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Adapted excerpt from Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand 2.0: Clarify Your Message so Customers Will Listen.
Story is the greatest weapon you have to combat marketing noise because it organizes information in such a way that people are compelled to listen. If you want to bring attention to your brand, you must understand how story works and how to invite customers into a narrative that is compelling.
Here is nearly every story you watch, read, or hear in a nutshell: A character who wants something encounters a problem before they can get it. At the peak of their despair, a guide steps into their lives, gives them a plan, and calls them to action. That action helps them avoid failure and experience a success.
That’s really it. You’ll see some form of this structure in every movie you watch, every novel you read, and every story you hear from this moment forward.
By understanding this StoryBrand formula, you can essentially predict what is going to happen in almost every story you encounter. These seven basic plot points are powerful because they work to hold a human being’s attention. That’s why that formula has been used in countless stories for thousands of years. However, this formula is not stale or tiresome. In fact, these plot points are like chords of music in the sense that you can use them to create an infinite variety of narrative expression.
What does any of this have to do with growing your business? Everything. The same rules that get and keep a movie audience’s attention can also get and keep a customer’s attention. And attention is what you need more than anything else.
At StoryBrand, our certified coaches have reviewed thousands of pages of marketing copy that had nothing to do with the customer’s story. We tell our clients the same thing my filmmaker friends told me when I was writing screenplays: Anything that doesn’t serve the plot has to go. Just because a tagline sounds great or a picture on a website grabs the eye doesn’t mean it helps us enter into our customers’ story. In every line of marketing and messaging copy we write, we’re either serving the customer’s story or descending into confusion; we’re either making music or making noise.
Nearly a million people have used the StoryBrand tool in its old form to cut through marketing noise and reach their customers, and now in Building a StoryBrand 2.0, we’ve expanded its capability. We’ve paired the new book with StoryBrand.ai, a tool that will let you generate better headlines and sound bites—and expand them into full messaging and marketing campaigns you can use to invite customers into a story. StoryBrand.ai encompasses all matter of messaging and marketing, including websites, keynote addresses, lead generators, digital and traditional advertising, and even casual conversation. StoryBrand.ai is completely free for anyone who purchases the book.
Once we begin filtering our message through the StoryBrand framework and using it as a communication filter, we will be able to repeat powerful messages over and over that “brand” us into our customers’ lives.
The first project you should apply the StoryBrand framework to is the one that represents your overall brand. Next, apply the framework to each division of your company, and after that, each product within each division. If you like, you can even use the StoryBrand framework for each segment of your customer base. The uses are endless.
The StoryBrand framework is simple and effective. Think of the StoryBrand framework as a weight-loss plan for messaging and marketing. When your messaging is lean and muscular, customers will finally start to listen. When customers understand how you can help them live a great story, your business will grow.
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