In scriptwriting, there are tons of qualities that define a dynamic character. Let’s explore how the most important elements of character development can be applied to the stories you tell for your business.
A customer persona can tell you basic facts about your audience, but it won’t push your storytelling to the next level. It’s important to dig deeper and construct a dynamic character in every story you publish, whether that means a key narrator, a protagonist, or the setting itself.
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The more context you can provide around how this person uses whatever it is you’re selling, the more dynamic your character will be. And don’t be afraid to get personal–the deeper you go, the better.
What below-the-surface needs
does your product reflect?
How has your product affected his life?
How did he discover your product?
In fiction writing, this means having a fully documented life, from birth to present, for every character. In content marketing, this start by drafting out this person’s history as a customer using key questions such as:
Brands need to become customer obsessed in everything they do to grow audience through sustainable storytelling. A customer makes for a great lead character in a story, but before you introduce this person to the narrative, make sure you can articulate your character’s history.
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For example, the product or service you’re trying to sell fills some gap in your character’s life. By honing in on that gap–whether it’s the bond between a mother and daughter or the growing relationships between young professional and mentor–you can tease more detail and emotion out of these connections. And these details are what make your characters come alive.
In fiction writing, relationships between characters reveal subplots and tension. In content marketing, you need to find ways to showcase the relationships that matter most to your main characters—your customers.
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In a B2B setting, your customers are likely timestrapped workaholics. What qualities can you highlight in your main character, and what scenarios can you put that character through to emulate those intense feelings of trying to complete a job on deadline?
Creating empathy requires you to have a clear understanding of your audience, and then finding
ways to inject parts of them into the persona you’re building from scratch.
Your character doesn’t need to be empathetic, but your audience does need to identify parts of themselves in the people you feature in your stories. Some authors call this the “everyman-ness” quality of a madeup character.
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The best brand storytellers discover ways to reveal the inner dialogue of the characters they put front and center in content marketing. One technique you can use is to include asides in the stories you publish. This provides moments for your main character to address the audience directly, like Frank Underwood in “House of Cards.”
It’s almost impossible for us to know what the people next to us are thinking at any given second. Storytelling gives authors the ability to put audiences inside the minds of main characters.
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