Growthtale - Random Digital Marketing Tales
Growthtale - Random Digital Marketing Tales
The Future of Product-Led Storytelling with Clair Byrd
Guest Speaker: Clair Byrd
Clair Byrd is a partner and Head of Marketing at Wing Venture Capital, responsible for all internal marketing programs, as well as working side by side with Wing companies on marketing and growth initiatives. Wing leads Seed and Series A financings in transformative enterprise technology companies.
Prior to Wing, Clair led Solutions Marketing at Twilio, an iconic company in the process of radically shifting the way we think about communications, software applications, and how modern enterprises engage customers. Previously, she led marketing at the product design platform InVision, where she and the team grew their install base into the millions and established them as a “household name” in the design space.
In this episode, we have an AWESOME talk about #storytelling and why it should be at the heart of every brand. We discussed the following topics: 1. What is Product-Led Storytelling, and why is it important for any business, 2. What are some strategic steps that businesses should follow when they want to market their product using the art of storytelling, 3. How product-led storytelling fits into the different marketing funnels and the different touchpoints of the customers’ journey, 4. Are any specific skills someone needs to have to create successful storytelling for a brand, 5 Trends & innovations in storytelling, 7. How easy it is to be ethical in digital marketing and, most specifically, in storytelling development.
You can find Clair via email at clair@wing.vc
Websites:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of growth. We have, together with us Claire bird. She has a huge experience in content marketing and strategy experience has been involved with brand development, UX research, design and users and related content strategies. Singh has been a senior director at Twilio, and head of marketing at innovation in the past. Thank you, Claire, for joining today and agreed to discuss about the future of product led storytelling. Thanks so much. I'm happy to be here. So can you please describe your experience in the digital marketing industry? And what inspired you to begin a career in this field?
Clair Byrd:Sure. So I'd be happy to share my experience thus far in digital marketing, I think, you know, I have a rather atypical background for a digital marketer in the Silicon Valley, I actually moved to San Francisco about 13 years ago as a chef. And I actually pull a lot of my inspiration for how I go to market and how I operate in a marketing team from my experience in the kitchen. But what led me to marketing is when I got out to the Bay Area, you know, I experienced all of the amazing innovation in the startup. And I was like 2008. So it was right at the beginning of the second boom, for, you know, app development. And it's really pre Uber really being a big thing, pre Airbnb, and I got involved with a software enabled beverage startup. So they were looking for someone who was in the food and beverage industry, but also had the ability to, you know, work on events for them to write some copy, maybe even develop some recipes around their product. And so I actually ended up doing my first ever real marketing job that way. And that company was actually backed by Tony Shea, who is who has recently departed, CEO of Zappos. And so after I had gotten exposed to Tony and got some experience under my belt with, with this beverage or software enabled beverage company, I was able to transition on to Tony's downtown project, which was a private revitalization fund for downtown Las Vegas, recruiting startups and small businesses to downtown Las Vegas. It was a really amazing experience, it was really life changing for me. And from there, I was able to really transition very easily into tech because I'd been working on the ground with technology companies in Vegas to help them build early communities understand how to talk to their customer. And and then I got my first roles in technology and services go from there.
Eleni Kolliga:Nice. Oh, it technologies, right? No, it's actually a wow sector since so many technological revolutions, especially it's our marketing. But since you mentioned, can you tell me one common thing that digital marketing has? And Keaton maybe?
Clair Byrd:Absolutely. So what motivates a chef is the very first bite a guest takes from their first plate. And to the action to get to that point is actually incredibly complex, you have to manage the waitstaff you have to manage six or seven chefs in the back of house, you have to have designed the plate already around how you wanted that person to experience their first bite, you had to do all of the prep for all of the things that go on the plate. And then when all of those things are in place, you actually have to be able to execute with excellence every single time repeatedly over and over and over again. So the process to get there is actually a ton of planning. In the industry, we call me sunplus, which means everything in its place. And so the way that I run marketing teams is deeply pulled from that experience of orchestrating different things from different parts of the organization. Also, that that individual moment, that first moment around the customer experience is beautifully designed exactly what that person wants at that moment in time. And repeatable over and over again.
