Marketing Made Simple: A Step-By-Step Storybrand Guide for Any Business by Donald Miller, J.J. Peterson is an informative, practical, easy-to-follow guide to website content and email marketing. It tells how to build curiosity for your business through a one-liner and website, then enlighten the prospect with lead generators and nurture emails, then ask them to commit with a sales email sequence. Each chapter explains why you're creating the marketing piece, walks through how to write the associated copy, and tells how to implement it. The book is relevant to businesses that sell products or services.
The title is inaccurate, because the book only focuses on a very narrow sliver of marketing; it tells how to build an effective marketing website that gets visitors to subscribe to emails, but says nothing about how to get people to the website (SEO, PPC, social media, or other forms of marketing). The book rarely mentions research or studies; the guidance is almost entirely based on anecdotal evidence.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Below are my notes from the book.
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Making prospects curious and gradually enlightening them reduces sense of risk and increases chance of commitment (buying).
For most products, prospects need ~8 touchpoints before they're ready to buy. Because they ignore so much communication, you may need to reach out 50 times.
The less expensive your product, the more likely prospects will impulse buy, requiring fewer touchpoints. The more expensive your product, the less likely prospects will impulse buy, requiring more touchpoints.
Email marketing is best way to maintain relationship.
An Introduction to the Marketing Made Simple Checklist
To go viral, give people something very simple to think about and say about your products.
In marketing copy, don’t be cute or clever; be clear. Simplify your message and repeat it using same words.
Ensure one-liner makes sense, sounds good when spoken aloud, is easy to memorize and repeat.
Questions web designer should ask
Other than putting header at the top, order of other website sections don't matter much.
Include headline above each section.
Give short explanation of what you offer in clear layman's terms.
Don’t use header to differentiate yourself from others.
Explain most significant way customer's life will improve (more money, more time, higher status, more peace, better relationships, etc.).
Use clear, direct, strong CTAs (buy, schedule appointment, register, donate, etc.). General CTAs such as “Learn more,” “About us,” or “Our process” are weak and confusing.
Clearly offer something for prospect to accept or reject.
Put direct and transitional CTAs at top right of page and in middle of header, beneath headline and subtitle.
Images of smiling people enjoying your products work well.
Avoid sliders because visitors rarely read a slide before it changes, and after ~3 slides, they forget them all.
Background videos are good, but use static, not dynamic, text over them. This copy should be simple and memorizable.
Explain what can be won or lost depending on whether prospect buys from you, to invite them into story. Explain what it's costing prospect to not buy from you to increase value of your products. Explain what pain you'll help them end.
Pain examples: wasted time, missed opportunities, lost business, embarrassment, loss of sleep, frustration, confusion, isolation, lack of access, lack of guidance, loss of status, not reaching potential, losing to competition.
Don't be too negative, or prospects will tune you out.
Describe pain and problems in sentences, list problems you solve in bullet points, or share testimonial of customer explaining how you helped them overcome a challenge.
Explain what prospect's life would look like if they bought.
Benefit examples: save money, save time, reduce risk, get quality, simplify life, avoid hassles.
Be specific; avoid vague language like “fulfilling” or “satisfied.”
Be visual; use images and descriptive words to illustrate life they can experience.
Demonstrate both empathy and authority/competency.
How to communicate authority: testimonials, customer logos, press logos, stats (see below), list of sectors you work with.
How to communicate empathy: mention primary pain point, testimonials about how much you cared, stating, "We know what it feels like to …"
Show that you can solve prospect's problem because you've helped others.
Keep testimonials and other text in this section brief.
What to include in testimonials: overcoming objections, solving problems, added value.
Stats examples: years in business, awards, number of customers, hours you’ve saved customers, money you’ve made customers.
Present a 3-step plan. If your business requires multiple steps, combine them into 3 phases. Describe each step with 1-2 sentences about benefits prospect will see and other relevant details.
Example: At [company], we know you want to be [aspiration]. To be that, you need [something they want, related to your product]. The problem is, [what's holding them back], which makes you feel __. We believe [why they shouldn't have problem]. We understand [empathy]. That's why we [how you solve problem]. Here's how it works: [3-step plan]. So, [CTA] so you can stop [negative consequence of problem continuing] and start [how life will improve with your product].
Another way to write explanatory paragraph is to overcome objections. Write 1-2 sentences about each of top 5 reasons prospect wouldn't buy.
You can use both types of explanatory paragraphs, but separate them by a few sections so page doesn't have too much text.
Objection examples: product too expensive, doubt it will work for me, what if it doesn’t work for me, doubt quality is as good as they say, process will take too long, won’t know how to use it, have tried something like this and it didn’t work.
Video can be reading of explanatory paragraph over B-roll of people using your product. Add customer testimonials and/or message from CEO if you want.
Keep it short (3-5 mins).
Grab attention by bringing up prospect's problem early.
Consider giving away a longer video in exchange for an email address.
Put title above video to increase number of plays. Example titles: “How we’ve helped thousands solve X problem,” “How our process is different.”
If you're willing to show prices, put 3 price points and what's included with each. Prospects like to have options, and they'll be more likely to pick one. They usually choose the middle option.
If you sell many products, list best-selling ones on landing page and link to shop page with catalog-style layout. Or, on landing page, show categories (e.g., men, women, children) and on the page for each of those categories, show 3 price options.
Minimize links in header and put them in footer instead, so visitors don't experience decision fatigue.
Lead generator can be PDF, video series, free sample, live event, or anything you can give prospect that helps them solve a problem. PDF is a good 1st choice.
Lead gen PDF should take ~20 mins to read.
Even if subscribers don't open your emails, they're reminded you exist when they see the emails, which is good branding.
Goal of nurturing campaign is to make sure subscriber knows that you’re the first one they need to contact. Info you give away should be expert advice on what’s going wrong in subscribers' lives and how their lives can be made better.
Focus on selling a single product per campaign.
Choose a specific problem that campaign will help subscribers solve, and talk about it repeatedly in emails.
Strongly encourage subscribers to order; it's not enough to ask them to order.
If you can, give limited-time offer to create sense of urgency.
You can buy Marketing Made Simple: A Step-By-Step Storybrand Guide for Any Business by Donald Miller, J.J. Peterson as an ebook, book, or audiobook on Amazon.
This book provides useful advice about marketing with a website and lead generator, but if you don't have the time, skills, or desire to build your own website or do your own digital marketing, contact us to talk about how we can help.
