7 Questions to Ask Your Customers to Get Great Testimonials

by Ryan Toth | Mar 11, 2019 | Testimonials, Website

7 Questions to Ask Your

Customers to Get Great Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials cause stress for many people.

You never know what someone might say when they post a review. Even if they had a great experience.

And the nice folks who do post reviews or send you testimonials, they’re not copywriters. Even with all the goodness in their hearts, the testimonials fall flat.

“Jenny is great! We always laughed at her jokes!”

Do you think this testimonial is helping Jenny land new real estate clients? Nope.

I believe every word on your website has a purpose. Including testimonials.

Testimonials exist to build your authority. To help your potential customers trust you. They see that you helped someone like them solve their problem. And now they’re happy!

Most testimonials don’t accomplish any of those things!

What if you could get great testimonials, every time?

You can. It just takes a little intentionality.

Here are three steps you can take to get great testimonials (with a couple examples at the end of this post).

1. Send your customers a survey

The biggest paradigm shift I want you to take away from this article is that you’re not going to wait for your customers to write whatever they feel anymore.

You’re going to write their testimonials for them.

Gasp! But that’s dishonest! We don’t know what they’d say!

The truth is, most people don’t know what to say. They write a testimonial to help you out, but they don’t really know how. They don’t feel confident.

When you create a well-written testimonial that your customer agrees with and is proud to put their name on, you help them avoid feeling awkward.

To accomplish this, you start by sending them a survey. This survey will give you the details and insight you need to write a testimonial your customer is proud of.

The goal is to capture the most meaningful parts of their experience. Not only what’s meaningful to the person you’re sending the survey to. But also what’s meaningful to your potential customers.

How do you know what’s meaningful to your potential customers? Read on, friend.

2. Ask your customers these 7 questions

Helping your potential customers trust you is the goal of each of your testimonials. But what do they need to know to trust you? To understand this, let’s look at the journey each person goes through as they do business with you.

Every person on your website is there because they have a problem. You’re in business because you help them solve their problem, which means they can go on and live happy lives.

This is the foundation of the Hero’s Journey. It’s the story formula that many movies follow. And it’s the story you help your customers live.

Your potential customers intuitively know that they want to move forward in their journey. To do so, they need someone to help them solve their problem so they can win the day.

The questions in your survey must uncover the specific experiences your customers had as you helped them solve their problem in their Hero’s Journey.

Here are the seven questions you can ask to discover your customer’s experiences. If you’re familiar with the StoryBrand Framework, you’ll notice they line up with each of the seven aspects of a clear story.

1. What was your absolute biggest challenge prior to purchasing/joining/attending?

2. How did that challenge make you feel?

3. What changed after purchasing/joining/attending?

4. What specific results can you share?

5. What would you say to somebody on the fence about purchasing/joining/attending?

6. Anything else to add?

7. Do you grant permission for us to feature your company and this testimonial in our marketing materials?

Click here to download these questions.

Once you ask these seven questions, you’ll know the most important aspects of your customer’s experience. And you’re ready to write a testimonial that helps your future customers trust you.

3. Write their testimonials (and send to them for feedback and approval)

At this point, the problem you’re facing is the same as when your customers write their own testimonials. It’s so easy to write a bad one! Writing happy thoughts that mean nothing to your future customers is not your goal.

To understand how to write a great testimonial, let’s step into the world of music.

Have you ever played an instrument? One of the first things most people learn is that it’s not as easy as it looks. Just because it’s built to sound beautiful does not mean that it sounds beautiful in the hands of an amateur.

Hand your three-year-old nephew a guitar and you might find yourself grabbing your handy-dandy earplugs.

Why? What makes some sounds that guitar makes “music” and other sounds it makes “noise”?

There’s a secret here that every musician is keenly aware of: music is simply sounds subjected to rules.

There are keys you must play in, certain notes that pair well with other notes, a rhythm that must be maintained, and many more.

That guitar only makes music when the musician follows the rules.

And the same is true of words. This is why so many testimonials are just plain bad. Everyone has access to words, but not everyone knows the rules to follow to make them beautiful.

Here’s a simple 3-step formula you can use to write incredible testimonials:

Problem
Solution
Success

Look at the survey you sent your customer. We’ll walk through it to craft your beautiful, authority-building testimonial.

1. Start with the problem.

Use the first two questions from the survey to identify your customer’s external problem and their internal problem (the way it made them feel).

Click here to read more about external and internal problems (and the whole StoryBrand Framework).

You don’t have to include both the external and internal problems, but you do need to make sure the problem is clear—i.e., can a bystander, someone who hasn’t bought your product, understand what problem this person was experiencing?

Don’t move forward until that’s a solid YES.

2. Move to the solution.

The solution is your product or service, so you already have a pretty good idea of how it works. But look at question three to gain some insight into your customer’s experience of your solution.

Remember, you’re going to send this to them for feedback and approval, so lean on their experience. We want them to feel like this testimonial represents their experience.

3. Finish with success.

This last part is all about painting a picture of what their life looks like now. What success did your product or service help them achieve?

For my customers, the main success I look for is their business grew. This is primarily seen in its revenue stream. So the best success I can include in a testimonial is that revenue went up.

What is it for your customers? Look at question four. It’s okay to double-back and ask some follow up questions if their answer isn’t clear enough.

Look at these examples of great testimonials:

“When I initially hired Miriam, our company was struggling with interpersonal conflicts and poor communication across teams. With Miriam’s help, we instituted changes that improved our communication and enabled us to collaboratively develop a global-leading simulation product. Recently, we were acquired by ANSYS and are on the path toward even greater success.”

“Before working with Patty, I’d felt so stagnant and had no vision for the future I wanted. Patty had me take a personal inventory and helped me create clear steps toward my goals. Within a few weeks, I not only discovered that I want to start a business, but I also created my LLC and started drafting a business plan. I have the clarity I always wanted!”

And that is it! Now you have the tools to create great testimonials that build trust with your customers and clearly demonstrate how your company helps your customers solve their problems.

Good luck as you go about getting great testimonials for your website!

To your success,

Ryan

P.S. If you want your testimonial to be short, you can skip the first two parts, problem and solution, and only include success. This is the most important aspect of the testimonial.