Eleni Kolliga:Wow, actually, it's very good. I could think that let's dive in now on how to create a successful storytelling for a brand. Can you tell what is product lead? So telling for you? How do you define broadly sobering and wise potent for any business?
Clair Byrd:So the product lead storytelling to me is the type of storytelling that you employ when you are marketing to a user, or an operator, someone who has to engage with your product every single day. And what that means to me is explaining and then bringing the operator or the user along on a journey about how that product can positively benefit them in their professional life. So product lead storytelling to me means you know, how do I create this narrative for a user in every moment and every place that they're touching my website, that they're touching my product that they're experiencing my content out in the, you know, broader business marketplace, that helps them understand how my product that I'm marketing at that moment in time can make their work life better can help them get promoted, and actually giving them the tooling and the resources to do that through the product.
Eleni Kolliga:Interesting. You said for its user? So do you think it's easy to have one storytelling to address all the needs of the different target groups, the different personas.
Clair Byrd:So I think that for any, any, any company or any product that's experiencing product, lead growth, or self service growth, where you can sign up for a product and instantly start using it, there is one steel thread that unifies that audience. And it's the marketers job to figure out what that steel thread is. So even though someone might be have a slightly different title, or have a slightly different role, there's some problem some pain that you need to find the painkiller for. And so if you can accurately determine what the painkiller is in a relatively simple way, then you can build experiences content, you can build a whole bunch of stuff around that steel thread, that one single pain point that draws everyone together into using the products. Because I ultimately, I am not a huge believer in personas, I actually don't think that they're particularly useful. I am a big believer in jobs to be done. So what is the job that needs to be done by the person who is signing up for your product, and that can be so different depending on what what product it is, obviously, but it's probably similar based on who is actually using your product or what so for example, you know, Twilio is quote, unquote, the developer company. But there are tons and tons and tons and tons of different types of developers, different languages, different communities, front end back end, you know, there are a ton of different segments or personas of developer, but what what brought all of those developers together is that they needed to put communications into their product. And you can tell a story about how to put communications into your product that will appeal to every type of developer who needs to solve that problem, or has that job to be done. So when I think about developing stories, or narratives around a product, it's more so around the job to be done, or the the type of task or, or behavior that that user needs to accomplish in that moment in time, as opposed to who they are, just but I find titles to be kind of not very useful. You know, like, if you are tasked with digital transformation in a company, that could be a whole host of stuff. And really what is really driving you to seek out and purchase a product is a specific problem.
Eleni Kolliga:So to make it even more practical, okay, you name or describe there. So basic steps, or the framework that business should follow when they want to market using the art of storytelling.
Clair Byrd:Sure, so I have a three step framework for this. Step one is learn. So when you're first launching a new product, or you're launching a new way to go to market, the programs that you should develop as a marketer, or should be 100% focused on learning about your target in this in this example, your target user or your target operator, what things are they struggling with? How do they talk about those problems, and then take all of that information in and be able to pattern match and start to narrow down into themes? What are those pain points are those jobs to be done that they're trying that they're trying to do by coming to your product? So that's, and so that's probably, you know, as your first growing your first 100,000 users, and, and then it's teach. So like step two is teach. So once you have very clearly laid out like, okay, we know that the themes that our our install base, or our user base are struggling with our x, y, and z, then you teach through those themes, like okay, how do I teach the rest of the world who are also struggling with themes X, Y, and Z, to solve them based on what we have learned historically. And then three is scale. So after you have been able to successfully create a loop by teaching people, bringing them into your ecosystem of content of product, product, education, have documentation of everything that they need to be successful in your product. How do you automate all of that? So that's the scale part. And I feel like many marketers get it a little backwards, they start with the channel. So like, how do we blow it up through Google ads, instead of you know, really focusing on that core message? And that core story or those core thematic pillars in their marketing programs?
Eleni Kolliga:Awesome. Now, from your experience, what do you think makes stories storytelling successful and appealing to the customers? I know, for instance, that I have read that a successful storytelling should have three elements, a character, a conflict and a solution? Is it something more something else?
