Communicating what your brand stands for, and how interacting with your brand will benefit others, is powerful. But even more powerful is helping people create the story for themselves. Whether a small business with hundreds or thousands of customers, or a large business with millions or tens of millions of customers, a marketer’s job to help shape the story people tell themselves, and others, about your brand.

Treehouse

Treehouse is a provider of online, self-paced, technical education. However, founder and CEO Ryan Carson spends most of his time not promoting their library of courses, but rather how Treehouse helps people overcome the burdens of traditional education or no education at all. He paints a picture of self-empowerment, independence, and confidence to achieve your goals through affordable and convenient online education. Here are a couple of example’s from Ryan’s Instagram:

With Ryan’s message of how a traditional education isn’t right for everyone, and doesn’t necessarily set you up for the job, and life, you want, he allows you to start telling yourself a story of what Treehouse can offer you. You start seeing yourself learning in your spare time, keeping yourself out of debt, acquiring marketable skills in less time so you can start leading the life you want. It’s not about the story Treehouse tells you, but rather the story Treehouse helps you tell yourself.

Field Notes

Hey, let’s start a notebook company!

In a time of computers, tablets, smartphones, and electronic gadgets and gizmos aplenty, who thinks of starting a notebook company? Well, Aaron Draplin and Jim Coudal did when they came up with Field Notes.

The success of Field Notes isn’t a story about notebooks. Notebooks are a commodity at best and, in the electronic age, seen as obsolete at worst. But Field Notes, from the moment you interact with the brand or open one of its notebooks, is arming you with everything you need to tell yourself a story.

Limited editions, useful quips inside the back covers, use of high-quality materials, aspirational videos of new designs, how new ones are nice but broken-in is even better. Just look at how they inspire others to create cases and accessories for the brand.

Fans of Field Notes are telling themselves a story. A story about how they’ll feel carrying around a Field Notes notebook, breaking one in, filling one up, showing off the cool cover, and being part of a “club.” It’s truly a brand built on the stories people tell themselves.

Getting out of the way…

What Treehouse and Field Notes have in common is they tap into something primal, then get out of the way. They offer the product, service, and inspiration. But they also tap into people’s aspirations and show them a path to having what they want through an interaction with the brand. By showing that path and letting people craft their own story, there is nothing to “sell.”

People sell themselves by using the brand to create the story that makes them feel how they want to feel. Giving people the power to do that, and share those stories with others, is a much more powerful and effective form of marketing than anything a brand could generate on its own.

We do this all day long. Here are our learnings for making that critical connection with your prospect.
Remember: they are human just like you. So channel THAT.

“What you think is intuitive may actually be counterintuitive to your audience.  So you need to test and test again.”

1)  Question assumptions – ask yourself what are the assumptions you are making about your offering and your customers? How have you validated/invalidated those assumptions?

“There were aspects of the product that we thought would be, by far, the most impactful and effective, but the way in which we presented them turned them into a negative. And one of these instances was right at the start of the presentation, which turned people off from the start.”

2)  Customer, you are not (repeat in Yoda voice) – where do businesses often go wrong with how they communicate with their customers? Typically, it’s thinking that what you think about your company and your offering is the same as what the customer thinks.

“You’ve got to understand that you and the people that create these products are not your audience. What you think is intuitive may actually be counterintuitive to your audience. So you need to test and test again.”

The client also found that a do-it-yourself calculator tool, was too complicated for most people to use. A more effective alternative was creating a personalized statement for each contributor that clearly laid out all the financial details in a more visually understandable layout. The feedback from the testing directly fed the development of a “document on demand” tool that generated the type of personalized statements that effectively made the case for the contributors.

3)  Don’t simply rinse and repeat – how many times have you fallen into the trap of doing something just because that’s always how it’s been done. Well, if sales are through the roof, then it’s probably good not to muck up the works. But if you’re not seeing results, then it’s time to buck convention.

“Retirement services groups, like ours, fall into the trap of getting too comfortable with how things have been done in the past—even when we know what we do is not working. Here’s a situation where we decided to try something completely unorthodox and see how it measured up to the status quo.”

