Brands that stand out from the crowd and make a lasting impact on their audiences often do so by tapping into their innate psychological desires. According to a Stanford expert, stories have about 22x the impact of facts when it comes to readers and listeners remembering key details.
For marketers, this means that storytelling is the key to maximizing your outreach.
Media Junction uses Donald Miller’s StoryBrand approach to help our clients find bigger and better audiences, captivate them more deeply and for longer, and ultimately turn that greater reach into conversions and other opportunities for growth—all through the power of storytelling.
Below, we’ll break down three unique strategies you can use to supercharge your brand awareness and overall business communications using the StoryBrand framework.
But first, we’ll dip into the underlying structure that makes all of this possible.
A Primer on the StoryBrand Framework
StoryBrand is a revolutionary marketing approach that leverages storytelling concepts like character development to engage an audience. The framework comprises seven Elements:
- A character (your customer)
- Has a problem (their pain points)
- And meets a guide (your business)
- Who gives them a plan (your guidance)
- And a call to action (encouragement to act)
- Resulting in success (your value propositions)
- Or failure (risks they face if they don’t follow along)
When crafting a brand awareness strategy based on this framework, it can be as simple as incorporating all seven elements across all outward-facing materials. For example, web design across your site might bake these seven elements into the wireframes and outlines used.
Or, you could take a more targeted approach and focus specifically on one or more elements.
Strategy #1: Focusing on the Protagonist
In StoryBrand, the hero of the story is your customer. Turning this into a strategy means drilling down on who exactly your customers are—who your buyers or clients are—and putting them at the center of the story.
On one level, this means ramping up data collection and segmentation to understand your target demographics. On another level, it means prioritizing customers’ pain points throughout your marketing and outreach efforts. That might look like high-level explanatory guides on the kinds of obstacles they face, like security firms focusing on common kinds of cyber attacks.
This strategy is widely applicable, but it works best for companies with a tightly defined industry or market niche. A great example of this is narrowly targeted retail or e-commerce. The better you know who your buyers are, the more you can tailor around their specific wants and needs.
This is a way of maximizing brand awareness through StoryBrand Elements #1 and #2.
Strategy #2: Focusing on Plans and Solutions
This strategy is all about shifting the attention away from the hero and onto the guide. You’ll still establish that there is a hero (and that it’s your customer). But you’ll spend more time explaining the intricacies of how you’ll help them. The content you prioritize will likely be highly technical, such as in-depth whitepapers and deep dives into your methodology and how/why it works.
These tactics might make the most sense for businesses with broad client pools, where specific customers’ pain points vary widely. For example, if your company offers a suite of B2B services, like accounting and virtual CFO operations for small businesses, you may also have some B2B offerings, like tax preparation and personal financial advisory aimed at individuals and families.
In these cases, clients come to your business and its story for different reasons. Focusing too much on them could risk alienating some (or all) readers. It’s better to prioritize your solutions.
This is a way of maximizing brand awareness through StoryBrand Elements #3, #4, and #5.
Strategy #3: Focusing on the Stakes of Success
Another way to leverage StoryBrand for brand awareness is by putting most of the focus on what your hero’s success or failure could look like. In general, this means playing up the positive outcomes of following your company’s guidance or the negatives they could face if they don’t.
Here are some examples of how focusing on positives or negatives could look:
- Success-focused – Your company could make a push to showcase its past work and other clients’ success through case studies (quantitative) and testimonials (qualitative).
- Failure-focused – You could emphasize risks and threat factors potential clients subject themselves to (i.e., regulatory risks) by neglecting the tools or services that you provide.
It’s easy to assume that these strategies are more applicable in a B2B context. However, strong customer reviews can work well as a proxy for case studies.
Broadcasting a happy customer base is a great way to show your hero how well other heroes have fared under your guidance.
This is a way of maximizing brand awareness through StoryBrand Elements #6 and/or #7.
How StoryBrand Makes These Strategies Work
StoryBrand leverages the psychology of storytelling to engage your audience. It’s a tried and true method that builds on decades if not centuries of research into storytelling and narrative.
Within the StoryBrand approach, the practice of building a BrandScript prompts companies to think hard about who their customers are, what problems they’re trying to solve, and how you’ll guide them to overcome them. These elements help you hone in on any (/all) of the strategies.
Plus, there’s the way that StoryBrand integrates seamlessly with other CMS, branding, and marketing tools your company is already using—or should be. For example, StoryBrand pairs well with HubSpot, operationalizing customer insights to tailor and automate CTAs and more.
Build a Better Brand Strategy with StoryBrand
Media Junction is a StoryBrand Certified Agency. We use strategies like the ones above to help our clients build better brand stories and maximize their brand awareness. But it doesn’t stop there; we also help companies like yours leverage that brand awareness to drive engagement, client acquisition, retention, and overall growth—all through the power of story.
To learn how we’ve used StoryBrand to build our partners’ stories, check out these case studies:
- Web Design Example for Data Security
- Web Design Example for Physical Therapy Services Provider
- Website Design Example for Regional Shipping and Logistics Company
And we’d love to chat about how we can help you perfect your story—get in touch today!
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