Clair Byrd:Well, I think that I think why storytelling is compelling to a user, especially in a b2b environment is because it creates emotional tension and an emotional Raw, because in this example the character is the person is the character is the user, you have to create stories around an individual person that they can that they resonate with that have resonance with your audience. So while I agree that you know, you need a character you need, I don't know, what did you say? You said character? Yes, character. So I think i think that i think that while the structure is accurate, one of the things that many people miss is the emotional draw. And that's why I think that really focusing on learning what the tension or the pain in the exam, the original user set, or the original operators, daily work, life is really important because that pain is going to create the emotional connection to the solution, right. So like, if you can really nail a solution to that pain point and that job that they are trying to do, then you create an emotional level, an emotional relationship with that user that creates, you know, a whole bunch of force multiplying stuff for the business, it creates net promoters that are incredibly, wildly enthusiastic, it creates opportunities to tell really authentic customer stories that are meaningful, and also at the right level for the the type of marketing that you're doing from a product lead growth perspective, it gives you the opportunity to create content around those journeys and those experiences. And it allows you to tap into the network effect. So I mean, word of mouth is still the number one channel for all b2b products. And if you have an incredibly emotionally invested audience, it's much easier to leverage that for the network effect and referring people into the brand ecosystem, then if you didn't have it, where you know, like, if you don't have that emotional connection, you just you're not going to be able to get as much out of your audience as if you did.
Eleni Kolliga:And since we are in them Topeka about the connection between customers and the brand, how do you think product lifecycle thing feeds into the different marketing funnels and the different data points of the customer journey.
Clair Byrd:So I, I believe that the story is the heart of all marketing, full stop. So I think that if you are, you know, if you are telling a different story, in your advertising campaigns, then you are telling in your emails, or you're telling in your first call deck from your sales organization or your blog posts, then you're failing, because you have not created, like I said earlier, you're not creating this experience, that is perfect, right? Like every single thing needs to lead to the other. And if it's broken or fragmented, you actually reduce the level of trust that you have with that person. So the storytelling is a piece, it's a piece that informs the design of every actual asset and every single thing that you will put into every single marketing channel. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that's I want to ask something more. So it takes more importance in the awareness stage? Is it something that influences the same the conversions, the loyalty, the advocacy? That's from what from what you're saying, This is what I'm getting? That it's a piece that fits everywhere? Yes. So yes, it is a piece that fits everywhere, because we have anchored around the actual function of the product, right? The the job that we're doing, so we are going to draw someone in from an awareness perspective, with the pain point and the solution to that pain, we're going to convert them into the product by prompt giving them a promised land a direction to go to actually solve that, that solve that pain point and do that job effectively. And we're going to retain them by continuously investing in that job to be done and giving them more and more and more opportunities to be professionally successful solving that problem. Perfect. So
Eleni Kolliga:it's, as you said, the heart of the brand that everyone should know about that. Another thing I want to discuss, it's actually a common phrase, whoever controls the narrative controls the people. They say, I want to adapt this one and make it whoever developed the storytelling influences the audience. Do you think there are specific skills you need to have in order to be able to create successful storytelling for brands? Yes,
Clair Byrd:I'm listening. Number one skill to tell good stories is to listen. I think that you know, the trap that many marketers fall into, especially many product marketers fall into is trying to force a narrative onto a customer segment. They take what they think the customer wants or needs and they turn it into a messaging framework, and they Roll it out. And then they wonder why it's not resonating with that potential customer that user. It's because they never bothered to listen to what the customer actually wanted out of that product or feature and how they wanted to use it and how they talk about it. Because the language that you use is so important. Like the language, even if the product is the exact same, the language that someone is going to use in different verticals is going to be different. So like the way that you For example, at Twilio, when we rolled out vertical segments, so we rolled out financial services, healthcare, and retail, all the products are ultimately the same, it's still all messaging, it's still all appointment reminders of still all the same stuff. However, the language that we use in each vertical is wildly different, how we talk about the feature, how we talk about the value, what it does, how it does it completely different. And we we got to that conclusion, because, you know, for a long time, we were trying to force what we thought the names of the things should be, instead of just listening to what the people who are going to be implementing those things or buying those things actually called them. And as soon as we just started calling the stuff, the things that the people were already using huge change in in in how those products got adopted and how they got sold. So listening is the number one skill for telling good stories. I think, from the perspective of other skills, you have to be a decent writer, but I don't think that that means being like having perfect grammar or being an amazing, you know, command of the English language, it really means having strong rhetoric. So like understanding the problem solution, and understanding the pain and the pain and the painkiller and understanding how those things relate to an individual customer, individual users state of being. If you can do that well, and simply then you'll tell great stories. And as far as I as I always tell younger, in career marketers, when they're learning how to do this to read a whole bunch of fiction, to read fiction books, because that will make you a better writer than any writing course on business writing than any book on rhetoric, you will become a much better writer, if you just read fiction. That's very interesting, actually. Does it work? The same? Maybe with watching movies or fiction? You know, I I don't know I am a I am biased towards reading obviously. But I think it could it's it gives you a you know, the fiction and creating a world right is a deeply creative process. And you're actually designing characters, you're you're you're deeply understanding how the motivations of people affect the outcomes of stuff. And so if you just and by reading, you obviously see how those things are constructed in sentences. So I think that, you know, reading is obviously going to give you a little bit more of a leg up if you're writing a lot. But I can see how you know, if you're paying attention to the structure of a film, if you're paying attention to how, you know, what happens to a character affects what they do, and then what they and how they make decisions, then that you can get the same benefit.
