Define the Stakes (Lead Your Hero to Their Happily Ever After)

Define the Stakes (Lead Your Hero to Their Happily Ever After)

by | Jul 8, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Define the Stakes (Lead Your Hero to Their Happily Ever After)

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In our first post in the Narrative Marketing series, we looked at this roadmap from Building a Story Brand:

We’ve already covered sections one/two and three/four in our last articles, so let’s now focus on sections five, six, and seven: 5) And Calls Them to Action 6) That Helps Them Avoid Failure 7) That Ends in a Success. There’s a lot to unpack in these last three steps, so let’s dive in.

And Calls Them to Action

After you have settled into your role as a guide and given your customer (the hero) a clear game plan, the rest is up to them, right? 

Hardly.

Imagine a story where Frodo just wakes up one day and decides, “it’s time to head to Mordor and destroy the ring.” Frodo packs his bags, leaves a note for Gandalf in case he stops by, and takes off for Mordor by himself. 

In any good story, the hero NEVER acts out of their own volition. The reason why is that everyone instinctively knows the hero doesn’t make major life decisions unless someone or something challenges them. It’s like Newton’s First Law of Motion: a body at rest tends to remain at rest until an external force acts upon it.

Your customer needs you to provide a clear and direct call to action (CTA), or else they won’t act. If a customer visits your website, do they know what you want them to do? Your website needs one button in the top right with a clear CTA and another front and center so they can see it before they even begin scrolling. Some examples of a direct CTA are:

  • Order Now

  • Call Today

  • Schedule an Appointment

  • Register Today

  • Buy Now

You might be afraid to be that direct with your customer, but by failing to have a prominent and direct CTA you are indirectly communicating a lack of belief in your product or service.

Paired with your direct CTA, you also need a transitional one. If the direct CTA is asking “Will You Marry Me?” then the transitional CTA is asking “Will You Go on a Date with Me?” Some examples of transitional CTAs are:

  • Download our PDF

  • Attend our Webinar

  • Get a Free Trial

  • Try a Free Sample

Transitional CTAs allow you to show your expertise and generosity, while also creating an opportunity to follow up with a potential customer. Both your direct CTA and transitional CTA need to appear prominently on your website, as well as on any piece of collateral.

However, in order to truly get your customer to act, you also need to clearly define what is at stake.

That Helps Them Avoid Failure

To be clear, communicating the consequences of a customer not doing business with you is not fear mongering. Instead, it’s answering every customer’s subconscious voice that asks, “so what?” 

In Building a Story Brand, Donald Miller writes:

Prospect Theory, as it was called, espoused that people are more likely to be dissatisfied with a loss than they are satisfied with a gain. In other words, people hate losing $100 more than they like winning $100. This, of course, means loss aversion is a greater motivator of buying decisions than potential gains. In fact, according to Kahneman, in certain situations, people are two to three times more motivated to make a change to avoid a loss than they are to achieve a gain.

– Miller, Donald. Building a StoryBrand (p. 111). HarperCollins Leadership. Kindle Edition. 

What loss are you helping your customers avoid? Remember the four main resources people don’t want to lose:

  • Time

  • Money

  • Health

  • Status

That Ends in a Success

Once you’ve clearly communicated what resource your hero stands to lose, the next step is to articulate what they have to gain from using your product or service. You need to paint a clear picture of the ‘happily ever after’ your product or service can provide.

One way to think through this is to imagine your customer’s life before and after they use your product or service. Here are four good before/after questions to consider:

  • What do they have?

  • What are they feeling?

  • What’s an average day like?

  • What’s their status?

Here are three of the most common happy endings in stories:

  1. The hero gets a new power or position (Neo becoming “The One” in The Matrix).

  2. The hero is reunited with someone or something that makes them whole again (Frodo reunites with Gandalf to sail to the Gray Havens and be at peace in Return of the King).

  3. The hero has a moment of self-realization that provides inner peace/wholeness (The panda Po discovers how to do kung-fu his own unique way in Kung Fu Panda).

Beyond Happily Ever After

So you’ve come to the end of this series. Now what? Donald Miller’s roadmap offers a heaping plateful of information to digest. In order to help you successfully lead your hero down the path to their own happily ever after, &Marketing has broken down this roadmap into easily digestible bites. Download our free guide to narrative marketing for a simple breakdown of each step of Donald Miller’s process along with the questions you should ask yourself in order to effectively lead your hero to their happily ever after.

Create Your Hero's Journey

If you want to create a journey that can lead customers to your product or service as their happily ever after, &Marketing can help. We love partnering with our clients to tap into the power of narrative marketing to engage their audience and experience success. 

“At &Marketing, we believe in the power of narrative marketing and its ability to craft an epic story that places your hero at the center. Our team works diligently to support our clients in creating and showcasing these stories. As the trusted guide, you can create the solution to your customer’s struggle to help them find their happy ending.

