How 3 Real Companies Could Cook Up Some Improved Business Stories
During COVID-19, many of us (my family included) have been preparing more meals at home. In our house, there's been a lot of experimentation in the kitchen. We've been trying out new recipes that we might not have thought to make before, and recreating dishes we've been missing from our favorite restaurants – like chicken shawarma.
The first time I tried making chicken shawarma for my 8- and 10-year-old sons, they had some…pointed feedback for me. They weren't afraid to offer constructive criticism and tell me what they liked and didn't like. So I tried the recipe again and again, making small improvements each time until I got some more positive reactions from my "critics."
Why am I telling you about my culinary journey to master a chicken shawarma recipe for my kids? Because it's the perfect analogy for businesses that are experimenting – successfully and unsuccessfully – with their storytelling strategy during the current pandemic. And it's a great opportunity to explore how real businesses can "cook up" better stories, today and in the long run.
Our simple recipe for business storytelling during COVID-19
Like preparing a delicious meal, crafting a good business story – especially in times of crisis – involves choosing the right "ingredients," combining them in the right order using the proper tools and steps, and presenting them in a way that's appealing to your "dinner guests" (a.k.a. your customers).
The ingredients
The ingredients you'll need for your storytelling recipe are a combination of things that represent your business to your customers:
Your value proposition
Your company’s history
Your morals, essential emotions, and truths ("MeET," as we like to call it – you can learn more about MeET in our recent blog post)
What your customer wants (research can help here, enormously)
Roadblocks and obstacles that are in your customers' way
The tools
When you're cooking, you typically need a source of heat and some basic kitchen tools to prepare and combine your ingredients. It's the same in storytelling. Some tools you can leverage here include:
A buyer persona journey map to help you understand where your customer is coming from and more importantly, where they're going
Storytelling frameworks like TRIPS and 3Ds to contextualize your customer's journey with your business's offerings
A narrative that guides your storytelling efforts
A content architecture model to help you map out different pieces of content for different stages of the buyer journey
The process
Once you have all your ingredients and tools, you can learn how to use them and apply them to a variety of different recipes (stories). Here are the specific steps we recommend for businesses that are trying to communicate with customers during COVID-19 and create stories that speak to their current and future needs and concerns.
Step 1: Acknowledge the crisis. This is the bare minimum a company should have done from the beginning of COVID, and on its own, it isn't enough.
Step 2: Provide relevant resources and connect them to your existing value proposition. Many companies have mobilized their marketing teams to do this, but most of them stop here.
Step 3: Create net-new, MeET-centric content to help customers and prospects handle the challenges they're facing right now as a result of the crisis.
Step 4: Help customers understand and navigate their new world in the future, once they've gotten past the challenges of "now." This is the level of communication we should all aspire to reach!
A messaging and storytelling analysis of three Seattle tech companies
As a Seattle-based business that works with many technology brands, Go Narrative is intimately familiar with the area's culture, values, and target market segments. We also pride ourselves on our storytelling and brand positioning expertise. So, to get a sense of how businesses are faring with their COVID-19 messaging, we decided to analyze three tech companies right in our own backyard:
Tableau – an interactive data visualization software company designed for business intelligence and analytics
Acumatica – a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for small and medium-sized businesses
Tune – a SaaS platform for marketing partnerships (affiliate marketing, biz dev relationships, influencers, content partnerships, etc.)
Like every other business right now, these companies are working hard to adapt and communicate successfully in the COVID era. We wanted to conduct an objective analysis of what they're doing well, and how they might be able to serve their customers even better, through the lens of Go Narrative's 3D framework – Desire, Difficulty, and Denouement. We also compiled our general observations about their current messaging, the risks presented by that messaging, and some suggested stories each company can tell its customers to get back on the right track.
Tableau
What we noticed:
Tableau is all about data visualization and they communicate this very well on their website. The relevant dashboards, such as the Coronavirus Global Data Tracker, provide some useful expression of Tableau's value. I’d like to see these visuals framed with story.
Stories are information delivery mechanisms, much like graphs. If it goes Data -> Insight -> Knowledge -> Informed action, then graphs help. And as we know we all have learning preferences, some people are very visual. What about those who are not? You run the risk of alienating vast swathes of your potential audience. We know your fan base are data heads, but you claim your real value is to business people who want to quickly and easily visualize data. This means you need to appeal to a wider audience.
Only want to sell to people who already care? Great, keep up your graphs. Want to expand your market? Try telling stories. Your parent company Salesforce is best known for helping companies harness their customer data, so why not use that to figure out the stories you need to tell?
Graphs have been around for a few centuries. Stories have been around since the cognitive revolution, 70,000 years ago. Why don’t you use Tableau to compare those two numbers and see how important stories are now?
Your current risks:
The big miss is there's no heart or soul in the messaging as it stands. With a message that's so focused on analytics and data insights, you're missing an opportunity to go all the way to the end and shape customer behavior through stories. What problems are your customers actually dealing with? I'd like to see actual stories on your homepage about actual customers who are doing things differently with Tableau.