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5 Tips to StoryBrand Your About Page [Step-by-Step Guide]

by Ryan Toth | Mar 4, 2019 | Copywriting, Success, Website

5 Tips for Creating or Improving an Awesome About Page—Can You Guess What They Are?

So you want to make an excellent About page?

When you Google articles on the “how to” of About pages, there are so many ideas—many of these contradicting—and now you are frustrated and more confused than ever as to how to begin or improve an existing About page.

This confusion can lead to a poor page—one where it meanders and rambles in such a way that your customer loses respect for your product/service—or worse, loses interest and leaves your site entirely.

One of the best reasons for an About page on your website is the opportunity to showcase your product/service and the culture/feel of your company.

Here is your chance to engage with your customers in such a way that causes them to want to pursue you more. And this pursuit can then develop into brand loyalty and revenue. When people feel like they can connect to you on your About page, something magical happens: they begin to think of you as a friend.

RELATED: How to StoryBrand Your Website

Here are five ideas—four do’s and one don’t that will make your About page both clear and stand out and help your customers fall in love with your company.

1. DO give the information that will help your customers see you are a real company made up of real people.

“Users seek reassurance … Subconsciously, they’re asking:

Who are you?

Where are you?

What do you do?

How are you doing it?

When did you start?

A good About page answers these questions directly by providing contact information (including a physical address), displaying photos of real people, and explaining what the organization is currently doing.” (UX Booth)

Answering these questions creates a real difference— like the difference between hearing about someone, versus actually meeting them. The About page gives other people the opportunity to meet you. And your job is to provide enough information so they can tell if they like you and can see you in a position to help them.

2. DO Share stories of how your company helped someone else.

It is all too easy to use your About page to brag on your company and its people. A little of this is okay, however, too much of it, and it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths. Instead of spending too much time talking about you, you, you, you, brag on your customers that you have helped.

“When you have a great story about how your product or service was built to change lives, share it. The ‘About Us’ page is an excellent place for it to live, too. Good stories humanize your brand, providing context and meaning for your product. What’s more, good stories are sticky — which means people are more likely to connect with them and pass them on.” (Hubspot)

If you look at MailChimp’s About page (listed as “Why MailChimp”) they start with a quote about who they are and what they do—in service of YOU.

At ClearBrand, we will wholeheartedly agree that your customer always needs to be the hero, not you—even on your About page.

3. DON’T drown us in graphics and information.

We are all overwhelmed.

In a world where we are overrun with visual noise (digital and actual), sometimes the way to get someone’s attention is by doing less. Look at this website called Alfred:

They do a great job of introducing themselves, keeping it clean and simple and clearly telling you how they help you, without being braggy. This isn’t on their main page—this is their “Our Story” page. You can never say too often, “We are around to help you.”

4. DO pay attention to your graphics, typeface and color palate—Make sure they are consistent with your overall website.

Don’t get so excited about your About page that you start introducing cool graphics and typefaces which don’t show up anywhere else in your website. It will give your site a disjointed look and distress (at an unconscious level) your potential customers.

As I looked at numerous posts on typeface, graphics and color schemes, it seems clear the real issue is in keeping consistent with your overall look and being thoughtful about what this graphic communicates and what that typeface symbolizes.

Maybe this is common sense, but then again, we all get excited with new and novel colors and graphics.

5. DO use your “About page” to tell a story.

Shopify has an excellent post on creating your About page. They state, “The best About Us pages accomplish their goals by telling a story about a brand.”

Here is an opportunity to share where you came from, how working with the people you love (your team and your customers) has brought you to this place where you are even better at serving your people.

I’m sure there were struggles along the way—it’s okay to share those. Just don’t let it get too wordy and cumbersome.

Some About pages make me want to leave the site immediately due to the sheer amount of words. I feel like if they say this much on the page, they’re probably not interested in me and my concerns. It’s like being at a party where someone monopolizes the conversation—we all get anxious when we feel trapped. Maybe that sounds ridiculous, but it can feel that way sometimes.

However, when people tell a story, I can get caught up in it. And, strangely, if it is written well, I feel like I can become part of it.

In Conclusion

Of course, these five items are not an exhaustive list. However, I do think a good About page engages with these five ideas.

I think it is a bit like cooking. There’s an art to it! There are many different ways to make an apple pie, but it does actually require apples. There are many different ways to construct an About page, however, if you make sure you include…

Answers to the basic questions of who, what, where, how, & when
How your customer was helped
Minimal elements
Consistency with your graphics and colors on your website
Elements of story

…well, then you are on your way to a great About page.

Do this correctly, and you have added a powerful asset to your website.

Do a poor About page, and you may end up having people leave without really giving your product or service a fair chance.

And this would be a shame, now, wouldn’t it—because you have something really great to bring to the world, don’t you?

To your success,

Miriam

Make more money with a website that sells

StoryBranding your website can be hard! That’s why we created this Ultimate Guide to Money-Making Websites.

In this guide, you learn:

– 6 things every website should include
– the first thing your website should display
– 3 ways to boost your ranking on Google

Plus, gain confidence that you’re doing what you need to to create a website that makes you money.

[StoryBrand Guide] 3 Ways to Make Your Customer the Hero

by Ryan Toth | Feb 25, 2019 | Character, StoryBrand Framework, Website

[StoryBrand Guide] 3 Ways to Make Your Customer the Hero

man reading a guide to seo for storybrand websites on his phone

Most marketing doesn’t work.

It’s tragic, but it’s true. Most businesses don’t see the return on investment they’re hoping for.

One of the primary reasons for this is that these businesses — or the marketing teams they hired — think they’re the star of the show. They wrongly believe people are buying their products because of how amazing the company is.

So they launch ad campaigns that set the company as the hero coming to save the day.

And they lose millions.

The problem with this is that your customers aren’t living that story. They’re living their own story.

In your customer’s story, they’re the hero.

Think about your own life. You wake up and you have goals you want to accomplish, problems to solve, issues to fix. You live your story through your own eyes. You’re the main character.

The same is true in your customers’ lives.

When you talk about how great you and your company are and how difficult your journey has been or how you’re moving up in the world, they check out. That’s not the story they’re living so they have no reason to be interested.

Instead of competing with our customers for the role of hero, it is our responsibility to empower them to be the best hero they can be.

