Your brand and storytelling

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.” _Steve Jobs

If you are a very tech-centric founder you might not be thinking about stories. You might not realise their power and may not even think you need them in your business… Many are like that. And that’s why many end up struggling to attract users and build communities…

Stories are powerful. The brands with the best stories are unbeatable. Stories help create that emotional connection with the audience that is so needed these days.

I was doing some client work last week and revisited one of the books I had read years ago: Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

So today I will share the most important ideas from it to prove that stories matter and share my personal takeaways that I think would be useful to you as a tech startup founder.

LFG!

Although the book is a mixture between marketing and storytelling it also relies on the basic human psychology. So to me it makes sense to start with the fundamental fact that can be used as the initial starting point. We gotta remember that:

WHAT EVERY HUMAN BEING WANTS MOST is: to be seen, to be heard and to be understood.

Which is why understanding your audience/user/customer is so important in marketing. You need to know them inside out and you gotta get under their skin. And the most important component: Empathy! (And I don’t mean faking it - a genuine one of course!

When we empathize with our customers’ dilemma, we create a bond of trust. People trust those who understand them, and they trust brands that understand them too.

The simplified StoryBrand storytelling framework is the following:

A CHARACTER who wants something encounters a PROBLEM before they can get it. At the peak of their desire, a GUIDE steps into their lives, gives them a PLAN, and CALLS THEM TO ACTION. That action helps them avoid FAILURE and ends in a SUCCESS.

As you can see your brand/startup/you are NOT the hero of the story. You are the guide (eg. you are not Skywalker - you are the Jedi). And btw the guide doesn’t have to be perfect, but the guide needs to have serious experience helping other heroes win the day.

Those who realize the epic story of life is not about them but actually about the people around them somehow win in the end.

The story starts by a character who wants something.

And then the question becomes: will the hero get what he wants? Can your brand really help me get what I want?

We really need to understand what does our hero want (or maybe: what does success look like for them).

When we fail to define something our customer wants, we fail to open a story gap. When we don’t open a story gap in our customers’ mind, they have no motivation to engage us, because there is no question that demands resolution. Defining something our customer wants ad featuring it in our marketing materials will open a story gap.

And of course we can’t forget about a character in a story we can’t be without.

We need a Villain!

The Villain should be:

• a root source (Frustration, for example, is not a villain; frustration is what villain makes us feel. High taxes, rather, are a good example of a villain.)

• relatable

• singular

• real

If we want our customers’ ears to perk up when we talk about our products and services, we should position those products and services as weapons they can use to defeat a villain. And the villain should be dastardly.

Now let’s look at motivators.

The only motivators a hero has in a story are to ESCAPE something BAD or EXPERIENCE something GOOD.

People are more likely to be dissatisfied with a loss than they are satisfied with a gain.

Loss aversion is a greater motivator of buying decisions than potential gains.

People are 2 to 3 times more motivated to make a change to avoid a loss than they are to achieve a gain.

And looking into their problems we need to take into account one important thing: we gotta dive deeper than just their external problems. Ideally we need to address all 3 problems: external, internal and philosophical.

Being able to address all 3 problems we will also be able to raise the perceived value of what we offer. For example Starbucks customers are willing to pay more for their coffee because they sense greater value with each cup.

Framing our products as a resolution to both EXTERNAL and INTERNAL problems increases the perceived value (and I would argue, actual value) of those products.

And before I leave you today, let’s not forget to end few very important thoughts to the whole mix here:

• Customers look for brands they have something in common with.

  Commonality, whether taste in music or shared values, is a powerful marketing tool.

• Human beings value trust so highly, it’s only after trust is established that a person begins to consider getting to know us further.

• You would like your customers to sense of involvement with a larger movement

• Capitalise on human desire to transform

• Everybody wants to be taken somewhere. If we don’t tell people where we’re taking them, they’ll engage another brand.

• Never ASSUME people understand how your brand can change their lives. TELL them!

That was it for this week.

What’s the story of your brand?