Creating A Memorable Narrative: Storytelling with Cory Firth
Written by Madyson Kiepprien-Fraser
Reading time 3:24 minutes
Did you miss this month’s episode? Or maybe you’re just looking for a short memory refresher? Either way, welcome to the Spark Compass Blog! A place where we summarize the key takeaways from every episode and share some memorable behind the scenes moments.
This episode featured Cory Firth, a psychedelic storyteller working for Nikean Foundation, who told us all about his perspective on brand storytelling. While we learned much, this author feels it is his duty to also share the story behind this week’s episode.
Have you ever heard of a little thing called Murphy’s Law? The adage stating everything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time? That about sums up our behind the scenes for this episode. From corrupted SD cards to robotic audio interferences, we faced it all.
So Cory, if you’re reading this, thank you for laughing it off and sticking with us to make a memorable filming session.
WHAT IS STORYTELLING IN MARKETING?
Storytelling is one of the most primitive forms of communication. We tell stories everyday even if we don’t always realize it. Stories about our day, a new restaurant we visited, or even about our aspirations for the future. By harnessing storytelling, you can make your business stand out and connect with your audience on a deeper level.
IS IT HARD TO REACH AUDIENCES WITHOUT STORYTELLING?
The answer given by Cory is that it depends. Countless brands use storytelling as an opportunity to brag about themselves and their accolades, which can leave much to be desired from a consumer’s perspective.
True storytelling begins with identifying the desires and challenges of your audience on an empathetic level. Once you’ve figured those out, you can create stories based on the transformative journey your product/service can provide to the consumer.
So yes, it can be hard to reach audiences without storytelling so long as a business is using true storytelling to connect with their audiences.
THE STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS TO CREATING A GOOD STORY!
Using the novel Building A StoryBrand by Donald Millet as his inspiration, Cory frequently uses a writing style based on the hero's journey. These begin with the want or desire of the hero and focuses on how the achievement of that desire transforms their lives. This transformation should be centered around a source-based place rather than a symptom-based place. For example, frustration is often a symptom of something occurring in your life. Instead of focusing on the feeling, you should explore the root cause.
That root cause is the villain of our story. It’s a problem that plagues our hero, causing problems both internally and externally, and it’s this problem that needs to be navigated as your story unfolds. If you don’t understand the villain to your story then you’ll struggle in communicating it to your audience. Shifting your approach to be more philosophical, so looking at why the problem matters to the hero, is a great way to reframe the villain of your story.
At the end of the day, you should position yourself as the guide rather than the solution. Think of yourself as someone who can lead the hero through their journey but ultimately, each step of the way will be completed by them. They do the work but you inform them of the steps. These styles of stories can empower your reader while still highlighting your business as a figure of helpful authority.
The last step is to include a meaningful call to action.
CALL TO ACTIONS, YOU SAY? WHAT ARE THOSE?
A call to action, shortformed to CTA, is exactly as it sounds. Your hero needs to be called to action in a few words or less. They can be indirect, which should be short and demonstrate trust, or direct, which provides value for free.
Indirect CTA’s are often vague and can be confusing for the reader. If their next steps are unclear or up for interpretation, then you should consider re-writing for clarity.
Direct CTA’s encourage the reader to take a specific action. These are usually statements like:
Download our free ebook
Sign up for our newsletter
Follow us on social media
DOES STORYTELLING CHANGE FROM B2B OR B2C?
The only element of storytelling that should change is the desire of the hero. It’s important to adapt and monitor which aspects of your story resonate with different audiences. Once you’ve noted which emotional tie relates to the transformative journey, then you can implement it into your story!
TO SUMMARIZE!
Storytelling isn’t all about you, remember to focus on the needs of your audience
Understand the impact and importance of your audiences’ transformational journey
Encourage them to take a leading role in their own transformative story
If you want to know more, check out this episode’s video!