Galvanize recently teamed up with Erin Berman from Blackbeard Studios, a digital marketing agency based out of San Francisco, to host a storytelling workshop. Erin has helped dozens of startups learn how to share their story through her service as a storyteller and mentor at VCs and accelerator programs.
The goal of the workshop was to get introduced to the fundamentals of brand storytelling and learn how to leverage your company’s message to create cohesive and effective content for building your brand. Erin posed the question:
“Every company has a story. What’s yours?”
The Steps
Every time you pitch, tell someone about your company, or even introduce yourself, you’re telling a story. There are seven steps for creating a compelling story, because let’s face it everyone wants to hear a good story.
Characters
The characters in your story are your target audience. You’ll need to put them into the story of your brand before they will consider buying.
Challenges
Every good story has challenges and conflict. For your customers, the challenge is the problem or pain point that your product is hopefully solving.
Motivation
Every entrepreneur needs motivation. In this case, your motivation is the success your company could have. Find out what your best case scenario is and let that inspire you and your customers to get involved.
Setting
Setting is incredibly important in storytelling, as it frames the entire story. For a brand, the setting is the context in which your product exists for the customers.
Obstacles
Unlike challenges, obstacles are problems that get in the way of the company, rather than the customer. You’d be surprised how interested customers are with what kinds of issues you’re dealing with to bring them the product.
Climax
For your customer, this is the point at which they feel they need your product to solve their problems. This moment is key for any and all storytelling.
Closing
At this point, the customer decides whether or not to purchase your product. Depending on the outcome, you’ll be looking at a happy ending or a tragic finish.
Feeling Like a Hero
Quite simply, people don’t remember what you told them, they remember how you made them feel. If you can’t make your customer feel strongly about your brand it’s highly unlikely they will remember you and move on. So how do you create good feelings in your customer when they think about your company?
One of the ways you can induce your customer to have strong feelings toward your brand is by helping your customers feel like a hero. The best way to do this is to pose a problem, give validation, convey the emotion, provide the solution (your product), showcase the benefits, and create an easy way for them to be a customer.
Everyone wants to feel like the hero. It’s a good feeling. And if you can get your customers to “feel good” about your brand they’ll not only remember you, they’ll be more likely to recommend you. It’s only when you can make your customer feel like a hero that you’ve truly won them over.
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