The Art of Simplifying Your Brand Message with StoryBrand

The StoryBrand framework, pioneered by Donald Miller in his book, Building a StoryBrand, is one of the most impactful ways any company can approach its outward communications.

By taking the seven Elements of the framework seriously, you’ll reach more readers, engage them more effectively, and drive both sales and retention. It all happens through the power of story.

At Media Junction, we’re big believers in this system. We’re a StoryBrand Certified Agency, and we use these techniques to help clients across industries optimize their messaging. One of the most important aspects of that work is simplifying your story to its most basic components.

Here’s what to focus on to streamline your branding with StoryBrand.

Character: Stakeholders and Their Roles

The first of the seven elements in the StoryBrand framework, and arguably the most important one, is character.

You need to establish a persona that your readers can identify with throughout the story. Think about the qualities that make a strong character in conventional storytelling. Your character needs a desire or a need, which forms the basis of a character arc.

That’s the problem (StoryBrand Element #2), which is the central challenge your main character is facing at the heart of your brand’s story. It’s the thing your brand is uniquely qualified to speak on and provide solutions about because of your position as the guide (StoryBrand Element #3).

While there might be multiple characters in your story, the most central one is the hero.

Who’s the Hero of Your Story? (You Might Be Surprised)

A common misconception in branding is that your company is the hero of your business. However, a key insight at the heart of the StoryBrand framework is that your company is not the hero of its story.

Instead, the protagonist is your customer or client. Their problems are the driving force of the plot (see below), and your company and the guidance you give are how the hero succeeds.

The most important person or entity in your story is the reader. They’re also its focus.

In practice, this means you need to orient your story around your customer’s journey, not your company’s. Their interests and desires are front and center, giving shape to everything from the perspective and advice given in an individual blog to the topics you cover across your content.

Plot: Major Challenges and Solutions

The major plot of a worthwhile story is a hero facing their challenges head-on and eventually overcoming them. In your brand’s story, they do that by following the sage advice you provide.

For example, consider some challenges your heroes may face, depending on your industry:

• Retail/e-commerce (B2C) – Your customers are in the market for specific goods or services; their challenge could be that they simply need them and don’t have them, or they may be uncertain about what they’re looking for or how to evaluate a good fit.
• Business or tech services (B2B) – Your potential and existing clients are looking for better ways to operate their businesses, from top-down management to production and shipping logistics to client outreach and acquisition to smooth and secure IT operations.
• Construction/maintenance (B2C or B2B) – Your client base includes both commercial maintenance (i.e., businesses) and residential construction (i.e., families). Their needs vary widely, ranging from best practices for project management to DIY fixes or hacks.

In any of these cases (and countless others), the role your company plays in the story is a guide who gives the hero a plan (StoryBrand Element #4) to overcome their problems. When giving that plan, you leverage your expertise to give honest, solution-agnostic answers to build trust.

It’s also important to avoid coming across as too sales-forward by suggesting or outright stating that your solution is the only way to solve your main character’s problem.

Even if it is, you’ll want to downplay that hand, at least at first, to avoid pushing them away. You’re not just selling them something in your call to action (StoryBrand Element #5); you (should) genuinely want to help.

However, make no mistake about it—that CTA is the ultimate payoff of this strategy.

Stakes: What Success and Failure Mean

Finally, you need to think about the stakes. A character’s problem is more interesting the bigger its implications are—good or bad. You need to be emphasizing them when they’re already there. And, in cases where the stakes aren’t as obvious or are seemingly insignificant, you should be finding ways to show the reader why their problems (and your solutions) can and should matter.

For an example of less obvious stakes, consider the B2C challenge. Your customers should be shown what success (StoryBrand Element #6) looks like in terms of the immediate benefits they can look forward to after buying your product (satisfaction!)—or the long-term benefits of being informed (knowing what to look for, quality-wise, or saving money on better future purchases).

And for an example of obvious stakes, consider the B2B challenge. Clients could face direct expenses and indirect costs, like reputational damage, for inefficient operations. That’s what failure (StoryBrand Element #7) means, and the way to avoid it is following your guidance.

How and Why to Talk About Failure…Successfully

Marketers have long tried to balance positive sales tactics—focusing on the good—with negative ones, such as scaring their audiences. In recent years, many of the most successful brands have made their names by focusing on uplifting, inspiring, and educating customers.

However, you should include negativity in your story to keep things honest with your readers.

Imagine you’re in the B2B/B2C scenario from above. Your brand is a smaller construction company servicing both commercial and residential clients. Avoiding negativity in your stories might mean not talking about high costs, structural degradation over time, or safety hazards.

An informed reader of these stories (say a commercial client) will likely know about these risks; they’ll be turned off by attempts to hide them. And a more novice reader (say a first-time home buyer) will be thankful that you’re bringing potential threats to their attention. That can also make them more willing to follow the company’s advice and use its products or services.

Now, the hero will avoid failure by following your CTA.

Take Control of Your Story Today

Simplifying your brand’s story is a process of boiling your messaging down to its most important parts: its audience, their struggles (and your solutions), and how they’ll overcome them (with your help). That’s the core of effective storytelling, and it’s what makes StoryBrand work.

Media Junction has iterated on this same formula to help companies in different industries (i.e., logistics, physical therapy, and data security) leverage their unique brand stories for growth.

To learn more about how this works with StoryBrand, check out these helpful articles:

• What is a StoryBrand BrandScript?
• StoryBrand Guide vs. StoryBrand Certified Agency: Which Do You Need?
• 4 Reasons Why HubSpot and StoryBrand Were Meant for Each Other

And, if you’d like to talk one-on-one to see how it can help you, get in touch today!