Summary – The Article “Story” ARCC

by Benjamin Goss, MBA

**This is the SUMMARY article for the Baker’s Dozen (lucky #13); a series of 12+1**

King Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, writes in Ecclesiastes 1:9: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Why is this important? Because old is not wrong – after all it may just be very experienced!

Whether you are in sales, human resources or manufacturing – when you deal with people you are dealing with human beings. How do we make information stick?

CONTEXT — How do we provide context? With stories. Super simple.

Is it any wonder that effective training systems make use of stories? Effective sales presentations make use of stories. Communication; whether it is oral tradition from centuries past or the latest blast of insanity about politics – we communicate in stories. And just because a marketing framework from 100+ years ago is just that – OLD – doesn’t mean we should ignore it or not use it.

If you want to be effective in any occupation, or even in your relationships, you need to be able to make effective use of stories. How many of you have a mother who said “oh … honey … you don’t want to do that! Remember your Cousin Davey?” And then you get to hear the story, in excruciating detail, about why you should not … dot dot dot … fill in the blank.

Am I Right?

One of my strengths as a communicator I believe I have is that I seem to have an intuitive sense of how to take a lot of data and information, and then synthesize it into usable pieces of information. Hopefully, that strength will come through on this effort and not get lost in the details … which unfortunately does sometimes happen to me.

The A-I-D-A marketing model is attributed to Elmo Lewis from the early 20th Century (circa 1910!). It stands for:

Attention –> Interest –> Desire –> Action

Or Attention –> Rise –> Climax –> Close [as above ARCC]

It is a basic psychological and emotional structure that helps salespeople, whether new or experienced, to move through the process of hooking a prospect and then moving them to a purchase decision.

Social Media continues to explode with different ways to interact and send content to our friends and our clients. As it continues to grow in its ability to be an effective platform, it is critical that we properly use structure in our communication so that we can move people from awareness to purchase.

Whether you are posting a series of pictures on Instagram (ibid Chris Do/Instagram), or you are just putting up useful content online, the graphic at the top provides a visual explanation of how to indoctrinate someone into your service, product or opportunity – REMEMBER stories sell.

The A.I.D.A. framework for Social Media Marketing

The A.I.D.A. format for Social Media Marketing

It takes a little bit of work, and some effort, but you already instinctively know how to tell a story. So, take the time to sit down and write the story. Your story can even be multiple stories within a larger story. But, the graphic above is an outline that you can follow to move someone from Attention-Interest to purchase online via email or social media marketing:

Attention – Ask a question, post a picture, present a problem
Introduce – Introduce yourself & “ideal client” with the same problem
Interest – demonstrate why you, your product or service (offering), are of interest
Interest – tell another story about the problem, show people they are not alone
Desire – tell a story about someone else enjoying “the future state” of your offering
Interest – tell fact(s) that they probably don’t know related to problem you solve with a story
Interest – tell a story about another problem your offering solves
Interest – tell about how you (or someone else) were just like them with this same problem
Desire – Remind about the “future state” they want to experience, tell a story
Details – Tell a story about someone benefitting from the future state & how they get started
Action – A very clear Call-To-Action (CTA) so you can track (CTR); tell how to purchase
Access – A lot of marketers and salespeople fall apart because they fail to warm down the sale.

ACCESS –>>This is what happens AFTER the sale/the purchase. How do you & they work together to ensure that they end up in that “future (desired) state” You have to explain how to be successful! <<–

You will note that the client finishes at a much higher plateau than they started in the graphic! Your offering should have impact and change things for the better!

The best thing about this outline, is that this can be done with pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? This can be done with video. Just pick up your smart phone and break your system down into its various storied parts. Super simple. Or, you can do what I have done – and post a series of linked articles that allow people to read it at their leisure.

Another option, video record the 12 parts, and then transcribe the videos. Then you have it in both video and written form. Then put pics together and you can hot link the individual pics in the series to each of the transcribed articles and videos. The nice thing about this is that you create the content one time, and you can punch it out in audio, audio-visual, picture, and written form.

This was the short and simple explanation of the Story Article Arc method for communicating about whatever it is you need to talk about. To be fair, this is my twist on information that I have from 20 years of sales & marketing experience, my work as a Program Director at Boy Scout Camp, and then ideas from Shane Borza, MHR; Indie Film Director & ICF coach and as well Chris Do, an internet marketer.

If you want help on how to implement a strategy like this yourself – please reach out to me via LinkedIn messenger or via text and let’s set up a discovery call! Let’s see how I can be of service to you and your business.

The foundational concept is the “Story Arc” which is an ancient literary concept, and if you can’t remember your high school or college English classes I have some links below so you can read more about it if you like. Who knows, you may come up with your own twist as result?!

https://www.nownovel.com/blog/understanding-storytelling-arc/

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-story-arc-definition-examples.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_arc

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