This is what sets great companies apart. They do not engage with their customers to see how much money they can make. Great companies know their primary responsibility is to help their customers win the day.

Check out how Beats by Dre illustrated this in a 2013 ad:

They could have talked about how cool their headphones are. They could have shown images of their headphones at all sorts of different angles and described the incredible noise-canceling technology. But they didn’t.

They simply showed you how you can “hear what you want.” You can drown out the haters and get motivated to conquer your challenges.

Help your customers win the day

In a story, the character that helps the hero win the day is called the Guide. This is Yoda and Obi-Wan in Star Wars. It’s Morpheus in The Matrix and in Black Panther and Thor it’s T’Challa and Thor’s fathers.

I believe it is the responsibility of leaders and brands to be Guides. It is our responsibility to help our customers win the day.

That’s where your products and services come in. They’re like Batman’s utility belt. It doesn’t make him a hero, it provides him with the tools he needs to win the day.

Your customers already know they are the heroes. They live every day as the main character of their life. You don’t have to tell them.

What they don’t know is if you know what they’re going through.

Every hero has a deep desire, something they want. But some problem is getting in their way. It’s preventing them from getting what they want.

That’s why they’re on your website. They’re looking for a solution. The quickest way to their heart is to tell them you know what they’re going through. You can do this in two ways.

Here are three strategies from a StoryBrand Guide you can use to help your customers feel like heroes. And, ultimately, grow your business.

RELATED: How to StoryBrand Your Website

1. Tell them you know what they want

Think about the life your customers will have after they use your product or services. That’s what they’re really after. Do you sell a drill? Help your customers imagine the things they can build. Do you sell a wasp killer? Help your customers see how safe their yard will be.

When people see that you understand their deepest desires—the reason they’re seeking a solution to their problem, the life they want to live—they connect with you and trust you to help them solve their problem.

2. Talk about the problem they’re experiencing

The only reason anyone comes to your website is that they’re looking for a solution to a problem.

Most companies don’t talk about the problem they solve. This leaves their customers without context and without a connection.

Solutions don’t simply exist. They exist to solve something. A solution without a problem isn’t a solution. It’s meaningless.

However, when you talk about the problem your product or service solves, it has context. And your customers bond with you. They say, “Wow! They know what I want! And they know what I’m going through! They understand my problem, so they must know how to solve it.”

When you talk about the problem your customers are living with (and looking for a solution to) they connect with you and trust you to solve their problem.

3. Tell them how you help them solve their problem, through their eyes

Every business has a sob story about how hard it was to get started or how many hours it took to design the perfect product.

Your customers don’t care about your story.

When it comes to you, your customers want to know if they can trust you. That’s it. Do they care about all the tears you cried developing your product? Nope. It doesn’t matter to them.

What matters is this: can you solve their problem?

Most companies talk about their products as if it’s the customer’s job to solve the company’s problem—increased revenue. This kind of thinking leads to product descriptions that do nothing more than tell the customer how cool the company is.

We want to avoid that.

Change your mindset to change your marketing.

To begin, we need a different mindset. Your customers don’t come to you to help you solve your revenue problem. Instead, you offer a valuable solution to your customers that helps them solve their problem.

Your product descriptions should talk about your products as solutions to your customers’ problems. Here’s an example:

“Do you struggle to keep your breath smelling great throughout the day? Our all-natural mouthwash distributes enzymes throughout your mouth that eat bad-breath bacteria and keep your breath smelling great for 36 hours!”

See how the focus stays on the user? It tells them what they get rather than telling them how cool the product is. (FYI, I made this product up. I don’t know if this is possible, but it sounds good!)

Focus on what the user gets, not on what you provide.

It might feel like splitting hairs, but it’s an important distinction. When you tell your readers what they get, how it helps them solve their problem, and how it makes their life better, they buy more.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of marketing ourselves and our companies as the hero. After all, we live as the hero in our own story!

But when pull our head out of our story and consider the story our customers are living, we create an opportunity to build a relationship with them we would otherwise miss out on.

When we take on the role of the guide we are able to lift up our customers as heroes. And they welcome it! They feel supported and empowered to conquer the problems they’re experiencing. Which means they engage with you more and you grow your business.

To your success,

Ryan Toth
StoryBrand Certified Guide

Make more money with a website that sells

StoryBranding your website can be hard! That’s why we created this Ultimate Guide to Money-Making Websites.

In this guide, you learn:

– 6 things every website should include
– the first thing your website should display
– 3 ways to boost your ranking on Google

Plus, gain confidence that you’re doing what you need to to create a website that makes you money.

Say More with Less (How to Write Engaging Website Copy)

by Ryan Toth | Feb 18, 2019 | Clear Message, Copywriting, Website

Say More With Less (How to Write Engaging Website Copy)

If you are like most business owners, you own a product you love and you are proud of it.

You know people will become loyal customers for life—if they will only try your product. And so you talk it up and down and give lots of testimonials and 150 reasons why this product or service is the next best thing since sliced bread.

Blogs, email sequences, website copy (FYI, “copy” is another way of saying “content” or “words”). Words, words, words. —All in an effort to get your potential customer to realize their need for your product or service.

Meanwhile, people are leaving your site in droves. Leaving your emails unopened. Leaving your blogs unread.

Why?

As someone who is both a therapist and an Executive Coach, I listen to a lot of people. Do you know what the vast majority of them do in terms of their communication?

They ramble.

They use 1000 words, where 100 would do.

And, honestly, when I’m listening to a client in a therapy session, this is just fine. Even in a coaching session, it’s not a problem, other than time = money. But in advertising and communication about your product? Not good.

Instead of reading 100 words, your web viewers have to wade through 1000 while they try to figure out what you’re saying. This requires your readers’ brains to burn more calories to get your meaning.

The problem is, our brains don’t want to burn calories. So they check out.

Which means those 1000 words you wrote aren’t getting through to your readers and aren’t helping you sell your product.

My question to you is this: Can you say more in your website copy with less?

Keep what you need, get rid of the rest

I think the “say more with less” idea can take a lesson from simple minimalism. Basically, it says: keep what you need, get rid of what you don’t.

