What Are Key Components for Building a Brand Story?
Miller argues that employing a story framework familiar to most of us from literature class, The Hero’s Journey, can unlock unprecedented customer engagement and business growth. The Hero’s Journey framework permeates most, if not all, of our beloved literature, films, and dramas. Miller repackages this time-tested narrative structure into his own StoryBrand 7 (SB7) Framework.
Meet LinkedPhone
Get a local or toll-free business number and manage calls, texts, customer conversations, and follow-ups in one AI-powered platform.
In Section 2 of Building a Story Brand, Miller guides you in utilizing each story element in the Hero’s Journey/SB7 to make your brand more inviting to customers. This section is the heart of the book and introduces readers to a set of indispensable principles:
The customer is the hero, not your brand:
Positioning your customer as the hero and your brand as the guide helps you become a trusted resource to help your customers overcome their challenges. This is essential to creating customer engagement.
Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy solutions to internal problems:
Your customers are seeking solutions to problems and want help. You deepen their interest in your product when you talk about the problems your customers are facing. According to Miller, there are three levels of problems customers encounter.
External
Internal
Philosophical
Your customers are most motivated to overcome their internal frustrations. So those are the ones you need to talk about most. However, the external frustrations can’t be ignored, since they have a direct bearing on the customer’s ability to solve their problem. Finally, the philosophical frustrations focus on the why of their motivation to solve a particular problem, as well as your own reasons for helping them do so with your product or service.
Customers aren’t looking for another hero; they’re looking for a guide:
Your customers aren’t looking for someone who shares the same problems. They’re looking for a guide to show them how to solve their problems.
“If heroes could solve their own problems, they’d never get into trouble in the first place,” according to Miller. “That’s why storytellers created a character to help the hero win.” And your brand can be the guide to help your customers overcome their challenges.
Customers trust a guide who has a plan:
A guide’s role in a story is to give the hero a plan, a bit of information, or a few steps so they can solve their problem or start down the path to resolution. People want to be pointed in the right direction. Providing potential customers with a plan helps you build trust and offers them a clear path forward. This ultimately increases the chances they will make a purchase when they’re ready.
Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to take action:
People take action when they are challenged to do so. This gives them a reason to act. Failing to create a clear Call to Action (CTA) for your customers is a roadblock to customers engaging with your brand. A CTA gives customers a clear path to follow for overcoming their challenges and solving their problems. It helps customers understand what you want them to do.
Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending:
You need to show customers what happens if they don’t do business with your brand. Otherwise, they may not be motivated to buy. “Stories live and die on a single question: What’s at stake?” according to Miller. “If nothing can be gained or lost, nobody cares.”
Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives. Tell them:
Your customers want their story to end in success. So, show them how much better their lives will be if they engage with your products or services.
How Can You Implement StoryBrand Principles in Your Business?
As Miller says, “Once you’re done, you’ll no longer feel confused about how to talk about your products and services, and you’ll have messages that powerfully engage potential customers.”
