Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the shit has been hitting the advertising and marketing fans lately. Thanks to a global trend towards greater user privacy protections in the form of the GDPR, Google killing the third party cookie, and most recently, the iOS 14 update, it’s getting harder and harder to find and target the right audience.
Clearly, you can’t control what Google, Apple, the EU, or anyone else decides to do in terms of limiting your ability to target an audience. But you know what you can control? Your story. In fact, it’s the piece of your strategic puzzle that can have the greatest impact on your CAC.
The special circumstances that favored the evolution of sophisticated self-awareness might have simultaneously necessitated the evolution of narrative intelligence. Consequently, self-awareness and narrative intelligence overlap to a considerable degree. We have a natural inclination to think of ourselves—our past, present, and future—as an ongoing story.
You know how you’ve avoided your Aunt Marge’s Thanksgiving for the last 4 years? Or the fact that you refuse to talk about politics with your parents anymore? Or how about the time you had to block that friend who thinks the Earth is flat? Look, you tried. You really did. But you had no choice: No matter how many facts, statistics, logical arguments, and actual proof you helpfully provided, it fell on deaf ears. People simply refuse to listen to reason.
When data and story are used together, audiences are moved both intellectually and emotionally. When telling a story, you take the listener on a journey, moving them from one perspective to another. In this way, story is a powerful tool for engendering confidence in you and your vision.
In this book, we’re going to attack this burning question using science to understand — and influence — customer behavior. Not only that, we’ll show you how much easier it is to attract customers by transforming your funnel or flywheel into something we call a “Sticky Story ARC.” If you're familiar with sales or marketing funnels, it's similar to one of those funnels that draw in an audience and get them to stick around. It's like that... but much stickier.
You’ll notice that we use the word “sticky” a lot. We love the concept of stickiness. Why are we so obsessed? Well, when a message sticks, it’s bookmark-worthy, memorable, and easy to share — as close to unforgettable as you can get. Stickiness is the ultimate level of attraction. Your followers stick around. Eyeballs are glued to screens. Butts are firmly adhered to seats. Dry facts, on the other hand, slip through our story-driven brains. Facts are slippery unless carefully cemented using the power of sticky stories.
Remember when we said you’re going to have to forget Facebook (or insert-your-favorite-GTM strategy). Here’s why you should put a pin in that thought. You need clarity. Because. They need clarity. From you.
“We're a small business advertising one product in a craft supply niche. Our product is the best on the market and is also competitively priced. Our brand has had a social media presence since 2014. This past month it just seems like FB ads are nothing but a giant black hole for us to throw money in.”
Story over facts. Emotions. Empathy. Great, but now you’re wondering: “Where do I even begin?” It’s really all about understanding the right structure.
When you focus on listing out facts rather than weaving a story, you stop making it about your heroes and instead make it all about yourself, and that’s when you lose them.
Omsom makes a deceptively simple product: starter packs for Southeast and East Asian meals. The D2C specialty food market is a crowded space; direct competitive alternatives include other D2C Asian food brands like Fly By Jing’s Szechuan seasonings and hot pot starters, Xi’An Famous Foods’ Hand Ripped Noodle Kits, and Huel’s Hot & Savory Vegan Asian Meals. Widen that circle and other competing alternatives include all home delivery meal kits with Asian options — or even takeout. One big reason a consumer might try any of these options is because they want to enjoy quality Asian cuisine at home. What really makes Omsom stand apart from the crowd is how well they weave a riveting story into their simple yet unique offering.
We’ve been talking a lot about the importance of addressing your hero’s challenge. But so far, we’ve mostly focused on sussing out what the challenge actually is. While this is a crucial starting point, there’s no way you’re going to be able to craft a truly compelling narrative unless you also dig into the why.
Let’s be real: Anyone can get an audience. You read that right. Getting an audience is easy if you resort to clickbait or other sensationalistic approaches to grab people’s attention. But clickbait audiences are slippery. They’re like a one night stand: good for a minute and then poof! Gone forever. Like a fart in the wind.
Finding and attracting your sticky audience involves stuff we’ve already talked about: first, knowing what the challenge is and then going deep to understand all the underlying motivations — the “why.” We helped you work through a basic qualitative hypothesis and pose questions to yourself that you’ll next need to dig into with your JAM in your Sticky Audience Interviews.
1. Problem questions
The first category of questions relates to the problems your audience have. What problems do members of your JAM face right now? What’s the BIG Challenge? What’s at stake? What’s the intensity of their desire for a solution? What Job are they hiring solutions to do for them right now? What frustrations and pains are they facing? To get to the bottom of this, ask questions like: