Crafting compelling messaging using the power of storytelling (with Dr JJ Peterson)

Dr JJ Peterson is the head of StoryBrand and the host of the Marketing Made Simple podcast. Since 2013, he has used the StoryBrand Framework to help thousands of organizations clarify their message in order to grow their business. In today's episode, JJ and I deep dive into how online businesses can use the StoryBrand framework to create better messaging and marketing.

– Why clarity in your communication is the key factor to standing out in any successful marketing story
– The science behind clear and simple messaging that contributes to your customers' ability to ‘survive and thrive'
– The unmissable seven essential elements of storytelling for successful marketing – minus the unnecessary tangents!
– The importance of staking your authority as the ‘guide' to solve the problem for your ‘hero' (insert customer)
– JJ's tips for avoiding the costly mistake that 70% of American small businesses make today
– The reality of manipulative and aggressive sales strategies, and the damage it could be doing to your business—and how to avoid this in your marketing.

To learn more from JJ you can tune into his podcast Marketing Made Simple plus check out the StoryBrand online brand script at mystorybrand.com

 

I'm chatting with a new friend of mine, Dr. JJ Peterson, who is the head of StoryBrand. Now you may have heard of StoryBrand before and even if you haven't heard of StoryBrand, you may be somewhat aware of the importance of storytelling when it comes to your marketing, when it comes to your messaging, when it comes to essentially anything that you are doing as a brand, as a business.

I'm chatting to JJ about the structure behind really good messaging and really good storytelling going through the StoryBrand framework. 

 

Why clarity in your communication is the key factor to standing out in any successful marketing story

I think a lot of times it feels like we're throwing spaghetti at a wall, and guessing what's going to stick. Marketing messages are out there all the time. We see Coca-Cola and we see Apple, and we see these huge companies that are telling these amazing stories with high production value, and it feels so intimidating to think how am I supposed to compete with that?

Because it's just such a high value, so story and storytelling, and marketing just feels like it's this thing that is you have to guess at, and there's already people who are doing it so amazing. I'm never going to reach that level. 

So we are seeing all of these stories and marketing out there and some of them are great. But the reality is, and this is what we always talk to people about, it's not about being cute and clever. It's not about creating amazing visual commercials. It's not about just the most beautiful website. It's about clarity. Cute and clever are important, but it's always secondary to clarity. And if you can create a clear message that invites your customer into a story, that is going to win out in the marketplace every time, even if your competitor down the street has an inferior product than you. So what I always start with people is the story. It can feel very intimidating and overwhelming when we feel like we have to have things like Coca-Cola and Apple, but that's not true. Those are clever and they're cute. But for you, for the individual marketer, for the solopreneur, when you can understand that communication is about clarity, that will free you up. 

And one of the biggest challenges that my listeners deal with is standing out online because when you are on a limited budget, you don't have budgets to pay for lots of ads or pay for media placements or anything like that. You're then relying on organic marketing to get in front of your ideal clients. 

 

The science behind clear and simple messaging that contributes to your customers' ability to ‘survive and thrive'

The biggest thing is understanding. 

Well, there's some science behind it a little bit, which is that ultimately our brain is designed to keep us alive. And two of the primary ways that our brain does this is, first, our brain is always focusing on information that speaks to our survival, and we're always looking for and paying attention to things that contribute to our survival and thriving.

So for instance, if you and I are at a giant concert with thousands of people in the room, I could stand on the stage and I would say, how many people know how many chairs are in this room? Nobody would be able to raise their hand. But if I said, how many people know where the exits are in this auditorium?

Every single person would raise their hand instantly. We automatically know our brains do that. It's looking for and paying attention to the information that contributes to our survival and thriving. 

The second piece is that our brains, only at any given time, have a limited number of calories to put towards thinking. So our brain burns a lot of calories all the time. When you're thinking, when you're in a meeting all day long and being creative, you are exhausted by the end of the day.

Even if you just sat there, well, you didn't just sit there, your brain is burning calories by processing information. Now we only have a limited number of calories in our brains at any given time and they refill. 

What I find a lot of time is when people create marketing that is overly confusing and is all about the features of the product and how great the product is and all these different things but doesn't speak to the benefit for the customer and doesn't speak to their survival and thriving and how the pro product solves their problem and their pain that they're experiencing, that is we get complicated and confusing and we do not connect with our customers. 

So we have to understand that we have to create clear, not just clear messaging, but simple messaging that people can understand clearly and connect to their survival and thriving. 

 

The unmissable seven essential elements of storytelling for successful marketing – minus the unnecessary tangents!

So what we do at StoryBrand is we always start by teaching people how a story works. And the story is not based on if you were a good storyteller. It's not that you're entertaining, it's that you are clear. And there are a bunch of different frameworks of how a story works, but we boil it down to that. 

Every good story in its most simple form contains seven elements. There are seven pieces to a good story, and it's formulaic. And when I say these, you're going to notice them from every movie and a good book that you've ever read, but in its most simple form, here's the seven. 

First, there's a character who wants something. Second, that character encounters a problem. Third, they meet a guide. Somebody to help them overcome that problem. Who gives them a plan that calls them to action that results in success or failure? Those are the seven elements. 

Character, problem, guide, plan, call to action, success, and failure. 

