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The Power Of Story in Business Marketing Content

Updated: May 27, 2022



As a result of a fortuitous collision of circumstances, in July 2021 I decided to restring my bow once more and add (aspiring) novelist to my resume. In order to avoid standing in line at the local soup kitchen, I also kept my B2B marketing business going, which I had started in 2010.


Novel writing has been a long-held dream. No really. I mean long. The same year Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star and John Travolta strutted the dance floor in his oh-so-cool white three-piece suit, I won a creative writing prize at school. The seed was sown, but never fertilised. Three kids and a mortgage with the staying power of a marathon runner were fed and watered by a decades long corporate career for which I’m grateful – It was lucrative and for the most part quite interesting.


As I stumbled around trying to learn my new craft, reading books on writing, attending online courses, writing, rewriting, discarding draft after draft, working out the formula for my novel, I came to realise there are some notable similarities between the twin worlds of marketing and novel writing.


The golden thread weaving them together is “story.” Specifically, the elements of a well told, compelling, authentic story. Unfortunately, much marketing is the opposite. Blatantly self-serving, self-centred, uninteresting and superficial content plagues marketing. Instead, I urge marketers to use the interesting compelling stories of your customers to inform and engage your marketplace. Use your customers stories to advocate for your business.


What makes a compelling story?


It’s not as you might at first suspect, the plot. It doesn’t really matter if the plot is a tale of star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, who just can’t seem to coordinate their diaries, with tragic consequences or if it’s, ummm let's see, two Billionaires, we'll call them called Elon and Jeff, in hand-to-hand combat, fighting for galactic supremacy, on the surface of Mars in 2050. Instead, what matters is the story.


A good story is about transformation. Always. How does your hero transform across the arc of their journey? Authenticity is key. It allows us to relate to the hero, be interested in them, be vested in the outcome of their story, cheer for them when they emerge from their chrysalis, blinking in the sunlight, complete with all their lumps/bumps and flaws. No hero starts out perfect or ends up perfect. No plot runs smoothly, the bad guys always close in at some point, our hero is always plagued by self-doubt. If not, no one believes you, it comes across as just more marketing bullshit, its inauthentic. No-one believes you and it erodes a prospective customer’s fragile trust in you.


Of course, in business, the hero is your customer (sorry product marketing people it’s not the amazing features of your new whizz bang software release.) If your hero doesn’t transform during the course of their story in a way that is compelling, engaging and interesting, well frankly no one cares, certainly not other potential future customers. Who would invest time and energy in reading about a journey that goes nowhere or describes a perfectly tanned and muscled hero who reads self-improvement books before bedtime, never misses leg day at the gym or never weakens and has hot chips for lunch by mistake? Booooring!


Your screwed up hero

Ever watched a movie or read a book where the hero is perfect? Of course not. It’s unrealistic, everybody has imperfections. Real, authentic, believable heroes screw up, get it wrong, often multiple times before realising the error of their ways and learning how to fix it over the arc of their story. With the best most engaging heroes that flaw is often hidden, buried, like a splinter in your thumb that you catch every time you put your hand in your pocket. My teacher called it “the shard of glass.” As marketers, find customers who are prepared to have their story of transformation told. My advice is to work with the leaders at your customer’s organisations. Good leaders are usually humble and open enough to see a story of transformation and change in their organisation is a sign of progress, of an open authentic culture and are happy to have that story told.


The villain

For a hero to transform, they need a foil, a villain who drives the hero to action. Imagine, Othello’s story arc without the malicious, conniving Iago, or if Harry Potter didn’t have to battle and ultimately defeat Voldemort or Katniss Everdeen didn’t have President Snow to get her out of bed in the morning.


For your customers, their villain is the pain the organisation is experiencing from an unsolved challenge. They have too much of a bad thing or, somewhat less compelling, not enough of a good thing. It’s a gap from where they are now to where they need to be. Falling sales, margins being squeezed, a loss-making subsidiary, a poorly trained team, security software with a vulnerability, a poor culture. The list of bad guys is almost limitless.


“Splinter removal, experts we are.”

In business, all customers have flaws, often they have endured that particular splinter for years. In times of trouble, when their flaws become too painful to endure any longer they resolve to finally fix it. In these times they will turn to a guide, a mentor. Yoda, Gandalf and Professor Dumbledore are all classic examples of characters who guide and mentor their young students to learn skills and life lessons, sometimes paying the ultimate sacrifice, to prepare them to face the forces of evil.


As a business you will already have worked out your market strengths and points of difference. Your hero is able to defeat the villain, using what they learn from you, their mentor and guide. You provide them with the knowledge, tools and training to knock seven bells out of the bad guy.


Whilst the stakes in the world of business probably aren’t quite as high as defeating The Dark Lord, you want to be around when they finally decide they need to do something about that pesky business problem that’s causing the business so much grief. If they have read your customers' compelling, interesting, authentic and believable stories involving your ninja-like splinter removal skills, they are much more likely to want to speak to you. They trust you to help them transform.


The art of story structure


Almost without exception, across multiple genres, stories are structured across three acts. Movies, novels and plays all follow this format, almost religiously. It’s a pact that writers have struck with their readers or audience members over centuries of storytelling. Betray the rules of this unspoken deal at your peril.


Act one is the thesis, the opening scenario that the characters of the story find themselves. The problem is clear for the audience to see as is the impetus for change. A compelling event creates a catalyst for action. Imagine this. Your customer has experienced a data breach, The Board is baying for blood, The CIO has been told to fix it before the end of the month or heads (his specifically) will roll. You hook your reader and build anticipation, “Huh, that’s interesting, I wonder what happens to the CIO? I want to read on and find out how this plays out.”


In act two, the antithesis, is where the story unfolds, the hero goes about their business, but dark forces are gathering and (usually) strike just when the hero thinks they have won. A false victory. Cue much gnashing of teeth and soul searching from the hero, before they summon the courage for the final act. Sounds like almost every CRM deployment I have witnessed over the years. Often marketers will shy away from shining a light on the things that have gone wrong in a project. In fact, showing the trials and tribulations and how together hero and mentor tackled and overcame those challenges is what makes the story real and believable and reassures future customers you’ll be there with them when adversity strikes. You build empathy. “Sheesh, tell me about it, been there, done that.”


Act three, the synthesis, sees the hero complete their transformation, they have learnt their life lesson, they’ve successfully completed their journey and have healed their wound, jamming their splinter free hands in their pockets without a second thought. Their newly acquired armour and band of loyal soldiers are ready for whatever future challenges come their way. Perhaps a bit melodramatic for the deployment of most business solutions but you get my point. You build desire. “Wow, that was a cool story. Gimme some of that!”

Tell stories about your customers that follow the three-act structure, it makes them so much more engaging.


Include a cast of characters


In the case of business there is almost always a varied cast of heroes who work in different functions across the organisation and play a part in any purchase decision. Villains manifest themselves in many guises in organisations. Your customer feels the effects of the business challenge across many different parts of the organisation. A poor CRM, (or no CRM,) will negatively affect sales people, marketers, the customer service team, managers looking for sales forecasts, the billing team, the list goes on. Including these multiple perspectives in the hero’s transformation arc, is an important element that deepens and colours the sense of authenticity.


Authentic, well-structured tales of transformation enables your marketers, sales people, customer experience team and your leaders to tell great customer stories. Your product or brand should be positioned as the guide or mentor, a key player in your hero’s journey. The story is about the hero, not the mentor or guide. A shift to customer powered organisations is already well underway. Telling authentic stories as part of your kit bag is the best way to engage with a jaded, cynical marketplace.

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