How to Write Emails Using Storytelling

Learn how to enhance your email marketing with storytelling techniques that engage readers and drive conversions through emotional connections.

August 19, 2025

Table of Contents

Storytelling in emails works because it taps into emotions, builds connections, and makes your message memorable. People remember stories up to 22x better than plain facts, and emotionally engaged customers are 306% more loyal. By weaving relatable narratives into your emails, you can grab attention, inspire action, and boost conversions.

Here’s how to make it work:

  • Why Stories Work: Stories trigger emotional responses (cortisol for attention, oxytocin for empathy, dopamine for action). This makes your message stick.

  • Types of Stories to Use: Origin stories, customer success stories, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and problem-solution narratives work best.

  • How to Structure Stories: Use a 4-part framework: Setup (introduce a challenge), Confrontation (show obstacles), Resolution (overcome them), and Drive Action (clear CTA).

  • Personalization and Visuals: Tailor stories to your audience and use images or videos to enhance impact.

  • Track Results: Monitor open rates, click-through rates, and conversions to refine your approach.

Start small by sharing personal experiences or customer wins. Keep it simple, focus on your audience as the hero, and test what resonates.

BOOST Your Sales with the Power of STORYTELLING in Emails

Building Your Email Story

Crafting an email story is all about creating a connection with your readers that inspires them to take action. Unlike fiction, marketing stories have a clear goal: to guide readers toward a specific outcome.

Core Story Components

Great email stories often follow a four-act structure: Setup, Confrontation, Resolution, and Drive Action.

  • Act 1: The Setup: This sets the stage and introduces the main challenge. The protagonist - whether it's a customer, employee, or relatable character - faces a situation your audience can identify with.

  • Act 2: Confrontation: Here, the obstacles emerge, echoing the challenges your readers might face.

  • Act 3: Resolution: The protagonist overcomes the hurdles, leading to a positive transformation.

  • Act 4: Drive Action: Finally, tie the story back to your brand by positioning your product or service as the solution. End with a clear, actionable CTA.

For instance, Rainmaker Digital Services' email titled "Henry Ford's $250,000 X" uses this structure brilliantly. It begins with a broken generator (Setup), builds tension with costly challenges (Confrontation), resolves the issue (Resolution), and concludes by linking the story to their marketing expertise with a deadline-driven CTA (Drive Action).

Keeping Stories Real and Relevant

Once your structure is in place, make sure your story feels authentic. A genuine narrative resonates more deeply with your audience, strengthening the story's impact.

To achieve this, you need to know your audience inside and out. Use surveys, interviews, and data analysis to uncover what matters most to your subscribers. Take Drip, for example. This automation platform segmented its audience and tailored content based on engagement levels, leading to a 123% increase in open rates and a 352% jump in click-through rates.

Adopt a conversational style - keep it friendly, direct, and easy to read. Personal anecdotes or customer success stories can make your brand more relatable while also serving as social proof of your product’s value.

Keep your story tight and to the point. Edit ruthlessly to remove unnecessary details, and don’t be afraid to test different formats. Refine your approach based on the results you see.

As marketing expert Ann Handley puts it: "Make your customer the hero of your stories". Your job is to guide them through their journey and help them achieve their transformation.

Storytelling for Different Email Types

Adjusting your storytelling approach to fit the purpose of each email is key to keeping your audience engaged. Different types of emails call for distinct narratives that connect with readers on a deeper level.

Welcome Emails

Welcome emails are your first opportunity to make a lasting impression. Instead of diving into features or discounts, focus on creating an emotional connection by sharing your brand's backstory or a personal journey. A great example is The Turmeric Co., which uses its founder Thomas Robson-Kanu's story of overcoming a career-ending injury through turmeric's healing properties. This heartfelt narrative adds warmth and relatability to their welcome emails. When crafting your own, introduce your mission, share the challenge that inspired your brand, and invite readers to join a community built on genuine connections. This sets the stage for a seamless transition into other email types, like promotional campaigns.

Promotional Emails

Promotional emails become more compelling when they place the customer at the center of the story, with your brand acting as the guide. Instead of focusing solely on the product, weave its benefits into narratives that evoke emotion and inspire action. For instance, TOMS frames its brand as a "movement" and a "family", creating a sense of belonging and shared purpose. Similarly, Uber has highlighted real-life stories, like a driver’s heroic acts, to shift attention from selling to shared values. To replicate this, craft stories that align with your audience's aspirations, ending with a call to action that feels like a natural next step. Take Alex, a coffee shop owner, as an example - he doubled his revenue in six months by embedding authentic storytelling into his promotional emails.

Lead Nurturing Emails

Lead nurturing emails play a vital role in guiding prospects through their decision-making process. Short case studies and transformation stories work well here, as they build trust and demonstrate value. For example, Sinch Mailgun crafted a relatable narrative around customer SparkToro, which resonated strongly on social media. To structure these emails effectively, follow a simple three-phase format: start with the challenge, introduce the turning point, and wrap up with the resolution. Close with a clear call to action that encourages the next step in the buyer’s journey. This storytelling approach not only builds credibility but also gently nudges prospects closer to making a purchase.

