Crafting Compelling Strategic Messages | Jonny Holsten

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Jonny Holsten, Messaging Strategist and StoryBrand Guide at South Mountain Messaging. Jonny is a messaging strategist and short form copywriter, trained and certified as a StoryBrand Guide, he uses the StoryBrand framework to help businesses use messaging to communicate the problems they solve and how they make life better for customers. Jonny's expertise is eliminating unnecessary marketing language and replacing it with easy to read messaging that guides readers to take action. Jonny, thanks for joining me on Simpli.fi TV. Jonny Holsten: Happy to be here, David. Thanks for having me. David McBee: Of course, of course. I actually had a guest a few episodes ago recommend the StoryBrand book, so I'm eager to hear about what the StoryBrand is. Can you just dive right into what the StoryBrand framework is all about? Jonny Holsten: Yeah, absolutely. So, the StoryBrand framework is a marketing framework and the goal is to use storytelling in your marketing, but doing it in a different way than most people do. A lot of brands tell their own story and they want to tell their own story in their marketing. The StoryBrand framework helps you tell the story of your customer and then position your brand as the guide in that story that helps the customer find success. So, that's the skinny on the StoryBrand framework, it was created by a guy named Donald Miller, he wrote the book called Building a StoryBrand, and that's obviously what your previous guest was referring to as well. That's the StoryBrand framework. David McBee: Now, it sounds like it's the perfect framework for a business's website or maybe their blog or even their social media, but as you know, the Simpli.fi TV audience is made up of media buyers. So, can it be used to improve a display ad or a 30 second commercial? Jonny Holsten: Absolutely. Kind of how it works, to StoryBrand a business is you'll create the talking points of the framework, so the seven parts of the framework that you're going to talk about in your marketing. Of course, website, email, social media, like you said is kind of the go-to, but it actually works for any marketing. I've used it to help brands make a great keynote, refine billboards, and of course display ads, kind of like what you're talking about, is a great application for it. David McBee: All right. So let's role play just a bit. And imagine we are creating, either display ads or maybe a short CTV commercial, maybe even a 15 second spot. What would be some of the key elements of the StoryBrand framework if I were working with, say, a sporting goods store that is targeting outdoor enthusiasts, maybe someone who's really into hiking? Jonny Holsten: Yeah, okay. Well, what we would do if I were working with that company, is we'd work through the StoryBrand framework in order. So it starts with a character, that's the person watching the ad, this is the customer essentially is the character in the story. That character has a problem. They meet a guide who gives them a plan, calls them to action so they can find success and avoid failure. Those are the seven parts of the framework. So, what I would do first for this sporting goods store, let's say they're doing a campaign targeting hikers specifically. The first thing we would do is hone in on what's the aspirational identity of that customer, the person watching the ad. They most likely, after doing some digging with the brand, we discovered they're someone who wants to get up and go, they want to hit the road on the weekend and go have an adventure. And ultimately, they want to feel like they are prepared for any adventure that comes their way. That's sort of my guess at what an aspirational identity might be for that person. That would be the first step, is clarifying, what does this customer aspire to be, even if it's an imaginary thing or if it's a little bit hard to reach, what are they really after, is the first step? David McBee: I like that first step, you're not even starting on the creative or the story at all. You're really just identifying who you're talking to before you even begin. Jonny Holsten: That's right. And this can be, sometimes you can do that using personas or customer data. But also you can, just thinking about the aspirational identity is a really simple way of fast tracking, figuring out who we're speaking to before we do anything else. David McBee: All right, so where do we go from there? Jonny Holsten: So from there, the next step is to outline the problem. So, what is standing in the way of that person feeling that feeling? Why is our customer... Why do they not feel like they can get up and go have an adventure? And in terms of a sporting goods store, it's probably because that character in the story doesn't have the equipment or the gear necessary to go out there and find trouble on the trail or something like that. So, how this might work for a marketing message is we would say, "At Bob's Sporting Goods, we know you want to be prepared for any adventure that comes your way. The problem is you don't have any of the equipment necessary to brave the trail or get into trouble in the great outdoors." There's kind of the problem, you just don't have the equipment necessary, maybe it's a pair of hiking boots, maybe it's a hiking stick, maybe it's a GPS watch, but whatever the problem is, this character doesn't have the necessary equipment to go out there and become that aspirational identity is the next step, is figuring out what that is. David McBee: And of course, Bob's is going to solve that. Jonny Holsten: Yeah. So, we'd figure out if this was a specific product we're marketing, this would change some of the language. But if it's just the hiking gear in general, it could be a little bit more broad. But we'd outline what's standing in their way. So, they don't have necessary and proper equipment. And then we'd talk about how that makes them feel. So it makes them feel like they're unprepared or not able to maybe hang with their more adventurous friends, or we'd find some internal problem that the customer