The other was a test approach that utilized an unconventional meeting, incorporating elements designed to create a relaxed environment with a focus on helping participants better understand the need for retirement planning and create a vision of what their retirement could be.

4)  Get “testy” – If you’re asking yourself if now would be a good time to test your sales pitch and messaging, then the answer is yes. Products and services evolve. Your customers’ needs change. The market is dynamic. So, regular testing of your sales presentations, pitches and messaging is the only way to keep pace.

Meaningful conversations lead to meaningful work. Scratch that. Meaningful conversations with the right people lead to meaningful work. You can talk all day to a rock and it won’t get you anywhere (except maybe the crazy house). So, what makes a conversation meaningful? How do you make sure you’re talking to ideal clients and not rocks? How do you provide them with helpful information instead of annoying them to tears? Let’s dive in.

Creating powerful buyer personas doesn’t only shape your marketing strategy, but if utilized correctly, buyer personas can change the way you do business. Consider this your guide to building detailed buyer personas that drive meaningful conversations that lead to meaningful sales.

WHAT: What’s a Persona?

A buyer persona (aka ideal client persona, aka avatar) is a representation of your ideal customer. Don’t get this confused with basic demographics or a target audience. Personas are semi-fictional characters with stories based on detailed research of your actual customers. Unlike simple demographic information, personas look deeper at your target audience to uncover the needs and wants of your most ideal buyer.

Let’s do that over with different words: Who is your unicorn? If someone were to waltz in your front door to give your business, who would make you do a double take? Your unicorn isn’t just any client, it’s the most ideal customer you can imagine.

WHY: The Power of the Persona 

Buyer personas reflect your best customer relationships – relationships that generate the most revenue over the longest period and sustain a partnership where you can create your best work. Think about your best customers. How do they communicate? What are their persistent and emerging challenges? How can your services provide meaningful solutions they can understand and value? Now, it’s totally possible that you don’t have an ideal client yet. Don’t panic! Just think about who can provide you with the opportunity to do your best work? These are the clients that you are trying to understand when creating your personas.

Let’s go back and flip-flop that first scenario really quick. Have you ever been in a conversation that could have been meaningful, except the person you’re talking with won’t stop yammering about something that’s of no interest to you? Not much better than the conversation with the rock, is it? To create content that is meaningful, you must first know who you’re creating the content for. That’s why at Little Bird, before we ever begin brainstorming content ideas, we spend a good amount of time defining ideal buyer personas.

The value of buyer personas exceeds marketing. Their purpose can and should be utilized across your entire organization. Sales departments can use them to focus on training and learn how to best sell to qualified leads. Management can use them to decide which industry events to attend. It even benefits new hires during onboarding to better help them understand the clients that they will soon be working with. Lastly, they are an integral part of creating and maintaining a customer-centric organization.

By orienting your team around your ideal persona, you assure that your entire organization is working together to reach the right client and serve them well.

With good personas, your organization will have insights into questions like:

• What pains are you solving for your clients?
• What form of content is meaningful to your ideal client?
• How do your potential clients want to engage with you?

HOW: Understanding Your Ideal Client

Whether you’re presenting at an industry event, posting on social media or developing a downloadable resource, these tips can be used to reach your persona in a meaningful way:

Stop Focusing on the Outliers

The minute I start talking about buyer personas and knowing your audience, there’s always at least one person who chimes in with, “But, I have this one client that ___________.” You can fill in the blank, but some of my favorites include “…is allergic to electricity,” and “…doesn’t know the difference between a rumba and a tango.”

When it comes to personas, don’t let your outliers be your disqualifiers. While they may exist, they aren’t going to be the bulk of your work. When you’re building personas and crafting content to reach them, don’t let the outliers stress you out. Get focused on where you can reach the most people in the most meaningful way.

Ask the Right Questions

In order to get the information you need to understand your persona(s), you need to ask the right questions. While you can start with the basic, “Walk me through a day in their life,” you need to push beyond that. Consider the first things they do when they wake up, where they are going to get lunch, and what they plan to do after leaving the office.

