Unlock the Magic in Your Story Now
Get the Free 20 questions to Ask Before Launching Your Idea workbook when you sign up for occasional updates.
Get the Free 20 questions to Ask Before Launching Your Idea workbook when you sign up for occasional updates.
Articles filed in: Strategy
No Big Pitch Required
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
It was nudging 6pm and Kelly was the last customer at the salon on a cold and dark winter evening. As she pulled out her credit card at the point of sale she noticed a discreet, but pretty display of ‘non toxic’ lipsticks and commented on the gorgeous colours. The therapist showed her the colour she herself was wearing and recounted that the lipsticks were safe enough to eat. Kelly immediately chose one and handed it over with her card without asking the price. “I love this and it’s good for me too.” she said. Her total went from $30 to $66 in an instant and she left the salon happy.
It’s tempting to interpret exactly how our products fit into our customer’s story—to try draw them in with a pitch or special offer that appeals to most people. Spelling it out with fluorescent ‘introductory offer’ stickers feels safer than saying nothing at all. But often the best thing to do is to allow the customer to make her own interpretation about how your product aligns with her worldview. Kelly didn’t need to hear a story about value that evening, what she needed was to believe a story about self-care. The discreet display allowed space for that. No big pitch required.
The best sales people in the world know when to stay quiet and allow the customer to fall in love with the product, without giving her a list of reasons why they think she should.
Image by Valentia Mabilia.
Is Brand Storytelling Dead?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
When Shaun sent through a link to an article declaring ‘storytelling dead’ and asked me to comment, I wasn’t at all surprised to read what followed. The piece suggested that because attention spans are shrinking your customers don’t have time to pay attention to your story.
Here’s a snippet of the rationale that followed:
“…it’s time to stop pinning our marketing and communications strategies around storytelling. Stories take time, and time is our greatest luxury. If most consumers can’t afford the luxury of diving deep into your brand story, is a long-winded narrative about heritage and craftsmanship the right strategy? Of course not. While it ostensibly makes sense to bulk up credibility with character counts, it doesn’t make your audience’s life easier—and at the end of the day, isn’t that we all want?
One final nail in the coffin for storytelling: It can be downright dangerous for your brand. We live in the era of transparency and access, so it’s easier than ever for consumers to sniff out inauthentic back stories and eyebrow-raising claims.”
The author makes a case for a simpler form of marketing, that leaves room from the customer to figure things out for themselves….“No text, no tagline, no storytelling required.”
The article makes two assumptions:
1. Brand stories are long-winded narratives—words that are written, read or spoken.
2. Brand stories are fabrications, false claims or half truths designed to embellish the banal or dupe customers.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you already understand that a brand story is more than cleverly crafted copy. A story isn’t something you choose to tell or not to tell. It’s what people believe when they encounter you or your brand, the impressions they form and the assumptions they make at every interaction with you, both in personal and business settings. Customers are making sense of your story even when they aren’t consciously paying attention.
Your brand story, just like Apple’s or Nike’s is communicated, experienced and felt even before you write a single word of copy. Your design choices, products, pricing, packaging, location, user experience, testimonials, the staff you hire and on and on, are all part of that story. Everything you do, every action you take is telling the story. How you articulate your story in words and images is just a tiny part of it.
As long as we humans are in possession of any one of our five senses stories will survive.
We don’t simply tell our brand stories—we live them.
If it’s a story worth telling then you’ve got time.
Image by J-No.
The Ideal Customer
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The ideal customer
Doesn’t worry about what the product costs.
Tells her friends about your service.
Gives you her undivided attention.
Would never consider switching.
Always listens when you talk.
Doesn’t question the facts.
Has an abundance of time.
Believes your story.
Shares your values.
Never complains.
Is rational.
Responds.
You’re never marketing to the ideal customer—some carefully crafted avatar with the perfect attitude. Mostly you’re marketing to imperfect human nature.
You give yourself the best chance of succeeding when you take that into account before you start.
Image by Andrew Stawarz
What’s Your Customer’s Worldview?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
It was 10 am and the queue at the cafe serving coffee that’s less than 48 hours out of the roaster was ridiculously long. The line moved impossibly slowly, and yet not a single person left it to go to one of the many cafes that could serve them a forgettable drink in moments. Leaving the line would feel like abandoning their belief about what makes coffee great (and worth waiting for).
Our beliefs influence our thoughts and our feelings, which in turn influence our actions.
As business leaders and marketers we obsess about influencing how people act, often before we fully understand what their motivations are in the first place.
What keeps your customer awake at night?
What does he value?
What does he fear?
What motivates him to act?
What is he unwilling to compromise on?
What else don’t you know about your customer that you should know?
If you don’t understand the customer’s worldview how can you hope to align with or shape it?
Image by Scott Beale.
