7 Quick Tips for Hon­est Sto­ry­telling. And cats.

My cat says ​“Top 7” arti­cles per­form better.

Many busi­ness and mar­ket­ing leg­ends have spent the past two decades sow­ing the idea that a good sto­ry is and should be the absolute essence of mar­ket­ing. Prob­lem­at­ic, to say the least. Putting sto­ries above every­thing else can very eas­i­ly lead to con­vinc­ing non­sense (drink­ing canned water will nev­er be coun­ter­cul­ture), bold technophile Ponzi schemes (hi Cryp­to!), and real­ly suc­cess­ful fail­ures (WeWork-ed). All these are exam­ples of fan­tas­tic sto­ry­telling mar­ket­ing used to con­ceal emp­ty and pur­pose­less endeavors.

Putting the truth (or a truth, an hon­est attempt at truth) first is hard­er, but it stands the test of time. First the walk, then the talk.

Sto­ries are mighty. But we can do even better.

What you tell, and how you tell it, is just one more item in a long check­list. Busi­ness and mar­ket­ing sto­ry­telling are tied to cul­ture, pur­pose, prod­uct, qual­i­ty, pric­ing, design (how it looks, how it works, what it solves), scale, eco­nom­ics, idio­syn­crasy, and zeit­geist. And if you run an hon­est busi­ness at the core, the truth will effort­less­ly show itself as a com­bi­na­tion of all of those elements.

That’s how sto­ries are unde­ni­ably pow­er­ful. They design the very essence of what human means. 

And of course, sto­ries can dri­ve sales too. Find­ing clues as to how this works is the hum­ble focus of this issue. Explor­ing how to write more, bet­ter, design bet­ter brands, and achieve goals through the end­less mag­ic of sto­ry­telling. With­out the bull.

And they all lived hap­pi­ly ever after.

Let’s get to it.

Tips for purr-fect mar­ket­ing storytelling

1️⃣ Find the right frame

“Fram­ing” refers to the way we present and express infor­ma­tion to the audi­ence. It’s a way to pre-set a cog­ni­tive bias.(Ratio­nal Choice and the Fram­ing of Deci­sions, Kah­ne­man, Tver­sky, 1986).

Pre­sent­ing an idea in one way or its oppo­site (think glass half-full or half-emp­ty), can dras­ti­cal­ly change the way peo­ple per­ceive your brand, and whether or not your cus­tomers will choose you over your competitors.

Avis had a hum­ble sec­ond place in its indus­try, unable to match Hertz. They reframed cus­tomer per­cep­tion from ​“we’re not enough” to ​“we try hard­er”. Their leg­endary cam­paign was an instant hit.

Think hard about how you can turn your con­straints, quirks, and less-known tal­ents around and into clear and catchy ideas that stick and persuade.

2️⃣ Find your mar­ket­ing sto­ry­telling voice

Voice and tone con­sis­ten­cy will remain one of the biggest chal­lenges for gen­er­a­tive AI (at least if you aim at orig­i­nal­i­ty). Whether you’re rely­ing on a bril­liant team of humans or cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy, you need to com­mu­ni­cate in a way that res­onates with your audience.

If you read your sto­ries out loud to a cus­tomer, do they get it? Does it sound like you get it? Does it reflect your team, pur­pose, expe­ri­ences, and personality?

Con­sis­ten­cy will make it easy for you and your team to cre­ate an entire body of con­tent. Find some time to write a sim­ple doc­u­ment set­ting basic guidelines:

• Who is it for
• Your tone (for­mal, infor­mal, humor­ous, tech­ni­cal, cre­ative, extravagant)
• The red lines for any top­ic impor­tant to you (legal­i­ty, ethics, pol­i­tics, inclu­sion, etc.)
• Exam­ples and ground rules

Mailchimp’s Con­tent Style Guide is a great place to start if you want to see a work­ing exam­ple. More good stuff here. 

3️⃣ Stand out and fight the big dogs 

Take the road less trav­eled. Try dif­fer­ent approach­es and see what makes peo­ple smile, feel sur­prised, and relate your brand to a good experience.

Lev Tanju’s min­i­mal, irrev­er­ent, and unex­pect­ed copy­writ­ing skills make Palace Skate­boards prod­ucts instant memes. And a book even.

More cool ideas from Fire­box.

4️⃣ Can you pack a relat­able lifestyle around your brand?

Choose the prop­er com­bi­na­tion of promise, rhythm, images, head­lines, influ­encers, punch­lines, and excite­ment to cre­ate an engag­ing lifestyle narrative.

Stel­lar exam­ples include Dol­lar Shave Club ads, J Peterman’s flam­boy­ant prod­uct descrip­tions, and the land­ing pages from our clients at Shi­mo­da or YETI.