Erik Deckers, in his blog post Fewer Words, Greater Impact: How to Write Like a Minimalist, wrote:

“One myth people have about minimalism is that it means going without. A minimalist washes dishes by hand instead of using a dishwasher. A minimalist owns four dishes, instead of 12 full place settings, plus a set of China. A minimalist has very little furniture, and their rooms are nearly empty.

“That’s not minimalism. That’s spartan living. There’s a difference.

“A minimalist doesn’t have very much stuff, but they make sure that what they have does the most and is the best they get.

“Just like a minimalist chooses the things that mean the most to him or her, minimalist writers choose the best words laden with the deepest, richest meaning they can find.”

What I am encouraging you to do here in reference to your business, website copy and email sequences is to use the best words (and fewest) you can find.

For a website, we can narrow that down to three things:

1. What is the problem your product or service solves?

2. How does it solve that problem?

3. How does it make your customers’ lives better?

I feel like (perhaps due to SEO) everyone has created so much blah, blah blah in their marketing. We are tired of it. This is what has created (or at least contributed to) skimming.

According to High-Level Marketing: “A popular rumor floating around is that blog posts & web pages need to be at least 300 words long to appeal to search engines. This is not true.”

High-Level Marketing gives a list of 14 things which are important for SEO, but excessive word length is not one of them.

When my kids were little, I used to play this game with them (which drove them CRAZY). I used to ask them to tell me about the movie they had just seen or a dream they had in 2-3 sentences.

I think this came about because years prior to me having children, I was trapped once by a 12-year-old who spent forty-five minutes telling me the plot of a movie. He never took a breath, but just kept talking. I was miserable and felt trapped.

I would never listen that long for a product.

There is this rude, impatient person inside me who is saying: Get to the point!

I don’t think I’m so different from most people.

So how do we get to the “less”?

Edit. Trim. Remove.

Stephen King, in his book On Writing, says between draft one and two, you should remove about 10% of your writing. This is a good rule for copy-writing as well.

With your website copy, you should remove close to 50%.

Remove (and replace) long gangly sentences with shorter ones. Get rid of larger words. Remove extemporaneous “that’s,” “very’s,” “like’s.”

If I were to go back and edit the previous sentence, I’d get rid of “extemporaneous.” I can say exactly the same thing by just saying “remove the …” It doesn’t change the meaning and it makes the sentence more readable. Just because you may possess a good vocabulary, doesn’t mean your reader does.

Having a good vocabulary or proving your intelligence has nothing to do with purchasing your product or service. It doesn’t make people more likely to buy. It makes them more likely to check out.

Here’s another tip: When you read through your writing, whether website copy, an email sequence or blog, look for superfluous and verbose words to remove.

Again, if I were to trim the last sentence I would get rid of both “superfluous” and “verbose” and I would replace them with ”extra.” I don’t need to be redundant—both words mean “extra.”

Another way to remove copy is to get rid of “weak” words.

Neil Patel, in his article Words You Need to Edit Out of Your Blogpost, says there are some weak words, such as “very/really”, “Think/believe/feel” “better/ almost” “amazing”, “maybe/perhaps/always” and “just/ literally” He also advises against the passive voice of “is/am/are/was.”

I literally struggle with this all the time. I think it is almost (well, perhaps always) a way to get really cumbersome in your efforts to be awesome. In the end, using these words just maybe takes your message from better to bad. : )

Rambling is a copywriting sin

A couple of days ago, I was in a company working with one of the employees who spent an hour telling me something which could have been expressed in 15 minutes.

I let him ramble, partly, because I needed to be able to use his own behavior to illustrate to him how he talks on and on and on. I know most people would not be able to follow his train of thought without a huge effort on their part. Even I was pretty tired listening to all this.

This is what we do in our marketing efforts and in our website copy. We get lost in what we’re saying and go on and on. And, in the process, we lose our readers (and their business).

In one sentence, what does your product do?

In my therapy practice: I help people overcome trauma.

In my coaching practice: I help executives/companies realize their greatness.

At ClearBrand: we help people implement StoryBrand correctly so they make more money.

What does your company do? In one sentence.

It’s difficult to get it trimmed down, but the clarity is enormously useful to your clients.

It is important to be brief.

Our businesses are too important to risk losing people with our boring monologues. Your customers will leave your website without buying. They’ll put your emails in the trash. They won’t buy from you.

But when you say more with less, people stick with you and understand what you do. They give you the opportunity to talk to them. And they buy from you.

In Brief

If you look at the word count of this blog, I’ve already topped well over 1000 words.

How could I say this in less than 100?

People’s time and attention are valuable. If you truly want to serve them:

Be clear

Be concise

Show them how you can serve them in your website copy and email sequences

Make it easy for them to buy from you

Keep them engaged, but don’t blah blah blah them. That’s it.

To your success,

Miriam

Make more money with a website that sells

StoryBranding your website can be hard! That’s why we host a quarterly How to StoryBrand Your Website Masterclass.

Join StoryBrand Certified Guide, Ryan Toth, and dozens of business leaders as we go through the ins and outs of confidently creating a StoryBrand website that makes you money.

StoryBrand Website Examples

by Ryan Toth | Feb 4, 2019 | StoryBrand Framework, Website

StoryBrand Website Examples

Many people hear about the StoryBrand Framework and are excited to take the information and run with it, creating greater clarity for their business.

But somewhere along the line, whether through busyness or the complicatedness of life, you start wondering, am I doing this right?

I have felt that feeling myself. I wondered if I described my customer’s problem in such a way they identify with it. I struggled with getting my language clean and concise. I wrestled with being too “cute” or too “artsy” in my language. I was too verbose.

And, I think the biggest issue I had (and seen others have) is that I knew my product so well I started talking with ‘insider’ language — this is where everyone inside the organization knows what you are talking about because it is familiar, but others really have no idea. This is extraordinarily easy to do and a bit tricky to overcome.

When we’re not clear in our marketing or on our website, we lose revenue.

Many people are in business to improve their customer’s lives and make our world a better place — even if only in a small way. They hear talk of revenue and check out. Revenue isn’t the point for these folks. Impact is.

However, without revenue, there is no capital to invest in the world. Your impact diminishes. Many nonprofits or businesses with a social mission are forced to close their doors because they didn’t see the necessity of prioritizing revenue.