Eleni Kolliga:I did this question because it was like hearing my students doing the same question. Some of the story paintings maybe I have created in the past sexual abuse, it was from a totally different industry in the different sector, maybe discussion with friends that they don't have ideal digital marketing. I have read somewhere that you will not find the answer on your screen, go outside take a walk or read the book or fiction book. Anything else actually. Can you think the subject now if about talking about the future, which is actually in the title of this podcast episode? Can you predict some trends, maybe some innovations in storytelling?
Clair Byrd:So obviously, we've already seen a big shift in modality you know, the the explosion of podcasts is relatively new thing, it's probably within within the last couple of years, I think that we'll probably continue to see changes in modality where we're going to start seeing I've started to see interesting features on on a blog experience like on blog websites, where there's a read this to me type of button instead of you having you read through the whole thing. I think that you know, natural language processing and real time transcription is going to make a lot of stories much more accessible to the rest of the world. I think that internationalization and the the the localization of content is going to be a huge motivating factor for many marketers because English is not enough, especially in today's environment. I also think that we will see more and more development of a quote unquote, lifestyle brand. And I think that that's due to like the commodity commoditization of the SAS space. There are so many competitors and so many different things that the way that you really differently is through your brand as opposed to through your product. And so I think that we will see more companies kind of leaning into being the cool hip thing, as opposed to necessarily talking about how or why their product is better. Like I use this analogy, when I talk about this where, you know, like you choose a toothpaste because you have an emotional connection to the brand, not because the product is better, right. So like, if I like, if you're like me, I've used the same brand of toothpaste for like 15 years. And when I go in and look, go into the drugstore and look at the wall of toothpaste, like I'm sure that there are better ones, right. But I always get the same toothpaste because I have an emotional connection to the brand. And because there are so many options, that's how I make a choice, that's how we make a purchase decision is what kind of brand I want to be affiliated with, in my lifestyle, as opposed to who has the best features or who's you know, the the newest technology, like that's not actually how many people make decisions today, even in the b2b space. And this has to do with the consumerization of the b2b market where, you know, like apple and iPhone and Google material design and all of these giant, gigantic, disruptive unicorn brands that are primarily b2c companies changed the perception of what it means to use and interact with a digital product. And that becomes the baseline of expectation for all other applications. So if you see if you look at how many b2b applications are now being designed and built, you have a ton of influence from the consumer space, you have gamification you have like different, much more, much more heavy focus on user experience and UI design that's modern and not garbage. Whereas like much enterprise technology, up until, you know, like 2012, was really it was really terribly designed, because that wasn't a critical piece of their their sale. But now you have companies where, and you have like companies like Twilio or envision where they've become so ubiquitous in the operator community that the designer or the, the developer can actually shut down the deal, if they don't like the product at this point. So there's been there's been a huge shift away from feature functionality and talking about your features and the value of them to talking about how your product affects someone's life and becoming a lifestyle organization, I can i think that that will continue to happen. especially in light of COVID, in light of how things are going in the world. I think that you know, like, why do you pick zoom over GoToMeeting? Why do you pick like, why do you pick the things that you do to run your day to day life? It's probably because you have a brand affiliation or a desire to be associated with that brand, as opposed to, you know, the the tiny details, the changes and features that that product might offer?
