Do This Not That Marketing

Marketing Advice, Grow Your Business

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Storytelling for Business

Storytelling for BusinessWin with Storytelling

Whether you want to touch a nerve, reach a new audience, or boost your sales, storytelling is the most powerful tool in your arsenal. As humans, we love a good story, and when it resonates with us, it can drive us to take action when nothing else can.

Think about it—which would you rather read, an interesting story, or a sales letter? Which are you more likely to remember a week from now, a compelling story, or a features and benefits comparison? And which are you more likely to buy, a story you can see yourself in, or a product that does x, y, and z?

If you think back on your most recent purchases, from the business coach you hired to the car you bought last summer, chances are you’ll find a story that resonated with you, and that drove your decision to purchase.

Stories About You

You’ve heard it time and time again: People buy from those they know, like, and trust. And part of getting to know you is hearing your stories. Your potential clients want to know how you came to be in business, what experiences you’ve had that drove your decisions, what lessons you learned along the way.

Your stories don’t have to be directly related to business to be powerful, either. That anecdote about the time you nearly got arrested for not having a valid driver’s license is the perfect lead in to a blog post about better record keeping. Or the story about how you accidentally seated two warring families together at your wedding reception? It’s just what you need to drive home a point about relationship building.

Stories About Your Clients

Otherwise known as social proof, stories about your clients are incredibly useful in your marketing and branding strategy. Testimonials, white papers, case studies and the like are all just stories, after all, and they showcase how you and your products or services have changed a life or a business for the better.

Stories About Your Products and Services

Yes, even your products and services have stories to tell. Why did you decide to create that new program? What will it help your clients achieve? Who is it not suited to? These stories and more can show your potential clients more about your products and services than any sales page ever will. When you openly share your thought processes as you were creating your program, buyers will instantly know if it’s a product or service that will work for them or not.

Clearly, stories have a lot of power when it comes to branding and marketing, but you have to use caution. Beware of the awkward insertion of a story just because you’ve heard it’s good for your marketing. If you find yourself midway through a blog post and you write something like, “but anyway, enough of that, let’s get on with business” and then making a total shift to a completely different subject, chances are the story isn’t working.

But if you can tie your story in naturally to what follows, that’s your golden ticket to better branding, more sales, and a more profitable business. We love stories. Don’t be afraid to tell yours.

If you need some help figuring out which stories to tell or how to tell them, I recommend you check out Donald Miller’s Building a Storybrand or Paul Smith’s Sell with a Story.

But if you’d rather get personalized, immediate help, we should talk. Email me at ron@rontester.com.

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How to Tell a Unique Story

UniqueBoring…

I scrapped my podcast today. Haven’t listened to my podcast yet? That’s because I haven’t actually released it.

I’ve been thinking about podcasting for a while. I had some cover art made. I recorded some episodes. I edited some episodes. And then they just sat there on my hard drive, collecting cyberdust. They felt so generic. So uninspiring. Like a boring parody of an authoritative podcast.

Here’s the main problem: there was no me in there. It was info, info, info. Good info, actually, but not great entertainment. And no me. So I scrapped it.

In order to tell your brand’s unique story, it’s important to deviate from simple blog posts and regular forms of content. Your story is a compilation of all that you do and all that you are. It starts with your idea, your business card, your website, and every product or service that you put out there. It includes your social media and your blog. Everything taken together tells your story, so it’s important to understand how it all fits together.

Your story separates and differentiates you from everyone else. Otherwise, you’re just one more solution for the same old problem that customers can choose from, and usually without a standout differentiator they’ll base their choice on price. Most of the time, unless you’re Walmart, you do not want customers to choose you based on price alone. You want them to choose you because you’re you.

Telling your unique story starts with these questions:

1) When, Why and How Did You Start?

The best way to show authenticity is to be able to tell your audience when, why and you started doing what it is that you do. If you can tell your story in a way that your audience relates to you, and even roots for your success – even better. If you can become part of the “fabric of their lives” so to speak, you will be able to pull on their emotional heartstrings and almost become part of their family.

2) How Do You Want Customers to View You?

As you write your story, it’s important to convey your values and ideals in a no-nonsense way that isn’t wishy-washy. While you may be frightened of turning off some people, you really don’t need to worry about that. Those people aren’t your audience. Your audience consists of the people who can relate to your story, share your values, and want to be part of it.

3) Where Do You See Your Business Down the Line?

This is where you’ll try to dream big, and let your audience know where you see your business in the future. It also gives you the opportunity to refine consumer expectations toward what you offer rather than what the competition offers. For example, if you donate 10 percent of proceeds to a particular charity, people should know about it.

How you answer these questions is important. You’re going to have many opportunities to do so via every communication you have with your audience—be it your blog, social media or even through the types of products you offer. With the answers to these questions you can start to form your story and weave it throughout everything you do.

* Share through Storytelling – Using an honest, no-holds-barred communication style to tell your story, your customers’ stories, and the story of your products is a good start. Use case studies, interviews, and in-depth relatable blog posts to accomplish this.

* Share through Doing Good – Another way to share (and also blog about it) is to get involved with your community to give back something that is noticeable. You don’t want to do this just to get noticed, but you do want to pick something that helps people understand who you are as a business owner and what your business stands for.

* Share through Experiences – You and your audience likely share common experiences that should be discussed. The more ways you can relate to them, the more ways they’ll see your offerings as unique and different.

* Share with the Truth – Don’t hype, and don’t “blow smoke”. These are old advertising tricks that aren’t needed. Consumers are smart today. They want the black and white truth of the matter. If it takes 20 hours a week to do what you do, and you’re teaching them, tell them the truth. If you’ve had to stay up overnight to work around children’s schedules, say so.

* Share Everywhere – Don’t just “tell” your story on your blog in the “about” section. Tell your story everyplace. Use infographics, memes, blog posts, guest blog posts, articles, testimonials, good deeds and every possible way to spread your story. Be your story by your actions.

Your unique story of your brand is woven through everything you do. It tells your values, your past, present and future, and it makes you stand out from the rest in a compelling, relevant and useful manner. That’s what I’m working on. I would encourage you to, too.

What makes you unique? What’s your story? Feel free to comment and share.