Whether your goal is to make a bunch of money or to have a meaningful impact, your marketing matters. Your message matters.

When I am trying to learn a new way of doing things, I love to see examples of people who are masters of that skill.

Just like bikes in a peloton draft off of one another, gaining speed from each other’s draft, marketers gain momentum and clarity by looking at examples of how to do it right. How to be excessively clear.

Here are six StoryBrand website examples

In this article, our goal is to emphasize the first impression, the first three seconds, and demonstrate how StoryBrand can make your website immediately clear. Find a full walkthrough of how to StoryBrand your website here.

Viewers only give you 3 seconds to tell them what you do before they decide to check out. If you’re not clear, they leave. We use something we call the “Grunt Test” to see how clear a website is. We look at the site for 3 seconds and ask these 3 questions:

What do you sell?
How does it make my life better?
How do I buy?

The companies in these StoryBrand website examples come from a diverse population of size and type. The common element is that they are incredibly CLEAR. In a quick scan of each website, it is immediately apparent what these businesses are selling and how to buy it.

Let’s look at some StoryBrand website examples to see if they pass the Grunt Test.

StoryBrand Website Example #1: CageRat Baseball

This certainly passes the test of clarity. Many websites don’t explicitly state what they’re selling. Users have to scroll all over the site and burn many mental calories to figure it out. CageRat clearly tells you what they offer. Let’s go through the Grunt Test.

What do they do? It’s a youth baseball training program.
How does it make your life better? It helps you empower your son to reach his potential. And, look at that picture! As a parent, I recognize what’s going on instantly. In fact, that’s exactly what I want for my son.
How do you buy? There are two clearly labeled buttons.

Let’s look at another website.

StoryBrand Website Example #2: Koha Pet Food

What do they do? They help your pet thrive with food that provides the best nutrition for your pet. This is extraordinarily clear.
How does it make your life better? Your pet is now thriving and healthy. And that picture helps me imagine how happy my dog will be when I start feeding him Koha!
How do you buy? By clicking one of those big, red buttons! So good.

Their photo makes you smile as you imagine your own wonderful dog leaping and enjoying his or her life because s/he feels good. All because of good nutrition. Koha is a great example of a clear message.

In this next example, this company took clarity even further — they put it in their name.

StoryBrand Website Example #3: Perfect Venue

Notice the photo and the wording. We aren’t left guessing what these guys offer.

What do they do? Help you find a venue for an event.
How does it make your life better? They don’t help you find a mediocre venue, they help you find the perfect venue for your event!
How do you buy? This one’s a little different, the main call to action is “Find a Venue.” There are two clear buttons for you to press to do that.

This next website example is a little different. It’s a person rather than a company.

StoryBrand Website Example #4: Judy Ingels

In this StoryBrand website example, it’s evident that even when a brand is a person all the same rules about clarity and message still apply.

What does she do? She helps you get a home loan.
How does it make your life better? You get to buy your dream home! And she also helps with the insecurity that comes with buying a house. If you have ever bought a home, then you know that it is a complicated process that can easily create tension and frustration.

Here is a great example of addressing both an internal and an external problem for the customer. Anxiety and frustration are strong emotions that motivate people. If your business can address my angst and also the “internal crazy”, then I am that much more willing to entertain your offer. And that makes you more money.

How do you buy? Here is another example of making things very understandable to the website visitor. Notice how easy it is to find the call-to-action button. Nice job!

StoryBrand Website Example #5: Zoe Facility Services

You don’t necessarily know what this business does from the name, however, the copy immediately tells you what this business is all about.

What do they do? They clean your facility.
How do they make your life better? You experience relief. You are free to focus on your core objectives. And your building is clean. Consistently.
How do you buy? Click the “Schedule a Call” button

StoryBrand Website Example #6: Colorado Mobile Drug Testing

All of the pieces that we have been talking about show up on this StoryBrand website example.

What do they do? Drug testing anywhere.
How does it make your life better? Gain confidence your team isn’t on drugs.
How do you buy? The easy to spot call-to-action button.

This company’s target client is someone who is not sure if their team is drug-free. Furthermore, it is difficult to get employees to go to some off-site location and get drug-tested. This would make me uneasy. Especially if the work involved any kind of precision that could harm other people if attention to detail was lacking.

Who comes to the rescue? You can, by utilizing Colorado Mobile Testing. They come to you and do the testing at a time that works for your people. The company is not the hero, the customer is. They save the day by bringing along someone who can really help, by helping you keep your team drug-free.

Now that you understand these concepts and have seen them implemented in several StoryBrand website examples, do you feel more confident as you try to change your own messaging? I hope these examples both inspired you and challenged you to change some of the messaging on your own website.

Don’t continue missing out on future revenue and customers because your messaging is clunky and obtuse. Learn from these StoryBrand website examples.

When people understand what you sell and how it makes their life better, they buy more. Take some time and see if you can get your website as clear as the StoryBrand website examples we looked at here.

And if you don’t have the time, let us help you. We’d love to help make more money with a clear story.

To your success,

Miriam

Make more money with a website that sells

StoryBranding your website can be hard! That’s why we host a quarterly How to StoryBrand Your Website Masterclass.

Join StoryBrand Certified Guide, Ryan Toth, and dozens of business leaders as we go through the ins and outs of confidently creating a StoryBrand website that makes you money.

A Step-by-Step Guide to StoryBrand Your Website

by Ryan Toth | Jan 15, 2019 | StoryBrand Framework, Website

A Step-by-Step Guide to StoryBrand Your Website

Most websites are a huge waste.

They sit out there in cyber-space and look pretty, but they don’t do you any good.

For many people, website traffic isn’t exciting. Instead of measuring engagement and giving you a picture of future sales, it feels like watching window-shoppers or drive-bys, where no one actually comes in!

This is not how websites are supposed to work. They’re supposed to bring in leads and sales.

Your website should increase your revenue.

The beauty of the internet is that it allows you to be in control of your destiny. Your website is no exception to this. There are proven methods of increasing traffic, engagement, and conversions – all so your business and revenue grows.

Today, I’m going to reveal to you the secret of making your website work for you. I don’t want it just sitting there—I want it to make you money!

You deserve a website that works.

But first, we need to understand your customers’ brains.