Furthermore, the statements this page are tone-deaf as can be! If I were a potential customer reading this, here's what might go through my head:
"Your organization – and business around the world – has begun to stabilize." This is pretty presumptuous. Has it? Things actually probably just got worse.
"You need to make decisions quickly but with limited time and resources to spare." Fair.
"You have to ramp up your business…" I need my business to SURVIVE. This isn’t an appropriate time for a "thrive" message.
"…and do it now." OK, you’ve gone beyond empathy and are putting pressure on business owners now.
"That’s where Tableau comes in." Your brand is not the hero. The lead-in here actually has me pretty annoyed.
"Our platform is known for taking any kind of data from almost any system, and turning it into actionable insights, with speed and ease. It’s as simple as dragging and dropping." Show, don’t tell. How about a story with a customer who is doing this, or even a fictional story, or a metaphor, early on to help articulate how easy it is? Real would be best.
"On top of that, we have almost endless amounts of free training and the biggest analytics community available, ready and waiting to help you." Big, big miss burying this lead.
Our suggested 3D framework for Tableau:
DESIRE: Value: Identify trends and insights. Current MeET: Take responsibility. Hope. Change and uncertainty.
DIFFICULTY: Retail companies need to understand how to adapt to changing shopping habits. What’s working? When? Where?
DENOUEMENT: The 2020 consumer just went through a rapid evolution. Companies who know where, when and how their customers are shopping will be able to sell to them. Those who don’t, won’t. Embrace and visualize the data to understand, track and mitigate the risk for your business now while setting it up for ongoing success with the "who knows" what will come next.
Tell your customers this story:
Revisit your Wells Fargo case study on how they've "wrangled data" to update their product. Understand how they are changing in real, relevant ways that can help your customers. Update the case study and feature them on your home page. Hey, they get some free top-level domain air cover, too.
Acumatica
What we noticed:
I applaud Acumatica's "work from anywhere" motive. There's great table-stakes alignment here with what people are experiencing right now, and you have a very clear positioning. But you can’t rest on your laurels. Where’s the heart?
On your website, you also use the phrase “business continuity.” This is a buzz phrase and brings no value. If F5 networks are also saying it and they are in a completely different aspect of the tech industry, then you are aligning to ambiguity – and no one ever bought ambiguity.
Your current risks:
You offer a gated whitepaper promising insights on "the new state of work in changing times." I gave you my email address, hoping to find some of those insights, and instead, I got a brochure for Acumatica, with a few trite phrases about "the new normal" peppered in. This so-called whitepaper is an epic fail and quite frankly shameful. Firstly, it’s not really about COVID – adding a new intro to your existing sales sheet does not make for a relevant, timely piece of content. Secondly, it’s a brochure and you NEVER gate a brochure. Content behind a gate must have value in and of itself. If you expect someone to part with their contact information, you better give them some value.
Our suggested 3D framework for Acumatica:
DESIRE: Value: “Most adaptable business software” (you could do so much with this!). Current MeET: Have courage. Kindness (helping your customers give employees permission to WFH is strong here). We’re all born equal. We all leave equal.
DIFFICULTY: Safety and health are table-stakes in a time of uncertainty and instability. Shifting/changing consumer habits are disrupting primary, secondary and tertiary industries, starting with the third and continuing to move upstream as the crisis deepens. Optimizing isn’t enough – you need to adapt, understand where your business risks are, and respond. There are new, unknown risks and we must find and squash them quickly.
DENOUEMENT: Don’t assume normalcy will return. Disruption is the great equalizer. Have the courage and confidence to adapt your business to serve your customers and their rapidly changing needs. Do that and you will be the trusted partner through and out of this crisis. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
Tell your customers this story:
How is Consolidated West Distribution (a produce distributor cited on the Acumatica home page) adapting? We hear about food waste. What are they doing? How are they adapting? Then, of course, how does Acumatica help? Reach out to CWD and do an updated case study. Maybe you can even help them out with some complimentary licensing for the help. You would also do well to publicize some of the real, impactful customer stories you only chose to share when you sent me the email containing my "whitepaper." These stories were so disconnected from the whitepaper content and such a missed opportunity.
Tune
What we noticed:
You guys need to up your game. You've recently been acquired by Constellation Software, which explains why your marketing function looked like it was on ice until a blog post came out from your CEO in late May.
Just like Acumatica’s whitepaper, this is just a “why affiliate marketing” piece with no real connection to COVID, beyond an opening paragraph. You talk about things like performance marketing and ABM. Why not, for each, give some pros and cons for each section pre-COVID and now during COVID? Use this as a way to connect to your suggested Denouement and story to tell.
Your current risks:
Prior to your company being acquired, you put out a blog about "partnerships and the new normal," in which you boldly declared that “nothing has changed" in your industry (news flash, everything has changed). “Technically speaking,” you say. Well, what does that even mean? It sounds tone-deaf. When your customers are dealing with all sorts of unexpected issues, loss of clients themselves, loss of revenue…that’s some pretty serious "technicalities."
