If you're tired of sending emails that get ignored, you’re not alone.

The inbox is a battlefield, and grabbing attention is harder than ever. But what if there was a simple trick that could make people want to open your emails? And not just open them - read them, click on them, and actually buy from them?

The secret? Storytelling.

Yes, using stories in your emails can boost open rates by 22% and increase click-through rates by up to 37%. The best part? You don’t need to be a professional writer or a natural-born storyteller.

In this article, I’ll show you exactly how to use storytelling in your emails, even if you think you have no stories to tell.

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FREE list of the top 10 books to improve your email marketing

If you want to write better emails, come up with better content, and move your readers to click and buy, here's how. We put together this list of our Top 10 most highly recommended books that will improve all areas of your email marketing (including some underground treasures that we happened upon, which have been game-changing for us). Grab your FREE list here. 

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If you want to chat about how you can maximise the value of your email list and make more money from every subscriber, we can help! We know your business is different, so come and hang out in our FREE Facebook group, the Email Marketing Show Community for Course Creators and Coaches. We share a lot of training and resources, and you can talk about what you're up to.

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Join The Email Hero Blueprint

Want more? Let's say you're a course creator, membership site owner, coach, author, or expert and want to learn about the ethical psychology-based email marketing that turns 60-80% more of your newsletter subscribers into customers (within 60 days). If that's you, then The Email Hero Blueprint is for you.

This is hands down the most predictable, plug-and-play way to double your earnings per email subscriber. It allows you to generate a consistent sales flow without launching another product, service, or offer. Best news yet? You won't have to rely on copywriting, slimy persuasion, NLP, or ‘better' subject lines.

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Not only does it let us know you're out there listening, but your feedback helps us to keep creating the most useful episodes so more awesome people like you can discover the podcast. 

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00:01.39

Kennedy Kennedy

Using stories in your email marketing can actually boost your open rates by 22%. two per percent And your click-through rates can jump up by up to 37%, according to the boffins.

00:12.96

Kennedy Kennedy

So if you'd like a bit of that action for yourself, I'm going to show you how to craft stories in your emails, even if you're not a natural storyteller.

00:48.38

Kennedy Kennedy

Awesome! Welcome to the show. So before we get into actually how to tell these stories, I want to tell you some really surprising reasons that stories work so well, not just in terms of getting sales, but actually make your marketing way easier to do.

01:05.86

Kennedy Kennedy

And then we're going to get into actual tips in case you're not a very good storyteller, or you just want to like improve your storytelling skills. I think we can all do that, especially when you understand the kind of impact they're going to have. So the first really good reason that stories work so well is when you tell a story, whatever it's about, your audience actually builds the most important factor, which is they get to know you and they get to start to trust you.

01:29.95

Kennedy Kennedy

So if I'm telling a story about my two Bengal cats, Nova and over an Ivy, you're naturally finding out about more about me as as a person, as a person who lives in a home, who has two Bengal cats. And i have to deal with the fact that Nova puked on the stairs yesterday morning and I had to pick that up.

01:47.38

Kennedy Kennedy

It really humanizes you. When we humanize people, well, we become and not lot invincible. We become like real, okay? So that's one of the things you can do. But also, it doesn't just have to be stories that are about you.

02:01.46

Kennedy Kennedy

There could be stories about things you've observed. And when we do that kind of story, the audience gets to learn about the kind of things you observe and your opinions about them. Now, I'm not going to say you should get all political and tell people what you really think of that situation or that situation that's happening there in the world.

02:19.66

Kennedy Kennedy

If that's not your style, for most of us, we want to kind of keep away from that stuff. But if you did, that's an extreme example but of allowing people to identify with you. Oh, I agree with you. I disagree with you.

02:31.51

Kennedy Kennedy

But I'm really pleased that you've become a much more dimensionalized person. And that's really, really powerful. The second reason that stories work really well and they really help you with your marketing is, look, I don't know about you, but I feel like there are only so many ways i can talk about our programs.