Eleni Kolliga:Perfect. So last question, here is something that I study the last years and concern me a lot and discuss with other fellow marketers. I would love to hear your thoughts about that. What ethics in data marketing means to you? Do you think it is easy to be ethical in digital marketing, and more specifically in storytelling?
Clair Byrd:So I think that it is very easy to be ethical. But it's hard to sell it to other people. So I think that if you have a set of a set of values, it's very easy to say yes or no to something as a marketer, if you just put on the hat of the user and say what I as the user like to receive the thing that I'm making right now? Yes, no. If you say no, then you probably shouldn't do the thing. Like it's very, I think, in my opinion, very easy to be ethical, as an individual, like on your own. I think that it's very hard often to sell that to your executive leadership, or to even sometimes even your teammates, because they're going to look at, well, if will this get us a better outcome? If yes, then we'll do it. However, I personally think that that's wrong, because that degrades trust with your user community, it degrades trust with the future customer that you might have. And I think that you know, bait and switch tactics or being disingenuous about what your product does, or what's in the product today, it can really, really degrade trust for a customer. So I think that being really hyper focused on developing programs that are highly performance based on what the user actually wants, and you can if you can prove that it's what the user actually once and you can prove that doing things right is more effective than doing things the easy way. That's how I have always sold doing this to my leadership. So and making good decisions and not spamming people with email and not putting a whole bunch of stuff that's like weird or bad into an ad word or the ad unit or like trying and actually trying to be very authentic to what what the product does, who it's for, and and what the value of it is. And like it's always trust based relationship like Like I was saying earlier with the, the my considerations about the future, we'll see more and more brands leaning into being a lifecycle or lifestyle brand. You can't do that without deep trust based relationships. And if you break that trust, it's very hard to get back. So that's how I've always justified having a or not being gross, don't not not gross marketing, to my leadership, age through trust is something that is not given in, it's not guaranteed in an online environment. Do you think we took a wrong growth in digital marketing, about ethics, maybe the last years, I think that there will always be bad actors with any innovation, right? Like the the level of specificity that you can get with the data available to us, as digital marketers today can be used for good. And I think that a great example of that is Instagram, right? Instagram has totally nailed, using your data to serve you ads that are meaningful and interesting to your life, like the conversion rate on Instagram ads is incredibly high, because they don't show you garbage, they have a very clear set of rules about how you can use the data. And like they have a clear terms of service. If you if you break the rules, then you get the ban hammer really fast. And I think that, you know if without that kind of ethics at the top like with with the actual leadership of the company that you're advertising on, you'll have a problem. But I don't think that necessarily we took a wrong turn. As digital marketers, I think that there are always bad actors and the bad actors have been given a bigger platform. So I think that it's even more important for especially younger and career marketers to stand up for what is right and stand and remember that there are humans and people with feelings and families on the other end of the stuff that we are we're showing them. And and to always be very thoughtful and intentional about if that if if the message that we are showing to the person in that moment of time is true. Is is authentic, and is actually real for them. But I don't necessarily think that we as an industry have taken a wrong turn, I think data can be incredibly powerful and actually create better experiences for people. And and like I would much rather be, you know, targeted if I'm going to get advertised to at least make it good, right? So if and I think that that's a great way to great way to think about your own your own programs, like if I'm going to advertise to someone, it's my responsibility to at least make it good. So I think that using the tools that we have to make those experiences really amazing, is a is a great way to leverage the innovations in the space that we've had. And it's up to us to you know, self govern that behavior and be emphatic. Perfect. Ah, thank you for sharing your thoughts on that. I really appreciate it. So and thank you for joining this episode and sharing with the audience, your experience, the deeps strategies. What I think is, for me, the most important you say this lesson to learn step number one, before anything before we start using the art of storytelling, to understand the audience the pain point before doing anything. And thank you for this very valuable discussion. So welcome. Thanks for having me. Thank you everyone, and we will talk again in the next podcast. Excellent