Let us handle the marketing in order to shine a spotlight on the incredible work your business is already doing so you can focus on what you do best.”

— MATT VINCENT

About the Author:

Matt Vincent is the Creative Director at &Marketing. He has worked in digital illustration and graphic design for over 6 years. During this time, he has worked for a variety of clients, including IGN Entertainment and Salesforce, and a host of smaller & medium sized companies. As a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator, he is constantly learning and growing his repertoire of creative skills, and sharing those with the world. His primary passion is equipping creatives to be storytellers; to see the narrative threads and archetypes that exist in all things, and to tap into them to get their audience to think, grow, and act.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast-paced world, many small and medium-sized businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.  

If you’re ready to dive into narrative marketing, why not let our team at &Marketing help you craft the unique story only your brand can tell? 

&Marketing (www.and-marketing.com) provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals.  Our unique partnership model allows us to launch or augment our client’s existing teams in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Be a Guide (Your Place in Your Customer’s Story)

Be a Guide (Your Place in Your Customer’s Story)

by | May 10, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Be a Guide (Your Place in Your Customer’s Story)

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In our first post in the Narrative Marketing series, we looked at this road map from Building a Story Brand (see right).

We’ve already covered sections one and two (read here if you missed it), so let’s now focus on sections three and four: 3) And Meets a Guide 4) Who Gives Them a Plan. The role of a Guide is an essential one in the hero’s (your customer’s) story. When facing external, internal, or philosophical and moral problems, heroes intuitively know they can’t fix these issues on their own. If they could, the problems wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Imagine Frodo getting the ring to Mordor in Lord of the Rings without Gandalf, or Luke teaching himself the force Star Wars without Yoda. Those relationships resonate with us because they reflect our own journeys and the mentors, coaches, authors, or brands who have helped us along the way.

AND MEETS A GUIDE

So, what does a guide do? In order to step into the role of Guide for your customer, you need to effectively communicate both empathy and authority. In other words, you need to show that you understand the strife and emotional frustration of your customer, while also asserting yourself as someone who has overcome those same obstacles, either personally or through your brand’s work with other heroes.

Empathy comes first because it creates trust between you and your customer. People innately trust those who can show that they see, hear, and understand their plight. Frodo’s trust in Gandalf deepened when he showed empathy toward Frodo’s lamentation over being chosen to carry the burden of the ring, Some common ways to express this are to create statements that use empathetic language, like “we understand” or “we care”. This empathy should be directed primarily at the internal problem your customer is facing and should be communicated clearly and concisely in your marketing.

The next step is to establish authority with your customer, because it isn’t enough to communicate empathy alone. Your customer doesn’t just want a verbal hug; they want someone who knows how to fix their problem and has a track record to prove it.  Luke isn’t fully invested in his training until he sees Yoda pull his ship out of the swamp with ease, right? Authority can be harder to communicate than empathy because, if communicated poorly, you come across as egotistical instead of competent. Some ways to effectively establish authority for your brand include:

  • Testimonials: Testimonials are great because they give people the comfort of being second in line to a customer who has experienced success.

  • Statistics: Statistics appeal to the left-brain side of decision-making and come across as objective, rather than subjective authority.

  • Awards: Awards are impactful when placed at the bottom of a website. You don’t need to draw attention to them, but their presence on the homepage or footer of your site adds additional authority.

  • Logos: If you are a B2B company, include logos of clients you’ve helped on your site, as well, to enhance credibility.

WHO GIVES THEM A PLAN

At this point in the journey, your customer is primed to buy, but still needs more from you as their guide. Even though you’ve established trust, the decision to buy requires a level of commitment from your customer that is risky for them. As they consider a purchase, they are wondering, “What if this won’t work? What if I am making a HUGE mistake?” In order to alleviate this anxiety and get your customer to follow through, you need to establish a plan they can follow that leads them to make the purchase.

The plan you create needs to do one of two things:

  1. Clarify how to make a purchase

  2. Remove the sense of risk the customer is feeling

Two different plans can accomplish this. Donald Miller from Building a Story Brand describes these as the process plan and the agreement plan. A process plan details the steps needed to make a purchase or use the purchased product/service. The main goal is to eliminate any confusion that could prevent a purchase, either in the pre-purchase phase (how do I buy?) or the post-purchase phase (how do I use this?).

An agreement plan is essentially a list of agreements you make with your customer to help them overcome their fear of doing business with you. A good way to craft this is to list the things your customer might be afraid of in doing business with you, and create a list of agreements that will alleviate their fears. As an aside, it also helps to create a title for these plans in order to increase their perceived value (examples: “easy installation plan” or “satisfaction guaranteed agreement”).

Even with all of this guidance, your customer needs one more thing: a call to action.

