Three types of story driven content

The last place we talked about story driven content was in the Sézanne article. But even though that’s relevant, that’s a product biz-ness. So if you really want a bit more of a ‘primer’, have a read of the RA MA article. Guru Jagat really was a force.

But even with that breakdown, I had a nagging feeling that we should go into some specific types of content you can actually use. In fact we may even get into some detailed tactics. But we’ll see. 

Those last articles went into case studies on story driven marketing. And, why it’s important. But if you got that already, or it’s too much to go back and read them, here’s a little refresh. Skip if needed.

A story driven business is built on a single, overarching narrative that involves the client (buyer) as the protagonist or hero. The story doesn’t start with a problem, but with a change. The business doesn't claim to be superior, it creates a more compelling story that we want to be a part of. The story doesn’t just drive marketing, but also business strategy, because it literally is the business.

Can you see how this type of business is more compelling in the noisy technology age we find ourselves in? You do? It’s the businesses we love to buy from.

Onward.

Now, the whole story driven thing ain’t new, of course.

Some businesses have been ‘story driven’ since the start. But when the internet hit full saturation and we all had safely exited myspace or whatever and people got onto Facebook and instagram and video was everywhere, we realised that instead of creating businesses of meaning, we could run ads of someone standing in front of a shwhite-board drawing things, and make bold claims.

Claims about the client’s problems.

Claims that we’re the best.

Kind of like a shifty car mechanic that adds on a bunch of things you need to replace before going through the whole thing properly.

The market exploded. The marketing technology landscape blew up with it.

Check out this image by Martech. If you can!

That’s the total number of marketing technology companies in 2023 (although it could be number of companies in any niche now). This is up 7,300% over eleven years.

No wonder it feels noisy.

Anyway, we all went along with the claims stuff. Until everyone was making claims. And it just became noise. And coupled with the 2020 global trust shift (which we’ll touch on shortly), we’re back to building businesses that have a clear purpose. 

And that we resonate with and what to be a part of. And all in all, I think that’s a good thing.

So our three types of story driven content that we’ll cover here include:

Pointing out the change that’s happening (either internal or external),

Content on how to win the game, and,

Sharing client success stories. Let’s look at each one.

Content Type 1 - Pointing out the change that’s happening

In the RA MA article, I was yapping on about how effective Guru Jagat was in her messaging, almost purely through reiterating the ‘Change’ or the catalyst.

“We’re in a new trajectory on the planet. This is a new time with new challenges, requirements, and rules of engagement than even five years ago.”

“For the past 15 years I’ve watched the pressure of the Technology Age consume more and more of our fading attention span and vitality.”

She did this stuff almost daily. Not bad huh?

While there’s no specific ‘problem’ pointed out, it certainly creates a natural urgency, and leaves you thinking, well, what the hell do I do? I don’t want to get left behind.

That’s what real urgency looks like. 

It isn’t built on exclamation marks or hype.

Now for us, in a lot of our content, we speak to the shift in the trust landscape. Here’s a post I grabbed from a while back on instagram:

“One thing that’s happening, is we’ve shifted as a culture on what ‘good’ looks like for business. Above everything, it’s ‘trust’… Can I trust you with my time? Can I trust your ethics? Can I trust that you’re doing good work? Trust has moved from this ‘abstract’ concept to a competitive advantage. Business are shifting from claims based ‘tick the box’ marketing for attention, to building much deeper trust and connection.”

In other areas, I talk a lot about the trust curve shifting. 

Even Price Waterhouse Coopers, despite their slow-moving, often questionable nature, picked up on it in their consumer index:

“Since 2020, when trust became synonymous with health and safety, brand trust has figured prominently for consumers. This year, a remarkable 93% of them told us it is top of mind during holiday shopping, similar to last year’s 92% and a striking increase over the 70% we’ve recorded in the years prior to the pandemic.”

Now, you’re thinking that’s great for RA MA, or us, because there’s this big, broad, cultural change that we’re looking at, and we can all feel, right?

What about for individual businesses?

Or if you’re just serving people one to one?

Let’s look at something totally different, a hairdresser, for example

Well, we get a choice.

We can still look at an overarching change or catalyst, such as a change in trend to more natural hair colours. 

Or the new information we have around how chemicals in certain shampoos or products affect your health.

Or,

We could focus on an individual change that’s happening in the internal world for your people. Such as you specialise in hair cuts for people right before their wedding day. So a big part of your marketing is focusing on the wedding, which is the catalyst of the story, how meaningful it is, and how it’s a time to be remembered and how winners have amazing hair. (There might be a trend in wedding hairstyles you can overlay on top of that. Bonus)

Another example

Maybe I’m a really disorganised guy. I’m not too bad really. But let’s say that I am. OK, well, that’s no big problem is it? So if you’re a life coach, hammering on the ‘you’re so disorganised’ isn’t really going to cut it. But if I am just starting a family… how about then? Or if I’m getting back into the dating scene, what about then? Maybe women don’t want a disorganised guy? 

It’s the change that’s happening around me, that brings a problem into focus.

On a basic level, almost everyone can speak to the change of getting older, or the passing of time.

Time is running out. You’re ageing. 

When we’re twenty-two, that doesn’t mean much. But when we’re sixty-two, it probably hits a little different. Heck, I’m thirty-eight and it’s different now to when I was twenty eight.

A final way you can tap into the power of change is to show your own change

So if you’re a strength coach, and you yourself are getting stronger, or coming back from injury, or learning a new skill, whatever. That change will capture attention. And this is great if you’re a really dynamic character, or you’re out doing a lot of different things that are exciting. The only thing is the client needs to see you as a relatable character so that they can see themselves in that same story. i.e, your ‘change’ needs to have resonance with it. (Yep, we’ll look at success stories later)

Why do people look at the weather report? Change.