02:48.76

Kennedy Kennedy

I can only talk about our Email Hero Blueprint program from so many different ways. I can tell you this feature, this benefit, but there are a finite, a limited number of different ways I can talk about the damn thing, right?

03:01.53

Kennedy Kennedy

And then I'm going to like, run out and be like, well, what else am I going to do? And if I do that, going to not write the email. I'm going to stop writing emails. I'm going to just like not send that email. So that's going to be a bad situation.

03:13.09

Kennedy Kennedy

However, you can't run out of stories. There's always stuff happening. There's stuff happening in the world. There's stuff happening to you. There's stuff happening in your industry. There's stuff happening to your parents, to your family members, to your sister, your brother, your partner.

03:27.31

Kennedy Kennedy

there's people There's people around you. There's stuff happening around you, which means you can never run out of stories. So if you use stories as a way of relating to your audience and giving yourself something to say,

03:40.59

Kennedy Kennedy

Yes, sometimes you will relate that to the same benefit or to the same message as it relates to your product or your service. But really think about it.

03:51.11

Kennedy Kennedy

You can't run out of stories. There are so many things that have happened to you and so many things that are happening to you, even small things that happen to you on a day to day basis. And that's one of the things I want to talk about is the stories you tell. And this is a huge mistake people make, by the way.

04:06.03

Kennedy Kennedy

The stories you tell don't have to be grand, crazy things. So, yes, I have amazing stories about some c incredible things that happened to me. The day that I met the Queen of England, that was amazing.

04:18.32

Kennedy Kennedy

I also shared a flight with um with the the the prince and and the princess. I shared a flight with... um What are they even called? See, I'm really into royalty, as you can tell.

04:29.41

Kennedy Kennedy

Anyway, with Kate and whatever he's called. let me know in the comments. i can't remember what the heck he's called. Kate and the other guy, right? end up sharing a flight with them, um which was really, really crazy, right? ah So I've done these amazing things. I've toured the world.

04:42.42

Kennedy Kennedy

People think that we have to, in order to tell stories, tell these big inspirational stories of crazy things and amazing things we've done. The truth is, when you tell that kind of story, it's an inspirational story.

04:54.00

Kennedy Kennedy

And that puts you on a pedestal. That makes people go, wow. But... It serves a very different purpose to a relatable story. And a relatable story is the cat puking on the stairs, the time your kid wouldn't go to sleep, the the small moments that everyone can relate to.

05:16.15

Kennedy Kennedy

And it's those small stories that when you tell them, As you'll see in this next section, that's when people really relate. Because when we tell stories, it physically takes up more space in people's minds.

05:29.12

Kennedy Kennedy

We remember stories of stuff that we did 10, 20 years ago, but we can't remember a shopping list or a list of really important steps to do something.

05:39.77

Kennedy Kennedy

Why? Because the stories stick. Whereas lists of facts actually just just go out of fashion. They they'd leave your head. and the And the reason that happens is because of the third reason that stories work is because they allow people to imagine Think about it.

05:59.93

Kennedy Kennedy

The way that our brains work, you go and see a film, you go and see a movie, you're watching a TV show on the couch, right? And you've got Netflix on or whatever. um And the reason you emote, the reason you feel anything, you feel sadness when the little mouse dies in the green mile, right? The reason that you feel so excited when the person wins the game show and they will win a million dollars The reason you feel happy, the reason you laugh at that funny bit, why?

06:29.90

Kennedy Kennedy

It's because you put yourself, you can't help it as a human being, you put yourself into that story. You put yourself, you call i call it first positioning.

06:40.61

Kennedy Kennedy

You put yourself in the first position as if you're experiencing that. It's why horror movies make you so feared, ah feared terrified, scared.

06:51.86

Kennedy Kennedy

The reason that all happens is because you can't help it when we tell a story, put ourselves in the action. So when instead of telling people the facts about when they could use your product or service or tell them what it does, if you tell them a story using the techniques I'm about to share with you,

07:12.35

Kennedy Kennedy

That person will first person. ah The person will put themselves into the story and they'll start imagining the problem. And when you tell the problem as a story, the problem becomes real.

