Why Storytelling is so Important for 

Product Marketers ?

Back in the late 2000s when he walked into the Venture Capitalist’s office with an idea of sharing apartments and homes, Brian Chesky didn’t jump straight into the business modeling, projections and cost-benefit analysis. Rather, he proclaimed, “we are literally going to give people a home away from home.” and “If you have a home, you are an entrepreneur.” The rest is history!

In those early fundraising meetings, Brain, as a product owner, was doing something crazy; aside from contesting economic projections, he was narrating stories and hitting the right emotional chords and pain points.

For telling a product story, the Product Marketing Manager (PMM) needs to identify the real mechanism behind the problem that the prospects face; the reason why customers should have a particular product or feature in their lives.

Good Products lose if you don't understand the Croc Brain!

A good product or a feature can lose to a below average product if the later is portrayed in a more compelling picture with underlying benefits. Let me explain why?

Ever heard of Croc Brain Filters?

If a Product Communication is to be successful, it ought to break Croc Brain’s 3 filters:

1. The Lion or Rabbit Filter (with this help me or hurt me)

2. The Geiko Filter (is this simple of complex)

3. The Curiosity Filter (is this new or old)

A good product story is meant to break all the aforementioned filters.

3 Reasons Why Storytelling is Important

Now, lets enlist three key reasons which make storytelling so important for Product Management:

1. Stories kill the noise!

In the B2C model, the goal of a Product marketer shouldn’t burden the consumer’s mind with heavy specs and facts. Your customer doesn't care about ; the algorithms, the core of your processor or the heavy RAMS; the customer simply needs a fast device that runs seamlessly. Therefore, we have to simplify our message as much as we can.

2. Good Product Stories involve Emotional Foreplay

Consumers make decisions based on emotions and then later justify them through logic. It is a proven fact that for an average consumer, Emotional Appeals derive far more results than Analytical Appeals. Human beings are averse to pain so, any emotionally appealing story that alleviates consumer pain points with a promising future, is likely to bring conversions.

3. We remember stories not facts!

In his book Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff says that it’s the emotional moments, where something intrigues your audience, or worries them, that they’ll remember. So why not package your pitch into story form—something with emotional resonance, something that intrigues them, makes them curious, and makes them want more—so you have some control over what they remember?

So, now you know three important reasons why storytelling is so important for Product Marketers and Managers. However, the question remains, how can a good Product Manager integrate the storytelling into the Product Management Frameworks?

In my next post and article, I will be discussing some rules for implementing storytelling into the Product Marketing framework. Also, I will be touching upon how a Product & Brand Managers make use of storytelling concepts. So, until then, stay tuned and stay connected!

Let me end this article with Steve Job’s quote that brings to light the importance of storytelling:

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.”