“If you’re not going to create a whole new world, your product needs to fit into an established category”
We are natural born storytellers. We are also naturally wired to listen to stories. In fact, Spanish researchers demonstrated that stories not only activate the brain’s language processing center, but also activate parts that would be active if we experienced the story ourselves. When your goal is to sell an experience, story has to be central to your strategy. While an important part of branding is to tell a story about your brand, more and more marketers are taking an alternate approach. Instead of telling stories about their brand, they are branding themselves as storytellers. A great example of this approach is OkCupid’s consistently incredible blog. Each post takes the reams of data OkCupid collects about their users and artfully weaves these insights into a fascinating story about how their users behave. (oh so brilliant!)
“the stories your brand should be telling are the ones that “are easy to bring up, yet correlate to the deeper, unspeakable, issues [your customers] actually care about.” ~ OkCupid
Turn customers into advocates: This means that your brand should excel at giving your customers all the tools and information they need to go on and talk about your company in their own voice. So, if you can package the experience, the mood, the feeling that you want your product to create and put it into customers’ hands, then they go out into the world as megaphones for your message.
Stay part of the conversation: create hashtags that define your brand and make sure to include the same hashtag across all social media channels.
Take a stand: but do it ethically and value your consumers as human beings as well. Chasing trends and allowing ‘amateurs’ to produce your advertising is what Pepsi did wrong. However, one should also note (and by no means excuses the ad) that Pepsi’s mentions on social media were up by more than 7000% the day their ‘Kendall Jenner’ ad debuted, which means the net effect of the ad was positive because (this is a guesstimate) Pepsi may have gotten about $400 million in free media coverage out of the controversy.
The story behind the story of ‘Product Features’
Storytelling could be described as the ability to communicate rich ideas in the simplest terms. Storytelling for startups can be using data visualization techniques to show product features or outcomes of data gathered while developing a product. I do not agree that positioning statements aren’t stories or that data isn’t a story. Most people would say that those are ‘just details’ of the features of a product. However, would you create an app for someone without a smartphone?. I believe details are what makes ‘Product Features’ to have a story.
It often happens that people with ideas look [first] for ‘product features’ then for a customer who will adopt them. Many founders fail at pivoting fast because of this reason, believing that ‘making the product’ is key to generate sales and so for them testing is key and iteration is often overlooked or irrelevant. It has to be integrated and reciprocal.
One of the most common initial challenges startup founders and serial entrepreneurs face is how to best tie their story to their idea and understanding that product development features are based on iteration. Business owners should be educated into thinking about the process of iteration as what it is, a process needed to strengthen the story behind their idea and hence the story behind their products; within that context, the essence of the business idea is to fix ‘a’ problem and the actual product development is based on having features that prove the idea is a problem fixer (win-win)
Keep in mind customers buy products by considering the benefits they receive versus its cost. Benefits are usually gained through a product’s features. You can choose a strategy of offering products which are differentiated either by features or functionality. A differentiated product can sometimes be offered at a higher price. Alternatively, you can choose a strategy of offering products which are similar to your competitors but at a lower price. It is important to decide whether to pursue different strategies in different parts of the market (usually defined by different customer types) and for that you need to have your development team on your side.
By knowing how customers measure value, companies are able to align the actions of marketing, development, and R&D with these metrics and systematically create customer value.
Always ask these questions (because VCs will ask those questions):
- What problem does this feature solve?
- Who has this helped?
- How has this changed the way things get done?
- Do you have any success stories?
- Do you have any testimonials?
- Do you have any data that explains what makes this feature so special?
Founders claim the reason they founded their startup is that they ‘know’ of a potential customer base or a niche or ‘some’ of their existing customers whom would ‘want’ X product with X feature. Keep in mind when you hear these reasons you will know scaling is an unknown concept for these founders and most relevant is that scaling is all about emotion.
Lesson #1: meeting customer needs isn’t a story. The real story is, “what does this feature mean to a potential customer?” [emotion]. In other words, your startup value proposition should not be based on ‘this is what this is’ (logic/explanation of features) but rather tell the story of ‘why this matters’ [emotion]. People only remember how you make them feel, or in this case, how they are affected by the product and its features.
This is a very tough concept to understand and the truth is that customers don’t care about features, positioning statements, or data unless it creates a narrative that brings value and that aids in solving a problem. They’re not curious about what something is or does, but how it affects them.
Take, for example, Shauna Mei, founder of a website that sources and curates products from around the world. She grew her Startup 600 percent by telling the story behind products. Mei quickly realized that products with the best story sold best. The success of a rare yak scarf and shawl that sells for $1,100 illustrates this. It’s easier to digest a higher price for an item when you understand the skill and time dedicated to creating the product or service. It is important to note that branding, packaging and social media must be part of the story (in an effective way) or they will be part of your business not scaling.
Lesson #2: if you need to explain your product and what it does, how it fits into a specific category and why it solves all your problems, it’s going to be hard to get people to adopt it. If you have to explain it too much, it’s not good; so don't explain, and before you try to explain then ALWAYS ask yourself, your product dev team, your co-founders ‘What does it (your product/service mean?’ in terms of value not in terms of what it is (a descriptor).
If you choose for a descriptor then your narrative becomes ‘white noise’, to help solve this conundrum ALWAYS ask yourself ‘How does it help my customers? How does it make them feel?’
- Step 1: Reveal ‘the’ why — Why did you decide to create the product? Is there a void in the market it fills? What was the “aha!” moment? Tell the VCs in your pitch and customers on your website what sparked your passion for the product or service. Tell them the problem is fixing in terms of adding value to a market.
- Step 2: Expose the process — If this is a labor of love, of course, it is, tell them about your passion and why your team works with you day in and day out to make it possible.
- Step 3: Share what makes it exceptional — This is your chance to explain the relationship your ‘niche/customer can have with the product. Why and how does the product help make the life of your customers better?
Once you know what is of value to your customers you need to work with your development team (whether it is a new product or maintaining an existing product) and prioritize product features. The technique your team chooses isn’t as relevant as the criteria for priorities. And even if you disagree about the specific prioritization, you need to agree on the criteria,
Remember, if you can’t tell investors what category you fit into — because you haven’t invented it yet. You better be a good storyteller. The goal is to create a story where people pick your product as the no brainer solution, and ultimately adopt your way as habit .
