Conversion storytelling

Conversion Storytelling

Build a clear path from the audience's present state to a credible next action. Treat every framework as a hypothesis, not a guarantee; user-approved facts, positioning, tone, offer, and framework take precedence over defaults.

Decision order

1. Current user instructions and confirmed brand/product truth.
2. Safety, privacy, legal truthfulness, accessibility, and platform constraints.
3. Existing evidence, search intent, analytics, and healthy product conventions.
4. This skill's framework guidance.

Never silently replace the user's chosen framework. Explain a material risk and request a decision only when it changes truth, safety, scope, or the intended outcome.

For every public indexable surface, SEO is a release gate, not an optional tradeoff. A framework may reorganize or simplify presentation, but it must not knowingly remove crawlability, semantic meaning, distinct search intent, useful evidence, metadata, internal links, or URL continuity. If a preferred treatment conflicts, provide an SEO-safe alternative. Do not offer “accept the SEO risk” as a waiver while the surface remains public and indexable; the gate changes only when the user explicitly changes its purpose to private or intentionally non-indexable and confirms that consequence.

Workflow

1. Establish the conversion brief

Before a material narrative rewrite, capture or confirm:

• buyer/user, awareness state, pain or desired progress;
• offer, mechanism, primary action, and business-qualified outcome;
• approved proof, objections, tone, prohibited claims, and required content;
• surface and journey stage: ad, page, pricing, onboarding, checkout, or retention;
• current URLs, organic queries, content, analytics baseline, and constraints.

Do not repeat facts already provided. Ask one to three grouped questions only when missing answers materially change the narrative. When the brief is complete and execution is authorized, state assumptions and proceed.

2. Audit before changing

For an existing product, inventory the current message hierarchy, semantic content, URLs, metadata, internal links, proof, CTA paths, funnel data, and interaction behavior. Preserve what is useful or already performing until evidence supports a change.

3. Choose the narrative deliberately

Read framework-selection.md completely. Select one primary narrative spine per surface and explain why it fits the audience, awareness, evidence, risk, and action. Add a section-level pattern only when it closes a distinct gap. Do not default every surface to StoryBrand or force marketing prose into product UI.

Use this quick guide while comparing candidates:

• StoryBrand / SB7: complex homepages and services needing customer clarity, guide positioning, a plan, stakes, and success.
• PAS: already-recognized, costly problems where proportionate consequences and credible relief are supportable; never use shame or invented urgency.
• Before-After-Bridge: concise product, ecommerce, feature, or transformation pages where current and desired states can be shown clearly.
• Golden Circle: brand, mission, category, or founder positioning where “why” differentiates before “how” and “what”; usually a positioning layer, not a checkout flow.
• AIDA: short ads, email, campaigns, and fast transactional paths with one clear action; add proof for high-consideration decisions.
• Hero's Journey: founder or customer stories with an attributable protagonist and real transformation; do not make the brand the hero by default.

Also consider Star-Story-Solution, Problem-Mechanism-Proof, Four Ps, and Jobs-to-be-Done from the framework reference. Choose one primary spine per surface; layer another only for a distinct section purpose.

4. Produce the message map

Define: present state, desired progress, problem, stakes, mechanism, proof, objections, plan, success, primary CTA, secondary CTA, and disqualifiers. Mark every statement as approved, supported, needs evidence, or prohibited.

5. Translate story into experience

Read page-execution.md completely. Produce a scannable hierarchy before polished copy. Keep the customer/user central, make the product's role concrete, and use progressive disclosure instead of either a text wall or content deletion. Interaction and motion must clarify the story rather than decorate it.

6. Protect truth and search value

Read proof-and-measurement.md completely. Never fabricate testimonials, metrics, customers, scarcity, urgency, guarantees, or case studies. Keep search-critical meaning in visible semantic HTML and preserve distinct intent, evidence, entities, and internal links while simplifying phrasing.

7. Measure the hypothesis

Define one primary conversion event, supporting diagnostics, quality/guardrail metrics, baseline, audience segment, and validation method. Describe expected improvement as a hypothesis. Do not claim that a framework will increase conversion without reliable outcome data.

Required output

Return:

1. conversion brief and unresolved decisions;
2. selected framework and rejected alternatives;
3. message map and proof ledger;
4. page/flow outline with copy hierarchy and CTA roles;
5. SEO/content preservation map;
6. interaction and accessibility direction;
7. measurement plan and implementation boundary.

For broad implementation work, COMPANION SKILL: use product-architecture-and-development; this skill owns narrative, proof, CTA, and conversion measurement while the companion owns technical architecture.