Building a StoryBrand - Donald Miller
Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen
[bq] “Customers don’t generally care about your story; they care about their own. Your customer should be the hero of the story.”
[bq] “Businesses that invite their customers into a heroic story grow. Businesses that don’t are forgotten.”
I. Why Most Marketing is a Money Pit
1. The Key to Being Seen, Heard, and Understood
The fanciest website or shiniest ad campaign is worthless without a clear and compelling message.
As soon as you confuse your (potential) customer, you’ve lost them.
Even if your product is the best in the market, if you don’t communicate well why your client should want it, it’s going to lose to inferior ones.
Simplicity wins. Most marketing is too complicated. Stories help make messages easier to process, digest, and remember.
Brands make two key mistakes when talking about their product/service:
[bq] “They fail to focus on the aspects off their offer that will help people survive and thrive."
[bq] “They cause their customers to burn to many calories in an effort to understand their offer.” I.e. even if your message contains the right information, if it is buried in confusing or useless info, it’s worthless
Message needs to address customer's desire to thrive (or at least survive) and be as simple and clear as possible.
[bq] “Story is a sense-making device.”
If you want your external message to be clear, it needs to be clear internally, and everyone on the team should be deeply aware of the story you are telling.
[bq] “If you confuse, you lose.”
[bq] “What we often call marketing is really just clutter and confusion sprayed all over our websites, e-mails, and commercials.”
[bq] “What we think we are saying to our customers and what our customers actually hear are two different things.”
2. The Secret Weapon that will Grow Your Business
[bq] “Story is the greatest weapon we have to combat noise, because it organises information in such a way that people are compelled to listen.”
If something doesn’t save the main plot of your story, you should cut it. Problem is we ourselves often over-estimate what information a customer finds interesting.
[bq] “People don’t buy the best products; they buy the products they can understand the fastest.”
Seven core elements of a customer’s story:
A character
A problem they face
A guide who steps in
A plan they provide
A call to action
A failure avoided
A success achieved
Call this the “SB7 Framework.”
Need to always be immediately able to answer three questions:
What does the hero want?
Who or what is opposing the hero getting what she wants?
What will the hero’s life look like if she does (or doesn’t) get what she wants?
Similarly, a customer should within a few seconds of looking at your website be able to answer these questions:
What do you offer?
How will it make my life better?
What do I need to do to buy it?
3. The Simple SB7 Framework
[bq] “StoryBrand Principle One: The customer is the hero, not your brand."
Same applies for any other time you present to an audience and want their attention.
[bq] “StoryBrand Principle Two: Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy solutions to internal problems.”
Every hero’s journey starts with a problem. Usually problems have three levels: external, internal, and philosophical. Need to look beyond the external.
[bq] “StoryBrand Principle Three: Customers aren’t looking for another hero; They are looking for a guide.”
Everyone sees themselves as the protagonist in their own story. If we position ourselves as a hero we unknowingly compete with our customer in their story.
[bq] “StoryBrand Principle Four: Customers trust a guide who has a plan.”
[bq] “StoryBrand Principle Five: Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to take action.”
Need to present the customer with clear actions they can take to overcome their problem.
[bq] “StoryBrand Principle Six: Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending.”
Something must be at stake.
[bq] “We must show the people the cost of not doing business with us.”
[bq] “StoryBrand Principle Seven: Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives. Tell them.”
Created a “Brand Script” to fill out at mystorybrand.com
II. Building Your StoryBrand
4. A Character
(SB7 Step 1)
Your story should start with a customer’s problem or desire, and you should get to that quick or you lose them.
Want to play with “story gaps,” something that leaves you wanting a resolution. Outlining a client’s problems opens such a story gap, and keeps them engaged.
At least initially, want to keep the focus as narrow as possible, on a single problem/desire, even if your company can address several.
Want to focus on a desire that’s linked to the customer’s core survival. And don’t be vague!
Appealing to survival can include conversation/accumulation of financial resources and time, increased social network or status, or appealing to a desire for meaning.
5. Has a Problem
(SB7 Step 2)
[bq] “The more we talk about the problem our customer experiences, the more interest they will have in our brand.”
Story should have a clear villain, and we can try to personify any problem.
Good villains should be
A root source (e.g. taxes vs. frustration)
Relatable
Singular
Real
At the base level we’re solving an external problem, like a physical obstacle placed in the hero’s way.
[bq] “The purpose of an external problem in a story is to manifest an internal problem.”
Most brands fail to engage that deeper story, the true frustrations the external problem is causing.
Apple and Starbucks stand for much more than just resolving your lack of computer or caffeine.
If we can go one step further and tie our brand to some philosophical believe, some greater cause, injustice, or meaning, that’s even better.
Our product/service should be the one shot solution to all three layers of problems we outlined.
Simple example: Tesla
Villain: gas guzzling, inferior technology
External: I need a car
Internal: I want to be an early adopter of new tech
Philosophical: My choice of car ought to help save the environment
Resist the urge to identify multiple villains and problems at each level!
6. And Meets a Guide
(SB7 Step 3)
[bq] “A brand that positions itself as a hero is destined to lose."
