We’re all suckers for good stories.
Whether superhero blockbusters or your everyday commercial for fried chicken, we naturally look for tales that come with a grip. We’re wired to appreciate narratives that have clear beginnings, stirring middles, and glorious endings.
That factored in, it makes perfect sense why customers are much more likely to shell out money for brands that know how to creatively send a message. This is because whipping out a story easily evokes emotions, making this route an effective strategy in appealing to your customers’ wallets.
As a result, your stories contribute to how your market segment perceives you. In other words, your brand’s storytelling makes you unforgettable. Still, it’s important to understand that in this equation, your customer is the hero, and you are the wise guide that helps them save the day.
Let’s borrow brand expert Donald Miller’s StoryBrand Framework, for a second, to better put things in perspective.
As the title of the framework implies, StoryBrand is structured in such a way that helps you create a story from, well, your brand. Optimized by marketing leaders all over the globe, it harnesses the human desire for a good story into the art of brand-building.
Furthermore, it’s aimed to supplement clarity and heart to your brand messaging, potentially multiplying your revenue in varying degrees!
The formula is as follows:
The Hero
Almost instantaneously, we know who the hero is in every story; it’ll look different in a lot of cases, but many times, her objective is the same: she does her due diligence to seize the day, put food on the table, land a gig, or maybe even find a partner. As she goes about her hero ways, a hurdle then emerges.
Enter, the next part of the framework.
Has A Problem
She needs to slay the dragon and save the prince. But unfortunately, she doesn’t know how. Like our hero, each person has an innate desire to slay the dragons and get the “prince” in their lives; however that may look and whatever these princes are, our intentions are all but the same—to win.
Our job as marketers and creatives is to comprehensively identify the problem to our heroes. Our capacity to help paint the picture for our audience is critical in positioning how we, too, as an enterprise, want to win. We all have puzzles we want to solve and troubles we want out of the way. So when drumming up your narrative’s direction, you’ll want to clearly define the problem.
And meets the wise guide, you
At this point of the journey, you arrive at just the right time and place, and the hero finally meets you. To effectively solidify your place, the two most important traits you’ll want to demonstrate are empathy and authority. Naturally, you’ll want to establish that you understand precisely what the hero’s problem is. Secondly, you’ll want to affirm your spot in the picture by articulating your credibility.
As a brand, it’s crucial that you know what problems you’re dedicated to solving, and that you’re more than able to communicate this to your audience.
At this juncture of the framework, our wise sage tells the hero of a mysterious, powerful, legendary sword that can slay the dragon in one swing. But they do not know how to get it. Luckily, and as expected, you do.
You have a plan
You understand the hero’s problem, AND you have what it takes. You have a plan.
In the context of marketing, your products and services can be likened to the mysterious, powerful, and legendary sword.
Your job is to make sure that the hero knows this. For them to successfully get from one point to the other, it has to be clear to them that your products and services make for a fantastic solution. Of course, it’s a given that they also have to know how they can make the purchase or sign the deal.
And because you have a plan, you, the mystical sage then tells the hero of a mysterious and powerful e-commerce website called “yeoldesuperswords.com;” that’s where they’ll find the mysterious and all-powerful legendary sword.
So you compel the hero into action
As if signaling to the protagonist that this is where it all ends, you push them, in cinematic fashion, to take action now. For once and for all, the dragon they’re determined to slay is finally going down. If only for one more dramatic gesture, the movie ends in a tearful victory.
Simply put, now that the hero knows how to save the day, you must tell them exactly what to do so they can win.
In the real-world setting, most entrepreneurs use campaigns that have a Call To Action (CTA). Whether it’s the familiar “contact us” or the enigmatic “click here,” the objective is to guide the heroes accordingly.
Now, CTA’s can be classified into two different categories:
Direct Call to Action:
Buy Now, Get Started, Add to Cart, Checkout Now
Transitional Call to Action:
Learn More, Check out our Website,
If it isn’t entirely clear yet, transitional CTAs help transition from cold to warm, drawing customers closer into a sale. Meanwhile, direct CTAs are used when your leads are warm enough to be closed into a sale.
In the grand scheme of the StoryBrand framework, you, the wise sage, then lead our hero into pressing “Checkout” (Direct CTA’s) by telling them about the sword and asking them to Go To Website (Transitional CTA).
When our hero has successfully clicked “Check Out,” she will now be scheduled to receive the legendary sword, ensuring that she has every bit of power to conquer her demons and slay the dragon.
Hero saves the day
After the grueling process, our hero slays the dragon and saves the day!
Your job as a mystical marketer is to make sure that the customer knows how much better their lives will be once they avail of your offerings. To rephrase, your job is to help your hero envision a happy ending with your brand’s remedial products and services.
And avoids failure, thanks to you!
Because of your wise ways, the knight gets to live a happy ever after with her princess. In reality, this can mean plenty of things: the boy who didn’t dare to ask a girl out finally did thanks to a minty toothpaste, the family man who struggled to buy a home finally did thanks to easy-to-pay bank loan terms, and the mother who simply wanted to curate a homey experience for her family finally has thanks to a reliable seasoning mix.
This wouldn’t have been possible without you, the wise sage. As brands, we must remind our heroes that with us, they will always manage to save the day, whatever that may look like on their end.
We are the wise sages of the everyday hero.
Here at rezonate, we help a variety of brands tell their stories, and guide many wise sages into helping their own heroes.
If you want to tell stories to your audience the way we do with the world, we can help you out!