Effective storytelling techniques that keep readers engaged

Chris Priest (00:00)
Well, it's really, really interesting because you go back to like, you know, just how language is used and things like that. And there's this guy, Aristotle, right? He's like running around Greece and 300 BCE and he's kind of considered the father of language arts.

kind of broke it down as there's three elements to any language or whatever. It's grammar, it's like the mechanics, the logic, kind of the analysis of it. And then the rhetoric.

And that's the instruction part and the persuasive part.

Ben (00:49)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Chris. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Priest (00:54)
Thank you for having me then.

Ben (00:55)
Yeah, I'm excited Chris. This is going to be a fun conversation even in the conversation. We've had such a good discussion so far, so I'm excited for us to actually dive into it here. But before we dive into the subject, let's get to know you. What do you love about content and marketing and let us get to know your career and background.

Chris Priest (01:12)
yeah, thank you so much. So my name is Chris Priest. I'm currently the VP of marketing at comply auto. We're a reg tech innovation hub. use a technology to make compliance smarter and simpler for primarily automobile dealerships. And I've just been, kind of fell into marketing by accident. I was a writer and I was traveling around and getting travel stuff published and I got recruited by a travel publication.

I moved to New York City, all this fun stuff. And once I got there, I of realized we weren't really doing anything about marketing or promotions. And I had some limited background in doing events and ads and things like that. So I kind of just took it on and we got into, you know, onto NPR, CNN, the Washington Post. We got, you know, did a bunch of, built a bunch of partnerships and alliances. And so I just kind of fell into it. And then when I moved back to Seattle, which is where I'm located now,

I got a job as a marketing writer right off the bat with a multidisciplinary consulting firm and the rest was history.

Ben (02:14)
love it. And that's kind of the true fashion of any marketer. You know, I think it's very rare for someone to go to college, study marketing, go get a marketing job, kind of move on with life. It usually has these different routes into marketing. And that's one of my favorite things is there's so many different backgrounds, experiences, strengths and weaknesses in the field. It's so fun to collaborate and talk to other marketers. So I think that background's awesome.

Chris Priest (02:37)
Well, I think it's like so interesting because like I was a literature major, a language arts major, and kind of don't really realize you're studying marketing when you are as a storyteller and a writer and things like that. How we structure things is very similar to how marketing structures things. And so you've already started to kind of learning really how you want to do things for best practices and in order to get more engagement and get people's attention and things like that. So it's always been very valuable to me.

Ben (03:04)
Yeah, I love that. That's a great point. So Chris, today we're going to talk about this concept of how readers go through content with the F shape and how that applies to content and hooks and all sorts of interesting things. You have a lot of really cool thoughts around this and I'm not even describing it very well. I think that you have some really elegant ways of putting this, but what is the F shape? Like for anyone who's not familiar with what that means.

What is the F shape and how consumers look at content?

Chris Priest (03:31)
So there's been a bunch of research over the years and there's a couple of different competing ways that people digest content. we say content, mean like the written word, design, menus, videos, animation, all sorts of stuff. the traditional one was a Z pattern where your eyes would scan to the right and then you'd cut down and then you'd scan towards the middle or the bottom. As digital marketing or digital spaces have become more and more prominent, a lot of that has shifted over to closer to like an F.

So we're reading the top piece and then we're scanning down and then we're picking somewhere in the middle to do another scan across and so what you see is that there's a lot of like there's a visual component to how we even just design and set up content real simple would be like a one-pager and you You've got your headline at the top which is going to capture them and then you can even see you know a lot of smart marketers and we'll have you know subheadings and things like that because they know that's what's gonna draw their we talked about in the

LinkedIn and other companies are well aware of this is how we're digesting information. So they're, they only allow about 150 characters or otherwise you have to read more. So, and they know the average person reads about 70, 80 words and then they'll just move on to some more content or move on to whatever else they want to look at. So the idea is to structure your content to capitalize on

method, this is sort of way that people are definitely paying attention to your content and utilize it to increase engagement and impact.

Ben (04:59)
I love that. So when you're looking at it, knowing this information that typically people are only looking at the 70 to 80 words, how do we really prepare ourselves? How do we actually optimize our content? And is it that we're trying to get them to read more or are we actually just trying to get them to read the first 70 characters and get enough out of it? How do you kind of look at that?

Chris Priest (05:21)
Well, it's really, really interesting because you go back to like, you know, just how language is used and things like that. And there's this guy, Aristotle, right? He's like running around Greece and 300 BCE and he's kind of considered the father of language arts.

