competition for new leads is fierce.

Brands big AND small now compete for the same consumers because tools like social media and mobile, have made Reach a commodity.

Consumers are overwhelmed with brand content and advertising. To make matters worse, the majority of content is seen as worthless clutter by those consumers.

Because consumers are inundated with brand content, and since the majority of that content doesn't provide value, consumers tune out brands that don’t create authentic content that has an emotional hook.

Ordinary content is not going to convert prospects into leads who are willing to opt-in to your CRM database for future communications.

You must give people a compelling emotional reason to sign up for your CRM list if you want to be successful in such a competitive marketplace.

The Power of Storytelling for Lead Generation

Why storytelling?

Humans are storytelling animals. We tell, and consume, stories every single day. Stories are how we make sense of the world; the why behind the what.

Great stories cause a cascade of emotional effects within an audience like nothing else can because humans are actually hardwired for stories.

Stories trigger a chemical release of dopamine and serotonin within the brain, and flood humans with a rush of emotions. That emotional connection is what ultimately hooks, and holds our attention.

By using the power of storytelling you can compel consumers to take desired actions, like opting into your crm list.

Once consumers feel empathy for a brand, that "like me" feeling, an emotional bond forms between the brand and the consumer. That bond can make consumers fight for your brand, cry for your brand, love your brand, and most importantly, buy your brand.

5 Ideas for Customer Acquisition Stories

When it comes to using storytelling to increase customer acquisition, there are so many different types of stories marketers can tell. You are limited only by your imagination. That said, there are a few "go to" stories that you should considering telling:

• Customer stories: People want to hear stories from other people who are like them. Share a customer testimonial story with prospects in order to help them visualize themselves using your product or service.
• Program stories: Introduce an exciting new program and invite them to participate. Contests, live events, a webinar series are all great examples of programs that you can tell stories around.
• Brand values stories: People want to do business with brands they feel share the same values and beliefs as they do. Brand stories are the best way to convey to prospects what your brand stands for in order to encourage them to sign up for your CRM list.
• Community stories: Are you giving back to your local community? Tell a community service story about a success you had and how you impacted people's lives. Tell stories about upcoming community events that people can participate in. Again, people want to do business with brands who share the same values, and giving back is a big value that you can tap into.
• Announcement stories: Have a new product coming out? Offering a new service? Want to promote an upcoming event to drive registration? Build excitement for that launch with an announcement story.

Convert Attention into Lead Acquisition with Storytelling

As humans, most decisions we make on a daily basis are driven by subconscious emotions. We are more likely to take a recommended action if there's an emotional driver behind it. Stories are the most powerful form of content because they evoke emotions within us like nothing else can.

At the end of every great story, be sure to pay it off with a compelling call-to-action. If you want to add contacts to your CRM database, then ask people to sign up for your mailing list at the end of your story.

In their book STORYNOMICS, Robert McKee and Tom Gerace talk about a concept they call "The open-mind moment". It's that moment at the end of a story when everything comes together and the morale of the story is revealed. In this extremely powerful moment, when the audience is in awe from what they just experienced, they are more likely to remember (and take action on) any messages that are planted by the storyteller.

As marketers, during this open-mind moment, we want to plant our CTA. Use a compelling call-to-action to invite them to subscribe to your email list. If the story has done it's job, your conversion rate will be higher than every other tactic you're currently using to capture leads.

Stories are that powerful.

Why You Should Tell Stories Using STORYSOFT to Collect Leads

The STORYSOFT digital storytelling platform is built for telling stories. It's not a content management system (CMS) built for creating any type of content you can dream up. It's not a website building platform. It's a storytelling platform, and you can use it to tell immersive digital stories about your brand in order to convert prospects into leads.

STORYSOFT stories are a set of content screens are strung together to create an emotion-evoking linear narrative.

Fill your stories with rich media like images, animations, text, & video. Add a custom call-to-action to drive behavior. Even personalize stories to individuals or segments.

Digital stories are hosted on a URL. Create the content once, & share stories on any channel to reach a wider audience. No restrictions. We don’t sell your data.

Every action your audience takes is captured and reported on. See what content consumers spend the most time on, what actions they take, & where they drop off.

Integrate Your CRM Database with STORYSOFT

As marketers ourselves, we know you don't have enough time in your day. Managing multiple marketing platforms can be time consuming. That's why we offer the ability to integrate your CRM database or email service provider (like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, AWeber, etc.) directly into your STORYSOFT story.

On the last page of your story, you can embed your email subscribe form directly into the STORYSOFT content. When someone submits the form that data will go directly into your CRM database. We can even tag it so you know it came from STORYSOFT. From there, you can start marketing to them as you would any other new lead. It's that simple.

Remember, people want to be a part of a community filled with people who value the same things as they do. If you can tap into those core values, and tell emotion-evoking stories, people won't hesitate to sign up for your email list.

Take the first step towards becoming an even better storyteller marketer, get a free storytelling consultation.