Human brains—your customers’ brains—are wired for survival.

Our brain’s main job is to keep each of us alive. (If you’re reading this, you can rest assured your brain is doing a good job!)

In order to keep you alive, your brain has learned to prioritize and focus on what is important to its survival and tune out anything that doesn’t matter.

Think about the last time you went to a restaurant. Do you know how many people were working? How many chairs were in the room? Probably not. Your brain didn’t care because those things have nothing to do with your survival.

However, you probably knew where the nearest exit was. Because this matters -In case of emergency, your brain is prepared to get you out.

What does this mean for your website? It means that if you’re not seeing the sales you want, it’s probable that your web viewers’ brains are categorizing you like the number of chairs in a restaurant – aka, not important.

If you don’t communicate why you matter to your customers’ (or potential customers’) survival, they don’t pay attention. They’re not interested.

And it’s significantly worse if your website is confusing. Your customers’ brains don’t want to burn precious calories trying to figure out what you’re saying. Burning calories puts their survival at risk. So, instead, they tune you out.

How do you change that? How do you convince your potential customers that you matter to their survival?

The key is clarity.

You must cut through the noise the rest of the world is blasting at your customers all the time — and you don’t do that by creating more noise.

Think about your favorite band. Noise or not noise? Definitely not noise. In fact, I’d call it music.

Why does one bunch of sounds feel like noise (garbage trucks dumping trash, your son or daughter banging on pots and pans, or even a Spanish guitar played by someone who’s never held a guitar before) and another group of sounds feel like music (Bach, Led Zeppelin, or Pentatonix)?

Structure.

Imagine taking the notes and sounds from the Bohemian Rhapsody and jumbling them up. It would sound awful! There is nothing unique about those sounds. That’s not what makes the song great.

What makes songs beautiful and meaningful is the structure applied to the sounds.

When you take sounds and apply structure and rules to them, they can become music. Our brain knows what they mean and what makes them beautiful.

Structure creates clarity.

This is also true for your website. In fact, it’s true for all your marketing and communication.

When you take your message or your words and apply structure to them, they become meaningful to your customers. Your customers know why you matter to their survival. And they listen! They lean in and ask for more.

They buy more from you.

Sound too good to be true? That’s not what Tad, the owner of CageRat Baseball, thinks. He’s seen firsthand how clarity and structure can grow a business.

After we redid his website, his youth baseball program doubled.

And I want to share exactly how, so you can do it too.

The StoryBrand Framework

The StoryBrand Framework combines brain science and the power of storytelling to create the perfect structure for your brand message. Stories have been compelling the human brain for thousands of years. They’re much easier to remember than facts devoid of a story line. Throughout history, we’ve been using the same story formulas.

This formula is cross-cultural, universal, and timeless. Every brain speaks the language of story.

When you apply this story structure to your brand message, your customers hear you. They understand why you matter to their survival and how your product makes their lives better. And, consequently, they purchase more.

We’re going to walk through the StoryBrand Framework piece-by-piece, but I want to show you the overview first so you know where we’re going. Here it is:

A character
With a problem
Meets a guide
Who gives them a plan
And calls them to action
That helps them avoid failure
And results in success

Think about a movie you saw recently and all the pieces will click together. Most blockbuster movies follow this formula perfectly.

Now, let’s walk through how to StoryBrand your website.

How to StoryBrand your website

To create clarity for your customers, so they know why you matter to their survival and buy more from you, we need to add structure to your message. So grab a pen and paper because we’re about to ‘kung fu’ your message into submission. We’re not leaving here until it fits the StoryBrand Framework and you have a solid plan for your website.

What follows is a set of instructions on how to StoryBrand your website. It can take some time, so plan on setting aside a chunk of time to think through each step and re-write your website.

Note: This is the second step you want. The first step is to read Building a StoryBrand, attend a StoryBrand Workshop, or take the StoryBrand Online Course and clarify your message.

A clear message is the crux of this whole process. Without a clear message, you’ll find it incredibly difficult to StoryBrand your website.

While all this may seem like an undertaking, it’s worth it! By the end of the post, you’ll have clear website content you can use to increase conversions and grow your business.

Most websites these days are formatted as one long page with multiple sections. This is perfect for telling your story. We’re going to devote each section to a part of it.

Grab a sheet of paper and imagine it as your website. In each section, you’ll write the main idea as a header then you can decide if you want to have a sub-header and how you’ll present the rest of the content. After we finish each section, draw a line all the way across your paper to represent the transition to the next section.

When you draw out your website like this, we call it a “wireframe.” It’s like a blueprint for a house. It’s the basic plan for your website. After you’ve done this, you can hand it to your web designer or developer and they’ll be able to turn it into your brand new website.

To make it easy on you, here’s a website wireframe template you can use.

Here are some StoryBrand website examples you can look at for inspiration: Colorado Mobile Drug Testing, Zoe Facility Services, Perfect Venue, Koha Pet Food.

It will also be helpful for you to have a separate piece of paper to take notes or brainstorm before putting your content on your wireframe.

Let’s go through it, step-by-step. (And don’t forget to download the website wireframe template here.)

1. A Character

Every story is about someone. This is the main character. But a story isn’t interesting if it just follows some random guy around for two hours. The character has to want something. The story has to clearly demonstrate what the character wants in the first few moments or it’ll lose the audience.

The same is true of your website. The first thing your website should do is tell your customer that you have what they want. Ask yourself these questions:

In relation to what you sell, what is it that your customers want?
If your customer gets what they want, how will their life be better?
If your customer is ready to buy now, how do they do that?

Write down your answers on your note-taking paper.

All of these questions are important because your customer has to know what you sell. But she doesn’t only want the thing you sell, she also wants the life that having this thing will help her have. Imagining how her life will be better is part of what’s driving her to look for your product.

If she’s ready to buy now, you don’t want her having to look around to figure out how to do that. If your “Buy Now” button isn’t clear, you risk losing customers.

Often, I see people trying to be really cute about this at the expense of clarity. Like this website:

Do you know what they offer? Nope. Do you know how it makes your life better? Me neither. They’re losing millions because their customers don’t know if this company has what they want.

Now look at this website:

storybrand website zoe facility services

This is the same company (Zoe Facility Services), but this is after we helped them clarify their message.

