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Doing this will revolutionize your sales and marketing.
Features and facts donât inspire, instead tell stories of a better place.âA person's hand holding a camera lens over a mountain lakeâ by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash
Great marketers and great salespeople tell stories.
They craft a vision of how the world has changed, our struggle to adapt, and our need for help.
They then guide us, ever so gently, to a new and better place, one where our pain slips away.
Mediocre marketers and salespeople use features to sound impressive.
Need proof?
Samsung touts processor speeds, megapixel counts, and screen resolution. Apple put a thousand songs in your pocket and highlight the magic of capturing moments.
An example of storytelling from Apple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v76f6KPSJ2w
In the 80s, Adidas advertised lighter weight shoes, superior soles and the pattern of soccer cleats. Nike told the world to âJust Do Itâ and showed us that blood, sweat, and tears were what it took to be a champion.
Starbucks gave us places where we can connect, share moments with those we care about and find comfort in a warm drink.
âA Diamond is Foreverâ and by extension so too will our love last.
Storytelling changes the world.
Itâs not enough to wrap a narrative around what youâre selling. The story has to be a vision of who and what your customers could be if only they took the plunge and made the purchase.
In the post below, weâll run through an exercise in crafting and improving the story being told by four technology companies, all of whom are selling features, when they should be selling a better future.
Full transparency beforehand, I know people at all these companies. I am not working with these companies, but it felt more natural to tell the story of brands I had more than passing familiarity.
1. Emburse
Emburse is a startup attempting to make sense of the mess that is employee expenses and corporate credit cards. If youâre struggling with managing expenses inside your organization, check them out, their platform is quite impressive.
Platform aside, their messaging falls into the trap that so many others have fallen into, theyâre selling features.
Features donât inspire, and the current headline on the website certainly doesnât.
Current Messaging and Challenges
No promise of how life could be using Emburse, no photos of people on the website ( we buy from people ) and while having a ârequest a demoâ form can be worthwhile when used correctly, why are we asking the user to do work right away?
Current Headline: Virtual and Physical Cards for Business Expenses and Vendor Payments
Sub Headline: Share virtual cards or distribute physical cards to organize expenses ahead of time and manage spending across your team.
Audience: business owners, CFOs, comptrollers, anyone in finance in a large organization. medium-sized business owners looking to remove friction
While the product(s) Emburse sell, are physical and virtual credit cards, itâs neither the real problem people need help with, nor does it inspire.
What Emburse is selling, is peace of mind, predictability and the assurance that from a financial perspective, your company is in good shape.
The vision Emburse should be talking about is one of security, of a promise to their customers that weâve got you covered, now and into the future.
Proposed New Direction and a New Story
New Headline: Every Dollar, Under Control
New Sub Headline: Manage employee spending, while moving at the speed of business
Every Dollar, Under Control, is the promised land, a calm place where you never need worry about money again ( yes thatâs a tad hyperbolic, but weâre aiming for aspirational here ). Itâs how youâll feel once you have Emburse implemented and your financial worries assuaged.
The sub-headline can then be a bit more descriptive, while still ending with another promise, that of Emburse being there as you grow and change because thatâs what businesses do.
Under or beside that headline, Iâd suggest a large / banner photo such as the one below. A person, or people, looking satisfied ( showing potential customers how theyâll feel with Emburse ) and containing a phone to plant the idea that Emburse supports mobile.
*Tip: Whenever possible, have photos of people facing or looking to the right ( or towards the shopping cart in an eCommerce site. Itâs psychological reinforcement of looking forward, making progress and thinking about what can be, instead of what has been.
Below, is a stock photo, but Iâd suggest where possible taking your own pictures, ( tied to testimonials ) and ensure that the subject(s) accurately represent your customer demographic.
Photo Credits: Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
The old way; you can get credit cards, from us, to manage employee expenses.
Emburseâs new story; weâll provide you the financial security you need to run a successful business.
The rest of the website can focus on what the platform offers. Doing so after teasing this new future will set Emburse up so much better than the story theyâre currently telling.
2. Feedback App
The team at FeedbackApp took a look at a marketplace of food ordering platforms and knew they could do better.
Adopting a model similar to Toms Shoes, Feedback App offers consumers the ability to give back to the community, by just ordering the food they want.
Current Messaging and Challenges
The current sales pitch to consumers is going in the right direction but doesnât drive home the simplicity or power of the offer. Am I downloading a charity app or something for ordering food?
Mobile ordering is an excellent way to remove friction, but discounts on food arenât inspirational, and giving back is far too broad a term to motivate anyone.
