AMA: Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead, Robin Fontaine on Storytelling

When I was hired at Patreon to build and lead the product marketing function, my first big project was a repricing and packaging exercise. Among other things, we wanted to move from a one-size-fits-all pricing model to a 3-tiered “good, better, best” model.  I started out thinking that it would be a terrible outcome if we ended up calling the three pricing tiers something generic like “Basic, Pro, and Premium”. Our customers were artists and creators! As creative people, surely they would prefer ...Read More

There are many tried and true frameworks or this. Here are some I use: STAR Method There’s one you’ve likely been told to use in interviews: The STAR method, which stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. You can apply this same framework to product storytelling. For example, what Situation is your prospect in? What are they Tasked with doing (and what are the obstacles)? What Action were they able to accomplish with the help of your product? And what was the positive Result? Duarte Method Na ...Read More

First, you need to become an expert in your competitive landscape. Do the research, do the analysis, then do the storytelling and debate with your team. Involve stakeholders from other disciplines in your research projects if possible so they are invested from the beginning, and will champion your conclusions. Bring your team along for the journey. This works much better than waiting til the end to bring people in. There are many research approaches you can use here. I find it helpful to use mul ...Read More

Almost always, a better approach is to make your target customer the protagonist of the story. No one really cares about your product. They care about how it will help them or their business. They care about how it might make them a hero in the eyes of their colleagues or friends if it delivers on its promise. Imagine your target persona realizing they have a problem that your product can solve. What’s the pain like —the time wasted, the frustration, the lost revenue—all because they don’t have ...Read More

If it is truly a differentiator, then it will have benefits, and that is what you should focus on. What does that proprietary algorithm allow your product to do that others products can’t, and how does that benefit your customer? Does it make your product faster? Does it make your product or its output more accurate, or more efficient? And how does that added capability benefit your customer? Does it save them time, make them more money, etc.? Even the most technical business buyer wants to know ...Read More

This is truly the art and the craft of marketing. To do this well you need to have a crystal clear idea of what sets your product apart, what matters most to your audience, and how those things intersect. Then you need to use your creativity to distill this down to its essence. If you have a strong stat that fits the bill, that can work wonders when you need to be pithy. For example, Shopify partnered with one of the big three global management consulting companies on an independent study of che ...Read More

You should be able to see the results of an effective product story in the channels where it is used. If your company runs ads, and they start using your revamped product story or key messages in the ads, you should see improved ROAS if your story is effective. If your product story becomes the basis of a new pitch deck for your sales team, you should see improved win/loss rates.  If you’re crafting a story for a new product and don’t have previous results to compare to, I recommend doing some m ...Read More