feels because of their lack of equipment. Those are the first three steps. David McBee: Okay. So I actually jumped ahead thinking I want to solve the problem immediately, but there's that extra step of considering how they feel. Jonny Holsten: Yes. So, the big thing in this framework and marketing in general is, people will start searching for a product or service because of an external problem. But they will buy, they don't want to hand over their money until we've named an internal problem, or we've kind of brought that up inside of them and they have an internal problem. So, this person might be intrigued by the ad because it says, "You don't have the equipment to go hike with your friends on the weekend.", but then they might like what we're saying. But then they're going to start wanting to buy as soon as we say, "This leaves you feeling left out at home on the couch when your friends are reaching the summit of Pikes Peak.", that's what's really going to help them start to tell that story of their success. David McBee: All right. And then, where do we go from there? Jonny Holsten: So the next step is to position the brand as the guide. So, "At Bob's Sporting Goods, we understand you want to be an adventurer...", an aspirational identity, "... the problem is you don't have the necessary gear to do that. This leaves you feeling left out." There's the three things we've already talked about. Now we're the guide. So the brand's going to play the guide. We're going to say, "AT Bob's Sporting Goods, we understand how lame it is to be on the sidelines.", something like that. "We understand...", you start with empathy, then authority, "That's why we've got five...", maybe it's five aisles dedicated specifically to hiking gear, or we've got a whole new launch of hiking boots, whatever product we're selling would fall into maybe the authority section. So, in playing the guide in a story, you've got to do it through empathy and authority. Leading with empathy makes you feel human to the brand or to the customer, and the authority is your credibility to actually solve that problem. It's like, I can understand someone's pain all day long. If I don't have the ability to solve the problem, I can only do so much. So, that's the next step, is positioning the company as the guide. David McBee: I got to say, I'm loving this so far. Keep going. Jonny Holsten: Cool. Well then next is simple, it's the call to action. So we'd say, "At Bob's Sporting Goods, we understand how lame it is to be on the sidelines, which is why we've got a whole new line of hiking boot or hiking gear. All you need to do is come visit the store." There's their call to action. So come in and see us, or maybe it's shop online depending on the ad of course, for you guys it would probably be a shop online type situation. And then we do transition... You could do a transitional call to action with the call to action, so it could be in maybe, "Take advantage of this discount or ask about our Labor Day sale.", something that kind of bridges the gap to them doing business. The next part of that is the plan. So after the call to action, we need to give them a plan to follow. So, simple three step plan. This could be, usually the call to action is how to start the plan. So, come to the store, pick out the perfect hiking boot for you, go hit the trail. That might be some kind of three step plan we can throw in there to help really build a bridge of our character feeling left out to now understanding how to work with our brand and also what life looks like at the other side is the goal of the plan David McBee: Is that it? Jonny Holsten: Well, at the end of the plan, we need to highlight the success and failure. The success could be, you can feel exhausted at the end of every Saturday, you had a great adventure, or you can start planning your next adventure, or that might be the success, is something related to, now the problem is solved, what does life look like? The other part is, if there's no consequence to not doing business with your brand, then you don't really have anything of value to offer. So we have to highlight what's the failure at stake for this character in the story. The failure is, they're going to continue to not experience exciting things because they don't have the gear. They might have the FOMO. They're going to continue to miss out on great opportunities. The failures and success is kind of the last part of that puzzle. So, when working with a brand to apply this on a whole, you map out all seven parts of the framework. But then applying it to maybe a short ad or something like that, we might pick two of the talking points, whatever we can fit into the right scenario, depending on the medium. David McBee: I was going to say it'd be impossible to do the entire story brand framework in a 250 by 250 display ad or even a 15-second spot, but I get that that's just a part of the overall process, so good stuff. Jonny Holsten: Yeah, absolutely. David McBee: All right, well, if someone wants to learn more about the StoryBrand framework or wants to get in touch with you personally, what's the best way for them to do that? Jonny Holsten: Yeah, southmountainmessaging.com is our website. And if you book a call on the website, you'd be talking with me. Also LinkedIn, Jonny Holsten, J-O-N-N-Y H-O-L-S-T-E-N. You'll see it, I'm sure in the show description. But that's a good way to reach out as well. We help brands apply the framework and we help marketing teams learn how to use it in all their content. So, that's what we do, and I just love this framework, it's super, super great. David McBee: You're definitely passionate about it and it comes through in what you're saying, so I appreciate you sharing that with our audience today. Jonny Holsten: Of course. Yeah, I'm always happy to do it. David McBee: Thank you so much for being here, Jonny, I really am grateful. Jonny Holsten: Thanks for having me, David. David McBee: And thank you guys for watching. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit Simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm David McBee, be awesome, and we'll see you next time.