In our final post of the Narrative Marketing series, we’ll look at the last two sections:

  • Your customer’s (and your) happy ending

  • How to get there by a compelling call to action.

About the Author

Matt Vincent is the Creative Director at &Marketing.  He has worked in digital illustration and graphic design for over 6 years. During this time, he has worked for a variety of clients, including IGN Entertainment and Salesforce, and a host of smaller & medium sized companies. As a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator, he is constantly learning and growing his repertoire of creative skills, and sharing those with the world. His primary passion is equipping creatives to be storytellers; to see the narrative threads and archetypes that exist in all things, and to tap into them to get their audience to think, grow, and act.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

What We Learned From attending Natural Products Expo West

What We Learned From attending Natural Products Expo West

by | Apr 8, 2019 | Insights

What We Learned From attending Natural Products Expo West

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Natural Products Expo West was held last month from March 5-9th in Anaheim, California. These few days were filled with education, exhibition, thought leadership, and networking from some of the rising stars and established names in the natural product industry. I attended this year to support existing client partners, scope out emerging trends, and learn more about this rapidly growing niche. Here are my biggest takeaways from Natural Products Expo West.

Expo West is overwhelmingly large, but with an intimate feel.

With approximately 85,000 people in attendance and around 5,000 different booths to explore, conquering NPEW definitely felt daunting as a first-timer. All of the heavy hitters were there, and the areas where these large companies were present did have a corporate vibe to them. However, the smaller natural product niches had a distinctly more intimate, family feel. These niches share common interests in their products and customers, as well as the macro trend toward a customer base that is growing increasingly more interested in brands that seek to build relationships with them.

Relationships are built with ‘hugs, not handshakes.’

Across industries, I’ve been to dozens of trade shows over the past two decades. They all have a different feel to them — from the way people interact and how old relationships are nurtured, to the way new ones are created. Before I went to NPEW, this show was described to me as being about “hugs not handshakes”, and at the time I didn’t know what that meant. I quickly realized the dynamic is more like a neighborhood picnic than a giant corporate luncheon. Through the growth of the natural product industry, competition has existed not among natural product companies, but between natural and traditional products. This circle of natural brands is one that encourages the successes of others within it.

One group dedicated to supporting and nurturing emerging brands, FMI Emerge, aids companies in increasing retail distribution and online sales, growing revenue and sales velocity, and ultimately securing more shelf space. The program helps emerging brands to fully integrate into the larger industry and become healthier trading partners. I’m a marketing mentor for this community and love their mission and what they’re adding to the industry.  I met up with Julie Pryor, the Director, who shared her insights on the event:

The food was awesome!

Taste is no longer a sacrifice that needs to be made when it comes to organic, vegan, gluten-free, and similar healthy food products. I was simply amazed by the robust flavor profiles while at NPEW. I said things like “Wait, that doesn’t have cheese in it? No way!” more than once during my taste testing.  Being allergic to lactose or gluten, or deciding to practice a vegan lifestyle, nor longer limits the foods you can eat. I even had a piece of vegan pizza that didn’t make me miss traditional pepperoni at all. Natural products are not a compromise now; they’re an enthusiastic choice consumers can confidently make, and a great tasting one at that.

In order to thrive,  brands must stand out.

This might seem like a no-brainer, but when natural products were only just on the rise, it was enough to stand out just to exist as vegan or organic. The uniqueness of a product was defined by its natural qualities and components. But now, as this niche builds steam, gains customer popularity, and thrives in taste, brands need something else to distinguish themselves from other brands. What makes one kind of vegan pepperoni better than the next? Natural food brands are going to have to work harder and smarter to stand out in the growing crowd of quality products, and this challenge is one that will truly determine long term success.

 

“Our FMI Emerge team was thrilled to attend Natural Products Expo West this year to meet with emerging brands wanting to scale sustainably, and to connect with many of the sponsors, mentors, advisors and subscribers who make up the Emerge community! A number of leaders within the industry are advisors and mentors to the Emerge program, and attended the show. NPEW was a terrific and timely opportunity to bring the various groups within Emerge together, in-person, so that we could continue to nurture and build relationships, exchange business ideas and foster partnerships across the industry and within the Emerge community.”

About the Author

As the Managing Director of &Marketing and a mentor for FMI Emerge, Rajat “Raj” Kapur strives to provide small, medium, and mid-market businesses unparalleled marketing strategy and execution services. His team of professionals can either “augment” an existing team or “outsource” the marketing function for a client. Raj brings nearly two decades of professional experience in marketing, sales, and strategy development experience spanning B2B and B2C Fortune 50, mid-sized, and small companies.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Tale as Old as Time: Why Story Should Matter to Your Business

Tale as Old as Time: Why Story Should Matter to Your Business

by | Mar 27, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Tale as Old as Time: Why Story Should Matter to Your Business

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A popular sentiment in marketing today is, “stories sell.” But how? This directive is like the equivalent of a gym owner simply saying, “you should work out.”

