"Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen" chapter 8-10

StoryBrand Principal Five: Call to Action

Now, we have defined customers' desire, identified their challenges, and became a guide that gave them a plan. There's still one more thing we need to do, which is call to action.

Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to take action.

There are two kinds of calls to action, direct calls to action and transitional calls to action. Direct calls to action usually use short sentences, such as "buy now," "call today," and "schedule an appointment," to ask for a sale. As the author empathizes, there should be one obvious "Buy Now" button on the website. This is to make it clear to customers that to purchase and let us help to solve your problem. While transitional calls to action often use the way of offering customers something for free as the first step, such as free information, testimonials, samples, free trial, and so on. Oftentimes, brands need to do both direct and transitional calls to action since they work like two stages of a relationship.

StoryBrand Principal Six: Help Customers Avoid Failure

Stories or movies usually end in two ways, tragic ending or happy ending. When watching movies, the audience would like to see the hero succeed and have a happy ending. Just like movies, people are trying to avoid tragic endings and loss in life. So, brands can help customers avoid loss by warning customers about the potential consequences if they don't buy the products.

People are motivated by Loss Aversion

According to Prospect Theory, published by Nobel Memorial Prize winner Daniel Kahneman in 1979, people are more likely to be dissatisfied with a loss than they are satisfied with a gain. In certain situations, people are even two to three times more motivated to make a change to avoid a loss than they are to achieve a gain.

How to use loss aversion in marketing? Follow the four steps of fear appeal.

1. Tell customers the threat in their lives.

2. Encourage customers to take actions to protect themselves from the threat.

3. Let customers know that we have plans to help them get rid of the threat. 

4. Ask customers to buy our solution to the threat.

Don't worry about using warnings in customers' stories since adding moderate amounts of fear will do better in their attitudinal and behavior change. Just take a few terrible things to warn customers and they will know. Too much and the customers will resist, too little and they don't know how important the products are. Once we make the stakes clear to customers and show our ability to help them avoid loss, customers will be motivated to resist failures.

StoryBrand Principal Seven: End in Success

Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives without telling them. Brands should clearly show what life will look like if customers buy their products or services. By picturing a compelling image of an achievable future, brands are more likely to get customers' interests. But be careful not to make the future too vague.

Reflection

After learning the full structure of the SB7 Framework, it's still not easy to come up with an appealing story script. But with these strategies in mind, we can clearly observe how brands do their marketing.

"Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen" chapter 6-7

StoryBrand Principal Three: A Guide

(Customers aren't looking for another hero; they're looking for a guide.)

Most stories have the guide characters to encourage the heroes and help them solve their problems. Katniss has Haymitch; Frodo has Gandalf; Luke Skywalker has Yoda. Just like the heroes, customers are sometimes troubled by problems that they cannot solve by themselves, so that's why they need a guide, which is a brand, to help. In this way, customers tend to choose brands that position themselves as the guide, not the hero. However, some brands, especially young brands that are eager to prove themselves, still make the fatal mistake of positioning themselves as the hero in the story, which ends in failure. There are two characteristics that a qualified guide must have, which are empathy and authority. These two characteristics can help brands make a great first impression with potential customers and earn their trust.

StoryBrand Principal Four: A Plan

(Customers trust a guide who has a plan.)

After brands position themselves as the guide, they create a bond of trust with customers, but it's not enough for customers to make a purchase. Customers still have concerns about the products or services, like what if they don't work. To ease their concerns, brands have to provide a plan to guide them.

Plans can be in different forms, but all effective plans either clarify how to do business with the brand, or remove the sense of risk customers might have when considering purchasing the products or services. There are two kinds of plans that can effectively encourage customers to place an order. The first one is the process plan, which describes the steps customers need to take to buy the products, or the steps customers need to take to use the products after the purchase, or a mixture of both. Its aim is to alleviate confusion for the customers. The second one is the agreement plan, which can be understood as a list of agreements that brands make with their customers to help them overcome their fear of buying the products or services. What's different from the process plan is that the agreement plan often works in the background. It doesn't have to be shown on the website. And if it's short enough, it can be on the packaging or shopping bags.