It doesn’t stop there. Really try to get inside your customers’ minds. What are they thinking about when lying in bed at night? What are their greatest personal life challenges? What achievements make them most proud? 

No matter what industry, there are obvious questions that need to be answered and other important questions that will bring your personas to life. Start with the basic info and work your way into questions that will offer you more insight into what it’s like to be the customer.

Truthfully, you need a mix of both general and open-ended questions. The general questions get you basic information that is fundamental to understanding your customers. The open-ended questions will offer the information you need to understand and create a story for your buyer personas.

Here’s our go-to list:

• Who do they answer to at work?
• Who are they trying to impress?
• What does a day in their life look like?
• How do they source their news?
• What keeps them up on Sunday night?
• What gets them up on Monday morning?
• How do they measure success?
• Where are their eyeballs most of the day?
• Who are they most likely to ask for help from?
• What are they afraid to admit?

The Perfect Persona

Meet Marketing Mathew – he’s a sample of what a completed persona would look like. Notice the details, name and narrative.

WHAT’S NEXT?

You’ve heard it said, “Always Be Closing.” It’s the ABC’s of sales. I prefer ABH – Always Be Helping. More than a marketing agency, at Little Bird Marketing, I like to say that we’re a sleep improvement agency. If our clients can sleep easier at night knowing that their marketing problems are being solved, we’ve done our job. Our due diligence truly attracting the RIGHT client means the relationship is that much smoother as we partner for mutual success.

STAY TRUE

With a well-crafted persona (or three) in hand, your content and business will be structured around solving problems for people who are excited to have you on their side! Your new mantra before you create anything, “Is this helpful?”

Now it’s your turn!

For more on how to build buyer personas from scratch or effectively implement the ones you’ve already created, download Little Bird’s free guide to creating the perfect persona. 

An Engagious study showed that Millennials are highly concerned about environmental toxins but are typically not informed about their impact nor how to reduce exposures.

Her discoveries drove Klement to compile research findings into a reference guide for the layperson: Your Body’s Environmental Chemical Burden. She’s got a message she particularly wants Millennials to hear: “You are carrying a significant toxic load. Detox. Especially before you have kids.“

In general, sustainability guides millennial shopping habits and food choices. Millennials want clean air and clean water and renewable energy. But how savvy are they on the issue of environmental toxins? Klement’s publicist, Carolyn Will, decided that a study was needed to give Klement a clearer picture of her audience. On a recommendation, Will turned to Engagious.

Engagious conducted an online survey of 250 people (ages 18-38), across four U.S. regions, to gather a baseline of awareness, perceptions, and behaviors connected to reducing environmental chemical exposures. It also measured interest in Klement’s book. Approximately 9 in 10 millennials acknowledged concern about environmental toxins. But they did not understand how to reduce their exposure.

“The study indicated that most millennials acknowledge daily exposure to environmental chemicals and concern about the harm those chemicals can do,” says Engagious Director of Research Gina Derickson. “The study also reveals there is a real need for education in this age group—about both the sources of these risks and what can be done to reduce them.”

Klement suspected this would be the case—that even though the environment is an important issue for this age group, there isn’t a lot of follow through. The dots are not connecting. The most rattling finding revealed through the survey was “how little they knew about the sources of the toxins that they’re absorbing every day,” Will continues. “This finding adds to our urgency and determination to find a way to impress upon young people the seriousness of this health issue.”

“The Engagious team understood what I was looking for, and the study armed me with relevant, new data that gave me a clearer picture of the challenges millennials face in reducing their exposure to environmental toxins.” Cindy Klement

Will says the survey results and resulting graphic give her a place to start the conversation when she’s pitching Klement for speaking engagements and media events. “The summary report breaking down the survey results is extremely useful. We will have that slide in every talk.”

Will appreciated Derickson’s management of the research process. “She’s really knowledgable in constructing a survey in a way that will dig in and unearth the issues at hand. I also appreciated her feedback on how best to organize the survey results in an easily digestible manner for the general public. Survey data can be intimidating. Gina sourced through the material like a master and gave us valuable information we can use.”

