Clarify your Message and Marketing

Building a story brand is such a fantastic book, because it gives you the framework of how you need to structure your messages to your clients in order to be heard.

Because we're all exposed to so much marketing and advertising material during the day that it's sometimes it's hard to be heard above the noise. And when you get really clear on who your customer is and what story you are telling, that's when you can start to target your ideal client. 

Donald Miller has explained it in such a beautiful way that it is honestly so inspiring. And he uses great examples like Disney and Pixar and you know, all the great brands and apple and coke. And he pretty much depicts talking to your clients and taking them on a journey. And one of the big things he mentions in the book is to get really clear on your business story. 

Your Business Narrative

So your story, but not specifically your story as an individual, your story that you want to tell as a business. They can be two separate things. But in the story that you tell as a business has to take your customer on a journey, it has to invite them in on the journey and invite them in as the hero of the story. So in a nutshell, Donald Miller summarizes the journey of every story and every character. Your client is the character who wants something encounters a problem. For cosmetic tattooing, it could be the problem is that they struggle to put the makeup on in the morning because they can't see past their glasses. They don't have the ability to do their eyebrows as good as you do them. 

At the peak of their despair, a guide, which is you steps into their lives gives them a plan, and calls them to action. That action helps them avoid failure, and ends in success. So you are the guide, and you guide your main character on their journey from their problem to their success. 

You can outline what would happen if they don't take action with you and the failure they might encounter. Or another way he puts it is where he says you have to put stakes in, you know,

for example, with the narrative for the main character who's active all the time, let's say she spends her weekends out on the water, and you can go with if you don't get your eyebrows tattooed, then your makeup she's going to wash off in the water. But if you do get your eyebrows tattooed, you can always look put together in front of your boyfriend in front of his friends. And you never have to worry about being without your eyebrows. 

The three crucial questions that we do have to ask when we're designing our story is about the main character. 

1. So what does our hero want? 
2. Who or what is opposing the hero from getting what he or she wants?
3. What will the hero life the hero's life look like if he or she does or does not get what he or she wants? 

So this book, like I mentioned before, is fantastic. It gives you heaps of templates for you to dive into your story and the story that you want to tell and the customers that you want to attract in your marketing. Because we're all different. We're all running different businesses, and there is plenty of customers for everyone. So there's no need to copy off other copy of someone else's narrative. 

Email Sequence

Now, the other things that are really interesting in this book is Donald talks about the idea of emails and email sequences. And one of the notes that I was like, oh, about when I was reading this book, was the fact that he talks about sending email messages to your client list. Now, it's not essentially about them reading the email, it's about them constantly seeing your name and being reminded that you're there if they need you. And if they ever think about the thing that you're known for like eyebrow tattooing, they will think about you first, because you're always at the front of their mind, you're always in their email list, you're always in their inbox, no matter if they read your emails or not.

I thought that was a really powerful message, especially for small businesses to constantly be there in your clients inbox. I know we all hate spam. So there is definitely a fine line and fine line to tread here about sending too many emails. 

He does also talk about how to design your nurture emails and your sales email so much like Gary Vee in his book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, where your jabs or your nurture emails, where you're providing value to your clients. And then your right hook is your sales email. So three, nurture emails to a sales email, just to provide information and then call them to action. 

There is a great roadmap in there about doing your nurturing emails, and your welcome series, which is very important to building your email list. 

How to get GREAT testimonials

And then finally, the other part of this book that I absolutely love is how to get referrals, how to start building your back end systems in your business, but specifically, how to get great testimonials from your customers. 

Now, when we get testimonials from our customers, I know a lot of people are just really, I guess, vague in their descriptions, you ask them, how was their experience? Oh, yeah, it was great. You know, I felt really relaxed a whole, you know, back was great. She knows what she's talking about.

But we don't ever really get the information that we need in order to make it great marketing content. So he has outlined some really great questions here to get fantastic testimonials from your customers.

Here are five questions most likely to generate the best response from a customer testimonial:

1. What was the problem you were having before you discovered our product? 
2. What did the frustration feel like as you tried to solve that problem? 
3. What was different about our product? 
4. Take us to the moment when you realized our product was actually working to solve your problem. 
5. Tell us what life looks like now that your problem is solved or being solved.

Those five questions are great when you're getting your customer testimonials, they outline what the customers are struggling with as the main character. And it allows them to talk to other customers and show them exactly what problem your service solved when relating to them personally, and you can put them in your email campaigns, you can talk directly to your customers, you can get them to do a video testimonial, however, you like to do your testimonials.

If you have any questions, or would like to know more please leave a comment below or reach out to us via email:

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Much Love,

Beck

Never stop learning 💕