why start-ups need stories to grow
TRANSCRIPT
Why start-ups need stories to grow StartupBootcamp, Amsterdam, 29th May 2015, @corhospes
70 - 95 % start-ups fails
Failure is the norm
Fail: -slecht idee
-te vroeg -slechte marketing
Silly Idea; Too Early Idea; Marketing Sucks
Innovative Idea; Old Skool Marketing
What the Fuck is that?
Ever heardSure you’ve heard of contentmarketing
Contentmarketing is a marketing technique of creating and
distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly
defined and understood target
Joe Pulizzi, founder CMI
Create passionate stories worth sharing
66% of startups reported that content marketing
was important in driving growth in their business
(source: WP Curve)
Without stories content is just a bunch of noise
Wow, great content.
Wow, great content.
Steve Rubel, Chief Content Strategist
Edelman
We need to look at content more as an art form
than a marketing form.
When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just
wait for the story to come. I don’t choose what kind of story it is or what’s
going to happen. I just wait.
I didn’t want to become a writer—it just happened.
It’s a kind of gift, you know, from the heavens. So I think I should
be very humble.
When I started filming I just realized that I only had one talent:
making movies.
The boys in my class liked my films and stopped bullying me.
From that moment on I just wanted to make films.
What are the bastards hiding.
We need to find out what’s
going on
What’s your story
What do you do; Why do you do it; What’s your goal.
Stories connect
1) ‘Behind every person, behind every company, behind everything, there is a story about how it got there. The most relevant stories connect on a personal level.’
2) ‘Simplify.’
3) ‘I find often in business we only want a logical, mathematical, financial dealing, and the reality is that you have to be about a story to connect. To connect to a person, to a customer, to a product.’
4) ‘People don’t wanna be sold. They wanna be inspired.’
5) ‘If you kinda embrace who you are and find an elegance and a beauty in it, it’s amazing where it takes you.’
6) ‘What’s important for the company it’s what’s important to connect on the human level.’
7) ‘You can’t sell something until you entered someone’s mind. We talk about marketshare, but it’s really about getting mindshare.’
8) ‘As a storyteller you wanna connect but you have also a message to convey. It is a bit of an art why is this relevant. Why should you care.’
9) ‘The return on storytelling is that you make a connection. Are people finding value in it enough to share it. Off course in business there is always some return in investment from a financial perspective. But I’m a big believer if you plan enough
seeds, if you made yourself open enough, people understand and relate to your story, the commerce will follow.
Let the staff/workers tell your story
Passion/ Hobby
Person behind the product
Users
Let customers tell your story (Starbucks: the third place)
Stories moves people
Daniel Kahneman ’Thinking fast and slow’ Nobel Prize Economics
“If you want to persuade people
use personal stories. No statistics.”
Use smells, colors, flavors
and movement to activate the brain
+ The more images and metaphores, the more brain activation
‘The harpist was playing nice.’
‘The harpist touched
all my strings.’
‘He felt sad’
‘Sadness burned
his heart’
Synchronously
Stories can shape your audience
It starts by knowing who you are and what you stand for —without that, you are all over the place.
And try a lot of things.
Beth Comstock CMO GE
Many retailers see internet and social as an end in itself. They forget that
online should be an extension from their store. They forget the essential
question: 'who am I’. What is the concept of my shop. What is my core, my distinction. Why do we
do what we do .
Menno van Meurs Tenue de Nîmes, Amsterdam
Great stories are a competive edge: easy to attract an audience
(investors, employees, media, partners, customers)
Expertise/ skills
Trust
Visibility Awareness
Nobody cares about products and services.
What they care about are themselves and what they care about is
solving problems.
David Meerman Scott
People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want to buy a quarter-inch hole!
Theodore Levitt (economist, lecturer Harvard and editor HBR)
Solution hotel: not a bed but a good night sleep
Solution bank: not mortgage but happiness
Solution CRM software: not technique
but more satisfied customers
Don’t talk about drills, beds, mortgages, CRM software
or about any product or service.
Talk about the solution you offer
I’m Winston Wolf, I solve
problems
Pulp Fiction
Listen to understand, not to sell
What’s your
solution?
First serve than deserve
Help!
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down. And I do appreciate
you being ‘round. Help me get my feet back on the ground. Won’t you
please, please help me?
Content driven experiences
SAVE them
Product Solution/ Service
Place Access
Price Value
Promotion Education/ Exchange
Source: Harvard Business Review, ‘Rethinking The 4 P’s’ (Ettenson, Conrado & Knowles)
Content is king
Content is lackey
(met dank aan Reg van Steen TNS NIPO)
Who’s your audience
Ich bin kein Buyer
Persona
Commom interests (Shared values/targets/frustrations
hobbies aso)
Niche
Do not make content for anybody, but for somebody
Make an appointment
with your audience
Fans, followers, friends: subscribers (opt-in)
No campaigns
No campaigns
Content based relationship Long term
Cor Hospes Author, Advisor,
Speaker, Inspirator and Creator
# Former Independent Journalist and Copywriter (20 years) # Trainer # Founder SMC058 # Founder Content Club Netherlands # Jury Chairman Content Dutch SpinAwards
Wrap up
Start-ups Why not using content?
#Time (71%) #Don’t know how to create
good content (14%) (source: WP Curve)
Joe Pulizzi, wereldwijd contentbaas
CM World Sydney
Don’t treat content as a price tag,
but as a product
Distributie = king
Make your audience
care
Involve them Touch them Move them
Relevant (brand: DNA)
(audience: SAVE
Awesome
Consistent
Value