Storytelling Techniques That Work

Great storytelling can transform your emails from forgettable to impactful. By using effective techniques, you can craft narratives that not only engage your audience but also inspire action.

Adding Humor and Personal Details

Humor can turn your brand into a relatable friend instead of just another business. But to work, it has to be smart and relevant. Drip saw a major boost in open and click-through rates when they started using humor, personal stories, and clever subject lines in their emails.

The trick with humor is to make it meaningful. Ed Forteau explains:

"The strategic use of humor is very effective in getting people to engage with your emails. But don't just use humor to try to look clever. Tie it to the point of the email, and a benefit the recipient will gain by opening and reading it."

Personal anecdotes are another powerful tool for connection. They help humanize your brand and make your emails feel less like a sales pitch and more like a conversation. These stories don't have to be dramatic. Sharing an everyday challenge, a mistake that led to a breakthrough, or a memorable customer interaction can work wonders.

Before using humor, know your audience. What makes a millennial in tech laugh might not resonate with a baby boomer in healthcare. Test your content on a small group first, and steer clear of sensitive topics like politics or religion. Humor should enhance your message, not distract from it.

And don’t forget - visuals can take your storytelling to the next level.

Supporting Stories with Images

Visuals are crucial for making your story stick. Studies show that people remember about 65% of what they see, compared to just 10% of what they read after three days. This makes images an essential part of your email storytelling.

Choose visuals that match your brand and reinforce your message. For example, Domino's uses concise text paired with relevant images, making their emails easy to grasp at a glance. P.F. Candle Co. creates a cohesive vibe by sticking to an autumnal color palette and minimalist design in their emails.

Most people prefer visual content. Nearly two-thirds of consumers favor emails that are image-heavy, and 68% prefer short videos to discover new products or services. Brooks Running effectively uses relatable images of people that mirror their target audience, making their stories feel more authentic.

To get the most out of your visuals, optimize them for mobile devices and use common formats like JPEG for photos or PNG for images with transparent backgrounds. Maintain an 80:20 text-to-image ratio to avoid spam filters, and always include descriptive alt text so everyone, including those with visual impairments, can engage with your content.

But visuals alone aren’t enough - personalization is what truly makes your story stand out.

Making Stories Personal

Personalization takes your storytelling to a whole new level. Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened, and personalized campaigns deliver a median ROI of 122%. But personalization isn’t just about adding someone’s first name - it’s about crafting experiences that feel tailor-made.

Use customer data to customize your stories. Adidas, for instance, dynamically adjusts the products featured in their emails based on the subscriber’s gender, ensuring the content feels relevant. Sephora takes it a step further by using automation to send exclusive offers to VIP customers when they hit a certain spending threshold, creating a sense of privilege and connection.

Segmenting your audience by behavior and demographics allows you to create stories that speak directly to their needs. Flight Centre, for example, combines data from various sources to craft highly targeted vacation offers that feel like personalized recommendations.

Even small touches, like personalizing the sender information, can make a big difference. Emails sent from a specific sales rep or account manager feel more human and trustworthy than those from a generic company address. St. Jude Children’s Hospital takes this approach by sending re-engagement emails to past donors, sharing stories that highlight the impact of their previous contributions.

The goal is simple: make every subscriber feel like your story was written just for them. Address their unique challenges, inspire their aspirations, and stay true to your brand’s voice.

Tracking Your Storytelling Results

To make your storytelling efforts count, you need to measure how well they perform. Tracking the right metrics gives you a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t, helping you transform good stories into ones that truly connect and deliver results.

Key Metrics to Monitor

Once your story is out in the world, it’s time to analyze its performance. Here are the metrics you should keep an eye on:

  • Open rates: These tell you if your subject lines and hooks grab attention. Industry averages hover around 37.93%, with top performers reaching 54.78%. Aim for a range of 20% to 40% to remain competitive.

  • Click-through rates (CTR): This metric shows whether your story inspires action. The industry average is 1.29%, while leaders achieve 4.74%. Depending on your sector, aim for 2% to 5%.

  • Click-to-open rate (CTOR): CTOR measures the quality of your content. The average is 10.5%, with a healthy range between 6% and 17%. Strong open rates but low CTOR may indicate that your story grabs attention but falls short of compelling action.

  • Conversion rates: This metric reflects how effectively your story drives desired outcomes, with an industry average of 0.08% and top performers reaching 0.44%.

  • Unsubscribe rates: High unsubscribe rates can signal that your story isn’t resonating. Keep this metric around 0.2%, as the average for ecommerce is 0.19%.

As Matt Schott, Senior Lead Gen Strategist at thunder::tech, notes:

"Traditional click-through rate is one of the most meaningful statistics to track in your email marketing software. This, layered with audience size, can really be the foundation of a list that's ready to be leveraged towards achieving significant business objectives."