Without the proper motivation, guidance, and game plan, most of us don’t know where to start with either of these. If you don’t have a trainer, an exercise plan, and a nutrition guide, you’re far less likely to succeed in your journey to fitness. The same goes with storytelling. We need a roadmap.

At some point in the life of your brand or business, you’ve probably tried using a story to sell your product or service and have seen little to no results. If that’s the case, you might assume that “story marketing” is just another fad that will fade out of style. However, if you discount the value of a story, your brand could be missing out on the opportunity to tap into one of the richest, most powerful forms of communication we have as people.

To demystify the use of story, let’s simply define it as a framework of communication. Humanity has been using stories to communicate since before recorded history. Storytelling is the road most often traveled to lead someone from ignorance and confusion to clarity and understanding, and when people understand something clearly they are more likely to act.

If you’re given a comprehensive plan for fitness, you’re more likely to embark on that health journey provided to you, right? In other words, if your customer can quickly and easily understand what you are offering them, they are more likely to buy it. Plain and simple.

In his book, Building a Story Brand, Donald Miller quotes a friend of his:

“There’s a reason most marketing […] doesn’t work […] The brain doesn’t know how to process the information. The more simple and predictable the communication, the easier it is for the brain to digest. Story helps because it is a sense-making mechanism. Essentially, story formulas put everything in order so the brain doesn’t have to work to understand what’s going on.”

He goes on to describe the way our brain prioritizes information through Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. First, we’re programmed to fulfill the needs we require to survive (think food, water, shelter). We seek these out instinctively above all else so that we have a sense of well-being and can avoid vulnerability. Once those needs are met, we can move on to our relationships with others. We search for friendships, romantic relationships, and other nurturing connections that will stick by us and help us face any outside threats. After we fill these cups, then finally we can concern ourselves with a higher level of psychological, physiological, and even spiritual needs that give our lives a more enhanced sense of belonging and purpose. First we survive, then we thrive.

Miller also describes two key areas where most marketing fails. The first mistake most businesses make is failing to emphasize how their product or service will help their customers survive and thrive. The second is that customers have to work too hard and burn too many calories to understand that product or service. These two mistakes lead to missed opportunities of engagement, because the customer is wasting precious resources trying to understand something that won’t help them in their own story. After all, none of us want a workout plan we didn’t actually sign up for.

So, how does the story come into play? Story provides a map that leads your customer from indecision: “Will this product/service help me survive/thrive?” to decision: “I NEED this to survive/thrive!” Here is the roadmap provided by Donald Miller:

At &Marketing, we work to leverage the power of story to make the biggest impact for our clients. The majority of our client partners have limited resources or team members to devote to engaging potential customers. The story framework equips us to generate more engagement with fewer resources. Not only does story increase engagement, it improves retention as our clients’ customers actively integrate the product/service into their own narrative.

We’ll dive deeper into this framework through a series of blog posts called Narrative Marketing. In this 3-part blog series, we will explore:

About the Author

Matt Vincent is the Creative Director at &Marketing.  He has worked in digital illustration and graphic design for over 6 years. During this time, he has worked for a variety of clients, including IGN Entertainment and Salesforce, and a host of smaller & medium sized companies.  

As a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator, he is constantly learning and growing his repertoire of creative skills, and sharing those with the world. His primary passion is equipping creatives to be storytellers; to see the narrative threads and archetypes that exist in all things, and to tap into them to get their audience to think, grow, and act.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Improve Your Online Presence: LinkedIn Optimization Guide

Improve Your Online Presence: LinkedIn Optimization Guide

by | Aug 23, 2018 | Insights, Marketing Planning & Execution

Improve Your Online Presence: LinkedIn Optimization Guide

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With 500+ million global business users, LinkedIn has changed the landscape for personal and business communication. The old mentality used to be that LinkedIn’s use was limited to job seeking; today, LinkedIn is one of the best ways to interact and share information with cross-industry professionals.  Still, scores of professionals don’t have profiles set up, and many existing profiles are substandard, missing out on an opportunity to portray a professional in the best possible light.

The team at &Marketing knows the importance of LinkedIn and is excited to share tips to improve your online presence and help your company connect with an online community. In this one-page optimization guide, &Marketing identifies key areas of the LinkedIn profile and shares 12 quick tips on improving your profile. After reading, you’ll understand:

  • The value of an updated LinkedIn profile to you and your company
  • How to create an authentic and influential LinkedIn profile
  • Key areas to improve and optimize your LinkedIn
  • & more!

 

Optimize my LinkedIn

Looking for additional tips on better communicating with other business professionals? We can help. &Marketing combines the power of strategy and execution to help deliver engaging content and share information with an online audience.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.