How Storybranding Helped to Create Spark
Building a Storybrand was one of the best business books I have ever read. Period.
What we didn’t realize before reading this book was how little of a ‘story’ we were sharing with our clients. As a business– sure we provided world-class service to our clients, and yes we loved talking about all the great things we do to help our clients, but as for having a ‘story’… we had no idea how important that truly is – for so many reasons. In fact, I thought it was a good thing that we weren’t “out there” too much. I honestly hate being bombarded by bad marketing for products and services I could care less about. I didn’t realize there’s another way…
Our Storybrand Journey
Luckily, we have people in the world like Author Don Miller (who was also the AMAZING Keynote Speaker at ProfitCon 2020). Awesome people, like Don, share their expertise with the rest of us to help us find our voices and say what we want/need to say. Since I read the book, I hired a design company who is familiar with the concept. They were able to help us strategize our vision for Spark to extend our services at a smaller price point, and some tools for free, to those who can’t afford to work with us and who want to implement helpful systems for themselves.
The Steps
First, we began with who our clients are and who our online audience is. The projects we envisioned moving forward and our website structure relied heavily on this super important information and really zeroing in on our favorite client “avatar”. This helped us to begin to develop a foundation that would allow for customization and growth. It can be overwhelming to consider all of the little things along with the big ones, so we moved at a pace that was comfortable for us to wrap our head around all the moving parts – and get some feedback along the way.
Second, because we love Wonder Woman and bold, bright colors, we incorporated those elements into the branding along with a lot of white space for a visual breather. I was very clear on our voice, our tone, and how we want to elevate and inspire our audience as opposed to pushing all sorts of kitschy ‘whatever’-content onto them the *second* they subscribe to our e-mail newsletter (great way to get an immediate un-subscribe from me).
I wanted to be certain that we were treating both our clients and online audience with respect. They are real people with busy lives and short attention spans and sometimes it seems like other brands think they’re the only thing that should matter. This is just downright annoying; honestly, it’s the part of marketing that gives marketing a bad name and kept me from actively ‘marketing’ for years. The client is the hero of the story and should be in our marketing. We are just the guide.
Third, we created a quarterly plan of focus to deliver real, useful and timely content. As we all know, we are in the midst of an international pandemic so perhaps talking about starting up that travel agency, or gym, or bar at this moment in time may not make the most sense or make anyone feel too good.
As a Storybrand follower, we started to develop a way to align ourselves with the journey of our audience. We began offering helpful guides, checklists, action plans and courses that we feel could help them along their journey. Like, real, helpful, useful tools, not just more ugly ‘stuff’ we try to push into people’s inboxes.
We absolutely love treating our clients and online audience as the hero. The formula that Don Miller shares in his book really helps us to create a brand and marketing plan that feels… well, like us. Building a Storybrand is inspiring, helpful, valuable and keeps us focused on the end-user (our Client/Audience) and not just our own super-selves. It also teaches us how to adjust our trajectory at any moment to better serve along all levels of value and journey.
We LOVE our team here at Spark. And we LOVE what we do. But now more than ever we realize, after reading this awesome book, that the real story, the real heroes, lie in our clients and audience.
Want to Know More?
Below is a list of links that will take you to relevant Storybrand links. We get a small Amazon commission from any book sales purchased through our link but nothing else is affiliated with Don Miller or any of his companies.
- The Building a Storybrand Book
- Use a Brandscript to develop YOUR Storybrand Brandscript
- Business Made Simple University