Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

by Donald Miller

Conserving financial resources. In order to survive and thrive, your customers may need to conserve resources. In simple terms, this means they may need to save money. If your brand can help them save money, you’ve tapped into a survival mechanism. Walmart has built their brand on the promise of everyday low prices. Their tagline “Save Money. Live Better” further communicates savings and value and thus taps into a basic function of survival, the conservation of resources. Conserving time. In developed countries, most of our customers have thankfully moved beyond the hunter-gatherer stage of survival. They are familiar, then, with the notion of opportunity costs. Can your housecleaning service give your customers more time to work on other things or more time to spend with family? Then they might be interested. Building social networks. If our brand can help us find community, we’ve tapped into yet another survival mechanism. We only think we’re being nice when we bring our coworkers coffee, but what if we’re actually being nice because our primitive brains want to make sure we are connected to a tribe in case the bad guys come knocking at the door? Add this to the fact that human beings have a strong desire to nurture and be nurtured, and we’ve tapped into yet another survival mechanism. Gaining status. Luxury brands like Mercedes and Rolex don’t make much practical sense in terms of survival, right? In fact, spending lots of money buying a luxury c...