The Humanized Marketing Podcast

Is your business shrinking?

When a business is shrinking or stagnant, marketers worry. And their worry pushes them into a frenzy, where they start solving different types of problems.

‘Oh, we have a lead generation problem’

‘Oh, we have a conversation rate optimization problem’

‘Oh, it's because we are not stuffing our blogs with SEO’.

Most of the time, these are the wrong problems. The actual problem is - ‘Your business has become a commodity.

In this episode, we talk about how we can convert a commodity business into a brand.

What if we had a system that could help us in creating content that is relevant to our brand and our mission?

The Solar System Content Model helps Creators and Small Business owners come up with content ideas and outlines for their Podcasts, Blogs and Videos. In this episode, we look at the nuts and bolts of this model.

Mike's coffee business was failing. He had tried multiple things to make it work, but all his tactics had failed.

Just when he was about to give up, Mike realized something. He was making the same mistake that most of us do. He was thinking too big!

Mike showed empathy toward a small audience, and today his brand (Death Wish Coffee) has become one of the most prominent coffee brands in the world.

Listen to this episode to hear the complete story. 

In this episode series of 5 episodes, I am helping Kunaal Naik build a strong narrative (or a brand story) for his business. This is the 2nd episode, and in this episode we explore -

1. The audience that Kunaal wants to attract through his story

2. The Job to be done framework and how to use it

This episode is helpful to anyone who is brave enough to create a compelling brand story for their brand. It's imperfect, but that's how we like it. 

In this series of 5 episodes, I am helping Kunaal Naik, build a brand story for his business.

Kunaal is a big deal in the world of Data Science. After having taught thousands of students, he is now looking to build a business of his own. Kunaal's intention is to build deep relationships with his 1000 true fans. And for that, he needs a story.

If you are looking for a step-by-step process to build your brand story (or a strategic narrative), I would strongly recommend listening to this one.

In this episode we cover -

- Why Kunaal wants to build a story in the first place

- Understanding the buyer persona

- Processing the insights about your audience using the "Job to be done" framework.

Enjoy.

A great brand story pulls the right people

Instead of pushing our marketing message down their throat, we can pull the right audience towards us. A great story cuts through the noise and gets the attention of the audience. It inspires them. It moves them from inertia. And pulling eventually leads to more profits and better impact.

There is a simple framework that we can use to create this story - The Old Game/New Game framework.

In this episode, I take you through the step-by-step process of creating a brand narrative by using this framework.

Your existing customers are a gold mine. They have a lot of wisdom to share with you... wisdom that will completely transform the way you do Marketing.

Asking the right questions to our customers gives us an insight into -

And so on.

But despite this, we often ignore the customers that we have. Instead of asking them questions, we move on to acquiring new customers. 

In this episode, I talk about the questions that you can ask your customers to get valuable insights from them. 

Every brand that aspires to build its 1000 true fans, needs a story. A story that pulls the right audience towards the brand.

Building a brand story isn't always easy. And so here are 3 themes that you can use to create your brand story. 

1. Good vs. Evil

2. Counter-intuitive thinking

3. Expert view

While Creators and Small businesses want to build an audience, most of them use a traditional vertical funnel to get the job done.

But if you study successful Creators like James Clear, Louis Grenier, Jonathan Stark, and many more... you would realize that their thought process of building an audience is entirely different. They don't depend on the vertical funnel.

Instead, they use a horizontal funnel. And this is what we discuss in this podcast episode.

Great storytellers collect ideas for stories. These are the ideas that they can use later in their stories. 

Now, this goes against the traditional image of a prolific storyteller who can pull stories out of thin air. But it’s the truth. Like a chef who keeps his ingredients ready, storytellers keep their ideas ready.

In this episode, we discuss 3 ways in which you can collect ideas for building kickass stories.