This story has to be getting what you want first, about helping others second, all with a side benefit of saving money last.
Current Headline: Giving back has never been so delicious.
Sub Headline: Feedback provides a win-win-win solution for vendors, diners and society by offering time-specific promotions on great local food. Reduce food waste and your bill.
First order of business in improving the FeedbackApp story is that they need to acknowledge that theyâre serving two audiences.
- General consumers looking for food ( segmented by; deal finders, the social issue inclined )
- Restaurant owners and managers ( always in need of more business and better marketing )
There isnât a sales pitch on the homepage to restaurants, so already weâre ignoring one half of the audience required for this to be successful.
What we do see on the homepage is a photo of empty seats, the opposite of what one half of your audience wants.
Proposed New Direction and a New Story
The genius of Tomâs Shoes or a Charity Water is they found a way to make lives better, while not attaching the negativity so common in charitable endeavors. They didnât reach into your pocket for your hard earned dollars, they avoided the guilt trip and told a story of empowerment and inspiration.
FeedbackApp can capitalize on the same ideals, by getting users to focus on getting the food they want ( need ) and helping others as a byproduct, we tell of a future state where consumers can feel good about themselves without having to put forward much effort.
New Headline: Give by getting
New Sub Headline: The food you want, when you want it, with a side of helping others
Alternate Sub Headline: Order the food you want, when you want it, with a side of helping others
With âgive by getting,â weâre telling users that they need to do nothing more than filling their bellies, and by doing so they can make their community ( and the world ) better. It is quite literally the least amount of pain, to do the most good.
Additionally, by focusing the platform on discounts, we create a better financial future for the restaurant owners ( discounting is a race to the bottom ), for the FeedbackApp platform ( more money coming in, means more money to be made ), and of course, for the charitable organizations, they choose to support.
Imagery for the consumer needs to demonstrate a human touch, can include food and should reinforce the concept of giving and receiving. Not sure Iâm 100% sold on the photo below, but it does feel like with the hands extended forward, palms up, an offering that is easy to accept.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
As a secondary option, the coloring of this photo is too dour, but as an example of how you might art direct a photo shoot, itâs almost perfect. An offer of food, a smiling human, even a little heart on the apron reinforcing the do good nature of the endeavor.
In this case, the straight-ahead focus of this picture gives anyone looking at it the idea that this is personal, with the service focused on them and their needs.
Photo by Petr Sevcovic on Unsplash
Next, we need messaging for restaurants, because without restaurants signing up in droves, from whom will these customers get the food they want?
Proposed New Direction and a New Story
For restaurants, the need weâre solving for is straightforward; customers, customers, customers. In an industry where a few percentage points can make or break a business, new and creative ways to drive customers ( especially during non-peak hours ) would be a godsend.
New Head Corp: Access customers on demand
New Sub Corp: Help your customers and the community get the food they need
The concept of accessing customers on demand is the dream scenario for restaurants. No longer waiting for customers to walk by, FeedbackApp through the combination of order ahead, helping the community and offering timely promotions will drive customers and do so with predictability.
In a perfect world, the photos on the page would show both a satisfied looking restaurant owner and a packed restaurant. Not finding that, Iâd suggest going with pictures of real restaurant owners / managers, looking towards the screen ( symbolically at other restaurant owners ), appearing happy and content.
The old way; a win, win, win for vendors and diners, with promotions
FeedbackAppâs new story; Nourish yourself and the community. Grow your business.
3. JoeCoffeeApp
JoeCoffee takes the concept of ordering ahead and focuses it on the 50,000+ coffee shops across North America; specializing in the needs of the coffee consumer and the coffee shop owner.
Starbucks has spent a lot of money to demonstrate the value of ordering ahead to consumers, JoeCoffee intends to bring that convenience to every coffee shop, regardless of size or technology budget.
Current Messaging and Challenges
JoeCoffee also runs into the problem of selling features instead of a better, coffee filled, future.
Headline: Order ahead, earn rewards, support local coffee
Sub Headline: The most convenient way to support local business
JoeCoffee, like FeedbackApp, struggles with acknowledging both of the primary audiences they serve:
- Coffee buyersâââthe individual customers, like you and me, across all demos, potentially more of the commuter and business types, taught by Starbucks that lining up is for suckers
- Coffee shop owners and managersâââbusy, not tech savvy, always looking for more revenue, battling to keep costs down
Without a push to educate and sell the vision to both audiences, how can JoeCoffee expect to grow their business?
