New York Times best-selling author Donald Miller refers to stories as “organised information” setting out a framework to apply to all your marketing campaigns and ensuring you cover every aspect of your story, succinctly and clearly.
His 7 part Story brand (SB7) consists of character, problem, guide plan, calls to action, failure and success with constant guidance on how your consumer will respond to each of the above.
A starting point is a clear message - who we are, what we do and why should a customer choose us? Simple right?
“In every line of copy we write, we're either serving the customer's story or descending into confusion; we're either making music or making noise.”
Storytelling is deemed a key component for enhancing customer journey’s as it introduces the personalisation aspect combined with the creative application. Storytelling reveals companies USP’s through a soft-sell approach. However as highlighted above, if you do not construct a clear message are you really telling your brand's story?
The book discusses the application of storytelling in different formats, allowing all marketers to adapt Miller’s findings to suit and inspire their everyday marketing and brand management. One interesting example is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a framework, where the greater needs are the least essential within the hierarchy, yet they represent the most desirable things in life. Marketers need to ensure consumers desire their product/service enough to place the brand on their list of needs but should leverage more essential needs such as food, drink and relationships to help sell this higher need state.
When reading Miller’s guide you can often forget his study is around the creation of a story and the study of consumer engagement and response. Although deemed to be storytelling, Miller’s research resonates with the construction of a successful marketing strategy.
Aside from marketing, Donald Miller exposes us to the power of storytelling in our everyday life ( as consumers) and then brings it back to how we approach and understand our customers in the marketing world. This book is an essential read to guarantee your “StoryBrand” is a memorable experience for its consumers.
