AMA: AlertMedia Vice President Product Marketing, Harsha Kalapala on Storytelling

The best frameworks are the simpler ones that have proven effective in our everyday lives. One of my favorites is to use the Disney/Pixar storytelling approach laid out in the book “Storybrand” by Donald Miller. It takes the following format: 1. A character (the customer) has a problem. 2. They meet a guide (your company) who has a plan. 3. The guide calls them to action. 4. The action helps them avoid failure. 5. The story ends in success. “The Hero’s Journey” is another effective framework for stories. You could use simpler frameworks depending on the use case and your experience level, such as STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) — you can look these up for more details. Any of these frameworks are starting points. What’s most important is that you pick one or two and start crafting stories with it, refine it, customize it, and add your own spin to make it work for your style and your brand. The biggest mistake people make on this topic is to overthink storytelling and feel a lack of conviction. There’s not one best way to tell stories. Just do it, and keep getting better every time. This is how I enjoy the process and feel excited whenever I get an opportunity to craft a new story. 

In a crowded, competitive market, relying on having great words for the same features and benefits is a never-ending race. Even having the latest feature can only differentiate for a short period, as competitors can replicate most things quickly in this modern market. The most important thing is to have a clear story and focus on a niche to address underserved segments of your audience. Make sure you have a unique value prop that meets the service gap and sets you apart from what competitors are saying. For example, Dollar Shave Club targeted men looking for affordable subscriptions and focused on simplicity and value. When product offerings start to become too similar, partner with your customer success org to tell the story of how your company is the most customer-obsessed. Most product messaging focuses on giving people keys to a fancy car and letting them figure it out. You could differentiate with a focus on service and a human brand that promises to be a partner to your customers in achieving their outcomes. Product marketers should also closely partner with their product team to ensure the customer's voice is heard and the product roadmap is aligned with the customer’s needs. Staying innovative on product capabilities and having a strong and clear product roadmap you can communicate is key to differentiating in a crowded market, especially in the enterprise segment. Building a strong customer community can be your secret weapon in differentiating from your customers. Customers trust their peers a lot more than they trust your claims. Partner with your customer advocacy function to build a community that you can use to validate your positioning and provide them with a platform to sell for you. There is no stronger differentiator of your product in a crowded market!

When you have 15 seconds to grab attention, you can only focus on one value prop. Put all your effort into the headline/image. Make sure you pick one that doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story but makes your value prop clearly differentiated and makes your audience want to read the next sentence on your website/message/story. That’s the core purpose of your headline content. In most cases, you want to appeal to the personal/emotional outcome of the buyer or the user - depending on the message and the channel. The biggest mistake I see made in this area is to try to fit in every differentiator or core value prop “the company” wants to say vs. what your audience needs to hear.

Your brand should NEVER be the protagonist of your storytelling. It should ALWAYS be your customer. We should definitely personify our brand as the guide to the protagonist, whose role is essential in reaching the protagonist’s desired outcomes effectively. In essence, the customer is Luke Skywalker, and your brand is Yoda. Think of your messaging as not about what the product can do for your customer but what the customer can do with your product. The first is about offering a service, the second is about empowering the customer - big difference. That said, personifying your brand as a guide involves giving it a multi-dimensional personality - defining internally what your brand stands for, what problems it would help solve for customers, and how you’d create consistency in voice and tone so your audience hears/sees one personality across all channels. Assign human traits to your brand - is it playful, serious, formal, casual, authoritative, or empathetic? Finally, focus on your core target audience. Being everything to everyone will not work to personify a brand - starting with the core audience and making sure your brand efforts are highly targeted can pay huge dividends over time.

Strong external messaging starts with clear internal alignment on positioning. Internal positioning should focus on the internal narrative of how your products are clearly and measurably differentiated. I’d begin this exercise by gathering a core cross-functional group of decision-makers from product, sales, marketing, customer success, and executive teams for input and influence across the org. Align on the core persona(s) you want to focus on for the positioning - the fewer, the better. Define the traits of this persona clearly - what matters to them and in what order? What gets them a promotion when done well, and what gets them fired if not handled well? Focusing on traits of the target persona, begin to break out the areas of benefits from your offerings that help your customer get promoted or achieve their desired outcome. This should be translated to value props at the level of sales conversations and marketing messaging. I have done Harvey-ball exercises (look it up) to internally rate our capabilities vs. competition as objectively as possible to help develop clear and differentiated internal positioning everyone can agree on. Use the outcome of this core exercise to craft external messaging and stories. This will be a lot of work but it is guaranteed to pay dividends to strengthen your core differentiation in the market.