Getting someone to read your online advertising is not easy. Beyond being memorable, online advertising should create interest in your value proposition and, in its best form, overcome sales objections. That's asking a lot, but it is possible.

Online advertising is different than offline (print) advertising because it is more intimate. Done well, you can get people to read your copy. That's why I believe the long-form (more than 150 words) sales message is not dead.

In fact using well written copy in story form that conveys your value such as a customer testimony, case study or white-paper is a terrific way to deliver your sales message.


The challenge we all face and the reason we usually use short copy, which includes tag-lines, elevator speeches, and anything less than 150 words, is we assume the average reader's attention span is short to the point of being miniscule. Collectively, we've made Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) a national treasure. That's silly, it's an excuse many people use to explain away their lack of seriousness. But no matter, that perception has consequences for those of us who write copy that sells for a living.

Too many of us believe that only the bored or the most desperate buyer will take the time to read the traditional long sales letters we  associate with internet marketing. The problem is not the length of the copy. The problem is most of what we read online is tacky, heavy-handed and just plain uninteresting.

A good way around this dilemma is to use stories. But not just any stories. I'm talking about stories that are interesting and fun to read. Stories that, at the same time, communicate each step of your sales sequence over time without ever being tacky or heavy-handed, “salesy.” Stories spread out over time in a series of emails and blog postings.

The first few emails entice the reader, your prospect, to investigate your services further. Once you get a click through the next series of emails describes your service benefits in more detail and, through stories and testimonials, are designed to overcome objections and encourage a purchase.

You can use a series of interesting stories to attract attention, describe benefits, create desire for your product or service, demonstrate the product in action, overcome objections, promote a strong call to action, and convey every other copywriting purpose just as effectively, perhaps more so, in a story (your content) as you would in a traditional sales message.

The goal is to make your content so interesting, entertaining and valuable that the underlying "advertising" will be read, retained, shared and, ultimately, result in a purchase.

When you combine the best aspects of advertising with quality storytelling, that's what I call Storytising.