Reflection

In chapter 6, how do the brands (the guides) demonstrate the right amount of authority without bragging about themselves so much that they become the heroes? The author shows four ways, which are testimonials, statistics, awards, and logos. But with the booming of video platforms and social networking sites, there's another way – influencers, like celebrities or YouTubers. It may not be a new idea now, but it's still astonishing to see how fast the times change.

"Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen" chapter 4-5

How to tell a good story?

Now we know that story is the key to successful marketing, but how to tell a good story that makes your company stand out from the other competitors? Here comes the main character of this book, the SB7 Framework (StoryBrand 7-part Framework). By using this formula, companies can tell good stories that clarify their message and make communicating easy. 

There are seven basic elements that appear in almost every good story and movie, which are character, problem, guide, plan, call to action, failure, and success. These seven plot points can create an infinite variety of stories and they form the SB7 Framework. 

StoryBrand Principal One: A Character

(The customer is the hero, not your brand.)

The first step is to define what your customers want. Only when you identify their needs will they listen to you. Then, you have to let your customers know where you can take them. Once they see your brand as a trustworthy guide, they will likely engage. 

StoryBrand Principal Two: Has A Problem

In a story, the problem that the villain causes to the hero actually includes three levels: external problems, internal problems, and philosophical problems. External problems are the most obvious and often physical and tangible problems that heroes have to overcome. Internal problems are the emotional struggle caused by external problems, such as frustrations. Philosophical problems are the intangible values or dreams that are larger than the story itself and have a deeper meaning. 

However, companies often recognize only the external problems and sell solutions to external problems, but what customers really want is the solution to internal and philosophical problems. 

Take Starbucks for example. Starbucks deliver more value than just coffee; they provide a sense of sophistication and enthusiasm about life. They also offer a place for people to meet and to experience affiliation and belonging. Customers feel good about themselves when walking into a Starbucks. Since Starbucks understand how their customers want to feel, their customers are willing to pay more for their coffee because they sense greater value with each cup. 

Reflection

After learning the three levels of problems, I tried to apply it to my previous buying experiences. About a year ago, I needed a storage box for my clothes, so I searched online, trying to find a suitable one. After browsing through different styles of storage boxes, I decided to buy a detachable and foldable one. In this case, the external problem was that I needed a storage box. The internal problem was that I wanted it to be easy to carry and space-saving. The philosophical problem was that when I bought it from IKEA, I had the warm and comfortable feeling of home, which was the impression that IKEA gave me.

"Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen" chapter 1-3

The New York Times bestseller "Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen", written by Donald Miller, is a book about storytelling in marketing. Why do so many businesses fail even with good products and lots of marketing materials? Why do customers click to another website without placing an order? What do customers really want? All these questions are answered in the book.

What's the relationship between story and marketing?

Stories are agreed by many branding experts to be the most powerful tool that helps organize information. Since story is a sense-making mechanism, customers don't have to burn too many calories trying to understand the message given on the marketing collateral.

How to do good branding?

★ Related to customers' real needs

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's human's primitive need to survive and thrive, so positioning products and services as something that help people survive, thrive, be accepted, find love, or achieve an aspirational identity can definitely attract customers and increase sales. However, if the information of products or services that companies provide have nothing to do with helping customers survive or thrive, customers will ignore them.

★ Deliver simple and clear message

When customers receive too much or too complicated information, they will ignore the information to conserve calories, which means the survival mechanism in their brain will start working when facing useless or confusing information. The more simple the communication is, the easier it is for customers to understand you and listen to you.

Alfred Hitchcock once said that a good story is like life with the dull parts taken out. Good branding is the same. The unnecessary and confusing information should not exist in a good story, or the audience is going to burn many calories trying to understand. But how do we know whether the marketing is simple and clear for customers? If customers can answer the below questions after looking at the website or ads of a company, then they are likely to be potential customers.

1. What does the company offer?

2. How will the products or services make customers' lives better?

3. What do customers need to do to buy the products?

Reflection

After reading this book, I started to pay attention to marketing collateral in our daily life to see if it really followed the rules written in the book. Does the information focus on customers' survival in a simple and clear way? Or does it provide too much information that customers cannot find the core message?

