WRITTEN BY DHIREN PATEL, FLUVIO CONSULTANT
Humans love a good story; it's wired into us as a way of connecting and sharing our knowledge. Stories help us learn, connect, and feel. Stories inspire us to be better and do better. We use stories to understand the needs and wants of people so that we can build tools to help them achieve more.
So, how do you tell a great product story?
Purpose/Objective
Start at the end. Understanding the fairytale ending your product hopes to achieve is key to developing a story that captures and holds attention. The story has to be grounded in the real-life problems of your user and how your product helps to solve those problems in a meaningful way. What’s the emotional and physical journey they take, and how does it impact them?
Questions to ask:
Why does your product exist?
What problem does it aim to solve?
Who is this product for?
Why should people care?
The Problem/Conflict/The Villain
Every great story has a great conflict, like Batman wanting to clean up Gotham City or the threat of the White Walkers in the Game of Thrones. What is the problem your product is trying to solve? What conflicts are your buyers having, and how does your product solve them? Knowing the problem provides essential context to show why your product exists and why they need to pay attention to it. To help understand this, develop user personas to help you contextualize why each persona needs your product and leverage emotions to connect to their problems more directly.
Some questions to consider here are:
How will your buyers use the product?
When will they use it?
Why will they use it?
The Fairytale Ending
This step helps you relate the user stories to the ideal outcome you wish to create. Two ways to think about this are:
Their dream is to...
As a [persona], I [want to], [so that]
Having empathy throughout the entire user journey will help you connect your persona's problem with your product. In the end, your user is a real human with real problems.
Establish an Emotional Connection
Emotion is what drives people to act. To help wrap your head around this, think about your buyer personas and what your product can do for each of them. How will it make them feel? Will they be less stressed, happier, excited?
95 percent of our purchase decision making takes place in the subconscious mind
Two great examples of using emotion to drive action are the Google Chrome ad, Dear Sophie, and the Kodak Carousel pitch, by Don Draper, in Mad Men. Both touch on the emotional milestones a family has together and provide a way to capture those moments and share them with those you love. They are both relatable and engaging. They show you how the product will make you feel rather than telling you what the product does. They give you a snapshot of what life would be like if you used their product.
Tell the whole story
When storytelling, it's important to keep it simple and show the story from start to finish. It should show the user's journey from problem to resolution.
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin
No matter how great a product is, the story can be the difference between success and failure. It is the story that ultimately will reach your end-users before your product does.
Ultimately, a great story takes people on a journey they feel a part of.
“We are all storytellers in one way or another, and telling a story about your product is how you can motivate, captivate, and inspire not only your team but your users as well.”