Now, just to kind of expand that a little bit in a movie, you have to know very early who is the main character and what they want. If you don't understand what that character wants, then it's not a good story because our brains can't process the information. We're following too many paths. 

So that's what it's like in movies, right? Well, what we are talking about when creating a clear story for your company is that you have to identify who is your customer and you have to go back to that very first principle. What is it that they want? And there has to be clarity in that. You have to be able to name very clearly what they want and it has to be one thing. 

It can't be 20 things they want to be able to grow their business with by, with a business coach. They want to be able to create clear marketing. They want to reach a wider audience. They want to launch a new course and they need help doing that. There's one thing that you have to be, you have to name it.

 

The importance of staking your authority as the ‘guide' to solve the problem for your ‘hero' (insert customer)

And as I said, the problem is the hook in your marketing. You need to be able to articulate what problem you solve for your customer. You need to be able to name it for them. Are you struggling with this? Do you worry about this? Is this keeping you up at night?

Naming it, hooking them with the problem, and having to talk about your customer's problem over and over and over again. 

The only reason why somebody is coming to purchase anything from you is that you solve a problem. If they could solve it on their own, they don't need you. So you solve a problem and you need to talk about that.

Then you need to position yourself as the guide. This is the big paradigm shift in the StoryBrand framework. Your customer is the hero and you are the guide. You have testimonies, you have statistics, you have something that proves that you can help them. Prove to them that you know what you're doing and help them solve their problem. 

If companies can get those right. I would say that's 75% of the marketing naming what your customer wants. Talking about the problems they're experiencing and positioning yourself as a guide. Then you also want to create a clear three-step plan. A plan that shows them this is how to work with us, or this is how to get started because they're confused. 

There's some fog around how to engage with you. So you need to just show them, we do this, this, and this. Don't give them 20 things that you do. Keep it very clear. 

Then you have to have a clear call to action. What is the next step they need to take to do business with you that needs to be all over your website? That needs to be in your emails. Buy now. Schedule a call, and shop now.

This is what you need to do to win. And it's the same in your marketing. 70% of small businesses in America do not have a clear call to action on their website, which is mind-blowing to me. People are losing money so much because of that. So you need a clear call to action and then create language around success and failure.

What does their life look like if they do business with you? That's a success. That's the hope they need to move towards. So what are the benefits, but then not just the benefits, what do those benefits allow for them to do and become successful? And then you also need to name a little bit of failure if they don't work with you, what is their life like if they don't. 

So you have to name that their problems are going to still be there and they might get a little bit worse. So when you create talking points for those seven elements of the story, what you're doing is you're creating a clear and cohesive narrative that connects to your customer's survival and thriving and does so in such a way that you're not going off on all this other information that doesn't contribute to that or cause them to burn any calories.

 

What does that call to action typically need to look like?

So there are two different types of calls to action that we call. One is a direct call to action and the second is a transitional one. So direct call to action is kind of the marry me. So it's like buy now, schedule a call, sign up, and shop. Now we want to be specific and learn more.

It's not a strong call to action. That's a weak one. We want something really strong. And the reason you want to do that is that you don't want to hide what this relationship is, right? There should be a transaction in this, and you should stand confidently in that transaction. But we also know, not everybody is ready at that moment, so you need to stay connected with them.

You want to get their email address, and so you want to create what we call a transitional call to action. And a transitional call to action would be, to download my pdf, and sign up for my webinar. Here are three tips on how to do this. Here's a free video, here's free information, and here's a quiz. Those are all transitional calls to action.

But the biggest thing I would say is the biggest mistake people make in that area is not having a clear, direct call to action. You don't want to do “learn more”. And in your marketing, if you can attach a countdown clock to that, that's either associated with saving them from pain or giving them more value.

 

The reality of manipulative and aggressive sales strategies, and the damage it could be doing to your business—and how to avoid this in your marketing.

You can be manipulative, you can be aggressive. The research shows that's not a sustainable model, and it also creates negative feelings, and you have to get bigger and better if you're going to make it continue to be effective.

A lot of people do share those extreme failure cases, and they do try to play on people's emotions to get them to take action rather than making that informed decision and feeling inspired to take action rather than trying to avoid that horrible, tragic ending. 

 

JJ’s imperfect action

One of the things that I try to do every year is to learn a new skill that is just kind of random and out there. So, I took a trip last year to Italy and I went to Venice and I decided to take a Murano glass class. And, I'm telling you, I was so horrible at it. I was so, so bad. 

And I ended up creating this little glass bear that is about an inch and a half high that its eyes. The ears are different, there's no arms. It's just like a belly and a head, and that's it. And it is ugly and way imperfect, and it is my absolute favourite thing. And I have found it kind of like in my life that when I step into some of those spaces, I learned how to make cheese.

I just did a cheese-making class and I did great in the class and then did horrible on my own. But what it always does is it kind of opens up new inspiration for me of trying new things. Not everything sticks, but what I've learned, a lot of it is the lesson that if I walk away, none of this lasts. 

I always just try things imperfectly and I used to try to, and I do this intentionally because it really impacts the rest of my life. After all, I'm not frozen by that moment of having to wait until everything's perfect to move forward. I just move. Intentionally and understanding the risk. 

 

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