building great digital marketing content a lesson from the revenant

Building great marketing content

… a lesson from The Revenant Image credit – 20Th Century Fox

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Most people find The Revenant to be

a really captivating movie

…which is interesting, since for the large part it’s

just one actor and lots of snow.

Image credit – 20Th Century Fox

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What makes the film such an

attention-grabber and how

can we incorporate these

techniques into our content?

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It’s all down to the construction of the storyline

The Revenant is told in

three parts or “acts” …

there’s a beginning,

middle and end. Engaging

and rising conflict is

delivered with each act,

and it keeps the audience

spellbound!

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What can content

writers learn from this?

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Let’s dig deeper – and see how we can

use these techniques for our own content.

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Great stories begin with the hero facing a difficulty or

a challenge. This creates tension and tension creates

drama that keeps the audience engaged.

Source: https://thescriptlab.com/screenwriting/structure/three-acts/57-act-three-the-end

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When your audience

relates to the hero and

the challenges the hero

faces – then you have

their attention.

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Let’s see how The Revenant creates drama right

from the start…

RUGGED TACITURN ANGRYBROW FRONTIERMAN LEONARDO

DICAPRIO is hunting for food with his HALF-NATIVE

SON, FORREST GOODLUCK.

FORREST GOODLUCK, Dad, did you hear something?

LEONARDO DICAPRIO, Huh? Sorry, I was distracted

by how horribly ironic your name is gonna turn

out to be.

(Source http://www.the-editing-room.com/the-revenant.html)


Their camp is ATTACKED by an ARIKARA HUNTING

PARTY! A bunch of trappers desperately hide

behind trees and in underbrush only to be

UTTERLY FRAGGED by ARROWS! Others flee madly

only to be SHOT DOWN!

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But then, it gets worse…

our hero is attacked by a bear and left to die. His son is

killed by John Fitzgerald, a member of the trapping party.


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You’ve certainly got my

attention. But what

about the day-to-day

world of business?


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Meet Kevin, he’s the IT Director

for a distribution and trucking

company.

When Kevin goes to work the last

thing on his mind is killer bears or

an Arikara hunting party – he’s

thinking of ensuring that the

company’s servers are up and

running and secure from threats.

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But Kevin faces a critical problem. With a small

staff and a backlog of unresolved issues, Kevin

feels that he’s constantly fighting a losing battle

to keep the infrastructure up and running. It’s a

battle that affects not just Kevin but his company,

their partners – and customers too. It certainly

keeps Kevin awake at night!

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Kevin is the hero of our story. By

describing the challenges he

faces and the tension he

experiences we’ve taken the first

steps to creating drama and

winning the audience’s attention.

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So, how do you build on

this tension and move the

story forward?

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By following the three

act structure of all

great story lines …

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Let’s understand how this is done in

The Revenant!


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The Revenant’s three acts

Act One – Setup The hero is attacked by a

war party, mauled by a bear

and left to die. The hero’s

life is at stake

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Act Two – Obstacles The journey begins. The hero

awakens and struggles to rise

from the dirt. He finds a bear

pelt to keep him warm and

starts to move through the

woods, beginning a rage-

fueled journey of revenge.


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Act Three – Resolution


The hero makes it back to the

safety of a trapping post and is

able to confront Fitzgerald, the

person who murdered his son.

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And so, we can start building a story line for Kevin

Act-one – Kevin struggles to keep his company’s

servers up and running. He doesn’t have the

staff or budget for all the challenges faced.

Act-two – He starts a journey to understand the kinds

of solutions that can help solve the problem.

Act three – Keven selects a cloud-base solution.

Now, we have the basic plot.

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Compare this to the basic plot for The Revenant

A frontiersman on a fur trading

exhibition in the 1820s fights for

survival after being mauled by a

bear and left for dead by members of

his own hunting team…

That’s all you need to get started. Let’s now use the techniques of

screen writers to start putting flesh on the basic plot…

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So far, I’ve not mentioned personas or

the buyer’s journey – keys to building

great content. Instead, let’s look at

actors and storyline.

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Casting your buyer as an actor

and building the content script

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Building great content using

script building techniques…

(I have taken a few liberties to simplify

some of the script building techniques.)

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Theme: Establish the theme of your story. For Kevin, it’s the

challenge of keeping the company’s infrastructure

humming.

Character introduction: Introduce the principal character. Provide the IT

manager’s background – let the audience identify with

the character.

Protagonist: Outline the challenges and issues Kevin faces.

