As i’ve been reading the excellent book called “Story telling - branding in practice” i just wanted to share some reading notes:

• the four elements of storytelling
• Message
• keep it simple stupid
• communicate only one message at a time
• Conflict
• The solution shouldn’t be obvious (otherwise your story will become boring)
• There shouldn’t be too many sub conflicts
• characters
• They use a derivative from Propp called Greimas
• A Hero, an adversary, a benefactor, a benefactor, a goal, a beneficiary
• plot
• beginning, middle, end (classical structure)
• you need a good lead to grab attention ! (it’s funny to see soo many similarities with copywritting textbooks)

More than 600 marketing messages per hour/day/week how do you succeed in transmitting your value proposition to potential customers?
According to the marketing experiments compendium using the transparent marketing principles will help you to achive outstanding results:

• Tell the truth (the real one, not the one you perceive, any customers testimonials or complaints to refine your thoughts?)
• Purge all vague modifiers (no subjective adjectives, adverbs and propositional phrases)
• Let someone else do your bragging (voice of customers, reviewers, peers…)
• Substitute general descriptions with specifics facts
• Admit your weakness

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Have fun!

Jay Abraham reading notes:

List of the ten worst mistakes a business does

1.    No testing. (it could be implemented for a niche website, like for example you do two different versions of the website or two different versions of the opt-in that you can change each week. At the end of each week note the stats and make a report.
2.    Running institutional advertising instead of direct response advertising. (it only highlights stability and oldness, there’s no focus on the benefits, there’s no direction toward a decision or an action. Instead direct marketing tries to generate an immediate response. Direct advertising provides a story and presents reasons why your company is better than others and it’s supported by facts. The prospect is only concerned by the benefits you render to him. You need to tell the customer what he has to do next (how and who to call), remind him the risk free purchasing deal and the most important, what can he expect from owning your product or services.
3.    Not ascertaining and developing your USP and articulating it clearly as a part of all your marketing. You should have a USP (best products, lowest prices, providing services or education, no out-of-stocks, 24/7 customers services).
4.    Not having a backend (you may loose money up-front but you need to evaluate what’s the real value of a customer over time. Thanks to the value of the backend of each customer you’re able to calculate the real ROI of an advertisement. You need to innovate in order to harvest the “residual value” of the customer.
5.    Failing to determine and address prospects and customers needs. Identifying needs is a key to success even thought it’s not possible to be all things to all peoples, in this situation the image is diluted.
6.    To forget or never consider the fact that you have to sell and educate your way out of a business problem. If you want that your customer enjoys the special price that you offer him you need to educate him to appreciate it, indicating him the real reasons why you make such an offer (inventory overstock for example). Integrity is a key to success, for example if you can’t keep fulfill your obligations it’s good to inform them and to give them a small gift (much cheaper than a refund).
7.    Doing business with your company is not easy, appealing, desirable and not fun.

8.    Failing to tell customers the “reasons why”. Whenever you make an offer, run an ad or whatever you need to explain to your customer why you’re doing such a thing (you’re cheaper because you buy high volumes, lower overhead etc.)
9.    Not sticking with marketing campaigns that are still working. Therefore you loose the cumulative concept, don’t allow the dynamic of testing, you dilute your company’s image. You need to test! Instead of taking arbitrary decisions. Don’t never ever abandon the best performer until you find something better.
10.    When preparing ads forgetting to focus on the intended customer and no one else. You need to attract the attention of the target audience in the headline (and qualify it if the context is too broad). State your proposition or offer, in the rest of the ad you need you need to present support and develop and the reasons why the prospect should choose this opportunity. Finally tell the prospect how to act. (no abstract headlines, target your customers.)