07:24.44

Kennedy Kennedy

The emotions come to the surface and we start feeling something. When we feel something, we want to do something with that feeling. We either want to get more of that feeling, we want to chase that feeling, or we want to run away from the feeling.

07:37.18

Kennedy Kennedy

but We are the mouse, either running away from the cat or running towards the cheese. We are all as human beings, that mouse. So we're either going to be pushing people towards a solution or away from a problem.

07:51.73

Kennedy Kennedy

And we're going to be doing that through the kind of stories we tell. So it might be that we're telling them about the problem and we're having people imagine the problem. You know, when you're doing this and when you're doing that, that's all story techniques that I'll get into.

08:04.78

Kennedy Kennedy

Now people have those emotions at the surface and they are now the mouse running away from the cat. How cool is that? What happens? We feel it.

08:16.66

Kennedy Kennedy

We experience it and we make decisions when we feel things. We make decisions when we feel things. Nobody makes any decision, whether it's a yes or no decision, until they feel something.

08:30.74

Kennedy Kennedy

That's why you hear people saying, I've got a good feeling about this. I feel like I should do that. I really want that thing. Not I need that thing. I want that thing. And when we want something, that's a feeling. And that's when we make decisions.

08:44.90

Kennedy Kennedy

The other thing you could paint, of course, is is is a story of the after picture. And that is running towards the cheese. That's you as the little mouse running towards the cheese. The after picture. Wouldn't you like your life to be like this?

08:58.07

Kennedy Kennedy

Your situation to be like that? Your lawn to be like this? Your relationship to be like that? Oh, imagine. Imagine having the freedom just to book a holiday, a little trip next weekend and drop everything and having that freedom to just step on that plane and a few hours later i'd be stepping off in the warm heats of...

09:21.07

Kennedy Kennedy

I'm telling a story. I'm telling a story that gets you to imagine an outcome. The other thing you could be telling people the story of is what it's like using your product or service.

09:33.16

Kennedy Kennedy

Tell them about that experience of how simpler it is. Imagine yourself able to just click a few buttons and send this out, when it and it gets X result. tell it into a story. These are the surprising reasons that stories work. Before we get into how to actually tell really good stories, I'm going to give you some great tips to do that, even if you're not a very good storyteller.

09:53.84

Kennedy Kennedy

I would love it if you would come and join our free Facebook community. It's called the Email Marketing Show Community, and it's where we talk about all of this email marketing stuff day and night. There's a few thousand of us in there every single day sharing tips, sharing our ideas, sharing picking up emails and saying, hey, can I get some feedback, asking questions, getting answered.

10:15.99

Kennedy Kennedy

All you need to do is go to Facebook, search for the email marketing show community, and we'll get you in there. You also get the choice of joining our email list to actually see the kind of email marketing that we do. So,

10:28.33

Kennedy Kennedy

How do we actually tell great stories? How do we immediately improve the stories so that they make people want to buy? Well, we've already talked about the fact that we want to tell stories that get some kind of emotion, but they don't need to be extreme emotions.

10:42.96

Kennedy Kennedy

We don't need to be turning into Stephen King and making people horrified to read our emails. We definitely don't need to go that far. We also don't don't need to be laugh out loud funny. We don't need to be any of these things.

10:56.45

Kennedy Kennedy

What we do need to be is genuinely us. One of the big mistakes people make is they try and be quirky because they like other emails that they receive from people that happen to be quirky. Or they like to be funny or they because they try to be funny. Or they try to be motivational because they like somebody somebody's emails that are motivational.

11:12.60

Kennedy Kennedy

What you actually need to be is you. You need to be legit. You need to be genuinely you. So if you happen to be a very sincere, straight-laced, formal person, that's what you should be like in your storytelling.

