Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

by Donald Miller

post-purchase process plan is best used when our customers might have problems imagining how they would use our product after they buy it. For instance, with a complicated piece of software, we might want to spell out the steps or even the phases a customer would take after they make the purchase: 1. Download the software. 2. Integrate your database into our system. 3. Revolutionize your customer interaction.

But when they read your plan, they think to themselves, Oh, I can do that. That’s not hard, and they click “Buy Now.”

The answer varies, of course, but we recommend at least three and no more than six. If doing business with you requires more than six steps, break down those steps into phases and describe the phases.

CarMax refuses to sell a car that doesn’t meet their standards, and they put every car through a renewal process to be sure it earns their quality certification seal.1

Instead, they focus on their customers’ internal problem, the fear of interacting with a used-car dealer, and they alleviate this fear with an agreement plan.

The best way to arrive at an agreement plan is to list all the things your customer might be concerned about as it relates to your product or service and then counter that list with agreements that will alleviate their fears.

Once you create your process or agreement plan (or both), consider giving them a title that will increase the perceived value of your product or service.

Your customers are bombarded with more than three thousand commercial messages per day, and unless we are bold in our calls to action, we will be ignored. If our calls to action are soft, they will not be noticed.

There should be a “Buy Now” button in the top right corner of your website, and it shouldn’t be cluttered with a bunch of other buttons. The same call to action should be repeated above the fold and in the center of your website, and again and again as people scroll down the page.

The reality is when we try to sell passively, we communicate a lack of belief in our product.

Let’s say we ask a customer to buy but they don’t. Who knows why, but they don’t. There’s no reason to end the relationship just because they aren’t ready. I believe in honoring people who aren’t ready, and I’m a fan of no-pressure sales. Still, I want to deepen the relationship so that whenever they need what I sell, they will remember me. The way I deepen that relationship is through transitional calls to action.

Transitional calls to action, however, contain less risk and usually offer a customer something for free.

Inviting people to watch a webinar or download a PDF are good examples of transitional calls to action.

Direct calls to action can be included at the end of every e-mail blast, on signage, in our radio ads, and even in our television commercials. Consider including direct calls to action in every team member’s e-mail signature, and if you really want to get the point across, on all your business cards. The idea is to make it very clear what we’d like customers to do: to make a purchase so we can help them solve their problem.

Brands that don’t warn their customers about what could happen if they don’t buy their products fail to answer the “so what” question every customer is secretly asking.

Data breach

Of course, we don’t all have access to the millions it takes to create a campaign like this, but the benefits of featuring the potential pitfalls of not doing business with us are much easier to include than we may think.

Blog subjects, e-mail content, and bullet points on our website can all include elements of potential failure to

The last thing I want to be is a fearmonger, because it’s true that fearmongers don’t do well in the marketplace.

Prospect Theory, as it was called, espoused that people are more likely to be dissatisfied

with a loss than they are satisfied with a gain.

In other words, people hate losing $100 more than they ...

So how do we use messages from the failure category in our marketing? In

We do not need to use a great deal of fear in the story we’re telling our customers. Just a pinch of salt in the recipe will do. While we do need to communicate something from the failure category in order to complete our BrandScript, too many warnings about imminent doom will turn customers off.

High levels of fear are so strong that individuals block them out; low levels are too weak to produce the desired effect.

What negative consequences are you helping customers avoid? Could customers lose money? Are there health risks if they avoid your services? What about opportunity costs? Could they make or save more money with you than they can with a competitor? Could their quality of life decline if they pass you by? What’s the cost of not doing business with you?

Good examples of failure

The three dominant ways storytellers end a story is by allowing the hero to 1. Win some sort of power or position. 2. Be unified with somebody or something that makes them whole. 3. Experience some kind of self-realization that also makes them whole.

The important idea in this section is that we need to show repeatedly how our product or service can make somebody’s life better.

But I’m convinced it is the way he frames the customer’s journey as a narrative and participates in their transformation that sets him apart.

The idea here is that customers need to know what’s in it for them right when they read the text. The text should be bold and the statement should be short. It should be easy to read and not buried under buttons

The first is at the top right of our website and the second is in the center of the screen, above the fold.

the first challenge is to find an overall umbrella message that unifies your various streams.

Around the office we use the phrase “write it in Morse code” when we need marketing copy. By “Morse code” we mean copy that is brief, punchy, and relevant to our customers.

If you do want to use a long section of text to explain something (we do it on our site, in fact), just place a little “read more” link at the end of the first or second

As an experiment, let’s see if you can cut half the words