Do you know what they offer? Yep. Do you know how it will make your life better? Yep. Double win.

Now for the bonus points: What if you’re ready to buy? Do you know how you’d do that? Yep.

Ding ding ding! That’s what we want for your customers. They should have all three of their “want” questions answered without even scrolling. Here are those questions again:

What do you offer?
How does it make your customers’ lives better?
How do they buy?

Now that you have your answers, go ahead and put them on your website wireframe.

I like to have the biggest text be what your customer wants most, then use the sub-header text to get even more clear so there’s no question about what you do or offer.

Action steps: 1. Write down what your customer wants in relation to what you offer. 2. Then write down how having that will make their life better. 3. Make sure your “Buy Now” button is super clear.

Draw a line all the way across your paper and let’s move to the next section.

2. The Character Has a Problem

Have you ever seen a movie that didn’t have some kind of conflict? They don’t exist. Screenwriters and storytellers know an important fact about stories: the story is the problem. Without a problem, there is no story.

This is true of your customers as well. They wouldn’t be on your website if they didn’t have a problem they were hoping to solve.

Don’t miss this. It’s incredibly important.

Your customers are on your website because they have a problem. If you’re not talking about the problem you solve, your customers have no reason to be there.

Remember: the story is the problem. So talk about it. When your customers see you talking about the problem they have, they lean in. They get interested.

When you talk about the problem your customers are experiencing, they connect your product with their survival.

On your note-taking paper, answer these questions:

What problem are your customers experiencing that’s driving them to look for a product like yours?
How does that problem make them feel?

I know, I know, feelings aren’t always a favorite topic. But let me share a secret that most marketers and business leaders miss.

People buy solutions to their negative emotions, i.e. their internal problems—not their external problems.

Yes, you sell a product that solves the external problem your customers are experiencing. But that’s not why they buy. They buy because they don’t like the way that external problem makes them feel. They buy to solve their internal problem.

On your website, you need to talk about both the external and the internal problems.

Here are some examples of StoryBranded websites that do this well. Write down some ideas as you scroll through them.

1. Colorado Mobile Drug Testing

2. Carvana

3. Koha Pet Food

Lists work great here because they let you get specific without having to worry about grammar or formatting a paragraph. I like to have the header text be the main problem and have bullet points or lists of specific issues people might experience because of that.

Action step: Make sure you include both external problems and the emotions people experience because of them. Transfer some of your ideas and content to your wireframe, then draw a line all the way across your paper so we can move to the next section.

3. The Character Meets a Guide

In a story, if the character can solve their own problem, it’s not really a problem. It feels like a waste of time. So storytellers created another character who comes alongside the main character to help them solve their problem. This character is called the Guide.

In Star Wars, the guide is Yoda. The role of the guide is to help the main character win.

In business, you are the guide. Your company is the guide. And your job is to help your customers win.

When you position yourself as the guide, your customers connect your company with their survival. They want to do business with you because they know you want to help them solve their problem and succeed.

To be the guide, there are only two ways you can talk about yourself. If you go outside of these two categories in your marketing or on your website, you risk entering into competition with your customers for the role of hero in the story. We don’t want that.

Here are the two questions to answer to position yourself as the guide in your customers’ stories:

1. In what way are you similar to your customers?
2. Why can they trust you to help solve their problem?

Notice that there is nothing there about how hard it’s been to start your business. There’s nothing there about how you want to be a great leader to your staff.

It’s not about you.

Even here, when you finally get to talk about yourself, the story is still about your customers. Keep it that way.

They don’t need to know how cool you are or how hard you’ve worked. They want you to express empathy (the first question) and authority (the second question). That’s it.

This can be a couple of sentences on your website, a bio, or you can work empathy and authority into other elements of your website. Here are some examples of great StoryBrand website guide sections:

1. Flywheel

2. Learn to Make a Product

3. Colorado Mobile Drug Testing

Action step: Write down a few reasons people can trust you and add them to this section on your wireframe. You can use experience, like Colorado Mobile Drug Testing, symbols of people you’ve worked with, like Learn to Make a Product, or compelling stats, like Flywheel. Then draw a line across your paper and let’s move on.

4. Who Gives Them a Plan

As the guide to your customers, you have two responsibilities. First, give them a plan to solve their problem.

Your product or service is part of the plan, but it’s not the whole thing. Having “Buy Now” buttons all over the place is good, but for many people, they may not be ready to click. They might have questions or concerns they need to have answered first. Or they don’t understand how to use it.

Break down the process into 3-5 bite-size steps that make your customers say, “I can do that!”

Here are some examples:

1. CarMax

2. Hubble Contacts

This one doesn’t have “Step 1…2…3” but it could if they wanted and it’s a great example of how a plan can work.

3. Judy Ingels Consulting

Notice the variety in those plans. Your plan can be about the process to purchase, how to use the product, your onboarding process, or something else.

Having a simple plan is more important than what your plan is.

Don’t get caught up on writing out the perfect plan. It’s more important that you have one, even if it’s not the perfect one.

Simple plans work best. Your process could have 37 steps, but your customers don’t want to know that up front. They trust you’ll walk them through it. Break your 37 steps into three, simple steps.

Think about buying a car. There are many steps.

Drive to the dealership
Get matched to a sales person
Fill out a questionnaire
Pick some cars to test drive
Test drive each car
Look at the specs for each car
Talk to your spouse
Pick a car
Haggle about the price
Fill out some paperwork
Fill out more paperwork
Wait for them to wash it or get it ready
Drive off with your new car

Here’s how CarMax breaks down their process:

1. Find your car

2. See your options

3. Make your decision

Way easier! That’s what we’re going for. Don’t be literal about the exact steps people go through. Remember, your goal is to make your potential customers say, “I can do that!”

Take 60 seconds on this simple exercise. Ask:

1. Is it harder to engage with you or to use your product?

2. Whichever one is more difficult, break it down into three, easy steps.

Tomorrow, look at those steps again and make them easier.

If you’re following along on the website wireframe template, you’ll notice that after this “Process Plan” there’s another plan. The Agreement Plan.

The Agreement Plan is the perfect place to build trust with your customer. Many companies use it as “Our Promise to You” others list off benefits of working with them. Your main goal with this section is to increase trust with your customers. There are two ways I recommend doing this.

