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Break Down the Story Brand Approach & Why It Works So Well

Learn more about the Story Brand approach and how it's an effective way for businesses to create story-driven campaigns that engage customers and drive conversions.

Published on

May 30, 2023

Written by

Nadia Mehra

Category

Branding

Story Brand is a powerful marketing strategy that has been gaining traction in recent years. It focuses on using stories to craft compelling messages that will resonate with customers and draw them into the sales funnel. 

By taking the time to understand their audience's needs, desires, motivations, and fears, businesses can create an effective story brand narrative that resonates with their target market. This approach helps companies build trust and loyalty while also driving conversions. 

In this blog post we'll explore why Story Brand works so well and how you can use it to create successful campaigns for your business.

 

wood letters spelling out the word story

 

Table of Contents

Story Brand Approach

The Story Brand approach is an ingenious marketing strategy developed by author and entrepreneur Donald Miller. This approach seeks to help businesses and brands develop a clear and compelling message that resonates with their audience. It takes into account the customer's journey, their goals, wants, needs and desires.

At its core, the Story Brand approach focuses on story-telling. It encourages brands and businesses to tell a story that resonates with their target audience. This helps them create an emotional connection with their customers, making them feel as if they are part of the brand's mission.

The Story Brand approach also emphasizes clarity in messaging. It stresses the importance of using simple language that makes it easy for customers to understand what the brand stands for and why they should be interested in its products/services. It also focuses on creating a sense of urgency and motivation, so that customers are more likely to take action.

Finally, the Story Brand approach encourages brands to act as guides, providing helpful resources that will enable their customers to make informed decisions. By providing this type of helpful guidance, customers will be more likely to trust the brand and become loyal patrons. Learn more about how to instill trust in your brand here

In short, the Story Brand approach is an effective way for brands and businesses to communicate their value proposition and create a strong emotional connection with their customers. It helps them stand out from competitors by crafting a compelling story that resonates with their target audience. 

By taking the time to understand who their customers are and what they want, brands can ensure that their message is heard and remembered.  This approach has been proven to be an effective way for businesses and brands to engage their customers and build loyalty. It's no wonder then why it has become so popular!

How Storytelling Can Help

Storytelling is a powerful tool for businesses to create a connection with their customers. Through storytelling, companies can convey their values, purpose, and mission in a way that resonates emotionally with customers. 

By presenting customers with stories about how the company has helped others, or how its products or services have made a positive impact in people's lives, businesses can create a connection that leads to trust, loyalty, and ultimately more conversions. 

The Story Brand framework provides a structure for creating the perfect story for your business, allowing you to communicate effectively with customers and reach them on an emotional level. By leveraging the power of storytelling, businesses can create powerful campaigns that help them stand out from their competitors and build lasting relationships with their customers.

The Story Brand framework has been used by many leading companies around the world to create more effective communication with their customers, and its success speaks for itself. By leveraging this story-based approach, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors in a crowded marketplace, increase customer engagement, and ultimately create stronger connections with their target audience.

 

a group of people in an office

 

Seven Steps of Story Brand

The seven steps of the Story Brand framework are as follows:

  1. Clarifying the Brand Message – This step involves creating a clear, concise, and compelling message that reflects your brand’s unique values and mission. It helps define what your company stands for and why customers should care about what you have to offer.
  2. Defining a Character – Here, businesses create an identifiable protagonist that their customers can relate to and connect with on an emotional level. This main character should represent the ideal customer journey and embody the values of your brand.
  3. Establishing an Internal Problem – In this step, companies create a unique problem or hurdle that their protagonist must overcome in order to benefit from the solution being offered. This problem should be relatable to your target audience, and should emphasize the need for the product or service you’re offering.
  4. Introducing an External Problem – Here, businesses introduce a secondary problem or antagonist (usually competition) that stands in the way of the protagonist achieving success. This problem should emphasize the importance of your product or service in overcoming it.
  5. Offering a Solution – The solution to the internal and external problems should be presented here, emphasizing how customers can benefit from using your product or service to achieve their goals.
  6. Demonstrating Value – This step involves showing customers why they should choose your product or service over competitors. Companies should highlight the unique value their offering provides and how it sets them apart from the competition.
  7. Inviting Customers to Take Action – Finally, businesses must encourage customers to take action and purchase the product or service being offered. By providing a call to action, companies can create a sense of urgency and motivate customers to take the next step.