I think Apple can be the most successful example in marketing. Their advertisements feature their customers as the hero in the story, not the products. They don't tell customers all the technical features that normal people don't understand. Instead, they are telling customers' story and inserting themselves into it. Their commercials are so simple and clear that even those who are not their fans can immediately understand the products' functions.

People don't buy the best products; they buy the products they can understand the fastest.

"The Selection" chapter 1-6

I think everyone must have heard of Cinderella, but what if Cinderella has an unforgettable ex-boyfriend and a loving family? 

With a beautiful, talented but poor girl and a Prince Charming, "The Selection" is evidently another Cinderella story. After adding a love triangle, it becomes "The Selection", which I consider as the realistic version of Cinderella.

Summary

"The Selection" is a young adult novel written by Kiera Cass. Being the first in a five-book series, it set its background in a country named Illéa, which practices a strict caste system under absolute monarchy.

Through the narrating of the main protagonist, America Singer, the life of different castes are largely portrayed between the everyday conversation with her family. Being a Five, which is only three castes higher than the lowest caste, America lives a lower-class life. The only chance for a girl to raise her social status is to enter the Selection, which is held to choose the prince's wife. Every province will select one girl to be the candidate for the princess. A few days before the announcement of the thirty-five girls being selected, America broke up with Aspen, her secret boyfriend and a Six, because of Aspen's inferiority complex about his caste, but then America turns out to be one of the Selected.

Reflection

When I was reading the first six chapters, I was actually a little disappointed about the slowness and blandness of the plots. I thought it would be more exciting and interesting from its brief introduction on the back cover of the book. However, as I continued reading, I found myself in a peaceful mood, not as impatient as I started reading.

Apart from being a love story, there's much more information hidden behind the romance and is worth discussing. The problem that caused America and Aspen to separate is always a controversial issue.

Which will you choose, love or bread?

Aspen obviously chose bread, but it's hard for me to blame him for giving up his love when he actually starved most of the time. He simply wanted America to live a better life since he wasn't able to provide for her. America, on the other hand, chose love. She did whatever she could to try to help Aspen relieve his load, but instead of receiving his appreciation, she was dumped.

As for me, I will choose bread if I have to make a decision. Love will fade as time goes by while money won't. Having a comfortable life definitely needs money, but doesn't necessarily need love.

PS: The first six chapters are about the time before America goes to the palace and meets Prince Maxon and the other girls, so if you are more interested in the competition of the thirty-five girls, you can start from chapter 7.

Hobby or Habit

Hello, my name is Sharon. 

Reading history

I started reading novels when I was about ten years old. At that time, I was really into martial arts novels by 金庸, but there were only a few in the school library. Fortunately, one of my classmates had the whole series of 金庸's novels, and she was very kind to lend it to me, so I ended up reading almost all of 金庸's novels. However, after so many years, I can only remember a small part of the stories now.

By the way, an interesting thing was that all the physical novels I read were either from the library or from my classmates. None of them were from my home since my father thought it was useless to read novels, and he also forbade me to read novels.

Preference

I prefer novels with happy endings since I will be easily affected by the plots of the

stories and feel depressed for the whole day if I read a novel with sad endings, like the

novel Me Before You.

Hobby

As for my hobby, I enjoy reading online novels a lot. Though I often say it's my hobby, reading novels is actually a habit of mine that lasts for nearly ten years. However, I have been trying to quit this habit in the previous years because it's hard for me to control myself to read at the right time, which has already affected my life. In my teenage years, once I started reading a novel, I couldn't get anything done until I finished it, which was a terrible thing. At school, it made me unable to concentrate on the class, while at home, staying up late for novels messed up my body clock, which led to a series of problems.

It wasn't easy to get out of this habit when I didn't have any other interests to replace it. I often felt like I was wasting my life but just couldn't get out of it. I have been struggling with it for many years and it still lasts until today, but it has become so much better since I have better self-discipline now.