(Side­note: The excel­lent sto­ry­telling on sto­ry­telling by Peter­man himself).

5️⃣ Try your sto­ry on real people

Test-dri­ve things. Sit down with your cus­tomers and under­stand how they per­ceive your brand. Try out new styles of sto­ry­telling with them and see how they react. In this data-dri­ven era, we some­times for­get the unpre­dictable human fac­tor and how easy it is to see if an idea will stick.

This short pre­sen­ta­tion by Clay­ton Chris­tensen is a per­fect example.

6️⃣ Tell your hon­est truth, and tell it out loud

Per­sua­sive copy­writ­ing, neu­ro­mar­ket­ing, and deceiv­ing dis­rup­tion are very pow­er­ful and tempt­ing tools. These can make a brand grow, but the only way to stand the test of time is through hon­est ideas and a real intent to ben­e­fit your cus­tomers. Tell the truth and make sure it sounds believ­able. It’s a tragedy to be hon­est and have no one notic­ing it, right?

Smarter peo­ple say­ing this better:

• Steinbeck’s tips for writ­ing. Love #6: ​“If you are using dia­logue — say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.”
• Sir John Hegarty’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion tri­an­gle. ​“I sup­pose I look at it in the round and I try and remind peo­ple that the most pow­er­ful strat­e­gy any adver­tis­er can employ is the truth.”
• The Ron­seal ad, one of the biggest ads in TV his­to­ry. It does what it says on the tin.

7️⃣ That’s it. Or is it?

Cliffhang­ers are not just for movies, you know?

Writ­ing for a brand means find­ing ways to keep your cus­tomers hap­py, and com­ing back. Use smart, play­ful, delight­ful calls to action. Invite your read­ers to com­ment and inter­act (there’s a com­ment box at the end of this, btw) and invite them to keep danc­ing with your brand.

We have sev­en more sto­ry­telling tips in the works 😏.

Will you miss what’s com­ing? Or will you sub­scribe to read it first?

Paws and explore these addi­tion­al notes 🐾

Love­ly stuff we researched that did­n’t fit the main article:

• Not all mar­ket­ing is sto­ry­telling and we total­ly agree with this.
• Sto­ries start at the end. Check this piece on Andrew Stan­ton’s advice.
• Your brain does weird things when sto­ries are good enough. Sci­ence!
• Sto­ry­telling or bull we asked. Well, this is not sto­ry­telling.
• John Cleese and Rory Suther­land’s relaxed chat on cre­ativ­i­ty. ​‘Nuff said.
• If you have fif­teen min­utes, enjoy Kurt Von­negut’s ​“Shape of sto­ries”. It’s sim­ple, bril­liant, and ful­fill­ing. ❤️

If this isn’t nice, we don’t know what is.

You got to be kit­ten me… 🎺

Time for some shame­less auto­bom­bo, agency, and part­ner news.

• How to do mar­ket­ing sto­ry­telling when you can’t say any­thing about the brand? Here’s how we did it for our cannabis indus­try clients.
• Net­suite stores don’t have to suck any­more. A Big­Com­merce inte­gra­tion is com­ing to the rescue.
• We had a blast at #Shoptalk2023 Barcelona. Read the sum­ma­ry.
• Save your seat for a 1:1 demo on the newest B2B fea­tures by BigCommerce.

Cat-egor­i­cal­ly YES!

Wait, what? Of course we can help you shape your story!

Our mar­ket­ing sprints can get your brand nar­ra­tive up and run­ning in 90 days. Con­tact us and let’s chat. It’s free.

Feline the numbers

Assort­ed stats for your cat­mus­ing. Most of them are not fake.

• 23% of mar­keters want­ed to lever­age short-form video dur­ing 2023. Is it work­ing for you?
• Sto­ries has the sadz. Indi­vid­u­als ages 15 to 44 read for leisure only 10 min­utes or less per day. Hard to believe? Uncon­firmed sources say most politi­cians read even less than that.
• The aver­age feline spends an envi­able 70% of its life­time sleep­ing. No bed­time sto­ries need­ed. And Leo 🦁 is the world’s favorite zodi­ac sign and the most searched online, to no one’s surprise.
• Some say Jerome Bruner said peo­ple are 22 times more like­ly to remem­ber facts that are part of a sto­ry. He nev­er did, and it’s actu­al­ly 12 times, not 22. Still a lot, though.
• There are three kinds of peo­ple. Those who can count, and those who can’t.

Thank you, next

Sto­ries are bet­ter if they’re well-writ­ten. We’ll be back in a month to talk all things #copy­writ­ing. Using words, tools, tricks, and frame­works to cre­ate con­tent that stands out and does­n’t look like the AI sub­par crap every­one’s spam­ming us with.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

💟, 🍵4️⃣2️⃣