Why do people check their phones? Change.

Why do people obsess over Hollywood celebrities and their dramatised lifestyles? 

Change!

Stagnation is boring. Stagnant problems are ignored. All animals, including humans, are wired to notice change. Problems can exist for a long time, but change captures our attention.

Cool? Onwards.

Content Type 2 - How to win on the new path

This taps into the “Garriott Sell the Game” principle that I’ve written about before.

Basically that’s where you are so passionate about the new path that you’re creating, and the change that you’re making, that you literally market, and sell the ‘game.’ You aren’t marketing your offers, or selling your offers so much. You’re selling the whole new ‘path’. And then your offer is the obvious choice, and it’s supported by your success stories.

This came from Richard Garriott, because once he built the Ultima online games, he was marketing the ‘game’, but then all these spin off offers became possible once a player was in the game. 

But the main work is to market and sell the game.

So back to the RA MA example, let’s recap:

Old path: Asana yoga, lululemon pants, yoga pictures on the beach

Change: Rapid societal shift to the technology age, demanding lots more nervous system capacity. Old path no longer works.

New path: Kundalini yoga teaching brought to the west by Yogi Bhajan - meditation technology, et cetera

So marketing’ the new path, or ‘selling’ the new path, doesn’t mean selling the subscriptions to yoga. It means marketing the whole shift. Getting as many people on board with the new path as possible.

And one way we can do that, of course, is to help them win on the new path. Use content to give people the tools to move forward with your paradigm, or way of thinking.

In their case:

Free meditations. YouTube channel. Et cetera.

Let’s pause here for a sec. Can you see how this content would be boring, or even useless, if they didn’t spend a huge chunk of time and energy talking about the change, and why the new path was so important?

We needed to be ‘on board’ with the new path, before they could actually make us care about any of this stuff. And that’s where we can get stuck easily. A lot of people intuitively know they should be doing content et cetera. Where they trip up usually is they haven’t defined the old and new path and talked about the key change. So the content ends up patchy, or it’s flat.

And it feels like nobody cares.

As a side note, that’s why writing these articles, for example, is so easy. Because I can see the change so clearly. And the articles are tools to help you move forward with the new way.

Anyway, all that is to say that with this second kind of content, you help people win.

I do articles, podcasts and books. You can do instagram content. Or live events. Whatever. If someone was on board with your new path, or the ‘story’ of your business and the future you’re trying to shape, what could you give them?

The side effect of this kind of content or experiences, is you start to build assets. I don’t even know how many articles or emails I’ve written now. It’s a lot. And I’m only just getting started. But all that isn’t because I’m trying to ‘create content’. It’s because the content is tools for people to move forward, in the new path that we see ahead.

The final thing is, I enjoy it. So I think you want to enjoy it if you can. Because that gives you a rhythm and it lights you up. And so it is, we get to creatively choose what we do.

Content Type 3 - Success Stories

Frankly. This could be the only type of content you do, and you could probably go pretty far. Because if you think about it, a strong success story of a client is going to encapsulate all three types of content, right?

They are very powerful.

Anyway, we’ll focus on just one part of the success story here, because mostly, everyone knows what a success story is.

The part we’re focusing on is from something I learned from the late Jim Camp. He was a negotiation trainer, who worked with counter-terrorism, FBI et cetera. And basically his approach was to ‘start with ‘no.’ That’s also the name of his book. But what that means is, you start with the negative. 

In a negotation, that means you assume that it’s a no. Whereas everyone else goes into it assuming it’s a yes. 

So straight away, you’re way less needy. But start with the negative is buillt on that. But it’s a little different. So let’s say I’m going to take my wife Ruby out for a nice dinner. But there’s a long wait time. Instead of ‘hey do you want to go to the best dinner in town, it’s amazing’, which comes off a little hypey, or needy, and it’s pretty easy to fail on that promise, I can say…

“Look, this may, or may not be true - but I’ve heard the food at this new place in town is exceptional. Now, there is a long wait time for the food to come out. Because they have to prepare it… But, I have heard that it’s worth it. It even was featured in the magazine. Do you want to go on Friday?”

And it’s an odd example, or whatever, but you start with the negative. Because that’s how we think. We weigh things up. Then, calmly describe what you’ve got.

So with the success stories, you want to start with the negative

The fear they had of starting with you. Or the problems that were starting to surface in their world. Start with the ugly part that most people hide away. They were afraid to spend the money. Or they didn’t have the time to commit… et cetera.

From there, dive into the steps they took, and the success that they’ve had, and what life looks like after the service.

I won’t go deeper here. Because this is a whole module that we teach on success story secrets.

But If you use success stories to show what life looks like after working with you (not what it looks like to work with you), you’re going to be showing (not telling) that you’re the best person to help your clients win on the new path that you’ve been talking about in all of your content.

These go great on a website, or on a prospectus, or information pack.

Summary

Trying to do ‘content first’ can be tricky. Because what the hell do you talk about, besides tips or making claims that your service is good? How would I know what article to write?

But if you look at it through a story-driven path, you see that the framework ‘gives you’ all of your content.

Easy as pie.

Or another way to put it. In our world, content is only content ‘marketing’ to the extent that it tells the story of the business, and helps your clients move forward on your new path, to get to where they want to be.

Not only do you then capture your audience’s attention.

But you get quality attention.

And then you help them win, which builds trust, and finally you can easily show ‘em why you’re the best person to buy from, because they’re so deep in your world already.