Will and Klement are starting with regional venues, which for them means Michigan, Chicago, and the Twin Cities; and they plan to expand from there, using the survey results to help garner attention and make a stronger case with Millennials to read Klement’s book.

Some Time to Reflect

Milestones are made to be celebrated and our 1^st anniversary as Engagious is no exception.

When the legacy companies of Dialsmith and Presentation Testing came together to bring new and enhanced value to the industry we knew it was the right thing to do, by the right people, at the right time. The proof would be in the pudding and oh what delicious pudding we made! Merging two companies is not for the faint of heart and we learned a ton along the way.

We also had a lot of fun and are proud of the new business we’re creating. After achieving our goal of making 1+1=3 in year-one, we are excited for what the future will hold for our company, team, and wonderful clients.

Are you looking to craft compelling stories and messages that hit the mark and drive your audience to take action? Let’s talk about how we can help.

The Story audience is an eclectic bunch and I knew that in order to earn my time on that stage I’d have to deliver a lot of value and a few surprises. With that in mind I got to work crafting a talk and a fun, interactive experiment.

The talk was based on how principles from the field of behavioral science can be used to craft more effective and persuasive stories. I told two versions of a compelling story, the second of which was deliberately written to capitalize on known cognitive biases to elicit a certain reaction. I then pulled back the curtain to show the audience how it was done and gave them some tools to use for themselves. The experiment looked at how powerful “framing” is when communicating a message. Participants listened to two versions of a story, then answered questions about it. Again, one version was deliberately written to elicit a specific reaction and it most certainly did.

Feedback from the audience was quite positive, with many telling me that they appreciated the tangible and practical takeaways they could deploy in their work. My biggest takeaway from this experience is to know your audience. There are many directions I could have taken and many were more self-serving. But when on that stage, I was in service to the audience, not myself. Through that lens I was able to craft a great experience for them and for me.

By the way, if you want to hear more about the talk or the outcome of the experiment, please let me know. I’d love to discuss it or share it with your audience.

The focus groups are the result of careful planning

The scripts that we write, the video we show, and the discussions we lead are the meat of the session—the submission of your message for the respondents’ judgment. We work closely with you in preparing every element, to maximize the time in the sessions and get you the information you need.

The discussion guide is our road map

To loosen up the room, we try to make a personal connection. So we start with introductions. Once respondents introduce themselves, we have them answer a series of questions using their dials—demographic questions, and general questions concerning the issue at hand, to record what attitudes they’ve brought to the session, or the level of support for your issue that they already have.

Then it’s time for the dial test. We show the video, usually a point-counterpoint debate performed by two actresses, one presenting your message, the other the best arguments against it. Respondents watch, listen, and register their agreement or disagreement at each moment with their dials, using a zero to 100 scale.

This gives us far more actionable information than simply asking questions in a traditional focus group: we can quantify how each person in a group is reacting to every piece of your message.

How you participate

During the groups you’ll be in the control room, observing; as you watch the agree/disagree lines spike and dip in real time, you can make note of things you want us to ask during the discussion. We’ll be doing the same.

After the video debate, we ask more dial questions, including whose point of view they sided with more. We may ask some of the pre-video dial questions to see if your arguments (or your opponents’) changed their opinions at all.

Once we know what works, and what doesn’t, we can probe more deeply with respondents. We replay clips with significant spikes or dips, and discuss why they reacted the way they did, and explore ways that would work better.

Afterward we’ll analyze the results, edit the scripts as necessary, and then (usually) do another round of testing.

In the end, we will land on a set of best practices for you to follow. We pare it all down for you into the ‘What to say ; What not to say’ matrix. It is a favorite of our clients because it is so simple to use and weigh messages against. Check out the article on the ‘What to say ; What not to say’ Matrix.

Feel free to reach out if you want to brainstorm any upcoming projects.