1. Respond to objections. Sometimes, people have a tough time getting over the hump and clicking the ‘buy now’ button. What are some of the questions or objections they have? On your note-taking paper, write these down. Now, next to each one, write down how you’d respond if you were talking to a customer face to face.

Are they concerned you won’t have their size? Your response might be: “Our one-size-fits-all [product] fits every size!”
Are they concerned it will break? You can state: “We guarantee it won’t break, or we’ll replace it for free!”
Are they worried it won’t work for them? Give them other’s endorsements as a response to their concern: “Over 10,000 five star reviews on Amazon!”

On your wireframe, write down your response to their concern. Don’t write down their objection, only your positive response.

2. Make a list of benefits of working with you or positive characteristics of your company. Maybe your customers don’t have objections, but they want to know why they can trust you over your competition. Make a list of why they can trust you. Then choose your top 4-6 reasons and put those on your wireframe.

Here are some examples of great Agreement Plans:

1. Allbirds

2. ConvertKit

Awesome. Now that you have this section of your wireframe filled out, draw a line across your paper and we’ll keep going.

5. Call Them to Action

People don’t act unless they’re told to act. Say it with me. People don’t act unless they’re told to act. This is the second responsibility of the guide in a story, to call the hero to action.

This fact of life kills so many businesses.

Nice business owners, who don’t want to “be too pushy” fail to ask for the sale either go out of business or limp along for years barely making it, paying themselves half of what they should.

I don’t want this to be you. Let me kill that nasty rumor once and for all. When you don’t ask for the sale, people don’t see you as nice, they see you as lacking confidence in your product. They see you as weak, hoping you’ll buy out of sympathy or empathy … almost like a “charity” buy.

When you ask for the sale, people don’t think you’re pushy—they think you’re confident.

I’d rather do business with a confident company than with an insecure one who’s asking for a handout.

So let’s all agree to ask for the sale. After you see the increase in conversions, you’ll never turn back.

The main way to call your customers to action and ask for the sale is to have a clear “Buy Now” button (or “Schedule a Call” or “Add to Cart” or whatever your first action step is). I like to put these all over the website so that the moment a viewer is ready to purchase, they don’t have to search for the button.

Often, people want to see exactly what they’re getting before they buy. So I’ve found it valuable to include a section that I call the “Offer” or “What You Get” section. This one’s simple:

1. List off everything your customers get when they buy your product.

2. Put a “Buy Now” button right after the list.

Here are some examples:

1. Nusii Proposal Software

2. G Suite

There was some scrolling required on this one, so you can’t see all the differences, but I love how clear their call to action and “Get Started” buttons are.

Brainstorm on your note-taking paper, then transfer your best ideas to your wireframe. Now draw a line across the paper and get ready for the next section.

6. Help Them Avoid Failure

At this point on your website, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the solution to your customers’ problem. It can be easy for them to forget why they’re here. They’re imagining themselves with your solution and aren’t thinking about their problem anymore.

This is mostly good. We want people thinking about how their life will be better with your product or service.

But if there aren’t stakes—if there isn’t a possible failure—there’s no reason to buy from you.

We must remind people why they came to your website in the first place. They have a problem and if they don’t purchase your solution, they will continue living with that problem. And it might even get worse.

We don’t have to go over the top with this one. Failure is like salt. Too much ruins a meal, but a little dash adds the perfect zing.

On your note-taking paper, answer these questions:

If your web viewers don’t buy your product, what problems will they have to keep living with?
Will things get worse? If so, write down some ways that might happen.

On your wireframe, there are a couple of places you can put your failure section. It can go right after your “What You Get” section. Or it can go right before it. The reason for this is that reminding them of their potential failure helps drive people toward purchasing. So I like to have it right before the section that details what and how to purchase.

Wherever you choose to put it, it is important that you have this next section come after it.

7. End With Their Success

Success is the most exciting section for me. It’s the happy ending! The hero accomplishes her mission, the couple ends up together. The character gets what he wants.

It’s what your customers are hoping they’ll experience.

We want your customers to imagine the life they’ll have after they buy your product or service and solve their problem. What will their life look like? Get specific. Imagine all the ways your customers’ lives will be better, then write down your favorites.

In this section, you can use images or bullet points. Maybe even testimonials. Pick the clearest way to show your customers how great their life will be.

Feel free to sprinkle a little success throughout your website. Actually, sprinkle a lot of success! It should be everywhere. All your images should show happy people using your products. You can’t have too much success.

Finish with success.

Success is the happy ending, so you want it to be the end of the story you’re telling. Make sure you have success after your Failure section or “What You Get” section (depending on how you go about it). This should be the end.

The only thing that comes after the end of a movie is the credits. For your website, that’s your footer, a contact box, maybe some FAQs.

Most websites don’t have a dedicated Success section. They normally include success throughout the website, then include it in the CTA or Offer section. Here’s an example:

1. StoryBrand

Notice how this flows from Failure to the Offer and Success. The Success (the part that gets people thinking about how great their life will be) includes the “What’s inside the Course?” section and the line right after it drives it all home: “A single paradigm shift from this course could get you a massive return.”

Just outside of this screenshot is the “Buy Now” button. So StoryBrand combined multiple sections into one, beautiful section.

Conclusion

You made it! You have a full website wireframe, ready to grow your business.

If you’re not going to build out your website yourself, you can pass your wireframe onto a web designer or developer. Most web designers and developers can take your wireframe and bring it to life (and you’ll probably become their favorite client for being so prepared).

Don’t let your website sit in cyber-space and waste your time and money any longer.

Use these principles to StoryBrand your website and you’ll see why StoryBrand works.

Your customers will understand you
Your sales will increase
Your average session duration will increase (this is a Google Analytics metric that tells you if people are reading and engaging)
You’ll see more engagement

I want these results for you, and more. After you StoryBrand your website, track how much better it does then send me an email to share your success!

To your success,

Ryan

Make more money with a website that sells

StoryBranding your website can be hard! That’s why we host a quarterly How to StoryBrand Your Website Masterclass.

Join StoryBrand Certified Guide, Ryan Toth, and dozens of business leaders as we go through the ins and outs of confidently creating a StoryBrand website that makes you money.