Tom Ruwitch, How to Craft Captivating Stories That Inspire Customers to Buy – InnovaBuzz 483
Tom Ruwitch, Story Power Marketing
In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, Tom Ruwitch, an experienced direct response marketer, communications strategist, copywriter, and web developer. He is especially adept at helping businesses discover their core stories and coordinate their online and offline marketing efforts. He has experience designing and executing marketing campaigns for small business startups and publicly traded companies.
Tom helps coaches, consultants, and other business leaders harness the power of storytelling to captivate prospects and inspire them to buy. He is the CEO of Story Power Marketing, the agency he founded in January 2020, and is the founder and former CEO of MarketVolt, the email marketing software, and services firm.
In January 2020, MarketVolt sold its software business to Benchmark Email, and Tom spun out the strategic consulting and services business to form Story Power.
In our discussion, Tom talked to me about:
- The importance of knowing your customers and prospects and the journey they are on
- Practicing curiosity and developing the habit
- Systemising the gathering of ideas and story building blocks
Michael DeLon in episode 461 introduced us to Tom.
Listen to the podcast to find out more.
Listen to the Podcast
Discovering the story begins with understanding where your prospects are and what they're all about. Tom Ruwitch on #InnovaBuzz podcast Click To TweetShow Notes from this episode with Tom Ruwitch of Story Power Marketing
Key points and takeaways from this episode include:
- People will be more inclined to engage with you if you can entertain whilst informing.
- Be more human so that people will be more inclined to know, like, and trust you.
- Storytelling is a human thing.
- It doesn’t matter how fantastic your funnel system and tools are. These systems won’t save you if you are delivering feeble content.
- Discovering the story begins with understanding where your prospects are and what they’re all about.
- Every business is helping customers move from the before state to the after state. It is an emotional journey.
- Know your prospects and the journey that they’re on. Know the lessons that you wish to bring to your market. Watch and listen to things that are happening around you to find entertaining hooks and ways that you can deliver stories that are not just the typical lecture. People will lean in and pay attention to what you’re saying if you can create that entertaining hook or story.
- Go into places where you can find stories and develop the habit of listening and noting.
- Get into the habit of noticing, paying attention, and looking for things that are interesting, entertaining, and unique.
- Tap into your innate curiosity and develop systems for understanding what makes your prospects tick. Having systems in place to identify the journey that you are helping your prospects go on enables you to tell better stories that have more meaning.
- Don’t write copy. Assemble it. Be systematic about knowing the key ideas that you want to share. Record them and pay attention to them. When you can keep track of the journeys and points that you want to tell, you fill out a treasure chest full of building blocks that will allow you to assemble stories and not just stare at a blank screen every time you have to write something.
- Curation in storytelling is not about drawing on somebody else’s content and sharing it. It’s about curating the words, thoughts, and feelings of your prospects and the marketplace.
- Share your own experiences. Drop the veil, the mask, and all the robotic qualities that you have as a person and make that human connection with the people you’re trying to reach. The more you are able to do that, the more they are going to know, like, and trust you.
- Customers are the star of the story. It’s their journey, not yours, that is most important.
- Make sure that every story that you tell evokes the journey from the before state to the after state that your prospects can relate to.
- What we are all selling is the journey from before to after. Our products and services are merely the bridge between the two.
- We all have a more interesting story about ourselves than we give ourselves credit for. It doesn’t always have to be about your origin story.
- Everything that you put out there doesn’t always have to be tied to a business lesson. Let people know who you are and understand who you are.
- There’s nothing more authentic than just revealing yourself. There may be things that you don’t want to share, but people are going to connect with you more effectively if you let that veil down and show your personality.
- Using a conversational tone helps you be more comfortable with being personal.
- Authenticity happens naturally. Forcing it makes it completely inauthentic.
- Telling stories and conversing with your audience help you to strengthen the bond that you have which makes discovering stories easier and better moving forward.
- When you can listen and empathise, you’ll learn things about your market that will be very instructive for creating future content as well as future products and services.
The Buzz – Our Innovation Round
Here are Tom’s answers to the questions of our innovation round. Listen to the conversation to get the full scoop.
- #1 thing to be more innovative – Listen to your customers and prospects. Innovation is about feeling the pulse of the market. Put your ear to the ground and listen to what the market is all about and what it needs.
- Best thing for new ideas – Get into the habit of noticing and developing systems to tap into what makes your prospects ticks. Listening to your customers is key to innovation. Improvise, noodle, and doodle!
- Favourite tool for innovation – Ballpoint pen and journal.
- Keep project/client on track – Plan and commit to systems as opposed to randomness. Be systematic about how you plan and the tools that you use to keep you on track.
- Differentiate – Be more human. Show who you are. Bring some humour and fun. Connect with people. The more human you are, the more human your customers will be. The more you know and learn about them, the better you will be able to serve them.
To Be a Leader
Demonstrate through words and actions that you understand and empathise with your customers and employees. People will not care about what you know until you can demonstrate that you care about them.
Reach Out
You can reach out and thank Tom through their website.
Suggested Guest
Tom suggested we have a conversation with LinkedIn Expert, Ted Prodromou and Customer Experience Specialist, Vance Morris. So Ted and Vance, keep an eye on your inboxes for an invitation from us to the InnovaBuzz Podcast, courtesy of Tom Ruwitch.
Links
Discover the 3 Most Important Storytelling Keys to captivate prospects and inspire them to buy without pitching and prodding. Get your FREE access to Tom Ruwitch’s 12-minute training here.
Free eBook
Cool Things About Tom
- He holds a degree in History from Yale University.
- He’s a Board Member of The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis.
- He was an editor and reporter prior to starting his own business.