How Caroline Voaden Turns Corporate Suits into Storytelling Superheroes

[00:00:03] Hector: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the "How to scale a business" podcast. My name is Hector Santiesteban, and I am your host for today. Our special guest is Caroline Voaden. She is the founder of Story Copywriting. And we're going to get into what, at least for me, I think is a huge, huge thing, businesses, and especially a lot of service based businesses miss, which is storytelling and how to convey that. So Caroline, thanks for hanging out and spending some time with us today.

[00:00:27] Caroline: Thanks so much for having me. Great to be here.

[00:00:29] Hector: Give us the background on how you got into that and, kind of got into this and then we'll talk about some of the either frameworks or, lessons that maybe you've learned and developed along the way.

[00:00:40] Caroline: So I am a B2B copywriter and content strategist. And these days I help businesses, mostly in the B2B, SaaS and finance world, tell their stories in a way that helps them build authority and drive growth. And the way that I got into it is actually a bit funny. I used to be on the other side of the table, so I was kind of like, I was the suit, the corporate person. So kind of eight plus years in corporate PR and reputation management. And a lot of that was about how do we get the right messages across strategic storytelling, and I learn how corporates and people in that B2B world think and what resonates with them.

[00:01:16] Caroline: And so I guess I took that inside the knowledge of knowing what resonates with them and my kind of skills on learning how to build stories, which is like the whole point of public relations.

[00:01:24] Hector: What do people get wrong with that sort of? You know, what are they missing? You sort of have the insider view, and so you're able to see, like you said, see back to the table. Are there any big mistakes or big, curves that people aren't seeing around?

[00:01:36] Caroline: I think in the B2B world, a lot of people overlook storytelling because they think it's B2C. They think it's for like those big, like TV ads and that kind of thing. And they kind of overlook the power of storytelling. So tactically telling, like found the stories and hooking in people, and introducing people into a brand that way, but also the kind of storytelling techniques that people can use on a website copy, in blogs.

[00:01:58] Caroline: And so you just have to look at a company like Salesforce, like they are purely B2B pretty much. And they do storytelling so well through their copy and their visuals. And something that I see a lot of the time is, especially entrepreneurs or people with like one or two man bands, if they take a website, for example, they've chucked a website together and it's important, but it's not a priority, right?

[00:02:17] Caroline: Like sales events getting out there that tends to be where people go first in terms of their marketing. And so I guess their website is kind of MVP website and it's all about them. It's all about that product updates, investment maybe, and it's not enough about the person, the customer, and they're not putting the customer at the kind of the heart of, the story they're trying to tell. So that's one thing that I see a lot. The flip side of that is sometimes I'll come across entrepreneurs who have paid a website, sorry, website copywriter, to write like a 2000 word sales page. It's a beautiful story. It really hooks people in. It talks the customer pain points, but there's not there .

[00:02:52] Caroline: They haven't really nailed the strategic what next. The call to action isn't enough. So I think as storytelling in this way as a kind of story selling. So we hook people in with a really engaging story, we make them the hero, we talk to their pain points, but then you've got to think about the commercial outcome and, and it's not always book a demo, book a call. You need to have somewhere to take people as a next step.

[00:03:13] Hector: I think there gotta be some listeners who are going: yeah, but, Caroline, we clean gutters or we mow lawns or, if we take it digitally, we provide cybersecurity services or tech support, you know, like a story? How do you help people who are in that space sort of bridge the gap to what you were just talking about?

[00:03:34] Caroline: So I think the way I like to start framing it is, okay, story is important for you no matter what your business is, because the journey that someone has to go on from Joe blogs on the street to a buyer is they have to know, like, and trust you, right? If you can catch people and take them through that cycle, storytelling is really going to help.

[00:03:52] Caroline: And the way to think about it, I guess, In the first instance is, okay, what is my brand story? What is the thing that is going to make us a bit different from the next guy along the street who also cleans gutters? Is it that you have family business, you've been around for 60 years and The way that you can start to pull that out into your marketing materials is: okay, awesome, we're a family run business, but what does that mean for my customer? Like why do they care that I have this brand story? And so that's when we get into. If you're writing your website, for example, instead of on the about page, just saying like, Oh, we're family run, we, you know, you want to talk. Sorry.

[00:04:32] Hector: Well, I would love to go more into this brand story. Before I do that, I'm curious if there is sort of a number of archetypal stories or a number of foundational stories, because I also think a lot of businesses, and this is going back to what you mentioned before, they think the story... They think that they have to be the hero of the story, or that they're the main actor or the main character in the story, and perhaps in the brand story, they are, but I know in a lot of what you talked about, it's actually the customer, the consumer that plays that sort of role.

