Ready to take your storytelling skills to the next level? Then grab a cup of coffee, and let's dive into the art of crafting a product story that'll make your customers want to shout from the rooftops about how awesome your product is.
To create a product story that resonates with your audience and motivates them to take action, keep the following five tips in mind:
Know your audience like the back of your hand
It is crucial to know your target audience inside and out. The better you understand your target audience, the more effectively you can craft a product story that speaks directly to their unique needs, desires, and pain points.
Knowing your audience means understanding their business processes, goals, challenges, and pain points. For example, if you're selling a B2B software program, you need to know what kind of businesses would benefit most from your product, what specific challenges they face, and how your product can help them overcome those challenges.
To get to know your audience, you can start by conducting market research to gather data. You can also survey or interview your existing customers to get insights into their specific needs and motivations. From this research, you can create buyer personas representing your ideal customers and tailor your product story to their unique needs and desires.
For instance, if you're selling a project management software, you'll want to create a story that resonates with project managers who are struggling to manage their team's workload and deadlines effectively. You can create a persona for a busy project manager named John, who struggles to keep his team organized and on track. Your product story could be centered around how John, with the help of your software, was able to streamline communication between his team and reduce project delays, helping him to meet his deadlines and deliver projects on time and under budget.
Bottom line:
Knowing your audience is critical when it comes to crafting a killer product story.
By understanding your target audience's business processes, goals, challenges, and pain points, you can create a product story that resonates with them and motivates them to take action.
So, take the time to get to know your B2B audience like the back of your hand, and use that knowledge to craft a product story that speaks directly to their unique needs and desires.
Highlight the benefits, not just the features
It is important to keep in mind that your customers are ultimately looking for products or services that will make their business processes more efficient, cost-effective, and productive. This means that they may not be interested in the technical details or the features of your product or service. Instead, they want to know how your product or service can solve their specific business problems or improve their bottom line.
This is why it's crucial to highlight the benefits of your product or service rather than just the features. While the features may be important for some customers, most will be more interested in how those features can translate into tangible benefits. For example, suppose you're selling a software program instead of just highlighting its technical features. In that case, you should focus on how it can help businesses to save time, increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve productivity.
To highlight the benefits of your product or service, you should identify your target audience's pain points, goals, and objectives and show how your product or service can solve those problems or help achieve those goals. For instance, if you're selling accounting software to small businesses, you could highlight the benefits of how it can simplify bookkeeping, reduce the workload on the in-house accounting team, and make it easier for business owners to get a clear picture of their finances.
Moreover, you can also use case studies or customer testimonials to demonstrate the benefits of your product or service in action. For instance, you can share a case study about a business struggling with a problem your product solves and how it positively impacted their business processes.
Bottom line: When it comes to selling products or services, it's important to remember that customers care more about the benefits of your product or service than the technical details or features. By highlighting the benefits, you can better connect with your customers and show them how your product or service can make their business processes more efficient, cost-effective, and productive. So, take some time to identify the benefits of your product or service and find creative ways to showcase them through storytelling and other marketing tactics.
Create a hero that your audience can relate to:
Your product story's hero should be someone your audience can identify with. This could be someone who overcomes a specific challenge with the help of your product. For example, if you're selling noise-canceling headphones, your hero could be a college student who is able to concentrate on their studies, despite noisy roommates.
Keep it fun and engaging:
It's crucial to keep your product story engaging and memorable to capture the attention of your target audience. Injecting humor, wit, or an interesting narrative into your story can make it more engaging and appealing, helping you to stand out from the competition.
When crafting a product story, you should start by identifying the unique value proposition of your product or service and find creative ways to showcase it. For example, suppose you're selling a new cloud-based project management software. In that case, you could tell a story about a project manager who was drowning in a sea of spreadsheets and emails. Still, after using your software, they become a project management superhero, able to deliver projects on time, on budget, and with fewer headaches.
Using humor and fun in your storytelling can make your product story more relatable and relevant to your target audience.
You can use analogies, metaphors, or pop culture references to add humor and make your story more memorable.
Bottom line: Keeping your product story fun and engaging is crucial to capturing the attention of your target audience and making your product stand out in a crowded market. By injecting humor, wit, and great storytelling into your story, you can make it more relatable, memorable, and relevant to your target audience. So, take the time to find creative ways to showcase the unique value proposition of your product or service to make your next product story something to remember.
Make it shareable
By making it easy for your audience to share your product story, you can maximize its reach and gain exposure to a broader audience. This can help to generate more leads and increase brand awareness, ultimately driving more sales and revenue for your business.
There are several ways to make your product story shareable. One way is to create shareable content, such as infographics, social media posts, or blog articles, highlighting your product's or service's benefits. These types of content are easily shareable on social media platforms and can be distributed through email marketing campaigns or other digital marketing channels.
Infographics are a great way to condense complex information into easily digestible graphics. By using eye-catching graphics and visualizations, you can make your product story more engaging and shareable. Infographics can be easily shared on social media platforms and can also be embedded into blog articles and other digital marketing materials.
Social media is another powerful tool for making your product story shareable. You can create social media posts highlighting the benefits of your product or service and encourage your followers to share the posts with their networks. You can also use social media advertising to target specific audiences and increase the reach of your product story.
Bottom line:
Making your product story shareable is a crucial element of creating a compelling product marketing strategy. By creating shareable content, leveraging social media, and using email marketing, you can maximize the reach of your product story and gain exposure to a wider audience. So, take the time to make your product story shareable and encourage your audience to spread the word about your products or services.
Use social proof
Building trust and credibility is key to driving conversions and sales. This is where social proof comes into play. Social proof refers to the concept that people are more likely to make a decision or take action based on the actions or opinions of others. Using social proof in your product story is a powerful way to showcase the benefits of your product or service and build trust and credibility with your target audience.
One way to use social proof in your product story is to include customer testimonials or case studies highlighting the success stories of other businesses using your product or service. Testimonials provide direct feedback from satisfied customers and can showcase the value and benefits of your product or service in a way that resonates with your target audience. Case studies provide a more detailed look at how your product or service has helped other businesses overcome specific challenges and achieve their goals. By sharing these success stories, you can inspire confidence in your target audience and motivate them to take action.
In addition to testimonials and case studies, you can also use social proof in the form of user-generated content (UGC), such as reviews or social media posts. UGC is created by your customers and provides a more authentic and genuine perspective on your product or service. UGC can be shared on social media platforms, review sites, or other digital marketing channels and can help to build trust and credibility with your target audience.
Bottom Line:
Using social proof in your product story is a powerful way to build trust and credibility with your target audience. By showcasing the success stories of other businesses that have used your product or service, you can demonstrate the value and benefits of your product or service in a way that resonates with your target audience. So, take the time to gather customer testimonials, create case studies, and use UGC to showcase the social proof of your product or service and build trust and credibility with your target audience.
The bottom, bottom line:
Crafting a compelling product story is essential to any successful product marketing strategy. By following the tips outlined in this article, including knowing your audience, highlighting the benefits, creating a relatable hero, keeping it fun and engaging, making it shareable, and using social proof, you can create a product story that speaks directly to your target audience, builds trust and credibility, and drives conversions and sales. Remember to take the time to research your audience, identify their needs and pain points, and find creative ways to showcase the benefits of your product or service through storytelling and other marketing tactics. With a killer product story, you can stand out in a crowded market and inspire your audience to take action.