11:25.88

Kennedy Kennedy

That's what you should be like in your emails. Because you're showing people what it's really like to get to know you. I don't want to read someone's really formal emails and then meet them in real life and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool, whatever.

11:38.60

Kennedy Kennedy

That's not really going to work. That's why in my emails, I swear, that's why in my emails, I'm very casual in conversation because if you come on one of my coaching calls or you come and watch and listen to the podcast, you're going to get a real sense of what I'm like.

11:51.99

Kennedy Kennedy

So I write how I speak. So one of the easiest ways to turn anything into a story even if you're like i don't really have a story for this like how do i story matize this that's not even a word how do i story matize this you might ask and the easiest way to do this is with location i'm give you four different methods by the way The first one is location.

12:16.61

Kennedy Kennedy

Give something a location. And that could be an explicit location or it could be an implicit location. As soon as you give something a location, it now conjures up in someone's mind a visual. And that means it's now a story.

12:33.17

Kennedy Kennedy

It's a really cool trick that I use all the time. And if you use this, you're going to take up more space on people's minds and that's going to lead to them feeling stuff. going to make more sales. Oh, that's really, really good. Right? So how do you make a location in someone's head? Well, first of all, you could just say it.

12:47.78

Kennedy Kennedy

You could say, I'm standing at the kitchen bench while my cup of tea is brewing. That's what I do every single day when I'm writing my daily email, right?

12:58.44

Kennedy Kennedy

So I could say that I'm just standing at the island in the kitchen and the the kettle's boiling in the background and I'm writing and I've just had a thought. Or um I was push i was in the in the park with my kids and the story.

13:12.58

Kennedy Kennedy

Just tell them where you are. That's the explicit story. The implicit story, because you don't want to be like every email, like today I'm in the kitchen. It feels like the captain's log. Today on the bridge, da, da, da, da.

13:24.09

Kennedy Kennedy

It doesn't have to be an explicit location. It could be an implicit location. I'm pushing my daughter on the swing.

13:32.14

Kennedy Kennedy

And there's another kid running around the roundabout. Oh, OK. I'm in a play park. Or I'm boiling the kettle to make my first cup of tea of the day.

13:45.20

Kennedy Kennedy

Where am I? I'm probably going to be in a kitchen. Inside my fridge, there's a really old plum that's really growing its own culture on its fur, of of fur on its skin.

13:58.40

Kennedy Kennedy

Right? Where am I? I'm in the kitchen. So these are implicit locations. Like, could the kettle be maybe on a little caddy towards my desk? Like, towards towards one side of my room?

14:09.65

Kennedy Kennedy

ah My office here in in my office on a desk? Yes, it could be. But it's not. And we're going allow people to make that leap. And if for them it is... in my office, if for them it is in a little special side room in the tea making room, then fine.

14:24.97

Kennedy Kennedy

not going to interrupt that in their heads. So the first thing I want you to do is a location. The second thing is to use open loops. What's really interesting when we tell stories is we don't have to tell the whole story in that one email.

14:41.58

Kennedy Kennedy

We can tell the story to a point where we're able to make a point that excites, ah interests, or creates an emotional response on that in that email for our audience, and then say, I'll tell you the next part tomorrow.

14:54.75

Kennedy Kennedy

And because people love hearing the end of a story, in fact, we hate when we don't know the end of a story, that's when we're going to get a higher open rate of tomorrow's email. Okay?

15:05.52

Kennedy Kennedy

And you can't always do that. But if you realize your story is kind of getting a bit too long, then that's a good way of of of shortening the email and saying, hey, I'll tell you more tomorrow. And it serves you positively. Get your audience, leave them at that got that crescendo, at that cliffhanger, and then them going to finish it off tomorrow.

15:24.33

Kennedy Kennedy

One of the things you're going to do through these stories is you are going to, this is number three, is you're going to use metaphor to create understanding. So in your emails, you're going to tell a story.