The Premium Story
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
It was just a short internal flight, you barely enough time to get comfortable in your seat—46 minutes to be exact. That didn’t stop the guy who had mistakenly been ‘downgraded’ from business class to economy from blowing a gasket. He complained loudly, his finger stabbing in the direction of the gate agent’s face, while his own became redder by the second. The gate agent calmly repeated the bad news and apologised courteously as he’d been trained to do. There really was nothing else to be done. Facing the choice of flying economy or not at all, the business traveller had to accept his fate.
As he boarded, walking down the centre aisle, (a touch embarrassed) past a plane load of people he’d made a huge scene in front of to no avail, he turned to his colleague and remarked that he hadn’t been “back here in years”. In that moment ‘business traveller’ summed up the truth about the ‘premium story’. It turns out that premium isn’t simply the tangibles—wider seats, the position near the front of the aircraft, drinks in a proper glass, a newspaper or extra legroom. Premium is a story we tell ourselves about who we are and how much we matter.
People don’t buy what you make, they buy how it makes them feel. Your products and services are constantly framed by your customer’s narrative. It pays to understand what that narrative is.
Image by Condor.
The Most Important Lens We Have
As business owners and team leaders we view our businesses through various lenses. We have a financial lens, a success lens, a marketing lens, a service lens and on and on depending on how complex our organisation is.
We measure our performance in a hundred different ways, often neglecting the most significant metric of all—customer worthiness. This is the most important lens we can apply, the most accurate measurement of meaningful work.
When everything you do is framed by the question;
‘Is this product or service worthy of my customer and why?’ it changes everything.
Image by Chun-Hung Eric Cheng.
The Purpose Of A Billboard
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The purpose of a billboard is to interrupt as many people as possible, to create awareness not necessarily impact, to broadcast instead of engage.
I’ve passed a lot of forgettable billboards, pleading from the side of highways on my travels this week—maybe you have too. The only ones that left any kind of impact were part of Apple’s stunning user created ‘Shot on iPhone 6’ campaign. The marketing works despite the medium, because the billboard doesn’t tell us what the product can do, the images show us who we might become in its presence. We are moved by them because they tell the user’s, and not the company’s story. No description of features and benefits required.
Powerful marketing is both smart and generous, we know it when we experience it, because it changes how we feel and gives us a story to tell. Weak marketing is obvious and selfish, we know that when we see or hear it, because it screams ‘LOOK AT ME!’ and leaves us cold.
We might not be Apple, but we each have more power to connect with and impact people than a billboard can, how we use it is a choice.
When our marketing changes how people feel and holds a mirror up to the customer—telling their story, not ours, we’re on the right track.
Image by kind permission of gifted photographer Julian Bialowas. His photo is featured here in the iPhone 6 campaign.
Traditional Marketing Vs. New Marketing
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
We recoil from the traditional marketing tactics that we are exposed to every day. We install ad blockers and put up barriers that help us to keep interruptions at bay. We recognise poorly thought out marketing strategies in a heartbeat, and yet when it comes to marketing our own products and services we often fall into the trap of using those terrible tactics (or some version of them) ourselves.
We have two choices:
TRADITIONAL MARKETING = MAKE SOMETHING + MAKE PEOPLE LOVE IT
Or…
NEW MARKETING = LOVE PEOPLE + MAKE SOMETHING THEY LOVE
It seems easier in the moment to adopt a ‘traditional marketing’ mindset—to create, run on ahead and talk about ourselves instead of first understanding the customer’s worldview. Listening is hard. Knowing what to pay attention to is harder. It takes both commitment and practice, but when you choose ‘new marketing’ you’ll find you’ve created something worth paying attention to.
Image by Spyros Papaspyropoulos.
Amplify The Good
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
As soon as she handed the keycard for the upgraded room to the formerly disgruntled (now beaming) guest, the receptionist smiled and handed her a second card. Her eyes held those of the woman who had been complaining loudly only five minutes before.
“Would you please consider giving us a review on Trip Advisor, the website details are on this card?
Thanks so much, it means a lot to us.”
We spend a lot of resources fighting fires, dealing with unrealistic or unfulfilled expectations and yet we do virtually nothing to help cement the great experiences we deliver to customers all the time.
When we begin enabling and amplifying the good we create an environment that facilitates customer delight. When proactively nurture post positive interactions our posture shifts—instead of looking for ways to fight fires we seek out opportunities to fill our buckets with water.
It’s far easier to fight fires if the water buckets are half full before you start.
Image by Georgette Tan.
Reasons To Choose
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Reasons are at the heart of all marketing.
Our marketing aims to give people reasons to choose—an explanation or a nudge about why they should buy. The biggest mistake we make is failing to match our reasons with the potential customer’s motivations.
Your most important job as a marketer isn’t to tell people why they should buy—it’s to find out where they want to go and to take them there.
Image by Vern.