And he, a long time ago, he said, yeah, I hope so. He said, he sort of said that, well, he didn't sort of say,

Ben (05:34)
I've heard of him. Yeah.

Chris Priest (05:40)
kind of broke it down as there's three elements to any language or whatever. It's grammar, it's like the mechanics, the logic, kind of the analysis of it. And then the rhetoric.

And that's the instruction part and the persuasive part.

And I think he kind of accurately said, well, to be honest with you, that's probably one of the most important tools we've ever invented as a group of people, a species, whatever we want to call it, is this idea that we can use language to inform, but also persuade people to do things. He went further with logos, ethos, and pathos, and all this kind of stuff. But when we look at it,

Now, it's like he was talking about your audience, the speaker, and then the message as the key components to how you want to message yourself. And you can use this for commercials. You can use this for long form content. So the F pattern really feeds directly into this in that we have a hook and then we present a hook. So that's your first few words where you're using a particular type of maybe you're asking an interesting question. Have you ever lost money on a business decision?

or you're starting with a metaphor, a simile, running a car dealership is a lot like walking a tightrope or something like that. So there's all different types of hooks you can use to sort of capture them, the reader or the viewer, as they're doing it. And then you provide a value to them. This is why you want to read more. And then you give them an action that you want them to perform. And it's very similar to how they design advertisements. You draw attention, you provide them value, and then you get them to act upon it.

F system kind builds off this entire sort of language art study of how people are digesting information.

Ben (07:15)
I love it. So how are you specifically applying this? How much content do you really put into these things is obviously the hooks kind of that first line in the F. Are you trying to put in like filler content so that they skim through that and then get to the middle line and then the bottom with the call the action or how does that kind of format and how does it follow like tactically? How are you trying to implement that?

Chris Priest (07:39)
Well, really you want the hook to capture their attention and hold it, right? ideally what we're doing is we're using content that's going to provide value to them as a reader. And there's different types of content, know, it's valuable content, like it's well researched. So they really want to know about it. It's highly informative. It's authoritative. It could be expert content. It could be brand brand and content. So you want to get them to the content part, which, that's where the value is.

The hook is to draw them in and have them go like, I should keep reading. This is kind of a fascinating thing. one type of hook called a quotation. there's a famous Bill Gates line where he said, if I only had $0.02 left in my name, I'd spend it on PR. So you've kind of caught their attention with this quote. And then you go right into three points or two or three points to support that.

Why is PR so important to Bill Gates? Well, if you knew him back in the 90s, like PR basically in his mind saves Microsoft, right? And so then, you should hire our PR friend because we do similar things or something like that. hook should be feeding them into the value proposition that you've got for them. It's the type of content that they wanna know. And then the call to action is something you want them to perform. Reach out to us for a demo, learn more, talk to one of our experts.

all the different types of things. And the idea is to create a long-term relationship with the audience so that you're providing value to them, you're entertaining, engaging them, and then you're getting them to something outside of just the document that you have.

Ben (09:09)
So there's this interesting movement right now of zero click content. And with zero click content, it feels like these different platforms and algorithms and search engines are trying to dissuade us from the call to action, or at least having like a really easy one, a clickable call to action and things like that.

How are you looking at that? What are your thoughts there and how are you still embedding a call to action that might fit these platforms and this whole zero click content thing that's going on?

Chris Priest (09:39)
Yeah, mean, marketing has changed probably more in the last five years than it has over the last 20 years. I I came up with digital marketing had just kind of emerged. And so you can see like a real push towards data, a real push towards like, why are we doing certain things and using analytics? So I've always been a big, huge proponent of making sure that analytics is the basis of some creativity. So for the zero clicks thing, they're really responding to this idea of

We all know this system, right? Like we all have this, if you study marketing, if you research marketing or work in marketing, the call to action is really, really important and everybody uses it. So it's the same thing on the event side where more and more events companies don't wanna share lists beforehand. They don't wanna do certain things because it's become well-known and it's kind of become this, it's kind of like using superlatives and slogans and taglines, like nobody believes anymore that you have the.

ultimate cheeseburger down the street or the best cup of coffee in the world, we're all a little bit more savvy than that. So the zero click things. But I think fundamentally, if you're sticking to the idea, you know, the hook value action is, is supposed to be making and useful to the reader or viewer or whoever. So really what you're talking about is if we take it in and we go like, you have a problem, we have the solution, but, we have the best solution by far.

you're explaining to them and then the call to action is really not a like, you know, schedule a demo by clicking this button. It's more trying to motivate them to go like, wow, that is the really best solution. I should reach out to these people and talk to them about this or that.