[00:05:02] Caroline: When we're talking about, framing your story, I guess, I like to kind of pick a hero and a villain in the story. And the hero should always be the customer. And like, yes, of course, it's important to tell people your founding story, how you got started, that kind of thing that you always want to frame in a way that puts the customer as the center point.

[00:05:21] Caroline: And that's important because the way that you connect with your customer is that they, read something or they see your brand and they think: "Oh yeah, I get that. I need that". I need that is kind of how you get people to the next stage. And they need to be able to see themselves in your marketing. And that's the way to do that, as to hero them, to put them as the center point.

[00:05:41] Caroline: And the flip side to that is, okay, so every good story, you have your customer, they're the hero and the villain, that kind of tension, the every good story has, the villain is usually the thing that's stopping your hero, your customer, from reaching the outcome that you promise. And so it could be...

[00:05:57] Hector: That reminds me of that little, I don't know if the commercials get to over there, but a big commercial in the States is the mucinet commercials where they have these little green characters that are in our nose or something like that. And they've obviously anthropomorphized these characters, but it really does a good job of creating that sort of villain as you call it, because they can really characterize it in that way.

[00:06:19] Caroline: Exactly. And it's like, well, your villain could be time that time, they don't have the time to do something, or they don't have the skill to do something. Or in some industries, your villain might be, I guess, a competitor who doesn't do things the way that you would see is kind of ethical or, I don't know, to a higher standard.

[00:06:37] Caroline: So there's a couple of different ways you can cut it, but it's just thinking what's stopping that hero from getting to the destination.

[00:06:44] Hector: One of the other things that I thought would be curious to get your insight on is, it seemed like a number of years ago, I've been in the internet marketing space for coming on a decade now and you've sort of see these ebbs and flows and the personal brand trend, kind of happened and it sort of happened with influencers and sort of these, and then like internet marketers and online courses, and authors and those sorts of things.

[00:07:04] Hector: But now, top executives, fortune 5000, fortune 500 executives are seeing the value of building a personal brand. And I think that they too are sort of making that influencer mistake where they think they've got to be the main character. Or I've seen it done well, and I've seen it not done well, but I'm curious how you help navigate that sort of situation where you want to sort of build the executives personal brand or expertise, and their credibility, and all that sort of stuff, while also attracting, the right sorts of clients and not just being this boast fest that I see some people making it out to be.

[00:07:41] Caroline: A hundred percent. I think founder led content is really buzzy, still is on LinkedIn, especially this kind of a space I hang out in a lot and I think, it can work well if you have, an executive who is really dialed into that space and it does take, like, don't be fooled if normally there are content marketing agencies behind those posts, it takes resource.

[00:08:02] Caroline: But something that I like to talk to my clients about who are a bit more kind of on the startup end of things is heroing three, or picking three stories that you can focus on, I guess, more as a kind of tactic in your marketing. And like a founder is one, so the founder story is a really good way to bring people into your orbit and kind of connect with them, I guess, emotionally, before you start to kind of back it up with data and that sort of thing, and that might mean sharing how you got started, milestones, but also struggles, things you're learning along the way. It can be a really great way to rich pool of storytelling kind of ammo, I guess. But I I think sometimes the mistake is businesses will go all in on that, and I actually think there's two other really important types of stories as well, to communicate in your marketing. The second one is your customer stories. And that can look like, case studies, testimonials, video content, like user generated content.

[00:08:55] Caroline: Giving space to those different types of stories across your website, even if you don't have huge long case studies, even though they are a good asset as well. So making sure that you're talking to their objections, their pain points, you might have in your sales conversations, you might have pick up on certain things that people aren't sure of.

[00:09:11] Caroline: You can write up a blog to bust those myths, I guess, and kind of handle those objections. And then the third type of story that I think is really important is kind of a money or a value story. And that is around kind of your pricing and not just checking up prices kind of as they are on your site, but really thinking about, okay, how can I frame this in a way that makes a difference, helps put my customer kind of in the frame.

[00:09:34] Caroline: And by that, I mean, maybe instead of save X amount of money frame, it is, I don't know, save a cup of coffee a day or something a bit more powerful than that. But you see, you see how I've turned that into like a blanket number into kind of a little story about how that can that amount of money will make a difference within their day in their life.

[00:09:52] Caroline: So those are the kind of three types of stories that I tend to try and focus on and not go to heavy into one over the others.