Proposed New Direction and a New Story
Coffee for so many of us is religion wrapped in urgent need. Itâs the magic elixir that gets us moving in the morning, the fuel to get through our day, and consumers canât get enough. Coffee sales in the US, last year, hit nearly $4 billion in 2017 and show no sign of slowing down.
The promised land for JoeCoffee customers is having the coffee they want when they want it. No standing line, no fumbling through your pockets for cash, no digging through a purse or a wallet for a credit card.
Having JoeCoffee is knowing that when you need your fix, coffee is only a tap of your finger away ( a gentle reinforcement of it being app based ).
New Headline: Coffee at your fingertips
New Sub Headline: Coffee, with a side of convenience. Just what you want. Just when you want it.
The current website photo, while of a person ( good start ), is of someone not looking particularly happy, nor enjoying a coffee. The images below are stock ( and the second one is very seasonal ), but pictures of people enjoying their coffee, looking satisfied would help propel the story forward.
Photo by Dani Vivanco on UnsplashPhoto by freestocks.org on Unsplash
Proposed New Direction and a New Story
For coffee shop owners, the messaging has one job, to reinforce the notion that with JoeCoffee, your business will attract more customers ( customers that need less attention and take up less space ).
JoeCoffee as the marketing channel, with the convenience of order ahead and mobile push notifications, is a strong story for an industry where being local and authentic, doesnât always equate to busy.
Any opportunity to compete on a platform level with Starbucks gives local coffee shops and small to medium sized coffee chains the ability to even the playing field, competing for customers on equal footing.
The message to coffee shop owners and managers, weâll send more people your way.
New Headline Corp: An endless stream of customers
New Sub Headline Corp: Ordering ahead isnât only for the big chains
It would be so much more effective in recruiting coffee shops if the imagery on the site reflected life from their viewpoint. The staff making coffee, customers lining up, all a visual reinforcement for how JoeCoffee will let you do what you do while keeping customers ( sales ) coming through the door.
Photo by Joshua Rodriguez on Unsplash
4. Hootsuite
Pretty hard to argue with the success of Hootsuite. They are single-handedly responsible for putting Vancouver on the worldâs tech radar.
In the spirit of selling more than features, and focusing on people and what they can achieve, they could do better with their story.
Current Messaging and Challenges
Hootsuite helps individuals and brands publish content across a variety of social media platforms, simplifying the process of having conversations and building community.
Headline: Manage all your social media in one place
Sub Headline: From finding prospects to serving customers, Hootsuite helps you do more with your social media.
So Hootsuite lets you manage all your social media in one place, but is that the inspirational place we want to find ourselves in as their customer?
Proposed New Direction and a New Story
What Hootsuite really brings to the table is the power of an entire team to a single individual. They help their users stay connected to customers and conversations online, and they make it easier than it would be otherwise.
Hootsuite at the end of the day is there to make social media and by extension your working life, more effective.
The promised land for Hootsuite customers is the mastery and ownership of social media, creating a place where what was once difficult and time-consuming, is now easy.
New Headline: Social Media made easy
New Sub Headline: Master messaging in the age of community
Or if you would prefer something a little more alliterative.
New Headline Alt: Social media made manageable
New Sub Headline Alt: Reach customers. Drive discussions. Build community
Audience: brand owners, agency employees, marketing managers, content creators
The Hootsuite platform itself looks great, but the top image banner needs to focus on people getting work done, not on the product.
Pictures of individual people working reinforce the notion of how powerful you can be when given access to Hootsuite. That they can get work done anywhere, anytime puts customers in the driver seat.
The last photo of two people collaborating in a non-office environment would be an option to highlight how teams can work together.
Photo by Christin Hume on UnsplashPhoto by LinkedIn Sales Navigator on UnsplashPhoto by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
No doubt that with following a more rigorous process, or at the very least, gathering input from stakeholders and customers, we could create messaging that resonates even better with our target audience(s), but for a quick thought experiment, Iâd put any of the messaging above into an A/B test with what each of the companies are currently saying, and feel confident in a positive result for the story based options.
So, is your messaging selling the bigger, brighter, better future, or do features dominate?
Are you doing all you can to inspire and delight, or are you falling into the trap of telling people what you hope makes you different?
Have you thought long and hard about how you can make a difference for you customers and not just for your bottom line?
Put yourselves in their shoes, solve their pain, tell a story about how you did it, and know that things will get better from there.
Next up, weâll talk about how this kind of messaging should drive how youâre building your product, and not the other way around.
Love to hear your thoughts, comments or concerns, either below or via @kmore on Twitter.
Doing this one thing will revolutionize your sales and marketing. was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.