Want an expert way to write better content faster? There’s a key tactic that successful freelance writers use called storyboarding.
What is storyboarding and how does it work? Read on to find out.
Later in this post, I’m going to share with you a storyboarding tool called Scrivener. This tool is a must for any serious freelance writer who wants to earn a full-time living.
Plan your content
Writers know that by outlining their novels or other creative writing projects, they can set out a proper skeleton around which they can build the story they know their readers will like and go out and buy.
The same holds true for content marketing. According to Uberflip, ‘outlines can be incredibly helpful for setting out the skeleton of your content and planning for a successful execution.’ As we are however creating content for the web, like videos, webinars, blog posts, infographics and much more, an outline alone will not do the job we require of it to do.
If you however take a strategic approach and properly plan all your content, you will ensure that the message you want to communicate to your audience reaches them and communicates the right information at the right time. We will spend a little time with a novel approach (pardon the pun) to plan and create engaging content.
Create Engaging Content with Storyboarding
Every story, as you know, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The same holds true for content marketing.
You start at a certain point, where you want to create awareness of your brand, then you create interest and lead your audience through a set of steps where they desire your service or product, and you end with a conversion which can be anything you want, like your audience signing up for your newsletter, getting them to call you and engage your services, or convincing them to buy your product.
This is what we call a Marketing Funnel. In short, according to Neil Patel, ‘a funnel is used to track the steps that lead up to that conversion’.
Now we get to the approach I have mentioned earlier, which will help you to create engaging content for your Blog.
As writers, we all know that even when you are creating written content, you need to be able to visualize your content. Basically, you need to create a story and walk through the story you’re trying to tell before you start creating the body of the content.
Storyboarding as a method of planning and creating a story, was first developed at the Walt Disney Studios in the 30s. According to Uberlift, ‘the storyboard is a basic system of organizing and planning visual thoughts. A storyboard is usually set up as a series of blocks that will proceed one after the other in the final film or animated story’.
Keeping the end of your Content Strategy in mind, and with a rough outline ready, you can start brainstorming into each bucket on your list and organize your thoughts in advance.
What is the Storyboarding Technique?
According to Michael Michalko, ‘Walt Disney used storyboarding to quickly show and share progress on the walls of his studio’. You can use the exact same technique to map out the content which you are planning for your blog. Let’s quickly talk about that:
1. Identify a Topic
For example, you decide to write about how Copywriters come up with good headlines.
The topic is, therefore: ‘Techniques Copywriters use for Creating Attention Grabbing Headlines’.
Pin the topic card on a pinboard.
2. Decide on the Purpose
From the topic, you brainstorm the purpose of the topic and write it on a card. Using the example, of the topic above, you identify the purpose for creating attention-grabbing headlines, which is to place emphasis on how your audience will come out ahead if they do business with you.
Pin your purpose beneath the “purpose” card.
3. Headers
Now that you have identified the topic and the purpose of your content, you can identify and list the headers (sections), which are primarily the major categories supportive of the process to identify the techniques Copywriters use for creating attention-grabbing headlines. For example, in this case, these may be:
• Identifying your Audience
• Identifying the Important features of your service or products
• Identifying which of these features are the most important to your audience and the reasons they will want to buy it.
Pin these Headers/ Sections under your ‘Headers’ card.
4. Miscellaneous
It’s a good idea to include a miscellaneous header to contain all those items that don’t fit within the other categories, like an introduction to your brand and how you decided to launch your business.
Pin these under the ‘Miscellaneous’ card on your board.
5. Brainstorming
Use your headers and subheaders which you have identified to brainstorm ideas, solutions, and thoughts on cards.
6. Hitchhiking
During a storyboard session, consider all ideas relevant, no matter how impractical they appear.
7. Flexibility
Keep the storyboard flexible and dynamic.
8. Incubating
Continue with this process you have generated enough ideas.
In conclusion, you can see for yourself that Storyboarding is a great method to use for:
• Brainstorming
• Setting out visual cues for your written content; and
• Boosting the effectiveness of your content.
Hopefully, this article on storyboarding tips has helped you structure your content better.
Best tool for Storyboarding
Scrivener
You can use an ordinary corkboard and index cards as I have described above, and manually plan and outline your content, or you can use Scrivener.
Scrivener is a very familiar program that writers use to plan, outline and write their novels, non-fiction books or other creative writing projects.
This software can however also be used very successfully in planning, outlining, and writing your blog posts and other internet content such as your Vlog (video blogs) scripts or video tutorial scripts.
Scrivener’s Corkboard is one of the writer’s most familiar planning tools. In Scrivener, every section of your project is attached to a virtual index card. Scrivener’s corkboard lets you step back and work with just the synopses you’ve written on the cards—and when you move them, you’re rearranging your manuscript, screenplay, or blog post at the same time.