[00:09:59] Hector: So I'm curious if the challenge or the real work, in doing what you've been doing and sort of seeing over a variety of clients and industries and such, is the real work in developing the story and finding the story and perhaps, , you know, the story or is the real work in distributing the story and, getting the story in front of the right sort of people. Because I think there's two different battles there. And I'm curious if it's a two headed monster that you've got, both have to be slain equally? As, are there equally as sort of powerful or whatever your nerdy analogy might be. My nerdy analogy, excuse me, not yours. But, but do you see what I'm saying there? Is there one that should definitely be given the attention and time, perhaps over another?

[00:10:42] Caroline: I think you should start with the brand story because that is how you communicate your difference. It's kind of similar to your USP, not necessarily kind of the same thing, but I think if you don't have one master narrative, one story that you're trying to tell about your brand that is not consistent across all your different touch points, it's going to really muddy the waters and it's going to get hot. And it's when you come to marketing, it's going to become harder to create a consistent kind of profile and awareness of your brand that people trust and they remember because they've seen it across a few different things.

[00:11:17] Caroline: So I think I would start with a kind of that crafting that brand story and that master narrative. And then going from there, if content marketing is a big part of your marketing mix, then yeah, distribution, of course, is really important in the way that you write your marketing will determine how successful it is.

[00:11:32] Caroline: So, yeah.

[00:11:33] Hector: When we get back from break, I'm curious about some of these stories and if you have any favorites or any sort of tips or tricks. And so we're going to get into that right after this quick break.

[00:11:44] Hector: Hey, y'all. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplafy Media. And we are a podcast and content production company. Well, we actually like to think of ourselves as thought leadership accelerators because chances are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a product, a passion, a mission, a message, something that you're trying to get out to the world, and it would help if people actually knew about it.

[00:12:00] Hector: But you might not have the time, the team, or the tech skills to be able to get your message out there. Well, if that's the case, we can help. Go to amplafy media. com. That's a M P L A F Y media. com. Also check the show notes for the link. With that. Let's get back to Caroline. So Caroline, during the break, I sort of posed a question for you and I'm curious what the answer is, but the sort of the question is that a lot of listeners are probably going, okay, this sounds two things and they're probably both, it sounds great and perhaps overwhelming. It's like, this sounds amazing. You're right. I need to do this. And I don't know where to start, or I don't know what to do, or this is not my world. You know, a lot of them aren't copywriters. They're not. They're so, how might someone approach that sort of situation?

[00:12:42] Caroline: All right. So here's how I like to think of: if you're sitting down and you're trying to write a blog or you're looking at your website copy and you're thinking, Okay, I don't know if this does have a cohesive story that I'm trying to get across the way that I start is, I guess I'm kind of like, and visually, I'm building a Greek temple and I started kind of the roof layer and I sit down and I think, okay, what is the one thing that I want to communicate with this page of website copy.

[00:13:08] Caroline: What is that kind of ties back to that brand story? What is the master narrative? The number one thing that I want people to walk away from. If you're writing a blog, it might be an argument, but for website copy it tends to be more that one thing I want someone to remember about my brand. Once I've kind of got, like statement or really clear idea in my head of what that is, I then think, okay, what are the three kind of like columns that are going to support this idea, this statement? So that might be customer data or case studies that might be the fact that you've been around for X amount of years or you use this method that no one else uses. Or it could be that you're more affordable than some other people in your area or, you know, three things that are going to support that statement that you can pull out within your copy. And then the last thing that I think about is kind of, okay, so this might be a really great piece of writing, but like at the end of the day, I'm here to sell stuff, and what is the call to action or kind of the next step that's going to take this person towards making a purchase. A lot of the time business owners will automatically default to contact me, or book a call, or book a demo. That's not always going to be the right option because, for example, if we're talking about your website, if they've only read kind of the first bit of your website above the fold, the first bit on the screen, then they might not be ready yet to call you.

[00:14:27] Caroline: Instead, you might want to take them to another page on your website that goes more into detail on something or ask them to take a quiz or sign up to your email newsletter. There's often a couple of steps in between. I guess that framework, that building kind of blocks analogy helps me make sure that I've got the key elements in place and that I'm writing with a specific story in mind, but I'm also keeping one eye on the sales funnel and I guess the objective of that piece of copy.

[00:14:53] Hector: Yeah, it's a really great point. And I remember one early on my, one of my first jobs out of high school was a direct sales job. And one of the things I learned was the power of selling through stories. I think you called it story selling earlier. And that people, they seemed to, for some reason, if you just write, a sales pitch in a story or you wrapped different sales points into a story, those landed more, they resonated more people were able to remember them or they can relate to them or, It just seems to sink in more instead of having this list of things to put it into a story and so you would have a kind of an overarching story that you'd sort of mentioned, but then we would have these smaller that ended up being case studies, or testimonies, or these smaller stories that highlighted these key points that we were trying to convey.