15:36.10

Kennedy Kennedy

And then from that story of a small moment, a small relatable moment in your in your life or in the in the world that you're observing, you're then going to relate that and use it as a metaphor to teach an important, valuable lesson that your audience needs to hear.

15:53.97

Kennedy Kennedy

So in my world, where I'm teaching the effectiveness and how to do effective email marketing that actually makes sales, right? I'm going to tell a story and then I'm going to relate it to a lesson that helps our audience to have a small moment.

16:09.74

Kennedy Kennedy

Not a big Eureka moment necessarily. Sometimes and on the odd occasion that's going to happen. but ah But what it really is, is that moment of, huh, I hadn't thought of it like that. So we're actually going to use the stories as a metaphor.

16:22.67

Kennedy Kennedy

But here's how you really start a story from an email or in an email that gets people reading. And this is tip number four. and i call And I call this start in the action. I've got some really cool tips for you to do this. Look,

16:38.83

Kennedy Kennedy

What's more compelling? The car that stopped standing still and you're looking at it or a car that's moving? Well, as human beings, we can't help but have our attention drawn to things that's moving. It's built into us from back in the day when we were all running around living in caves and stuff because a thing that's moving could be a predator. We might have to run and escape from that predator. So it's it's naturally it's built into us when something is moving We pull our attention towards it.

17:10.40

Kennedy Kennedy

And so, in your emails, you want to create action. Think about in an action movie, like a James Bond movie, or a Fast and Furious 217, or whatever the hell number we're up to right now.

17:24.21

Kennedy Kennedy

Think about what happens in those movies. The the opening scene of is not Mr. Bond sat on the sofa at home with his phone on the on the arm of the chair. He's watching a little bit of... um you know, cash in the attic and his phone dings and it's M or Q or L or whoever whoever the assistant is, whoever the the genius um inventor is.

17:47.36

Kennedy Kennedy

And it's not them texting going, oh, I think we've got a problem in X country. You might want to go and check it out, James. That's not what's happening.

17:58.67

Kennedy Kennedy

Instead, and then, of course, he would stand up, put his cup of tea down, take his specs off, put the TV on standby, make sure the cat's OK, put his shirt on and get in the car and then go and find the baddies.

18:13.47

Kennedy Kennedy

That's not what happens. The opening scene of a James Bond movie is not somebody sitting static. Instead, it's whack, he's getting hit across the face. It's zing, the car flying by. It's ping, the bullets flying.

18:29.52

Kennedy Kennedy

Why? Because something in motion grabs attention. So how do we apply that to emails? because Obviously, there's not like a big multi-million dollar ah movie inside of your emails. But what is that?

18:42.22

Kennedy Kennedy

So the way you apply this is by starting it in the action rather than yesterday i was standing in the kitchen and I realized that my cat Nova had vommed on the stairs.

18:55.51

Kennedy Kennedy

I'm going to be like, there's puke dripping down the third step. We're already in the action. So what's the trick to actually do that? This is a trick I learned from a journalist friend of mine.

19:06.76

Kennedy Kennedy

And that is, you write the email. Hey, I'm standing in the kitchen. And I realized that my like cat Nova had puked on the stairs. There was vom dropping dripping from the second step. I just delete the first paragraph.

19:20.51

Kennedy Kennedy

So that second paragraph, which starts, there's vom dropping dripping from the third step. That's where the email starts. We're starting right in that action.

19:31.73

Kennedy Kennedy

And that means when people open your email, they're already in motion, which means it's much more appealing to actually come in and read the rest of the email. So using these techniques, you're able to write much more compelling emails.

19:47.54

Kennedy Kennedy

Your emails are going to have much more emotion where people actually feel something rather than than just reading a bunch of facts. So when people feel, they imagine it, they emote, and then they're going to want to make decisions to go check out the landing page, register for the thing, reply, book an appointment. And I want you to go and apply all of this stuff today. Hope you find it useful.

20:08.62

Kennedy Kennedy

I'll see you in next week's episode.