Inciting incident: The inciting incident (or point of attack) is the moment

when the dramatic conflict announces itself. It’s the first

perception of the predicament to come – in Kevin’s

case, it might be a server that crashes at 4 AM.

Source: https://thescriptlab.com/screenwriting/structure/three-acts/55-act-one-the-beginning

Act one, the setup

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Main tension: This sets up the main tension around which the

story will be built. Will Kevin lose his job? Will his

team mutiny and leave the company?

The stakes: The stakes have to be clear in order to show how

and why this tension is important to them. What

happens to the company when a server crashes?

Are customers likely to leave? How is the bottom

line impacted? What happens to the company?

Objective: What is Kevin’s goal? What drives him? How badly

does he want to solve the problem.

Act one (continued)

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Challenges: Here we look deeply at the challenges, and the jam

that our hero is in.

Ramifications: And, explore the impact to others and the costs of

doing nothing.

Subplot: The subplot defines others impacted – perhaps the

CIO is also catching flak when servers fail, or the

VP of Sales risks losing potential customers.

First culmination: This is the midpoint of the story – where we get the

first hints of the solution. It could be the point where

Kevin decides to explore a cloud solution. But there

are obstacles and more challenges to come.

Act two, the obstacles

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Setback: This is where our hero hits a snag. In Kevin’s

case, it may be when he says to himself, “Okay a

cloud solution might be the best way forward – but

how do I begin to select a solution that’s best for

me? Where do I start?”

Main culmination This is where our hero faces the biggest obstacle.

For Kevin, it could be building a case for a new

solution, finding budget, convincing others in the

company, or getting people to change the way

they currently operate.

Act two (continued)

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Final culmination: This is the point where there’s just one path to

take. All other alternatives have been explored

and eliminated. Kevin is ready to make a choice –

but he’s concerned about the risks and costs of

the solution. He’s worried about whether the

project will be a success. Kevin is looking for

proof points. The final culmination is also where

the main plot (Kevin’s quest) and the subplot (the

CIO’s goals and challenges, the needs of the VP

of sales) collide – so it’s time to describe a

solution that is acceptable to all.

Act three, the resolution

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Resolution: This is the end of the story, a solution has been

found to address all the issues of the final

culmination – and your solution is selected. Our

hero walks off into the sunset!

Act three (continued)

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It’s certainly a lot of fun

building content using the film

script formula… and it leads

to some great, unique and

compelling content.

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With your script complete, it’s time to start

building content using the script as an outline.

Fusce ultrices scelerisque felis,

id semper quam posuere a. Sed

nec erat eget velit euismod

condimentum a in enim.

Maecenas bibendum aliquam

tincidunt. Mauris vestibulum

neque at nulla sagittis id lacinia

enim fermentum. Quisque

adipiscing risus nec massa

auctor condimentum. Mauris

venenatis lacus justo, eu varius

odio. Fusce commodo luctus

felis, vitae lobortis lectus facilisis

Theme

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

consectetur adipiscing elit.

Nullam massa enim, tincidunt

non hendrerit eget, malesuada

et nisi. In hac habitasse platea

Character

Act One

Sed lacus nulla, faucibus

eget ullamcorper ut, mollis

at metus. Vivamus tortor

felis, tincidunt at tristique ut,

tincidunt feugiat velit.














Main tension






Stakes

Act Two



















Culmination






ResSOLUTION

Act Three






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Here’s how the three-act process can work for you…

Bottom

of

funnel

Middle

of

funnel

Top

of

funnel Act one content

Act two content

Act three content

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Act one content

Act two content

Act three content

Three-act content examples…

Video

ebook

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Act one content

Act two content

Act three content

Three-act content examples…

Home page

Inner page

Landing page with contact form

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Act one content

Act two content

Act three content

Or even …

Making the cloud work for you!

The Complete 94 Page Guide

All you need to know about hybrid cloud

deployment.

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Your value proposition

The value of your solution is

established by showing how

you help your hero achieve

conflict resolution in a way

than no one else can!


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Interested in learning more?

Drop me a line or… oops, let

me try that again.


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Drop me a line or contact me

through LinkedIn:

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/dave-brown-

45a395

Interested in learning more?

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-brown-45a395





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Dave’s workshops include:

o Account-Based Marketing.

o Building Personas, Creating Winning Marketing Content.

o Building Content That Counts, the Foundation of Digital Marketing.

o Focused on Revenue: A program for channel partner lead generation.

o The Sales Navigator: A program to build new go-to-market solutions,

breakthrough market positions and unique value propositions for

channels and alliances.