Ben (11:16)
I love it. love it. So for anyone that is struggling with their hook, going back to the first point, it is so important. Like you mentioned on LinkedIn and all of these other platforms, it feels like everything, including Google with search engines, you have your title and your meta description and you have those first 150 characters on LinkedIn. If you're on other social platforms, you have even less for the entirety of the post.

Chris Priest (11:22)
Hmm.

Ben (11:42)
How can we get better at the hook? And not necessarily always just for short form, but even long form content that gets people to engage. What are some recommendations there?

Chris Priest (11:52)
Well, the hook should really be setting up the content, right? Like you want to provide the value and that's the key is getting to figuring out how your content is valuable. If it's an expert content, like you have an expert explaining something to people, doing a white paper or a webinar and providing them with something of value to them because then once they see value in what you're doing, they're.

of course likely to reach out and want to talk to you, to see you as a thought leader, see you as a subject matter expert. So the hook should be designed to capture that person's attention and sustain it. And so really like, it depends on who you talk to. Sometimes people say there's six types of hooks, I've seen like 15 or whatever, but choosing the right type of hook and testing and having different people read it and try it out and is it.

more scholarly than you want to use like, you know, figures and facts. people remember stories. They don't remember facts though. So, you know, a lot of times like rhetoric or a story or something like that. One of the best presentations I ever saw in my entire life started with this guy and it was just him and he was sitting there and he said, was a Tuesday afternoon evening and I was helping my wife prepare dinner. When I got the call, you never want to get my company had been breached. And he just told this whole story about how his company

You know, took 19 days, they had to pay ransomware. It just destroyed the company or whatever. And just, that was the hook right there. And it was four or five minutes of him just talking and telling us the story. And the rest of the time we were wrapped. We were sitting there listening to this story. And of course the company doing is a cybersecurity firm that wants to now walk you through and explain how bad, you know, a breach can be for your organization, but how you can safeguard it. just figuring out the best place and the best type of hook.

to introduce the topic and then how that would feed into your valuable content.

Ben (13:44)
I love that. So double clicking on the storytelling element here. What's cool is it almost sounds like for a long piece of content. One of the best ways that you can have a hook is telling an applicable story and actually hooking people into it by getting them engaged in that narrative. How do you weave the narrative into the value as well? And maybe even possibly the call to action. How do you weave storytelling into all of those different elements? I think you did a great job of explaining the hook.

But how do I kind of keep the story going in a productive way that's still beneficial to the reader?

Chris Priest (14:17)
Well, that's the really cool thing about content marketing. I think, and I think it's really, really a fun part of it is by setting it up, like, here's a problem. me explain to you my problem. By the way, I was Tuesday afternoon, I was sitting there helping my wife make dinner and then this problem happened to me, right? And then you're giving them the solution in that, you know, here's what's going on. And then this is why it's the best solution. So you've already got a narrative structure, a storytelling structure to how you're doing it. You've got like,

You're thinking about how you're instructing and persuading them the entire way. It's just like any kind of reading that you're doing, it's a short story or you're reading some informative brochure because you want to buy a new car or something like that. The best way for them to structure it is for you to be able to walk through a story and keep almost, and this is a really oversimplified ways.

There's a follow a hero story, right? Like, here's the introduction of the hero. Here's the problem the hero has. There's the trials and tribulations. And then finally at the end, here's the conclusion. People love that kind of stuff. There's almost nearly like a instinctual aspect to it. Like we wanna know what happens as long as you're being and entertained as you're going along. And you wanna know what the conclusion is. So if you've done it right, people wanna get to the end and they wanna know what they should do next.

Ben (15:36)
I love that. And we're out of time today, but I love that ending. if you do it right, people will want to get to the end. And I think that that is a wonderful call to action for how to write content and the standard that we need to hold ourselves to when it comes to content that we need to have an engaging. And I think that that's super cool. Chris, I already have a million more questions. I'm sure other people will have questions.

If anyone wants to connect with you and reach out online, how and where can they find you?

Chris Priest (16:04)
I mean, I'm on LinkedIn and I'm at complyauto, christopher.priest at complyauto.com. I've got my LinkedIn, I think it's linkedin slash ca priest, zero three for some weird reason. So yeah, there's lots of different ways they can, and I love talking about this kind of stuff. I could talk to this for the rest of my life if I was able to. anything, yeah.

Ben (16:27)
Love it. Awesome. Well, Chris, again, thank you so much for the time and insights today. Appreciate it.

Chris Priest (16:31)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me, Ben.

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