Building A Story In Marketing

byownonlboss

2.2K followers

6 years ago

What Does The Customer Want?

We learn by stories, not just by hearing the stories but the actual interaction where I get to share my part of it and you share your part of it.

A customer doesn't buy products. A customer buys solutions to a problem they are having. They won't buy anything when they don't understand the message.

Remember my blog about the grunt method? Customers will run away from unclear communication. Even if your opponent has a worse product but a better message to sell it, the chance is big that they will sell more than you (will ever) do.

So, a customer needs to be fed the right information that is going to help them out with their problem.

This is where storybuilding takes part.

Building A Story

To build a story, you need to follow a concept that works time and time again. It is a known working concept for building a story used by many creators of content. Every good movie, book or theater piece follows the same concept.

The following I took from a book I read on storybuilding, by Donald Miller from his company Storybrand. The book is called The Storybrand Framework and explains the way to build a story for your business and all marketing collateral.

It is important to make the story part of not only the website, or marketing material, but also make it part of your employees. Everybody in the firm should know and understand the message (and tagline) so there will be unity in what is communicated to the outside world / the customers.

That message is going to be part of your day-to-day communication in everything you do and you are basically living within the story.

You are not the hero, but you will be the guide, guiding the hero. The hero in the story is going to be your customer.

The story framework can just as well be applied to your business, your blog website's layout and to each of the reviews you are writing. Just think about it how you are going to invite people into your story and making them feel the hero.

As soon as we start becoming the hero and they the viewer, you will lose them. They will see you as a guru that has made it and the story becomes less attractive. The brain of the reader is going to check-out and assume the content as noise.

Story Framework

There will be A CHARACTER who wants something. The CHARACTER encounters a PROBLEM before they can get the something.

At the peak of their despair, a GUIDE steps into their lives. The GUIDE gives them a PLAN, and CALLS THEM TO ACTION. That ACTION helps them to avoid FAILURE and will end in a SUCCESS.

There are many substeps in this story, which you can definitely read more about in the book. I will give you a quick overview below.

Problem:
- villain = a problem
- external problem
- internal problem
- philosophical problem

We villainize often things and they can be seen as a problem for us. The bomb that goes off or the villain that enters the story is though an external problem, not the internal one.

The internal problem is the weakness, flaw or lack of a character. It describes the actual problem the character is having and this cannot be solved without a solution.

Guide:
The guide will show empathy and a level of authority, so that he knows what he is dealing with and can offer a solution.

Doing as called for will lead to a certain wanted success and avoid a certain faillure.

This concept can easily be transferred to the writing you do.

Note that most good stories and movies will keep on iterating numerous amounts of problems, guidances and actions. These iterations are not there to make it extra difficult for the hero, but to keep us interested. It will keep the story going on and and keeps us locked into what will happen next.

While most product sales are often about taking a certain action to solve the problem, there are also products or services that require multiple actions to be completed or certain things done in a certain order.

Don't Just Tell Your Story

Please remember, you are not the hero, you are the guide. The customer here is the hero of any story. The customer needs to become the hero of your story

They need to be fed the information that is going to help them out in the right way. The customer wants to know WHY they need your product and you show that through telling about the ASPECTS that will help them SURVIVE and THRIVE.

See the customer as the grunt that needs primary needs met. I've talked about these needs through the Maslov pyramid a while ago.

In any case, a customer doesn't want to consume too much energy understanding the message. If the message is too difficult to understand or the story is too boring and long, the customer will walk away and go to the seller of a product that is telling a more understanding story.

How will you invite your reader into your story? Please comment your answer below!