Experimenting With Storytelling Approaches

Testing different storytelling methods can help you discover what resonates with your audience. A/B testing is especially useful for this. Test one variable at a time - such as subject lines, emotional tone, or call-to-action placement - to pinpoint what drives better results.

Start by forming a hypothesis. What do you want to improve, and why do you think your changes will work? Use the ICE scoring model (Impact, Confidence, Ease) to prioritize your experiments.

For example, HubSpot found that personalizing sender names led to a 0.53% higher open rate and a 0.23% higher click-through rate compared to generic company names. Similarly, Campaign Monitor observed that action-oriented phrases like “Get the formulas” outperformed vague calls-to-action like “Read more,” boosting click-through rates by over 10%.

Unexpected results can also provide valuable lessons. SitePoint, for instance, added images to emails expecting better engagement but found that conversions dropped because the visuals distracted from the main content. On the other hand, Campaign Monitor discovered that buttons increased click-throughs by 27% compared to text links.

Turning Data Into Better Stories

Analyzing your performance data regularly is key to improving your storytelling. Review your email metrics weekly to spot trends and understand how different approaches resonate with your audience.

Segment your audience for deeper insights. Segmented emails generate 30% more opens and 50% more click-throughs than unsegmented ones. Dive into demographics, behavior patterns, and purchase history to tailor your stories. For instance, if one group responds well to product-focused stories, emphasize features. If another prefers customer success stories, lean on social proof.

Personalization also pays off. Emails tailored to individual behaviors achieve 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates. Booky, a digital restaurant booking app, used behavioral data to send hyper-personalized emails, boosting open rates by 36%. They even leveraged location data to send reminders when users were near restaurants they had shown interest in - a small but impactful touch.

If certain stories consistently underperform with specific segments, adjust your strategy. Focus on fewer, more targeted emails that resonate rather than overwhelming subscribers with irrelevant content. Considering that email marketing offers an average ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, refining your approach is well worth the effort.

Finally, don’t overlook deliverability. As Desirae Odjick, Product Marketer at Shopify Email and Shopify Forms, explains:

"A lot of your email deliverability depends on how people are engaging with your email. Are they not opening, are they bouncing, are they marking it as spam? Or are they opening, clicking, reading, engaging with your content?"

Conclusion

Storytelling in email marketing isn’t just a buzzword - it’s a game changer. The data backs it up: stories can increase open rates by 22% and boost click-through rates by as much as 37%. Even more impressive, stories improve retention by up to 22 times. These stats highlight the potential of storytelling to create meaningful emotional connections with your audience.

And those emotional connections? They’re invaluable. As Maya Angelou famously said, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel". This isn’t just poetic - it’s practical. Emotionally connected customers are 306% more valuable over their lifetime, and 71% of them rate brands highly compared to just 45% of satisfied customers.

Why does storytelling work so well? It humanizes your brand, making it relatable and trustworthy. Instead of sending out another generic promotional email, you’re inviting your audience into a narrative - one that resonates and stays with them. By putting your customer at the center of the story, you create emails that guide them naturally from discovery to purchase. Every story you tell reinforces the connection and trust you’ve worked to build.

You don’t need to be a professional writer to get started. Begin with simple, personal stories. Share experiences from your community or highlight a customer’s success. Keep the focus on your customer as the hero of the narrative, and remember: being real beats being perfect. Start small, experiment with different approaches, and let the data show you what works best.

This is your chance to use storytelling to set your email campaigns apart. In a sea of bland, forgettable messages, your unique narrative can shine. By weaving stories into your emails, you’re giving your audience something they’ll remember - a reason to care, connect, and act. So, what’s your first story going to be?

FAQs

How can I use storytelling to boost email engagement and drive more clicks?

Storytelling is one of the best ways to make your emails more engaging and unforgettable. When you share relatable stories, you tap into your readers’ emotions, building a connection that can boost open rates and clicks.

Start by crafting stories that align with your audience’s experiences, struggles, or dreams. Write in a conversational tone and include vivid details to pull them in. Whether it’s a personal story, a customer’s success, or a behind-the-scenes glimpse, storytelling makes your emails stand out and motivates readers to take action.

When done well, this approach can take your email marketing to the next level, turning casual readers into loyal, enthusiastic customers.

What are some examples of personal stories or customer success experiences to use in email storytelling?

Personal stories and success experiences can bring a relatable and engaging touch to your emails. For instance, you might share a customer's journey of transformation, showcasing how they tackled challenges with the help of your product or service. Alternatively, you could describe a real-life problem-solving situation where your solution made a meaningful difference. These narratives don't just build trust - they also help your audience clearly understand the real benefits you offer.

How can I make my email stories feel more personal and relevant to different audience segments?

To craft email stories that resonate on a personal level, leverage data such as purchase history, browsing habits, and stated preferences. Use this information to shape your messaging, tone, and offers in a way that aligns with the specific interests and needs of each audience segment.

For instance, if one group tends to favor detailed guides while another prefers bite-sized tips, adapt your storytelling approach to match those preferences. When your content feels tailored and relevant, it naturally strengthens the bond with your audience.