Another potential messaging issue: Your new parent company seems to to be acquisition-crazy – last year, it also acquired your competitor, Cake. People buy when they want to change their current state, and stories are the vehicles to inspire this change. It’s in Constellation's interest to get this story right – are you keeping the Tune brand? Collapsing it with Cake? Bringing it all under Constellation? Communicate what's happening through a relevant story, instead of leaving people to wonder if you truly want to provide value through Tune's existing brand or whether it's just another addition to your portfolio.
Our suggested 3D framework for Tune:
DESIRE: Value: avoid payment disruption (This is so important right now! It's so relevant and there's some great value that you can put to use in your stories.) Current MeET: Treat others as you wish to be treated. Hope. We all stress and worry.
DIFFICULTY: The human connection is more important than ever. "Remote affiliates" are now competing for people saturated with Zoom, Teams and Uberconference meetings. Yet at the same time, people are captive in their own homes. How can marketing partners adapt as quickly as the shopping habbits of consumers are changing so they can be the the trusted voice of choice?
DENOUEMENT: Relationships matter more than ever. Make sure you lean in, turn up the volume, and "Tune" your approach during these rapidly-evolving times. We’re all craving more connection right now. Rally around each other virtually and create hope for a brighter, more connected future. Tune wants to help you create the best partner marketing programs and help you provide consistent, tangible value to them through great partnerships.
Tell your customers this story:
Don’t tell a revenue growth story like this one right now. How can we all be stuck at home, shopping differently, spending more time online – and not have it affect the dynamics of influencers and other affiliate marketers? People are turning to social media for a sense of community when stuck in quarantine, and it is people on social media who give influencers their cache. It is inevitable that those who live and breathe social media every day (influencers et al) will not be affected. These changing dynamics will affect affiliate marketing efforts and those who adapt and serve best will be positioned for success in and through this crisis.
Our methodology
Here's the process we followed to analyze the messaging and storytelling of these three companies:
Identify one clear element of the value proposition visible on the company's website. This represents the customer's Desire.
Pick one moral, essential emotion, and truth (MeET) that work well with the value proposition item.
Map a zeitgeist-relevant Difficulty (a.k.a. a "new normal" difficulty) to the items identified in steps 1 and 2. Things we considered: What's different for these companies' target customers right now because of the current environment? What's getting in their way, aside from the standard difficulties they might experience as they consider purchasing this product or service?
Build a suggested denouement for each company that takes steps 1 through 3 into account, complete with a sample story to tell their customers to really drive the point home.
Stories inspire action, dreams, and achievement. We're sharing these insights and constructive feedback because we know these companies can do better, just like my kids knew I could do better with my chicken shawarma. We want to help them get there, now and long after COVID has passed.
Now is the time to start cooking up stories for your business
In our recent blogs about COVID-era marketing, we've reiterated that pivoting your storytelling and messaging strategy right now is a marathon, not a sprint. You don't need to make any rash decisions, and it's okay to take your time as you figure it all out. In fact, it's better to be mindful about your messaging and roll it out slowly. Heck, look what's been happening across the USA with #BlackLivesMatter protests – companies need to take things day by day and make sure their messaging is relevant to what's happening at the moment. Rushing the process could end up alienating your customers, and if you're not careful, you may end up hurting your profitability, value to stakeholders, and overall business viability in the long run.
At the same time, you do need to start taking action. You need to meet your customers where they are, or else you risk being left behind. Do something. Make small moves in the right direction as you go through the storytelling "recipe" steps. It's better than going silent and leaving customers wondering whether they can trust your brand – and right now, every organization's job is to build trust (including many police forces across the country). Will your audience/market look to you as somebody they trust in based on how you've handled communications during this time?
There's never been a more relevant time to invest in trustworthy messaging and start making deposits into your "emotional bank account" with your audience. This all starts with being mindful about how you are approaching your storytelling right now – in other words, to build trust, you must make a commitment to yourself to prioritize storytelling, for the sake of your customers.
You might not have had bandwidth for storytelling before, and that's okay. But I promise if you don't invest in it now, you're only hurting yourself and increasing the risk of losing your core customer base as the world begins to recover. After all, as Intel's former chairman Craig Barrett famously said over a decade ago, the only way to survive an economic downturn is to "invest our way out" of it.
Just like you'll be able to apply your new quarantine cooking skills to your future dinner parties, you can start building your storytelling muscle now and apply it to your future marketing campaigns.
You've got our recipe – now it's time to start cooking! Book a complimentary 30-minute consultation with Go Narrative to discover how we can help you build your storytelling skills and craft the stories your customers need to hear right now.
Go Narrative is a Seattle Based marketing firm that assists business leaders in technology companies build and implement advanced marketing strategies. Our secret sauce is storytelling for business growth and transformation. We can help you cut through the noise and improve your reputation. We love helping business leaders understand, use and apply storytelling in business via writing, presentations, video, strategy and actionable plans. Get attention. Be heard. Sell more.
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