By following the seven steps outlined in the StoryBrand framework, businesses can create powerful stories that emotionally connect with their customers and drive conversions. By leveraging storytelling to communicate their values and purpose, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors in a crowded marketplace, increase customer engagement, and ultimately create stronger connections with their target audience.

How to Use

The Story Brand framework is a great tool for businesses to use in their marketing efforts. By utilizing the seven steps outlined in the framework, companies can create powerful stories that emotionally connect with their customers and drive conversions. Companies can start by clarifying their brand message, then defining a character that customers can relate to on an emotional level. 

This main character should represent the ideal customer journey and embody the values of your brand. Companies must then create a unique problem or hurdle that their protagonist must overcome in order to benefit from the solution being offered, while also introducing an external "antagonist" such as competition that stands in the way of success. 

Once the internal and external problems have been established, businesses must offer a solution and demonstrate the unique value their offering provides. Finally, they must invite customers to take action by providing a call to action that creates a sense of urgency and motivates customers to purchase the product or service being offered. 

By leveraging storytelling in their marketing efforts, companies can create strong connections with their target audience and ultimately drive conversions. One such way to create strong connections is through Google Ads. Learn more about creating meaningful connections with Google Ads here

Examples of Success

The Story Brand approach is a powerful tool for helping brands reach their target audiences and create compelling stories that resonate with them. By focusing on the customer’s journey, Story Brand campaigns can help brands build trust, create an emotional connection, and ultimately drive conversions.

This effective method has been used by some of the world's leading companies to great success. For example, Apple uses it in its iconic “Think Different” campaign which helped launch its brand into the stratosphere. Similarly, Microsoft has utilized this technique to revolutionize how people interact with technology through its “Life Without Walls” campaign. 

And Unilever employed it in its Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign which highlighted the importance of self-confidence among women worldwide.  These three examples demonstrate just how dynamic and impactful storytelling through Storybrand can be when done correctly.

Key Takeaways

The Story Brand framework is a powerful tool that can help businesses create stories that emotionally connect with their customers and drive conversions. By following a few simple steps, companies can create stories that will differentiate them from the competition, engage with their target audience, and ultimately increase sales.

First, businesses should start by clarifying their brand message, then defining a character that customers can relate to on an emotional level. This main character should represent the ideal customer journey and embody the values of your brand. Companies must then create a unique problem or hurdle that their protagonist must overcome in order to benefit from the solution being offered, while also introducing an external "antagonist" such as competition that stands in the way of success. 

Once the internal and external problems have been established, businesses must offer a solution and demonstrate the unique value their offering provides. Finally, they must invite customers to take action by providing a call to action that creates a sense of urgency and motivates customers to purchase the product or service being offered. Learn more about how to create an effective call to action here

By leveraging story in their marketing efforts, companies like Apple, Nike, Dove, Coca Cola, Airbnb and McDonald’s have successfully connected with their target audience and driven conversions. By following the Story Brand framework, businesses can create stories that emotionally connect with their customers and ultimately drive sales.

This approach has proven to be an effective way for businesses to create stories that engage their target audience, differentiate them from the competition, and drive conversions. 

By clarifying their brand message, defining a character customers can relate to on an emotional level, introducing a problem or hurdle for the protagonist to overcome, offering a solution and compelling call to action, companies can leverage story-driven marketing efforts to build strong connections with their target audience and drive conversions.

At its core, Story Brand is a powerful tool that businesses can leverage to create story-driven campaigns that emotionally engage customers and drive conversions. By clarifying their brand message, defining characters customers can relate to on an emotional level, introducing problems and offering solutions, businesses can create stories that differentiate them from the competition and ultimately drive sales. 

 

Laptop keyboard with the work strong branding on a red button

 

Final Thoughts

The Story Brand approach is an effective way for businesses to create story-driven campaigns that emotionally engage customers and drive conversions. Through powerful narratives and a clear call to action, companies can leverage the Story Brand framework to differentiate themselves from the competition, build strong relationships with customers, and ultimately drive sales. By following the Story Brand framework, businesses can create compelling stories that will encourage customers to take action and ultimately help grow their business.

At Two Trees PPC, we understand the power of storytelling and how it can be used to engage customers and drive conversions. We have helped many businesses leverage the Story Brand framework to create story-driven campaigns that emotionally connect with their target audience and ultimately increase sales. 

Our team of experts are ready to partner with you on your own Story Brand campaign so you can start building strong relationships with your customers and driving more sales for your business. Contact us today so we can get started creating a powerful narrative that will help differentiate you from the competition, build trust between your company and potential customers, and motivate them to take action!

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