To make your business successful, stop worrying about the success of your business and start worrying about the success of your customers.
A good guide needs to convey empathy and authority.
We need to show our customers that we truly understand their problem.
Authority and competence need to be shown carefully. Don’t want to compete with the hero. Four easy ways:
Testimonials
Statistics
Awards
Logos
7. Who Gives Them a Plan
(SB7 Step 4)
A concrete plan gives the story a “path of hope” and convinces our customers to make a commitment.
A good plan either clarifies how we will help the customer, or it removes any sense of risk a customer has.
Steps that are obvious to us may not be obvious to our customers and we should spell them out.
The process plan: What are the steps (ideally three to six) you customer needs to take to buy your product, or after they bought it in order to use it.
Alleviates confusion.
The agreement plan: The values you represent, or the thing you will do for your customers.
Alleviates fear.
Giving such plans titles like “easy installation plan” or “our quality agreement” will anchor them in people’s minds.
8. And Calls Them to Action
(SB7 Step 5)
People have inertia, they need external forces to call them to action.
[bq] “Most people think they’re overselling when, in truth, their calls to action fall softer than a whisper.”
By having a clear call to action we also demonstrate confidence in the value of what we’re offering.
Direct call to action: “buy now” or “call today”
Transitional call to action: “download this free PDF guide” or “watch our webinar”
Should always offer both types.
The direct call to action should be very clear and easy to see at any time.
Transitional calls to action can convince someone to take the direct call later. They also do three powerful things:
Stake a claim to your territory and show your expertise
Create reciprocity
Position yourself as the guide
Examples of transitional material:
Free information
Testimonials
Samples
Free trials
9. That Helps Them Avoid Failure
(SB7 Step 6)
Need to answer the “so what” question every customer is secretly asking.
Without a real risk of danger, any story loses tension.
Highlighting potential failures gives a sense of urgency.
Loss aversion is a greater motivator than potential gains.
Fear is like salt in a recipe. It shouldn’t be overused, but it can’t be missing.
10. And Ends in a Success
(SB7 Step 7)
[bq] “Always remember, people want to be taken somewhere."
The vision we paint for our customers should be as clear and specific as possible, not fuzzy and muddled.
Good exercise to fill in a matrix with “before” and “after” columns and rows about the customer experience:
What do they have?
How do they feel?
What’s an average day like?
What is their status?
Ultimately should provide resolutions to customer’s external, internal, and philosophical problems.
Goal is to find resolution and close all story loops.
11. People Want Your Brand to Participate in Their Transformation
A desire to change and improve is very fundamental, and your brand should speak to that.
Feelings of self-doubt can be particularly strong to address.
Should define a clear aspiration identity our customers can step into.
Good way to do that: Think how they want others, e.g. their friends, to perceive/describe them.
[bq] “Leaders who care more about changing lives than they do about selling products tend to do a good bit of both.”
III. Implementing Your StoryBrand BrandScript
12. Building a Better Website
Most websites contain too much noise.
[bq] “Today your website should be the equivalent of an elevator pitch.”
Above the fold, i.e. before user scrolls, want a simple and clear statement that addresses on of these points:
Promise an aspirational identity
Promise to solve a problem
State exactly what you do
Want a clear call to action, e.g. a “buy now” button, in top right corner and in the centre of the main page above the fold, and they should look identical and distinct from the rest of the page.
If we can show images of success, that’s often much more helpful than images of the product itself.
[bq] “The fewer words you use, the more likely it is that people will read them.”
Try to condense things to short sentences or bullet points, cut them, or replace them with images.
13. How StoryBrand can Transform a Large Organisation
[bq] “Customers aren’t the only ones who get confused when the message is unclear. Employees get confused too.”
Many companies hold their mission statement sacred, but in very few cases it’s actually adding any value or being really implemented.
Many companies suffer from a “Narrative Void.”
[bq] “If an executive can’t explain the story, team members will never know where or why they fit.”
14. The StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap
Recommends a five step task list to refine your marketing.
[bq] Task one: “Create a one-liner for your company"
Should have a single statement, an answer to “What do you do?”, that’s clear, known to everyone on the team (and part of the brand identity) and makes customers realise why they need your product/service.
Should include four components of the story in this: character, problem, plan, and success.
StoryBrand’s one-liner:
[bq] “Most business leaders don’t know how to talk about their company, so we created a framework that helps them simplify their message, create great marketing material, connect with customers, and grow their business.”
Ideally everyone on the team should know the one-liner by heart and it should appear on any marketing material.
Task two: Create a lead generator and collect email addresses.
Lead generator must provide lots of value to stand out, and establish you as an authority in your field.
Most effective types:
Downloadable guides
Online courses/webinars
Software demos or free trials
Free samples
Live events
Task three: Create an automated e-mail drip campaign.
[bq] “There is great power in simply reminding our customers we exist.”
For those who actually open an email, want to prove them with valuable content that invites them into our story.
Task four: Collect and tell stories of transformation.
[bq] “Great testimonials give future customers the gift of going second.”
Task five: Create a system that generates referrals.
Word of mouth is almost always the single most powerful marketing tool. Yet few companies put systems in place that actively encourage or incentivise this.