What are your creative ideas, tips, or resources that can help to improve storytelling skills?

I'd love to get better at using storytelling in my product launches. I know of the basics e.g. knowing your audience, focusing on the benefit and value over features etc. but I'm looking any creative ideas, examples, or resources that could help me really sharpen things up and hone my skills. I'd love to hear peoples recommendations and experiences of how they developed their skills in this area.

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4 Answers

Release Marketing Launch Messaging Launch Channels Storytelling

Andrew Forbes

Figma Director, Product Marketing • 5y

Hey - Thanks for the question! In my opinion, the best way of telling a great story is to really have an understanding of everything you're talking about - especially the heroes of your story. And to do that, it comes down to meeting with the people who are going to use the product you're planning to tell stories about; learning their pain points, learning what they do every day, learning how your new thing can make their lives better - and building empathy around them as a human and what they' ...Read More

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Mike Polner

Adobe VP, Product Marketing & GM, Next Gen Creators | Formerly Uber, Fivestars, Electronic Arts • 5y

I think the basics called out here are nice building blocks, but a few more tactical examples to help: Listen to customers. "Know your audience" is too broad of a term, but actually listening to what they have to say - and most importantly - what they react to is key to a great story. Stories evoke emotion and emotions can be visible positive feedback that your stories are resonating. Great storytellers aren't born that way, they learn through that positive feedback on what resonates and what do ...Read More

764 Views
Jenna Crane

Triple Whale 🐳 VP of Marketing | Formerly Klaviyo, Drift, Dropbox, Upwork • 5y

The best of the best on this topic is Andy Raskin: https://raskin.medium.com. Highly recommend reading a bunch of his stuff, especially his now-famous Zuora sales deck deconstruction .

Other books you can consider: ‘Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs’ and ‘Creativity, Inc.' (and I second the recommendation of 'Made to Stick'!)

562 Views
Chris Glanzman

ESO Director of Product Marketing & Demand Generation | Formerly Fortive • 4y

There are two aspects of storytelling you'll want to address to really build this skill. They can happen in parallel if you're in a time crunch. Applied storytelling in a business context. Andy Raskin is a top contributor in this space and has a lot of available content on the topic. Donald Miller, the author of Building a Story Brand, is also worth checking out. Storytelling theory. This is the step most marketers won't take, which means it's also the one that will set you apart. There are endl ...Read More

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