[00:15:39] Hector: And, this was back before Instagram was a thing, or I guess even, people, were still on flip phones at that time. And so I had to manually deliver that message over and over again verbally. The great thing about is bringing on someone like you are working with someone like you is you can sort of write that story once, put it in a place like your website or a blog, and that can be there, that can be a message that gets, heard and seen over and over and over again by all the people that are interested in your business.

[00:16:05] Caroline: Mm. Exactly. I bet the good thing about delivering that verbally was that you got real time feedback. So, for example, when I'm having a conversation, I'm telling a story, I can tell what people are interested in immediately. And sometimes when you're starting to write your own kind of website or you're coming up with your own brand story, you know, it's a bit of tweaking here and there, like, Oh, yeah, that obviously worked because there's more time people are looking at my website for longer, all that kind of stuff.

[00:16:28] Caroline: So it's a little bit of tweaking, but it's, yeah, it's good to get start thinking of it as, yeah, that story, it's tale as old as time. Storytelling is what connects the people and makes humans remember what other humans have said, basically.

[00:16:40] Hector: You've hinted at, and I know that the unfortunate side of LinkedIn is that you see these, uh, actually have one partner where she was at a conference recently. And because of her ghostwriting skills and our podcast production, these executives are sort of really shop to the top of the industry. There was kind of this, um, I don't know what happened, right. when they realized that they had somebody behind it, it was both, sort of a comedic sort of thing. But then also I think when people realize that you can bring on someone like you to do that sort of stuff and it's much more accessible. Before that, because I want to talk about what maybe to look into or what maybe to consider when hiring a content marketing agency or ghostwriter or those sorts of things.

[00:17:23] Hector: If someone is in the place where they know that they're not there yet, they're more DIY or, you know, kind of DWI, are their favorite tools, or people, or books, or research, things like that, that might help someone who's going to kind of jump into this for themselves before hiring somebody?

[00:17:40] Caroline: Yeah. So there's a really great book called "StoryBrand", and it's by Donald Miller, and he's kind of copywriting O.G.  that is a really good.

[00:17:48] Hector: Yeah. Big, big fan of Donald.

[00:17:50] Caroline: Yeah, exactly. So he is a really good resource for just getting your head around the power of stories and how it kind of plays into copywriting and marketing.

[00:17:59] Caroline: So that's where I'd start for sure. In terms of, content, Claude AI is my preferred platform versus kind of ChatGPT and some of the other ones for writing specifically. It's not as good for kind of research, but for writing specifically, it's got a much more human tone of voice.

[00:18:15] Hector: That's good to know. Yeah. Cause there's now, I don't wanna say there's so many, but there is a enough out there where, it starts to matter, or it starts to make a difference. I think it's a better way to say it, which AI platform you are sort of using. What if somebody is going to hire or outsource this? Are there things to consider, questions to ask, qualifications, perhaps to make sure that that person has for they were looking for?

[00:18:41] Caroline: In terms of qualifications, I think like portfolio, just seeing samples of people's work is kind of the best route. There are, like, I don't want to say there's specific qualifications because I know there are a lot of copywriters who have transitioned from other, careers and so might not have got professional qualifications, but, yeah, start looking at someone's portfolio, having a chat with them.

[00:19:01] Caroline: I think sometimes I've heard business owners just kind of going straight in and hiring someone without kind of having a chat with them, getting a feel for their tone of voice and the types of projects they've worked on in the past, because, for example, I'm a B2B copyrighted, like, purely, I don't do any B2C work, and there are people who are much more qualified and better than me at email sequences that are going to sell biscuits, that's not really my bag.

[00:19:21] Caroline: And the other thing I would say was sometimes it can be good to start with a paid test as well. Just, especially if you're looking at a longer engagement. So like if you're looking for someone to write books for you every month, just do one, just do one at first, don't lock yourself into a retainer agreement and see how that goes first.

[00:19:35] Hector: I've got one more question for you before I do that, I would love for you to share with the audience where they can get connected with you, find out about you, your services or any other place that you want to send them to.

[00:19:45] Caroline: Yeah, perfect. So, I'm most active on LinkedIn and it's Caroline Voaden, and my website is storycopywriting. com, and that's where, kind of where I hang out.

[00:19:54] Hector: Cool We'll link that up there in the show notes as always. And Caroline, my last question for you is in your opinion, what is the secret to scaling the business?

[00:20:02] Caroline: Ooh... I really should have seen that coming, given the title of the podcast. For me, it is data driven decision making. And that's something that I'm learning a lot at the moment.