     Cover and image courtesy of National Geographic

National Geographic has built a reputation on impactful cover images, and this image, in particular, encapsulates the potent power an image can possess to engage readers and illicit an emotional response. But, given my and the business communication world’s infatuation with storytelling, when I looked at this image, my brain went right to the question of whether an image like this can tell a story, all on its own. I have my own take on that (which I’ll share a bit later) but first, I wanted to hear what some of the amazing storytelling experts we’ve spoken with in the past had to say about it:

Kristin Luck, Serial Entrepreneur, Growth Hacking Consultant and Storyteller:

The idea of images as a storytelling vehicle is indisputable in my opinion. Dating back to the Neolithic era, you can see clear examples of this in Tassili n’Ajjer in south-east Algeria, where there are over 15,000 rock engravings depicting large wild animals, cattle herds and humans engaging in activities such as hunting and dancing. Each of these images tells a story. Likewise, if you look at the world of performance art, and particularly the work of Marina Abramovic, you’ll see how sitting across from a stranger, in complete silence (as Abramovic did in her MOMA exhibition “The Artist is Present”) can tell a story without any words. Sometimes, the most powerful stories require just a tiny bit of imagination and suspension of disbelief. Not every story can be told with words.

Carla Johnson, Storyteller, Speaker and Prolific Author:

Can a single image tell a story? If it’s the right image, absolutely. This is what visual art through the ages has always done. Consider Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”, Picasso’s La Guernica or Wood’s “American Gothic.” These are all examples of powerful images that tell a story. And just like written stories, the more times we revisit them, the more they reveal to us.

Can a single image tell the whole story? No. The purpose behind an image is to provoke emotion so we pay attention. When that happens, we pay attention to the emotion, and how we perceive the story based on what the image means to us. But even complex images can’t convey all that a story entails.

Paul Smith, Business Storytelling Speaker and Trainer, Author of Lead with a Story and Sell with a Story:

Can a picture tell a story? Of course it can. If you’ve ever seen a Normal Rockwell painting on the cover of a Saturday Evening Post magazine, you’ve seen what that looks like. But not just any picture tells a story. For example, I don’t know if the (National Geographic) picture tells a story. I think it communicates an analogy — the analogy of the iceberg that only 10% of a problem is visible while the other 90% is hidden. But that’s an analogy, not a story.

For a picture to tell a story, the single image must not only make it clear what’s going on at the moment the picture was taken, but what must have happened before and what will likely happen after. That’s what makes it a story — you can infer the beginning, middle, and end of the story from the picture in the middle of the story. (Or, it could be at the end.)

Interesting perspectives by each of our experts with points I hadn’t even considered when I first laid eyes on this image. And now my two cents… I tend to agree with our experts that an image can definitely tell a story. But unlike a story we read or hear, I think an image requires a lot more of its viewer to put the pieces of the story together. And those pieces can be interpreted and assembled differently depending on each viewer’s perceptions, experiences and memories. When I view this cover image, I’m reminded of the times I used to go pier fishing with my family in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I’d look out from the pier and see nature’s vastness and beauty, but would then look down and see all the floating trash piled up next to the pier. This is engrained in the story of this image for me. The story that comes to mind for you when you look at this image may be totally different. Do only some images tell stories? Do images only tell part of a story? Do images tell different stories to different viewers? Tell us what you think at #BeEngagious or add a comment on our LinkedIn page.

This is a distillation of what you wanted to find out when you started the message refinement process; your own personalized cheat sheet. You and your team will want it handy when you are designing any and all of your communications.

When dial-test respondents record strong agreement with your message (scores above 70), we’ll note that in the “What to Say section.” Messaging that causes significant dips or scores below 60 goes in the “What Not to Say” section. For example, which phrase sounds more credible to this group: “clean energy” or “renewable energy”? During post-video discussions we’ll find out why respondents turned their dials the way they did.

Both the “What to Say” and “What Not to Say” sections are organized by topic and ranked according to what’s most valuable to you.

And if certain language works great with one group of respondents but tanks with respondents of a different type, we’ll note that, too.  The result? All this data and discussion enables us to craft your story in a way that hits all the right notes.

If you are interested in talking through your project, please reach out to us.