How can Storybrand revolutionise your communications?
Table of Contents
4 mistakes most brands make in their marketing
Meet Donald Miller.
Don is an author, film fan, marketing consultant, and overall smart person.
After writing a bunch of “memoirs” (most of which I haven’t read yet), he wrote the book that kickstarted his business: “Building a StoryBrand”.
The first chapter of this book is a must-read for most (all?) of my clients, as it explains so well what many companies do (wrong) with their marketing…
Company-centric marketing: making your marketing about the company or organisations instead of what your visitor needs
“You Confuse, You Lose”: confronting visitors with too many words, too many options, and a general lack of clarity. So they end up scrolling past, clicking away, and taking all the actions you don’t want them to take
Curse of Knowledge: you don’t know what you know: for most people, it’s hard to talk about their mission and convey their passion in a way that their ideal readers immediately see what’s so great about it
Making it hard for people to get on your email list or take action. Sometimes by being unclear about the benefits - often by hiding calls to action or making the process unnecessarily complicated.
The Storybrand framework gives you insights and tools to fix all that.
How to “Storybrand” your marketing collateral
1- Read “Building a StoryBrand”
My first recommendation is to read the book, “Building a StoryBrand”. Or at least, reading the first chapter.
That first chapter made a huge impact on every single person we know who read it. We’ve been recommending the book for years: it helps you see the structure, understand the principle, and realise what you’re doing wrong.
The next time you’re writing a piece of marketing copy, you will remember the Storybrand book - and tweak it so it reads more easily, flows better, and people actually follow your call to action.
2- For marketers (or if you’re doing your own marketing): Marketing Made Simple
The next step is the next book - “Marketing Made Simple”.
MMS (as we affectionately call it) teaches how to take the Storybrand principles, and take it to the next level: turning it into a lead-generating funnel, into a website, into emails, ebooks, presentations, all the things.
3- For any business owner: Business Made Simple University
If you’re not really into “dry” books, the StoryBrand team offers everything that’s in the books + way more in their learning platform, Business Made Simple University (or BMSU).
BMSU offers a variety of mini-courses, from marketing-related ones (like writing your brand script or structuring your website) to business-related courses (e.g. “proposals made simple” or “mission statement made simple”) to personal development and productivity.
BMSU also hosts regular members-only workshops and webinars on all kinds of topics - from leadership and team management to marketing for non-profits.
4- Full assessment & reboot: Small Business Flight School
In 2023, Storybrand launched a better (and more intensive) version of BMSU called “Small Business Flight School”.
On top of access to a series of courses, Flight School includes
A structured process with training videos + a business growth plan (Flight Plan) for you to complete, step by step
Weekly Q&A calls with Business Made Simple coaches and Storybrand certified guides
A private community
Quarterly Q&A calls with Donald Miller
5- Fast-and-profound impact: attend a 2-day live workshop
While there’s a lot to be said for reading the books, taking the courses, attending the webinars, it all takes a bunch of time - and even then, you’re on your own, you’re still too close to your organisation to catch your own mistakes (even if you are a marketer yourself!) and it’s just a LOT.
Enters the Storybrand Workshop: a 2-day workshop where you watch the Livestream (or attend the event in real life) and get direct feedback and directions from a Storybrand Guide in small groups (on Zoom or, again, in real life).
The workshop is a bit of a time investment; even though you might still have extra hours left in the day before or after the actual workshop, you might not have the brain space for a lot of productive work. However, it’s time well spent: most attendees leave the workshop with full clarity on their messaging, an outline for their sales funnel, lead magnet, website homepage, and more.
How marketers can use Storybrand for their clients
1- Read the books (all of them) + apply your insights to your work
Just reading the books above will help you
Write copy that converts better.
Build websites that lead the visitors on a journey.
Create social media content that people can’t help but like, share, and comment on.
Help your clients think differently about their brand’s stories.
But reading the books doesn’t give you permission to tell your clients you’re “applying Storybrand”: you can only use the names Storybrand & Marketing Made Simple (or Business Made Simple) if you’re officially certified by Storybrand.
2- Getting certified as a Storybrand Guide
I’m an online business strategist, and I’ve been a Certified Storybrand Guide since February 2021.
I used to think I knew how it worked, and applied it to client work like described above. My work was good and clients were happy as it was a huge improvement to what they had done so far… But in hindsight, I cringe when I remember how I thought I was doing it right, just didn’t have the fancy certification to prove it.
I honestly thought the certification was just a way for them to get people to pay for using the name.
Which it is, of course, but it’s more; the certification comes with training.
Certification training: a super-intensive training to learn how to guide clients through the framework, catch the most common mistakes, and optimise your own marketing so it works better.
Small group coaching for new guides: Zoom calls to help you (re-)organise your business,
Workshops, round tables, summits etc - Storybrand certification comes with so many opportunities for learning. Some are directly related to coaching your clients through the SB framework, others are about building your own business around Storybrand services. Some opportunities are hosted by Storybrand HQ, while others are unofficial and hosted by fellow guides.
Does Storybrand work for any business type, anytime, anywhere?
It could (the framework can be applied pretty broadly!) - but in reality, it doesn’t.
When the Storybrand framework doesn’t work
Not every element of the framework can be applied to any type of business, or to any element of any business.
The framework (in its purest form) doesn’t work if you’re not clear on what you offer. It breaks my heart to see people spend thousands on a website or other marketing collateral, when they haven’t yet decided what they actually do - or when they’re trying to do too much at the same time.
Lack of understanding of the instructions can lead to a confusing brand story
You may need more than one “brand script” if you have very different products and target audiences
Charities and non-profit organisations need an important tweak to the framework, but it still works like a charm - Storybrand guides help hundreds of non-profits with their marketing every year.
The clearer you are about your offer, your target audience, and how your product can help them, the better results you can expect from using the Storybrand framework.
Easy changes to make yourself
Remember the shortlist of 4 mistakes companies make in their marketing listed above?
Getting past #1 (company-centric marketing) is fairly straightforward - stop making it all about yourself (or your company), and you’re 50% there.
Making it easier for people to take action is a matter of paying attention to the details: it’s usually pretty straightforward to add clear calls to action on your website, in your marketing content, and anywhere else that matters. This has a huge impact on actual conversion. Let’s say that’s 30% extra.
Why we all need an outside expert’s perspective
However, it’s hard to fix the other two (confusion & curse of knowledge) on your own, or even with a team, for your own organisation. Most people are too close to their own brand to see it clearly from the point of view of a (potential) customer.
Want to know more about applying Storybrand to your organisation?
