As you journey through the pages of this guide, I will be introducing you to some concepts that may be unfamiliar.
They might seem strange at first, jarring even, yet they are important in creating a language framework that paints a fresh, somewhat counter intuitive picture of modern marketing and audience building through a trust and empathy lens.
We’ll peel the layers of marketing and storytelling and give you a 10,000 foot view of how actual marketing is supposed to look and feel like.
So settle in, and enjoy the adventure.
Story Driven Marketing
Humans can’t exist without stories. We’re wired for it.
It’s the reason our various versions of entertainment rely on stories. TV shows, movies, books, etc.
Friendships are built on telling stories about each other’s lives and going through things together.
Our lives are essentially a series of events that we can’t wait to tell other people about when something we find amazing or entertaining happens.
So naturally, stories have always been a part of marketing as well.
If you’ve been in the marketing world for long you’ve probably seen countless references to story-driven marketing.
Most of the so-called wisdom is some variation of people love stories (true), and people like to buy stuff (also true), so just tell stories and people will buy your stuff… (not necessarily true).
The problem is that “just tell a story” is incomplete. And, for reasons I probably won’t ever understand, this advice has been interpreted to mean that we’re supposed to tell a particular type of story.
It usually goes like this…
“A funny thing happened to me…
… that reminds me of this other thing…
… which reminds me of this thing I sell…
… which is why you should buy my stuff…”
Every. Damn. Time.
That is merely a shell of a story.
REAL stories start and end with empathy.
Truly feeling what your audience feels, deep in your bones, is the heart and soul of great marketing.
Letting them know that you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, that you’ve felt what they feel, understand it, can articulate it back to them with precision and clarity… that’s what empathy is all about.
Empathy opens the door to all of the emotions your audience is experiencing and wants to experience.
That could be a journey from confusion to clarity. Overwhelm to understanding. Desperation to hope.
Knowing the emotional landscape of our audience, and caring deeply about them as individuals, is our first priority.
Not the surface level stuff. The deep, visceral feelings that keep your audience awake at night.
That’s where the magic happens.
When your favourite character in a book or TV show dies unexpectedly.
When that perfect couple in a romcom suddenly split.
Stories are vehicles that makes someone FEEL something. That makes someone feel like they’re part of the story, part of something bigger than themselves. And for the right audience, stories become unforgettable, awe inspiring.
Emotional, relatable, and memorable.
The core elements of a great story.
And due to the nature of stories, they are infinitely malleable.
They can be as long or as short as you want them to be.
They can fit in websites, social media posts, billboards, videos, etc.
Stories can be about your audience, about your product, about you, your entrepreneurship journey, the wisdom you’ve accumulated along the way.
And throughout the ages, people have been able to codify how a proper story gets told. You’ve probably seen this before.
But if we look at it through a marketing lens, our kind of stories need to do the following:
In the next few pages we will go over each section of storytelling through our marketing lens with the goal of generating happy customers.
Up next, the first section. How to attract attention in a way that isn’t disingenuous and prevents trust from forming.