One of the biggest conversations we have with our clients, new and existing, is around brand narrative.
Brand narrative is the heartbeat of not only marketing, but how a company sells itself, internally and externally. By definition, it sits at the intersection of:
Domain/product expertise
A deep understanding of the buyer
Exciting language that is simple, clear and persuasive to bring it all to life
In marketing terms, the narrative is what drives how a company goes to market: done well, it clarifies your company’s core value proposition for investors, customers, prospects, employees, and partners alike.
Pro tip: when it’s time to put your brand narrative to the test, a sales deck is often the easiest and most effective medium; it will lay bare any gaps on details in a way other methods may not.
We work directly with our clients to get sales teams to act boldly in using strong narratives that bring the buyer into the story and take them to the ‘promised land’ slowly.
…which brings us to Andy Raskin.
Andy Raskin is a true leader on the power of strong brand narratives. Like us, he drives conversation on that topic consistently.
Andy’s post here uses sales decks as his primary prototype when discussing his approach to articulating brand narrative. We share it with clients frequently because it’s both smart and simple enough to replicate and tailor to any company’s needs.
Put simply, Andy’s approach advocates for a customer-centric approach that avoids chest-pounding or leading with feature/function-led. Instead, he focuses on bringing urgency to the story by highlighting ‘a change in the world’ that impacts the buyer.
… But we often need to caveat.
This is all theoretically simple enough. But a good narrative can often end up on the shelf for one of three reasons:
Commitment to the ideas. The best narratives have full support from the CEO. Similarly, any narrative, no matter how good, will fail if the CEO doesn’t buy in completely and repeat it consistently and with every audience.
Clean execution. The best advice we can give is to focus on the core ideas; drop the rest because it is noise. If you need caveats, lots of nuance, or other disclaimers, it’s time to rethink things. Your litmus test: if you can’t get to the point in 30-45 seconds, it’s time to take a second look to get there.
Adoption across the company. This is about ensuring everyone is swimming in the same direction. Just as CEO buy-in is critical, narratives fall apart when they aren’t taken on as the language of the land by everyone within your company, from sales to customer support to product, and beyond.
There’s lots more where that came from. 100 YARDS is a full-service growth marketing team. We serve as our clients’ marketing engine, focused on the art and science of demand generation, performance measurement, and brand awareness. Contact us for a free assessment on your business.
