TL;DR
Psychologically, your potential customers need to understand where they can easily file you and what you can help them with in their brain as fast as possible.
Use the “I help [target audience] [transformation] through [proprietary offering]” template to get this across in the simplest way possible.
Don’t forget to customize your short story based on the audience you are feeding it to
You may have heard that storytelling is one of the most effective ways to communicate and I’m not here to argue that.
The challenge most B2B marketers face is how to leverage storytelling frameworks best to communicate their value to their ideal audience. And today we will focus on the shortest and most succinct way to tell your story.
In its most simplest form a story has three main components:
Main Character (protagonist for all your literary folks out there)
Transformation (the destination the main character reaches - every story has a “journey” of some kind with the destination being different than where the main character started)
Mode of transformation (how the main character reaches their destination)
That’s it.
Your marketing story needs to have these elements as well but they will look a bit different:
Main Character - This is your ideal client. Never forget that you are not the main character in this story, your customer is!
Transformation - This is the destination your customers reach after they work with you. It's crucial to remember that customers only buy things because they don’t like their status quo and are willing to pay someone to help them reach their desired destination.
Mode of transformation - This is your service. The key here is to communicate the uniqueness of your service (will explain more on this in a bit).
So here is the template you want to use:
I help [target audience] [transformation] through [proprietary offering]
Here are some examples of a complete short marketing story using the template above:
I help sales and marketing leaders implement proven lead generating systems in-house though our Outbound Academy.
I help B2B sales and marketing leaders implement an in-house lead generating engine that will deliver as many cost effective leads as they want through our Outbound Academy.
Of course this one sentence doesn’t answer every question your potential customers have and it doesn’t need to. The goal of this statement (if done well) is to QUICKLY get you and the value you bring into the right “file” in your potential customer’s brain.
Brains will naturally avoid confusing, calorie demanding marketing. That's why this short story marketing template is so effective. It forces you to focus on your potential customer and the value you bring… which is all your potential customers care about!
Customizing your marketing story template
If you are marketing to a new audience, helping a potential customer achieve a different outcome or pushing a different service, you should update your short story.
What's cool about this approach is it gives a simple and effective framework to update your approach based on the campaign you are running and who you are running it to.
I always advise to start by writing out all your target audiences, the destinations (or desired states) you can bring them to, and the ways you do that. Once you have all of the written down, you can mix and match them based on the setting you are in.
This is also SUPER important when you are testing your content.
Test your Short Marketing Story
There will always be some destinations you help your prospects achieve that will be more valuable than others. But you may not be sure what your potential customers care about most. This is where you can use this template to systematically test what your customers care about most.
Whether you are A/B testing an outbound email campaign, landing page or advertisement, use variations of your short marketing story and track what gets the most engagement.
You may THINK you know what your customers care about but this is a simple way to KNOW what they really care about.
Once you have a proven short marketing story, you are set up for massive success. This is often the difference maker in a campaign that has reasonable to massive success.
So get started building your short stories and start reaping the rewards of clear communication to your prospects.
FAQ’s
What is a marketing story?
A marketing story is a method of communicating the value a company provides to a target audience.
How do I write a short marketing story?
Use the template, “I help [target audience] [transformation] through [proprietary offering]” to build a story that fits you.